“Murdo Mackenzie”

1906

Mighty few towns have one of them hi-faluting, swank Rolls-Royce type of hyphenated names. In 1904, Murdo Mackenzie, head of the Matador brand, with herds from Mexico to Canada, shipped trainload after trainload of Texas steers to Evarts to graze on good Dakota grass on the Standing Rock Reservation and a grateful railroad named a town for Murdo.

Its first postmaster was John R. McClain, named March 6, 1904; its newspaper, the Coyote, arrived on a wagon from Moore on May 18th, beating the railroad which set its last spike on Murdo townsite 22 June at 8:11 A.M.; all of which preceded the ‘grand opening lot sale’ on 12 July, when the First State Bank, ancestor of the Jones County State Bank, was the first edifice in Murdo, arriving from shanty town on Stratton’s claim just as night fell.

It was 1823 when that Famous Trail Blazer of the West Jedediah Smith, enroute to Montana from Ft. Kiowa, first saw Jones County and it was also on the American Fur Post trail from the Little White to Ft. Pierre Chouteau.

The first county hereabouts was called Mercer by the 1873 legislature, who, after taking a deep breath, planked another named Pratt slap-dab on top. But in 1875 they slid Mercer out from under and set it up in North Dakota. So it was Pratt until 1897 when Lyman, bigger than several states, supplanted Pratt until they whittled Jones out in 1916 and made Murdo County seat, January, 1917.

Another thing, Time shifts here from Central to Mountain but Murdo runs on Central time.

Jones County, mainstreet and 5th street in downtown Murdo (2006)