The Tongue River

The captain in the fort's name was Irish. Myles Keogh was born at Leighlinbridge in County Carlow on March 25, 1840, fought for the Pope in 1860 and stayed on in the Papal Guard, then crossed the Atlantic to fight for the Union. He commanded Company I of the 7th Cavalry and died among his men on June 25, 1876. His horse Comanche, found wounded, was nursed back to health and lived at Fort Riley until 1891. Keogh's bloodied gauntlets and his company's guidon were recovered that September in the fight at Slim Buttes.

What the plaque says

The Tongue River Captain Wm. Clark and ten others camped near the mouth of the Tongue River on July 29, 1806. Clark noted the great number of buffalo in the area and reported that the river was so muddy and warm that it was" very disagreeable to drink." Clark referred to the river by its Mandan or Hidatsa name, "Lazeka." Construction of Fort Keogh, named for one of Custer's captains killed at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, began in 1877. That knob off to the south is Signal Butte. During the Indian wars the army flashed sun mirror messages to a post in the Black Hills 175 miles away. A cloudy day sure threw a lot of static into that pioneer wireless system. Miles City, named after General Nelson A. Miles, started in 1877 as a shack and tent town with a population running largely to prospectors and miners from the Black Hills, buffalo hunters, traders, and gamblers. She was wild for a while. When the cattle days of the 1880s arrived many a Texas trail herd came through here and the city soon acquired a national reputation as a cattle and horse market which it has never relinquished.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Miles City Bucking Horse Sale — 0.3 mi
  A sale of bucking stock that began with thirty-five unwanted horses in 1950 and became eastern Montana's biggest weekend.
• Fort Keogh — 1.7 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.

More markers nearby

• The Miles City Air Force Station — 22 mi
• Rosebud — 23 mi
• Cattle Brands — 23 mi
• The Hell Creek Formation — 23 mi