The Little Knife River, looking north or upstream, on the north side of the Highway 1804 bridge near New Town, North Dakota, on September 2, 2003.

Lewis and Clark called this Goat Pen Creek because of a structure they observed and theorized was used by the Assiniboine to capture pronghorn antelope. Lewis' journal entry for April 15, 1805, describes the area along this river as being "wide level and extreemly fertile, but almost entirely destitute of timber."