Fergus County, Montana 1921
Fergus, the largest county in the
state of Montana, is situated geographically and agriculturally
in the very heart of the commonwealth, and more counties border
on Fergus than on any other in the state. Its eastern boundary
is the Musselshell River, its northern boundary is formed by
Crooked Creek and the Arrow River, on the west it reaches nearly
to Baldy Ridge and on the south are found the Big Snowy
Mountains and Flatwillow Creek. Judith Basin, so attractive for
its varied scenery and noted for productiveness as a wheat
country, lies in the center of Fergus County, extending sixty
miles north and south and over eighty miles east and west, and
having 2,000,000 acres of fertile land. The Basin is surrounded
by mountain ranges which protect it from severe winter
conditions, to the north being the Little Rockies, to the west
the Highwood and Belts, to the east the Big Snowies and to the
south the Great Belt range of mountains. The eastern portion of
the county is more broken and rolling, this section being the
western border of the Great Western Plains area. The watershed
and drainage system of Western Fergus is carried by the Judith
River and branch streams. In the eastern part the Musselshell
River and Flatwillow Creek with their tributaries carry the
drainage waters into the Missouri.
Judith Basin
Judith Basin is not the only
attractive section of the county for tourists. Fergus County's
varied scenery makes it a picturesque visiting place for
discriminating travelers, and the different mountain groups,
with their excellent visibility throughout the country, are very
impressive. Caves, sinks, arches and natural bridges abound to
delight the seeker of sights. There are ice caves in the Snowies
west of Half Moon Pass where ice is formed throughout the
summer. Crystal Lake, a beautiful tourist camping ground, lies
in the Snowies, in the west fork of Rock Creek Canyon.
The County in General
Fergus County has a length of 122
miles at its longest point and a maximum width of seventy miles,
its land area being 7,146 square miles. It was named after James
Fergus, the widely known pioneer, late of Meagher County and
first president of the Montana Society of Pioneers. The county
was created December 1, 1886.
Fergus has always been known as a
good agricultural country, the soil being a dark brown loam
underlaid with clay formation, mixed with lime gravel subsoil.
Six hundred thousand acres are under cultivation, while
1,755,750 acres are potential farm land. One hundred thousand
acres are now or will be under irrigation, mostly for hay crops.
Projects on Judith River, and Flatwillow and Box Elder creeks in
Eastern Fergus, are now under way, and a large project is in
course of construction on Warm Springs. The Flatwillow project
will eventually irrigate 25,000 acres. These matters are more
fully described in the chapter devoted to the irrigation
enterprises of the state. In addition to agriculture, the main
industries of the county are stock raising, manufacturing and
mining. Good grade coal is mined in Central Fergus; gold mining
is carried on at Kendall, and silver and gold are found in the
Judith Mountains.
The large sapphire mines in the
Little Belts of Western Fergus supply a large portion of the
world markets. There are eighty-seven elevators in the county,
which in number and business compare favorably with any other
part of the country of similar size.
Development of Oil Fields
The latest industry is oil, which
promises to exceed the total of all others in the magnitude of
its potential production. It is being developed on a great scale
in all directions from Lewistown, particularly in the Eastern
part of the county. Large tracts in the Snowies and. on the
slopes of the Judith Mountains are covered with suitable lumber
timber. The Cat Creek oil field, east of Lewistown, had, in
April, 192 1, thirty producing wells, of the highest grade of
oil known to any oil fields. Its extraordinarily high gasoline
content, in the opinion of some geologists, indicates that the
oil is migrant from a mother pool, which when found will beyond
peradventure establish the Lewistown fields among the important
oil fields of the country. The Cat Creek structure is but one of
many, there being, among others, the Dog Creek, Arrow Creek,
Sager Canyon, Garneill, Gilt Edge, Box Elder, Brush Creek,
Button Butte, Devil's Basin, Howard Coulee, Big Wall, Willow
Creek, Square Butte, Blood Coulee, Bauley, Woodhawk, Valentine,
Piper, Black Butte and Flatwillow, as being considered
prospecting ground by competent geologists.
The oil industry of Fergus County has
brought into prominence the little town of Winnett and other
towns have shown marked growth and development in recent years.
