blackfoot-valley

Farmers and Homesteaders During the aftermath of the 1897 open-range crash, Montana stockrais- ing recovered and redeveloped at a modest pace. The next and biggest boom that affected the most people was agriculture, which waited a decade to build up full force. While some crops had been raised for some time, starting with the missions of western Montana such as St. Mary’s in the Bitterroot Valley and St. Ignatius in the Flathead Valley, the first major commercial operations sprang up in response to a demand from the mining camps along both sides of the southern half of Montana’s Continental Divide. Areas such as Deer Lodge Valley (including in a minor way Nevada Valley), the Prickly Pear Valley near Helena, and the Gallatin and Madison River Valleys farther south helped feed the hungry mining camps during the 1860s and 1870s. Bozeman became the leading agricultural center, but all of this was on a rather small scale. Only 851 farms were listed for all of Montana in the 1870 census, Author’s Note: The “Company Ranch” was started by a Helmville citizen who farmed the west meadow (across the county road west of The Ranch HQ area). He grew vegetables for sale to the then thriving community of Helmville. This was difficult due to the short growing season, frost to frost of 120 days. “Blackfoot City” 1870 courtesy of Western Mining History 85