Miles City, Montana

After the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, Fort Keough was built at the confluence of the Tongue and Yellowstone Rivers. It was from Fort Keough that General Nelson A. Miles and his troops marched forth to subjugate that last free Native Americans in Montana. The makeshift village that grew up around the fort was called Milestown at first but that was soon changed to Miles City and voila.

In the late 1880's, Texas ranchers were pushing huge herds of cattle into Montana to fatten them up on the free grass of the prairies before shipping them to the slaughterhouses of Chicago. With a railhead at Miles City, this fueled the town's growth for years. Then came the Dust Bowl years and the Great Depression. This combination of agricultural and financial disaster allowed Billings (further up the Yellowstone River) to overtake Miles City in terms of business, cash flow and population, and leave it "in the dust." But Miles City is still the retail and business hub of southeastern Montana.