Range Riders Museum

The Range Riders Museum, on the west edge of Miles City, was started in 1939 by men who had worked the open range themselves and wanted their tools, saddles and stories kept. Its first log building was dedicated in 1942. Since then it has grown into a campus of 13 buildings, some moved in from nearby sites and set out like a small Western town, with about 38,000 square feet of indoor displays.

The exhibits run from dinosaurs to the 20th century. There are galleries on the Native nations of the region, on homesteaders and pioneers of the Great Plains, and on the soldiers of the Indian Wars era connected with Generals Custer and Miles. One of the original officers' quarters from Fort Keogh, the army post established beside the town after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, has been moved onto the grounds, and an interactive room has a scale model of the fort. A furnished homestead house, replicas from Lame Deer and the LO Ranch, saddles, an arrowhead collection, old carriages and vehicles, and even an iron lung fill the other buildings.

The best-known single collection is Bert Clark's firearms, gathered over 45 years by a Miles City man who arrived in 1940. It includes French flintlock pistols from about 1770, an 1858 Remington .44 revolver from the Civil War era, and a pistol, still in its holster, found near where Custer's command camped on the Rosebud.

The museum suits a slow half-day: it is the main sight in Miles City outside the Bucking Horse Sale weekend in May, and its displays are dense, so pace yourself. The main parts are accessible to visitors with limited mobility, and group rates are available on request.

Closed for the season. The museum opens from 15 April to 15 October, weather permitting, six days a week and closed Tuesdays. Its homepage gives hours of 9 am to 5 pm, while other pages on its site say 8 am, so confirm when it reopens in April 2027. Outside the season it opens by appointment and for special occasions; call (406) 232-6146 or (406) 852-4949.