blackfoot-valley

Cattlemen staged two roundups per year. The spring roundup was held to gather animals that had scattered during the winter, separate them by brand, and return them to their home ranges. Each ranch contributed hands according to the size of its herd. The roundup captains had complete author- ity over cowboys sent by each ranch. The purpose of the fall roundup, the smaller of the two, was to select out the mature cattle that were ready for market and drive them to one of the railheads that were coming closer with each passing year. Theodore Roosevelt was one of the early participants in the Montana Stockgrowers Association, founded in 1885. As it happened, open - range ranching reached what was to be its peak that year. But unknown to anyone at the time, disaster was brewing. It struck with what came to be called, matter-of-factly but with under- statement, as the “Hard Winter”. It was preceded by an unusually hot and dry spring and summer in 1886 which prevented the grasses from matur- ing properly, leading to a severe feed shortage during the following winter. The cold struck with a savage fury especially from the latter part of January through February of 1887, when some Great Plains ranches reported temper- atures as low as - 63 degrees F. Losses of starved and freezing cattle were estimated at 362,000 head, which was 60 percent of the beef cattle then in Montana Territory. On some ranches in the eastern Montana plains, espe- cially in the lower Yellowstone country, losses were over 90 percent. Count- less dreams died. One rancher, Granville Stewart wrote: “ A business that had been fascinating to me before, suddenly became distasteful. I never wanted to own again an animal that I could not feed and shelter.” Another individual for whom that winter marked a portentous turning point was Teddy Roos- evelt, who then and there got out of ranching and entered politics. While many of the cattlemen who managed to stick it out did recover, aided by a mild winter the following year and rising beef prices caused by the plummeting of supply, livestock raising in Montana was changed forever. Having learned one lesson the hard way, more and more operations began to grow hay crops for the winter and to pay special attention to feeding and sheltering the calves and the weaker cows. Another result was a great increase of sheep raising. Sheep are better suited for winter conditions and are able to survive on poorer range. They therefore came through the disaster much better than cattle. Although sheep never overtook cattle in numbers, by 1900 Montana had become the nation’s 82