Fort Keogh - 20th Century History

20th Century History

In 1900, the infantry and cavalry post at Fort Keogh became an army remount station. Infantry troops were withdrawn from the fort in 1907. During World War I, Fort Keogh served as a quartermaster's depot. The Fort Keogh remount station processed more horses for World War I than any other post, shipping them all over the world.

The U.S. Department of the Interior took over the Fort Keogh military reservation in 1924. As of 2012, it is home to the USDA Fort Keogh Range and Livestock Experiment Station. The Station's Line 1 Hereford Herd has played a key role in the genetic research of Hereford cattle.

By an Act of Congress dated April 15, 1924 (PL90, 43 Stat. 99) jurisdiction of the Fort Keogh Military Reservation was transferred to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for experiments in stock raising and growing of forage crops. Onsite remains of the original Fort include the parade ground, a wagon shed built in 1883, the flag pole erected in 1887, and seven other structures built prior to 1924. The size of the original Fort Keogh Military Reservation was 100 square miles or 64,000 acres. The Fort Keogh Livestock and Range Research Laboratory now occupies about 55,357 acres. In 1878, a large piece of land east of the Tongue River was released by the Army and is now the present site of the City of Miles City. Since that time, additional land has been released for the Miles City industrial sites, Custer County fairgrounds, the warm-water fish hatchery and Spotted Eagle Recreation Area. Approximately 1,800 acres are under irrigation in the Yellowstone River Valley west of the Laboratory headquarters. About 625 acres are in cultivated crops and 1150 in irrigated pastures. The remainder of the laboratory is rough, broken badlands typical of range cattle producing areas of the Northern Great Plains.

The Range Riders Museum, located on the original Fort Keogh cantonment in nearby Miles City, Montana, offers historical exhibits of the fort's days as Milestown.