A flat-topped hill to the southeast was named Box Butte by early cowboys and travelers, and this semi-arid short grass area is part of the Box Butte Tableland that stretches far to the west. Box Butte gave its name to the nearby creek, a village, and the county where it is located, and it served as a landmark for miners and freighters heading to the Black Hills during the gold rush of the 1870's. Box Butte City was founded east of here in the mid-1880's, with a cluster of sod and frame buildings that housed a post office, grocery and drug store, land locator's office, livery barn, hotel, restaurant, two blacksmith shops, and a cream station, while a small sod church stood west of the village. The town died when the post office was discontinued in 1910, and only the pioneer graves remain. Box Butte County was created in 1886 from lands in Dawes County, and heavy advertising campaigns by the railroads spurred its early growth. The Kinkaid Act of 1904 increased the size of homesteads from 160 to 640 acres and aided the county's economic recovery after the depression and drought of the 1890's. The landmark endures as a rugged memorial to the hardy pioneers who settled Box Butte Country.