View source for Dusting Off the Old Ones (9)

'''9. Miles City Dressed Beef Company'''

Very few of the present residents of Miles City know that there was once started in this community a dressed beef plant which the sponsors believed would compete with the Chicago packing plants. In 1885, Charles E. Brown, who played an important role in the early history of Miles City and the community sold 20 acres of land to William M. Dustin and R. M. Hough. This tract of land lies on the Yellowstone River bank, just north of a portion of Old Town, where Haynes Avenue (extended) would intersect the Yellowstone. Dustin and Hough conveyed the land to the Miles City Dressed Beef Company of Lincoln, Illinois, who in turn deeded it to the Miles City Dressed Beef Company, a Montana corporation, with principal office at Miles City. This corporation proceeded to build a plant near the bank of the Yellowstone. A large boiler was set in the buildings, together with the other necessary machinery to start packing operations. However, before operations could be started, a fire consumed the building and left nothing but the boiler. The property was evidently not protected by insurance, for there immediately developed financial troubles -- law suits, attachments and foreclosures. The final result was that everything was abandoned and the land was afterwards sold at sheriff's sale. However, the boiler stood there on the banks of the Yellowstone for many years as a mute testimonial of an endeavor to put Miles City in the sale class with Chicago. A subsequent owner of the property tells of finding meat hooks and other small metal objects around the location in after years.