Amazing Cowboy Town in Montana

 

Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota lack gas stations and coffee shops on Interstate 94, 

so I decided to make a quick detour into a town I found on my travel map to fill up 

and get a coffee. To my surprise, I entered an old-fashioned Montana cowboy town.

The first thing I saw was a livestock auction. 

                                                 Once the horse-trading and livestock center of the country, 

                                             Miles City still has weekly livestock auctions and, once a year, puts 

                                                on the Bucking Horse Sale for rodeo stock buyers and breeders.

Before Miles City, Montana, was founded in 1887, George Miles, the nephew of General Miles
bought a herd of sheep, the first of many commercial enterprises in his involvement with 

the core founders of the town.

Livestock speculation brought thousands of cattle to the open ranges in the late 1880s, 

and the railroad was extended through the area. Texas drove numerous cattle to Miles City 

to fatten them on free grass and move them to where they could be loaded on trains 

bound for the slaughterhouses in Chicago.

Miles City experienced rapid growth until the 1920s and 1930s.

                          The Range Riders Museum features an extensive collection of early Western artifacts.

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Wikipedia writes: ¨Miles City has a cold semi-arid climate and holds the record for 

the highest mean sea level pressure in the contiguous United States with a reading 

of 31.42 inHg (1,064 mb) on December 24, 1983.¨

After leaving Miles City and hitting Interstate 94 again, I saw 
thousands of waterbirds, geese, and ducks resting on several lakes
east of Miles City, ready to fly further north to Canada in early April.

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