Fort Keogh
On January 28, 1887, something extraordinary fell from the Montana sky onto Fort Keogh: a snowflake measuring fifteen inches across, the largest ever recorded according to Guinness World Records. The soldiers who witnessed it were stationed at a post founded just eleven years earlier in the desperate aftermath of Custer's defeat, named for a man whose journey to the Little Bighorn began in the Papal States of Italy. Today, the fort where the 5th Infantry once hunted Cheyenne and Sioux is a USDA cattle research station, its parade ground and 1883 wagon shed the only whispers of its military past.
Born from Defeat
Just two months after Custer's annihilation at Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876, Colonel Nelson Miles led the 5th Infantry from Nebraska to the plains of eastern Montana with orders to establish a base of operations. The order came down on August 28, 1876. The Army wanted a fort to prevent the Cheyenne and Sioux victors from escaping to Canada. Colonel David Stanley had actually scouted this spot three years earlier during the Yellowstone Expedition of 1873, recognizing that the confluence of the Tongue and Yellowstone Rivers could supply troops across the region. But it took Custer's death to finally build it.
The Irishman Who Gave His Name
The fort was originally called Tongue River Cantonment until 1878, when it was renamed for Captain Myles Keogh, killed alongside Custer at Little Bighorn. Keogh's path to Montana began in Ireland in 1840 and wound through some of the nineteenth century's most dramatic battlefields. At twenty, he answered the Pope's call for Irish volunteers to defend the Papal States in Italy, winning two medals. Bored as a Papal Guard, he sailed to America in 1862 and joined the Union Army, earning a brevet promotion to Major for bravery at Gettysburg under General John Buford. After the Civil War, he headed west to serve under Custer until June 25, 1876.
Miles City Rises
The development of Fort Keogh as a military installation drew traders who set up saloons and businesses just outside its boundaries. This rough collection of enterprises became Miles City, now the county seat of Custer County. Samuel Gordon's book Recollections of Old Milestown captures the lawless early days, including a confrontation at what is now Riverside Park where two squatters disputed land claims with the Old West rule that four logs on the ground meant you owned the property. When one man drew his revolver, soldiers from the fort rode out and cleared the whole area.
From Cavalry to Cattle
The infantry left in 1907, and during World War I, Fort Keogh became the busiest remount station in the country, processing more horses for the war than any other post and shipping them worldwide. In 1924, Congress transferred the hundred-square-mile military reservation to the Department of Agriculture for livestock research. The Fort Keogh Livestock and Range Research Laboratory now occupies about 55,000 acres of rough, broken badlands typical of Northern Great Plains cattle country. Approximately 1,800 acres are irrigated in the Yellowstone River Valley, where researchers study range management and animal husbandry. The original parade ground, the flagpole erected in 1887, and seven structures built before 1924 still stand among the research facilities.
From the Air
Located at 46.38N, 105.88W on the south bank of the Yellowstone River at the mouth of the Tongue River, just west of Miles City, Montana. The original fort encompassed 100 square miles; the current USDA research station occupies about 55,000 acres of badlands and irrigated valley. Miles City Municipal Airport (KMLS) lies approximately 3 miles east. The Yellowstone River is clearly visible from altitude, with the Tongue River joining from the south marking the historic fort location. Best viewed from 3,000-5,000 feet AGL to appreciate the river confluence and the contrast between irrigated valley and surrounding badlands.