Fort Maginnis

Established in 1880, Fort Maginnis was located about 8 miles north of here. This country was great buffalo range before that time, but cattlemen were bringing in stock from the western valleys and cowboys trailed Texas longhorns in from the southeast. There wasn’t room for both cattle and buffalo, so the latter had to go. Soldiers protected cattle from being mistaken for buffalo by hungry Indians, encouraged settlement of the Judith Basin west of here and patrolled the Carroll Road to keep supplies rolling between Carroll (near the mouth of the Musselshell River) and Helena. By 1890 the post was no longer needed, the threatening Indians having been relegated to reservations, and the fort was abandoned with civilian blessings. There were also quite a number of palefaced parties who were handy with a branding iron and prone to make errors as to ownership of their neighbors’ cattle. Such careless souls were known as “rustlers.” Sometimes the cattlemen called on these pariahs with a posse and intimated that they were unpopular with a hangman’s noose. Usually such a visitation cured a rustler or two permanently.