World's Largest Buffalo Monument
A 60-ton concrete bison on the prairie, with a live webcam on the real herd grazing the pasture below.
About this view
Dakota Thunder has watched over Jamestown since 1959: 26 feet tall, 60 tons of concrete, sculpted by Elmer Petersen and still one of the most photographed roadside stops in the Midwest. This live webcam frames him against open North Dakota prairie.
The statue is the landmark, but the pasture is the show. A live bison herd kept by the National Buffalo Museum grazes the ground below him, so the frame regularly holds both the largest buffalo in the world and several real ones. The herd once included White Cloud, a rare albino bison born in 1996 who lived here for around nineteen years.
Come at golden hour, when low prairie light rakes across the monument and the herd drifts toward the fence line. Winter is the other one to watch: snow on the plains, and a very large concrete animal wearing a white coat.