Moore, Garneill and Straw on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul
Railroad, south of Lewistown, are in the center of a rich
farming section. Denton, the largest town in Northwestern
Fergus, has a flour mill, elevator and up to date stores and
hotels. Buffalo, on the Great Northern Railroad, is surrounded
by splendid farms and ranches. Hanover has a large cement
factory, and north of Lewistown lie Roy and Winifred, adjacent
to which are immense grain growing and stock raising sections.
Kendall, a gold mining camp five miles from Hilger, has produced
over $5,000,000 in gold. Grass Range and Teigen lie in Eastern
Fergus and are surrounded by agricultural and stock raising
country.
Government Experiment Station
A point of great interest to visiting
tourists to the county, and particularly those who are
interested in agricultural matters, is the United States
Government experimental station, a tract of 640 acres in the
Judith Basin, which was established in 1908. This is located two
miles west of the town of Moccasin in the Western part of the
county, and the work is under the supervision of agricultural
experts who are employed by the Government. Experiments are
carried on in the different methods of tilling the soil and in
growing the different kinds of hay and grain crops. The records
thus far show that the average yield of Turkey Red winter wheat
grown at the station for a period of seven consecutive years is
34.1 bushels per acre; they also show that the average rainfall
for a period of eight years was 18.53 inches, and more than
fifty per cent of each year's precipitation was received in the
growing season from April 1st to July 31st. Each summer a
farmer's picnic is held at the station and farmers gather from
all parts of the Basin to inspect the farming methods as
conducted at the station, and to listen to instructive talks by
the Government experts in charge and other agricultural experts
from different parts of the country.
Fergus County has become a point of
great attraction to hunters and fishermen, being amply supplied
with game, both large and small. Prairie chickens, pheasants,
sage hens, blue grouse, jackrabbits and other small game abound
in the foothills in countless numbers, while in the mountains
are found the larger species of game, principally deer and bear.
In 1914, Fergus County shipped two carloads of elk from the
Yellowstone National Park and put them in the Belt Mountains,
where they have been and will be protected until the time when
they are more numerous. The many mountain streams furnish
excellent sport for the fisherman, as they are well stocked with
trout and whitefish, and it is not an uncommon occurrence to
catch speckled trout in Big Spring Creek that weigh from ten to
twelve pounds.
Education and Population
Indicative of the intelligence, good
judgment and public spirit of its people, who have accomplished
so much in the comparatively short time that Fergus County has
been in being, are its excellent schools. In addition to good
graded and high schools at Lewistown, there are graded schools
in the towns and rural districts, in which the best standards
are required and maintained and only competent teachers are
employed. The 187 school districts of the county have a total of
over 280 school buildings, in which over 400 teachers are
employed. Church privileges are general in the towns and in many
parts of the rural districts high moral standards prevail
generally.
The population figures given in the
United States census for 1920 show 28,344 souls living within
its borders; 17,385 for 1910. It is believed that the
newly-developed oil industry will contribute greatly to the
population of the county and that other industries which will
naturally follow will also add thereto. Land values in Fergus
County are difficult of standardization. They run, however, from
$20 to $80 per acre for un-irrigated and up to $100 for
irrigated bottom lands, while grazing lands bring from $10 to
$20 per acre. The percentage of grain and hay land largely
accounts for the variation in price.
The census also furnishes some
interesting figures as to the comparative urban and rural
population since and including 1910. In the latter year the
rural population amounted to 14,393 and the urban to 2,992; or
17.2 per cent of urban in the total population. In 1920, the
percentage had increased to 21.6, that is, 22,224 rural
population as compared with 6,120 urban, which goes to show that
notwithstanding the business and industrial opportunities
afforded by Lewistown and other urban centers, the call to the
farms and rural occupations was gathering strength. As noted,
the development of the oil industries is bringing a noteworthy
increase of population to the county, and as the promising
fields are in the rural districts, this transfer of the
population of the county from the larger centers to the country
districts will probably be more pronounced in 1921-22 than it
was in 1920.
In the 1920 census the population of
Lewistown City is given as 6,120, divided by wards as follows:
Ward I, 2,402; Ward II, 1,717; Ward III, 2,001. With the
improvement of both the urban and rural schools, the educational
advantages enjoyed by town and country pupils are being
constantly equalized; which fact may also account for the good
showing in population increase made by the out-of-town
districts.
