Fort Keogh is a former United States Army post located at the western edge of modern Miles City, in the U.S. state of Montana. It is situated on the south bank of the Yellowstone River, at the mouth of the Tongue River. Colonel Nelson A. Miles, commanding the 5th Infantry Regiment, founded the post in August 1876, in the wake of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, as a base for patrols to prevent the Cheyenne and Sioux involved in the battle from escaping to Canada. The fort was originally known as the Tongue River Cantonment for two years. When relocated one mile west in 1878, it was renamed Fort Keogh in honor of Captain Myles Keogh, who was killed at the Little Bighorn. In 1877, the fort became the headquarters for the newly created District of the Yellowstone (a sub-unit of the Department of Dakota), which was commanded by Miles. The development of Fort Keogh as a military installation soon stimulated traders to supply the liquor and other service businesses that were the beginning of Miles City. Today the former military post is a United States Department of Agriculture livestock and range research station. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Establishment Shortly after the defeat of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876, the Army sent the 5th U.S. Infantry Regiment, under the command of Nelson A. Miles, from Nebraska to the plains of eastern Montana to establish a military fort. The order for development of the fort was signed on August 28, 1876. The Army's intended use for its garrison at the post was to reduce warfare by the American Indians in the region and to persuade them to resettle on reservations. Colonel David S. Stanley had originally scouted the first site of the fort during the Yellowstone Expedition of 1873. He thought the location would be good for supplying troops throughout the region, but the Army did not decide to build the fort until after Custer's overwhelming defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. As developers planned to bring the Great Northern Railway to the region, the U.S. Army was assigned to survey the land and develop maps. The troops came into contact with two tribes of Indians, the Lakota (Sioux) and the Crow. The Sioux had pushed the Crow west of their