Murdo Mackenzie

The town is named for a Scot who ran a Scottish company. Murdo Mackenzie managed the Matador Land and Cattle Company for its owners in Dundee, and his testimony before Congress helped pass the Hepburn Act of 1906 on railroad shipping rates. The bronze puts his Texas steers on reservation grass at Standing Rock in 1904. His son Dode, working for the Matador, was shot at LeBeau in December 1909. The 1956 bronze, chatty throughout, also spells the trail blazer Jedediah Smith as Smight.

What the plaque says

Murdo Mackenzie 1906 Mighty few towns have one of them hi-faluting, swank Rolls-Royce type of hyphenated names. In 1904, Murdo Mackenzie, head of the Matador brand, with herds from Mexico to Canada, shipped trainload after trainload of Texas steers to Evarts to graze on good Dakota grass on the Standing Rock Reservation and a grateful railroad named a town for Murdo. Its first postmaster was John R. McClain, named March 6, 1904; its newspaper, The Coyote, arrived on a wagon from Moore on May 18th, beating the railroad which set its last spike on Murdo townsite 22 June at 8:11 A. M.; all of which preceded the "grand opening lot sale" on 12 July, when the First State Bank, ancestor of the Jones County State Bank, was the first edifice in Murdo, arriving from shanty town on Stratton's claim just as night fell. It was 1823 when that Famous Trail Blazer of the West, Jedediah Smight, enroute to Montana from Ft. Kiowa, first saw Jones County and it was also on the American Fur Post trail from the Little White to Ft. Pierre Choteau. The first county hereabouts was called Mercer by the 1873 legis- lature, who, after taking a deep breath, planked another named Pratt slap-dab on top. But in 1875 they slid Mercer out from under and set it up in North Dakota. So it was Pratt until 1897 when a Lyman, bigger than several states, supplanted Pratt until they whittled Jones out in 1916 and made Murdo County seat, January, 1917. Another thing, Time shifts here from Central to Mountain but Murdo runs on Central time. Erected 1956 by Jones County Bank and State Highway Commission

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Pioneer Auto Show — 0.3 mi
  Forty-odd buildings of old cars, tractors, motorcycles and everything else a Murdo car dealer and his sons couldn't stop buying, a block off I-90 since 1954.

More markers nearby

• Reading Brands — 0.4 mi
• Town of Midland — 25 mi