In the matter of water powers and
public ways, Fergus County is well supplied. Among the largest
of the hydro-electric plants are the two belonging to the
Montana Power Company, one within the city limits of Lewistown
and the other six miles east of Lewistown on Pig Spring Creek,
which runs through Lewistown and is one of the finest and
largest mountain streams in Montana. This company, incidentally,
furnishes the electric power for the new plant of the Three
Forks Portland Cement Company, at Hanover, this plant, together
with the town, having been erected at a cost of approximately
$1,000,000. Hanover has its own water system, the water being
piped to all parts of the plant and city. From a transportation
standpoint, Fergus County is well located strategically, six
railroad lines traversing the Basin in all directions, these
including the Great Northern and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St.
Paul.
Fergus has an aggregate of 6,500
miles of highway bringing the various communities into perfect
touch with one another. Lewistown is on the Red Trail from
Chicago and Minneapolis, and on the Custer Battlefield Highway
from Omaha to Glacier Park. Of the 6,500 miles of open highways,
more than possessed by any other Montana County; 920 miles
consist of crowned roads. The Central Montana Highway, the
Park-to-Park Highway and the Wheat Line Highway are more or less
local thoroughfares, but the Custer Battlefield Highway, which
was recently brought through Lewistown through the untiring
efforts of the president of the Chamber of Commerce of that city
and his fellow-members, is becoming one of the most traveled
highways in the state and is bringing tourists from all over the
world. This trail starts at Omaha and ends at Glacier Central
Park. Another great thoroughfare is the National Parks Highway
from Chicago to Seattle. This crosses the Yellowstone at
Glendive and goes through Central Montana via Lewistown to
Helena and all the parks, and, in time, is expected to be
Montana's gateway to the Pacific Coast.
The City of
Lewistown
Lewistown, the county seat of Fergus
County, located in the heart of the famous Judith Basin, is
situated in practically the geographical center of the state of
Montana, admirably located on two transcontinental lines of
railway, with several branch lines leading in and out to all
parts of the county. The city's substantial growth within recent
years has been largely due to the development of the natural
resources of the tributary country, but a great share of the
credit for the growth lies with the people, whose enterprise and
public spirit have been commendable and unfailing. Incorporated
August, 1899, although it had secured special delivery service
to all parts of the Union in October 1886, it has grown from a
small and struggling village into a city of importance and
beauty, with over seven and one-half miles of boulevard,
twenty-five miles of cement sidewalk, large schools and other
buildings, including a library, and consisting of three wards
and thirteen additions.
While situated in the heart of a rich
farming country, Lewistown may be said to be a business city. It
has four prosperous banking institutions, the First National
Bank, the Empire Bank and Trust Company, the Bank of Fergus
County and the Lewistown State Bank. These banking concerns
represent combined deposits of $6,000,000 and enjoy an excellent
reputation in the county and in banking circles generally
throughout the state. One of the leading industries of more
recent date, as before noted, is the Three Forks Portland Cement
Company, which is employing about 300 men, with a large pay-roll
and a modern plant in the outlying districts of Lewistown. The
United States Gypsum Company is another concern which is well
represented, and others which are in a flourishing condition are
a flour mill, brick and tile works, bottling works and two
creameries, in addition to which there is conducted a wool
market and sugar beet raising has been found profitable.
The city is continuing to grow apace,
and its citizens, strongly backed by the Chamber of Commerce,
have worked effectively with the city officials in securing
numerous public improvements. Several which are now in prospect
are a water service extension to cost $65,000; two bridges in
the city, one to cost $24,000 and the other $15,000; and a new
school building to be erected, which will contain an auditorium
seating 1,200 persons. The city water is to be secured from a
large spring in a concreted cave, which will be operated upon
the gravity system, with 100 pounds pressure, the water never
seeing the daylight and thus being free from polluting
influences.
