Fort Keogh Historic District

Following the defeat of General Custer and the Seventh Cavalry at Little High Horn on June 25, 1876, Congress appropriated $200,000 to establish two forts in Montana Territory. The U.S. Army selected a site along the Tongue River, a mile and a half from this location, for a preliminary cantonment, and construction of the permanent post began here in the spring of 1877. Until the railroad arrived in 1881, building supplies came by steamboat. Named for Custer's adjutant general Captain Myles Keogh, the fort was under the command of General Nelson Miles. Miles City, also named for Nelson Miles, grew with the fort and became the county seat of Custer County in 1879. Construction exceeded the original $200,000 allocation. It was the largest fort in the territory, housing about 1,500 soldiers and their families, and sixty buildings once surrounded its distinctive diamond-shaped parade grounds. The military withdrew its infantry troops in 1908, and in 1909 the post became the Fort Keogh Remount Depot, the largest of the U.S. Army's three remount stations. Civilian cowboys and wranglers trained horses by military rules before thousands were shipped worldwide, especially during World War I. In 1924, the army withdrew and transferred more than 55,000 acres to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Animal Husbandry, for research. Originally the U.S. Range Livestock Experiment Station, it is now the Fort Keogh Livestock & Range Research Laboratory, a USDA Agriculture Research facility.

Montana · United States