The site where Terry is located was first called Joubert's Landing, in recognition of the man who built a supply point along the Yellowstone River for freighters traveling from Bismarck, Dakota Territory, to Miles City, Montana Territory. When the Northern Pacific Railway's transcontinental rail line arrived in 1881, the town was renamed for Alfred Howe Terry, a General in the Union Army who commanded an 1876 expedition in connection with George Armstrong Custer’s campaign against Native Americans, specifically in the west.
