History of Miles City

ers who instructed the city to sell the utility. By this time, the people with the Montana Power Company (now NorthWestern Energy's Montana division) became aware of this and were soon locked in an epic battle with Minnesota Northern over the franchise. A franchise election was held to determine who would serve Miles City on June 28, 1927. Minnesota Northern won by a scant 16 votes.

Miles City experienced rapid growth until the 1920s and 1930s, but became overshadowed by the upstart upriver town of Billings, which was at the cross roads of transportation routes, and it became a banking center, oil refining center, and medical service center and is now the largest city in the state.

The publicly owned Miles City Municipal Airport is located less than two miles (3 km) from town. Notably, it was the site of an early scheduled airline crash, involving Northwest Airlines Flight 1, which caught fire and crashed shortly after takeoff in January, 1939