Beebe

The board's stage man was Andrew Jackson Maxwell, an early Milestown businessman who hunted buffalo before he ran coaches; his building in Miles City now houses a pharmacy. His line carried mostly mail, and a Miles City researcher, Madler, says that is why it was seldom robbed, though the Axelbee gang worked this country in 1883, when Custer County still took in what are now Fallon, Carter and Powder River counties. Madler traced the road's route again from old survey records and mapped its stage stops for a 2024 exhibit at the Miles City library.

What the plaque says

Beebe A small community, called Beebe, once existed in this remote, sparsely settled country. It owed its existence to A. J. Maxwell, owner of the Deadwood Stage Line. Maxwell established a stage station here where the Simonson-Patterson Cattle Company had a cow camp. Stations afforded a quick change of horses and brief respite for passengers. The stage road, completed in April 1880, connected Fort Keogh near Miles City and the mining camp of Deadwood, S. D. It crossed some of the loneliest country on the northern Great Plains. After the hard winter of 1886-87, cattlemen left the country. Al Berry founded the town in 1890 adjacent to his homestead and named it for Elizabeth Beebe, the settlement's postmistress. Beebe included a road house, dance hall, barn, barber shop, store, and "five long, low ranch buildings scattered along (Pumpkin) Creek, each with at least four inches of dirt on the roofs." Beebe was the only gathering place for miles and even hosted an annual fair for a time in the early twentieth century. By the 1930s, tough economic times and drought forced many local residents from their homes. The post office closed in 1935 and, by 1940, all the residents and buildings were gone except for one barn. By the twenty-first century, nature had largely reclaimed Beebe, leaving it all but forgotten except in the memories of a few old-timers.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Keogh — 27 mi
  Nelson Miles's post at the mouth of the Tongue, built after the Little Bighorn, a remount depot by 1909 and a range lab since 1924.
• Miles City Bucking Horse Sale — 27 mi
  A sale of bucking stock that began with thirty-five unwanted horses in 1950 and became eastern Montana's biggest weekend.

More markers nearby

• The Tongue River — 27 mi