Like other enlightened communities
whose citizens are possessed of modern tendencies, Lewistown has
given much attention to the matter of education. At the present
time the school enrollment is 1,375 pupils. Six rural schools
are located in the remote parts of the Lewistown District, and
these schools are visited by the superintendent, the school
nurse and the special supervisors in music, etc. Four
transportation wagons bring the rural children from the nearby
farms to the city schools. In the city there are five buildings
including the South Lewistown School. The Hawthorne School, one
of the first constructed, recently has been wrecked to make way
for a first-class modern one-story grade and kindergarten
building, and this leaves the Garfield as the oldest building in
use. This building, while presenting an excellent exterior
appearance, is not a modern fire-proof building. The Highland
Park building is the latest and most modern school, a one-story
building, modern in heating, ventilating, arrangements, location
and construction.
For administrative and instructional
purposes, the Lewistown School system has three departments, the
primary, intermediate and junior high. Aside from the regular
curriculum having to do with the usual subjects, special
supervisors in music, art, domestic art, industrial arts, health
and physical education are employed. Increasing emphasis will be
placed in the future upon the health and physical education.
The new building program, for which
an appropriation has been voted, calls for the construction of
two new buildings. The new grade building for the Hawthorne site
will be modern in every respect. The new junior high school
structure will also represent the latest in that type. It will
be a two-story fire-proof building, and the class rooms will be
grouped around the auditorium and gymnasium, the latter being so
arranged that it can be made a part of the stage. For a mass
meeting or other public gathering, the gymnasium and auditorium
will seat 1,200 people.
Directly in line with the fine work
being accomplished by the schools is what is being done by the
Public Library. The first step toward securing free reading
matter for the citizens of Lewistown was taken by the Sunset
Club, an organization formed in the winter of 1893-94, for the
purpose of social enjoyment and intellectual advancement. In
January, 1897, F. E. Smith was elected chairman and J. M.
Parrent secretary of a committee to commence the work of
organizing a Public Library. They started modestly with 329
books and a cash capital of $126.50, and at the start the
trustees were : F. E. Smith, chairman ; E. K. Cheadle,
secretary; Halsey Watson, treasurer; Rev. Albert Pfaus, Rev.
Vigus, Mrs. E. E. Wright, Mrs. G. J. Wiedeman and Mrs. F. C.
Stiles. On April 24, 1901, the city council passed an ordinance
to establish and maintain a Free Public Library, and in the
following September Mrs. M. A. Sloan was elected librarian. In
the same year she was succeeded by Mrs. A. Pfaus, who served
until October, 1906, when Archie Farnum was elected librarian.
In 1908, Mr. Farnum resigned and was succeeded by Mrs. A. Pfaus,
who acted in that capacity until 1913, when she resigned and
Mrs. Guy Wait was elected in her place. The latter resigned in
1913, at which time the present librarian, Miss Clara Main, was
elected. She has served ably and acceptably. At the present time
the Lewistown Like other enlightened communities whose citizens
are possessed of modern tendencies, Lewistown has given much
attention to the matter of Public Library has over 8,000 books,
and on its lists of subscribers are 1,600 adults and 1,000
children. The present Board of Trustees consists of the
following: Grant Robinson, chairman; Mrs. Helen L. Warr,
secretary; Mrs. C. R. McLave, Mrs. Bert d'Autremont, Mrs. Anna
Crowley, Judge Von Tobel and E. O. Kindschy.
That Lewistown is a moral city may be
seen in the fact that its citizens support no less than eight
churches, all of which are engaged in movements making for still
higher standards and better citizenship. The city has two
up-to-date newspapers, the Fergus County Argus, established in
1883, and the Fergus County Democrat. Since April, 1905, the
Judith Club has been a factor in the up-building and development
not alone of the city of Lewistown, but also of Fergus County
and its industries and institutions, and another factor is the
Lewistown Woman's Club. There are also twenty-nine secret and
benevolent lodges in the city, all of which are in a prosperous
condition. In fact, Lewistown is a thoroughly modern city.1
Footnotes:
1. Since the above
was written, Judith Basin County has been created from the
western part of Fergus and the southeastern part of Cascade
counties. The new county comprises more than one-half of the
Judith Basin and is probably the most highly developed
agricultural county in Montana. Stanford is the county seat.
Montana Counties 1921
Return to
Montana AHGP
Source: Montana its Story and Biography,
by Tom Strout, Volume 1, The American Historical Society, 1921
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