Ruhptare

Ruhptare was a Mandan village on the Missouri River, one of two Mandan towns standing near the Hidatsa villages at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Its people lived in earth lodges and participated in the trading networks of the upper Missouri. The river villages brought together agricultural produce and goods exchanged with peoples of the plains and with traders arriving from farther away.

In October 1804 the Lewis and Clark expedition stopped at Ruhptare, which its journals called Rooptahee, before building winter quarters near the Mandan. The visitors depended on the knowledge and help of people in the villages as they prepared to continue west. Three decades later Prince Maximilian of Wied visited Ruhptare and described it standing on a plain above the river. In 1837 a smallpox epidemic devastated the Mandan villages, killing a great part of their population.

The later city of Bismarck lies nearby.