Fort Keogh Fort Keogh is a former United States Army post located on the western edge of today ' s Miles City , Montana . It is situated on the south bank of the Yellowstone River at the mouth of the Tongue River . In the wake of the Battle of the Little Bighorn , Col . Nelson A . Miles founded the post in August 1876 as a base for cavalry patrols , to prevent the Cheyenne and Sioux involved in the battle from escaping to Canada . It was originally called the Tongue River Cantonment for the first year or so . When relocated a mile away it was renamed Fort Keogh in honor of Captain Myles Keogh , who died at the Battle of the Little Bighorn . In 1877 the fort became the headquarters for the newly created military district , the District of the Yellowstone ( a subunit of the Department of Dakota ) , commanded by Miles . He was promoted to brigadier general in September the same year . Today the former military post is a United States Department of Agriculture livestock and range research station . It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places . The development of Fort Keogh as a military installation soon stimulated traders to supply the liquor and other service businesses that were the beginning of Miles City . The need for a military fort . Shortly after the defeat of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25 , 1876 , the Army sent General Nelson A . Miles to the plains of Eastern Montana to establish a military fort . The order for development of the fort was signed on August 28 , 1876 . The Army ' s intended use for its garrison at the post was to reduce warfare by the American Indians in the region and to persuade them to resettle on reservations . Colonel D . S . Stanley had originally scouted the first site of the fort when he was leading a military expedition though the area . He thought the location would be good for supplying troops throughout the region . But , the Army did not decide to build the fort until after Custer ' s overwhelming defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn . As the US and developers planned to bring the Great Northern Railway to the region , the US Army was assigned to survey the land and develop maps . The troops came into contact with two tribes of Indians , the Lakota ( Sioux ) and the Crow . The Sioux had pushed the Crow west of their traditional lands as they moved west , in response to European - American settlers encroaching on Sioux territory . Resentful of the Sioux , the Crow frequently allied with the Army and served as scouts to its expeditions . General Miles established the " Cantonment Tongue River " at the confluence of the north - flowing Tongue River and the east - flowing Yellowstone River . The site would provide easy access to boats bringing supplies up the Yellowstone . The original cantonment was referred to by several names during its first two years : New Post on the Yellowstone , Cantonment on Tongue River , and Tongue River Barracks , before the Army officially named it Fort Keogh on November 8 , 1878 . Miles was a well - respected as a leader , not only by his troops , but among the Indians as well . Promising fair treatment and better lives to the Native Americans , Miles gradually persuaded the Indian nations to settle on the reservations . Not all the nations surrendered immediately . Miles went to battle against the holdouts with his troops , including during the extreme cold of winter . The Sioux and Crow bands migrated through wide areas in the Montana Territory , and troops were engaged in battle with them hundreds of miles from the fort . The 22nd Infantry served at Fort Keogh from 1888 - 1896 . ( A website on the 22nd Infantry also offers a link to a downloadable thesis , " Fort Keogh : Cutting Edge of a Culture " , by Josef James Warhank , that chronicles the fort ' s complete military history . ) Honoring a fallen soldier . The fort was named for Myles Keogh , a Captain ( brevet Lt Colonel ) and commander of Company I in the 7th US Cavalry under Lt Colonel ( brevet Major General ) George Armstrong Custer . He also had been killed in the Battle of the Little Bighorn . Born in Ireland on March 25 , 1840 , Keogh came from a comfortable background . Wanting adventure , Keogh left the farming to a brother and went off to war . In 1860 he went to Italy after the Pope recruited Irish men to take up the fight to save the Papal States . In those battles , he won two medals . Later Keogh joined the Papal Guard in Rome . Keogh preferred warfare to acting as a guard ; he resigned his post , and in March 1862 headed to the United States to enter the American Civil War . He was commissioned as a Captain in the Union Army , and proved his ability repeatedly . He won many commendations , and his bravery in the Battle of Gettysburg under Brigadier General John Buford earned him the rank of brevet Major . Keogh took an assignment in the western wars in 1863 ; he served under Custer until his death in battle . Keogh stood his ground , with the company he commanded around him ; they were surrounded and outnumbered by Sioux warriors . His body was later found in the center of those of his soldiers . The Army later found his horse " Comanche " walking riderless on the battlefield . Soldiers nursed the horse to health , and he became a legend . Town development . The arrival of the Army generated a demand for businesses among enterprising traders . Named after the fort ' s commander , Milestown developed first as an army town to meet the needs of young , isolated men . The " Miles City Chamber of Commerce " web site noted : According to the diaries kept by George Miles , the nephew of the Colonel who traveled with his uncle , a man named Mat Carrol set up some barrels under a tarp and started selling whiskey . When Colonel Miles got tired of having his guard house filled to overflowing - - whiskey causing him , Miles said , more trouble than the Indians - - he ordered Carrol and the other purveyors of liquor to leave the military reservation . An employee of Carrol ' s , one John Carter , rode east on his big bay horse until he was the required two miles ( 3 km ) away , beyond the edge of the reservation . He found a flat spot along the Yellowstone , built a crude log hut out of driftwood and started selling whiskey . The soldiers soon found the place , other merchants followed , and Miles City was born . Milestown was at first almost nothing but rowdy ; many a drunken soldier emerged from its saloons . About a year after settling in the area , General Miles moved the fort to the present location just a couple of miles southwest of the original site . He hoped that the extra distance from the town would slow the unruliness . The town picked up and moved to its current location closer to the fort . In his book " Recollections of Old Milestown , " Samuel Gordon described a frontier confrontation . Riverside Park , which still stands today , was rumored to be up for the taking . The " Old West " rule was that if a man were to get four logs placed on the ground in a square , he had the foundation of a building , and could claim the land as his . One such squatter had placed two of the needed logs , and went to get the other two . A second man saw the two logs , and an opportunity . He placed his two logs with the two currently on site , and stood his ground there . He expected the first man to object and leave . The first squatter was dismissed by the second squatter with , " two logs counted nothing " . But the first man pulled out his revolver to settle the dispute . The second man quickly abandoned his claim to the area . Late in the afternoon , tales of the incident reached the fort . Soldiers came out and sent away all the squatters in the area . 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 . Giant snowflake . " Guinness World Records " reports that the largest natural snowflake ever recorded , measuring 15 inches ( 38 cm ) in diameter , fell at Fort Keogh on 28 January 1887 .