Fort Keogh Historic District

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 one site along the Tongue River, a mile and a half from this location, fro a preliminary cantonment. Construction of the permanent post began at this site in the spring of 1877. Until the advent of the railroad in 1881, building supplies arrived by steamboat. The fort, named for Custer's adjutant general Captain Myles Keogh, was under the command of General Nelson Miles. Miles City, named for General Nelson Miles, grew with the fort to become the county seat of Custer County in 1879. The fort's construction exceeded the $200,000 allocation. It was the largest fort in the territory, housing about 1,500 soldiers and their families. Sixty buildings once surrounded the unique diamond-shaped parade grounds. The military withdrew its infantry troops in 1908 and in 1909 the fort became the Fort Keogh Remount Depot, the largest of the U.S. Army's three remount stations. Civilian cowboys and wranglers trained the horses according to military rules before shipping thousands of them worldwide, especially during World War I. In 1924, the army withdrew and transferred more than 55,000 acres of land to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Animal Husbandry, for research purposes. Originally the U.S. Range Livestock Experiment Station, it is now the Fort Keogh Livestock and Range Research Laboratory, a USDA Agriculture Research facility.