Circle

The board's major had been trailing cattle north for fourteen years before Montana. Seth Mabry came to Texas from Tennessee as a boy, ranched in Llano County, and led his first drive to Abilene, Kansas, in 1869; in 1873 he and a partner drove 15,000 head north for Indian-supply contractors, and at his height his cattle ran from the Llano River to the Niobrara. Andy Adams wrote him by name into the 1907 novel Reed Anthony, Cowman, as a drover who kept his men well horsed. Mabry died in 1914.

What the plaque says

Circle Major Seth Mabry, a former Confederate Army officer, came to the Redwater Valley about 1883, driving a herd of longhorns from Texas. President of the Mabry Cattle Co., he branded with a plain circle iron. From the brand, the operation became known as the Circle Ranch. They sold three to four thousand beeves each fall for about 13 years. Other cattlemen ran the ranch until about 1900 when Peter Dreyer and Hans Grue bought it and used it as a summer camp for sheep and as a stop-over for themselves and other ranchers going to and from Glendive. Two bachelors supposedly cared for the ranch, but also ran a saloon there. Since strong drink spoiled the sheepherders' work habits, Dreyer and Grue offered the place to Dreyer's brother-in-law, Peter Rorvik, in 1903. During an absence of the saloonkeepers, the Rorviks and their six children moved in. The next summer saw 100,000 sheep on the Redwater River. The herders and ranchers needed a supply source, so Rorvik opened a store on the ranch. So began the town of Circle about one-half mile southeast of here. In 1907, the surrounding lands were opened to homesteading and the area has been producing grain as well as livestock ever since.

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Brockway, Montana — 11 mi