The Northern Plains Heritage Foundation received funding from Congress through the National Park Service to undertake a study to identify and evaluate a range of alternatives for managing, preserving and interpreting the assemblage of nationally important historic sites, structures, stories, legends and landscapes existing within the free-flowing segment of the Missouri River in central North Dakota. This study includes an evaluation of the collective natural, cultural, scenic and recreational resources within the fertile Missouri River Valley that shaped centuries of human activity. A thriving agricultural economy created a destination for multitudes of people who came to the area to live, to farm, to trade, to visit and to explore.