FALLON

Fallon is between Miles City and Glendive. It was a station on the Northern Pacific and one of the oldest towns along the Yellowstone River named for Benjamin O’Fallon, Indian agent, Army officer, and nephew of William Clark the explorer. O’Fallon’s report of the slaughter of 29 members of the Jones-Imenell party of the Missouri Fur Company by 400 Blackfeet in May 1823 presents one of the most vivid pictures of Indian warfare in the West. Fallon is now in the middle of rich grain fields. In the early days the land was covered with a nourishing buffalo grass that supported millions of bison. Cattle and sheep grazing cut the grass down too far and let the rich topsoil blow away during the Dust Bowl years. (from Cheney's Names on the Face of Montana, Mountain Press Publishing Company)