Fort Keogh's long history continues

The Fort Keogh Military Reservation was established by the US Congress on July 22, 1876.

According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agriculture Research Service, following the deaths of Colonel George Armstrong Custer and Colonel Myles Keogh, General Nelson A. Miles was sent to the area with orders to establish a fort. Where the Yellowstone and Tongue River met was considered a strategic site to conduct a military campaign against the Indians.

By the 1880's most tribes surrendered and were moved to reservations. In 1907 the infantry troops were removed. The fort became a remount station of the US Army two years later. During World War I, Fort Keogh supplied thousands of horses.

The army relinquished the land in 1922 and all military personnel were completely withdrawn in 1924. Congress then transferred Fort Keogh to the USDA to conduct ag research on April 15, 1924.

The fort used to maintain purebred herds and flocks of Rambouillet ewes, Belgian, Morgan, and Thoroughbred horses, Bronze turkeys, Milking Shorthorn cattle, Wilshire Side hogs and Hereford cattle.

Early research at Fort Keogh focused on animal genetics and range management. Range research began in the 1930's under the direction of the US Forest Service. This research was directed towards establishing safe winter and summer stocking rates for the Northern Great Plains.

While things have changed at the current fort the focus on research remains.

Fort Keogh is about 55,000 acres. 50,000 of it are native rangeland, 2,500 acres are dryland planted pasture, 1,000 acres are irrigated pasture, and 700 acres of it is irrigated cropland. The remaining 800 acres consists of the headquartered area and corrals. On the property there is approximately 400 miles of fence and 220 miles of roads and trails.

The irrigated ground produces approximately 3,500 tones of alfalfa hay, 5,000 tons of corn silage, 7,500 bushels of barley grain, 150 tons of sorghum sudan hay as well as an assortment of barley straw and grass hays whish is all used as livestock feed.

The fort has 250 Line 1 Herefords, which are the oldest and purest line of Herefords in the world. They have a 400 Composite Gene Combination (CGC) which consists of cattle that are 50% Red Angus, 25% Tarentaise, and 25% Charolais. They also have around 750 mixed breed cows.

The fort also has a 40,000 bushel feed mill and two feedlots that can accommodate 1,000 head of growing cattle.

The researchers at Fort

Keogh have multiple research projects going involving cattle and rangeland.

According to a USDA spokesperson, Researcher Kurt Reinhart has recently studied the use of floating islands that contain sulfuraccumulating plants that would improve water quality. The floating islands would be placed in reservoirs or tanks that have high sulfur contents. The hypothesis of this study was that the planted floating islands would remove the sulfur from the water to improve the quality of drinking water for the livestock.

The results of the study indicated that the concept worked. The amount of sulfur removed however, wasn't enough to improve the water quality. The cost of implementing the floating islands would be high compared to the benefit.

Researchers Reinhart, Matt Rinella and Lance Vermeire's studied soil carbon in two different projects. The first one was a long-term study at Fort Keogh that showed soil organic carbon was higher on moderately grazed rangeland compared to areas that haven't been grazed in 26 years. This highlighted that moderate grazing was beneficial to increasing carbon.

In the second study they discussed carbon ranching or carbon sequestration on rangelands. It discusses the framework for properly assessing how much carbon is sequestered if a program were implemented. The study also cautions overselling the carbon amounts sequestered on rangeland.

Researcher Tom Geary is working on multiple projects with cattle fertility. He has received a National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) grant to work on bull fertility with colleagues from several universities. He also has A NIFA grant that is being used to focus on cow fertility and the improvement of fertility in cattle.