In 1904, Murdo Mackenzie, head of the Matador brand with herds from Mexico to Canada, shipped trainload after trainload of Texas steers to Evarts to graze on good Dakota grass on the Standing Rock Reservation, and a grateful railroad named a town for him. The town's first postmaster was John R. McClain, named March 6, 1904; its newspaper, The Coyote, arrived on a wagon from Moore on May 18, beating the railroad, which set its last spike on the Murdo townsite on June 22 at 8:11 A.M., all before the grand opening lot sale on July 12, when the First State Bank, ancestor of the Jones County State Bank, became the first edifice in Murdo after arriving from shanty town on Stratton's claim just as night fell. In 1823, Jedediah Smight, traveling to Montana from Ft. Kiowa, first saw Jones County, which also lay on the American Fur Post trail from the Little White to Ft. Pierre Choteau. The first county here was called Mercer by the 1873 legislature, which also created Pratt in the same place; in 1875 Mercer was moved to North Dakota, leaving Pratt until 1897, when Lyman supplanted it, until Jones was carved out in 1916 and Murdo became county seat in January 1917. Time shifts here from Central to Mountain, but Murdo runs on Central time.