Great Falls Tribune from Great Falls, Montana • Page 7

SUNDAY, MAY 13, 2012 GREAT FALLS TRIBUNE WWW.GREATFALLSTRIBUNE.COM PAGE 7, SECTION A If1 Stuart Armstrong, 63, farms on the land that his great-grandfather 1910 east of Geraldine. tribune photolarry beckner Homestead: Land rush in Montana came 50 years later in the 1900s 111 "i P'wwvmpmipuymmmwwpmFm'm "rfr" "jsr x- w. Continued from 1A coin signed the Homestead Act May 20, 1862, giving 160 acres to any citizen who could prove he or she had made improvements over five years' time. Later, the incentive was sweetened to 320 acres and three years. The land rush in Montana came 50 years later in the early 1900s, with the Homestead Act setting the stage for the enormous migration west, said Ken Robison, a historian for the Overholser Historical Research Center in Fort Benton, a repository of state agricultural information.

"I'm not totally convinced Montana would have ever begun the scale of farming and wheat production that it did under the Homestead Act if it hadn't been for the ree land," Robison said. "If it had depended on government sales of land to individuals, yes, there would have been farming in Montana. But I think it would have been on a far less scale." "I'm not convinced would begun farming production The twin homestead shacks of Mildred B. Hunt and her friend Sophie Jefferson between Fort Benton and Shonkin. The property line ran between the houses, photo courtesy overholser historical RESEARCH CENTER Old farm equipment still marks the land that Hank Armstrong's father and grandfather homesteaded near Square Butte near Geraldine.

tribune photokarl puckett totally Montana have ever the scale of and wheat that it did under the Homestead Act if it hadn't been for the free land. KEN ROBISON Historian for the Overholser Historical Research Center in Fort Benton and grandfather homesteaded in prompting thousands of foreclosures followed by bank failures, Robison said. When it was over, an estimated 300,000 people had filed for homesteads in Montana with 151,000 successful homestead patents. "Most people left during that five-year proving up period," Bell said. "It was too hard." Marginal land in eastern Montana should never have been homesteaded in the first place, Robison said.

The increase in the give-away, from 160 to 320 acres, was an amendment for states such as Montana where the land is less productive requiring more of it to be profitable. In the book "Montana: High, Wide and Handsome," Joseph Kinsey Howard wrote that many old-timers blamed railroad giant Hill's glowing promotions that failed to mention the state's arid climate, brutal winters and that much of Montana wasn't suitable for farming. "Out of the tragic homestead experiment one great discovery came: Montana, under proper conditions, can grow and still does grow the best wheat in the world," Howard wrote. Farms more efficient In 2011, the value of all production of wheat winter, spring and durum was $1.4 billion, third in the nation. In addition, 61.4 million of the state's total land area of 93.1 million acres, or 66 percent, is in farms and ranches, second in the nation behind Texas.

Population density was 6.8 people per square mile the third lowest in the United States. Today, there are fewer farms and ranches and people in rural Montana but the farms and ranches are bigger and more productive. "I think about how people farmed from 1900 to 1920," Anderson said. "They farmed with horses and mules for one." In 1920, the height of the homestead boom, there were 57,700 farms and ranches compared to 29,000 today. Not opportunity for all "Opportunity for All? Home-steading in Next Year Country" That's the title of the Montana Historical Society's annu- "I had time with my family to do other things," Armstrong said.

"And I had time with some of the family we lost along the way, so I'm satisfied with not being rich." Stuart Armstrong, Hank's 63-year-old son, is the fourth generation of Armstrongs to farm the land, where the main crop today is winter wheat. He lives in Geraldine witl. his wife, a retired school teacher. The farm has more than its share of rocks, Stuart notes, but the scenery Square Butte and the Highwood Mountains can't be beat. "I just like the wide open and the view," Stuart Armstrong said.

Reach Tribune Staff Writer Karl Puckett at 406-791-1471, 800-438-6600 or Follow him on Twitter GFTrib-KPuckett. find a place to settle, and ended up in what's now the Geraldine area. "This is my Granddad's house that he built in 1910," says Armstrong, seated at the kitchen table earlier this month. At a crumbling homestead shack on the property, Armstrong points out an old windmill and a rock wall where he learned to play baseball by throwing a ball and catching it when it bounced back. His grandfather, he said, organized the first elevator and cooperative store in the area.

The first year 10 acres were cultivated using horses. A gasoline-fired tractor didn't come along until 1915. Today, the farm is 1,400 acres. Hank says his goal was never to have a large farm. little man, said Robison of the Overholser Historical Research Center.

And the lit- tie woman, it turned out. About 25 percent of the claims in Montana were filed by women. "Up at 3 a.m.," Mildred B. Hunt, who home-steaded six miles south of Fort Benton, wrote in her diary June 10, 1912. "Found cattle about 5 a.m.

Run 36 cattle thru fence. Home by 5:45 a.m. Tired to death. Boys working culvert." Two diaries of Hunt and her homestead patent papers are on file at the Overholser Center. In Hunt's homestead application, she reported harvesting 40 acres of wheat in 1912 and having a one-room frame house and two miles of three-wire fence.

Population triples Railroads played a major role in getting people to come to Montana to homestead, Robison said. One promotion by Great Northern says, "Montana, Free Homestead Land." The cost of a one-way train trip from Minneapolis to Billings was $12.50. "Come chase a rainbow," the advertisement says. Between 1900 and 1917, the state's population tripled to 760,000 residents, Robison said. The population today is about a million.

By 1910, agriculture production had surpassed mining as the state's biggest industry. World War I increased demand for high-protein wheat and growing conditions were good with wheat selling for $2 a bushel Robison said. In 1918, 14,178 homestead claims were filed on 3.2 million acres, the peak in Montana. Steve Anderson, director of the Montana field office of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service, said there were 435,000 acres of wheat harvested in Montana in 1910.

By 1920, the figure had shot to 3.6 million acres harvest. Then a drought struck, al conference this fall. Its focus is the Homestead Act, said Kirby Lambert, outreach and interpretation program manager for the society. "Basically it's the idea that things will work out next year," Lambert said. "Next year we will get enough rain, next year the crops will come in, next year things will be OK." No question homesteading played a significant role in the development of Montana, but whether it represented opportunity for all will be explored, Lambert said.

The Homestead Act, he said, didn't do a lot of people any favors because it wasn't possible to make a living due to the poor quality of some of the land, harsh climate and lack of moisture. "Also for Native Americans, it certainly was not an opportunity," Lambert said. One had to be a citizen of the United States to secure a homestead and Bell said Native Americans were not officially granted the opportunity to become citizens until 1924. Some Indian reservations were opened to homesteading due to homesteading pressure, reducing their size, Robison said. One advertisement by Great Northern from 1913 shows a man in a field of blue stem wheat and noted the Fort Peck Reservation was now open to settlement.

Time for family Henry Lott and Benjamin W. Armstrong, Hank Armstrong's grandfather and father, filed for homesteads in 1909. Ben jamin Armstrong was 22 at the time. Each proved up 320 acres and were from Hawar-den, Iowa. They took the train to Stanford, Hank Armstrong where they hired a "locator," a person who helped newcomers Settlement encouraged By the 1850s, the United States had acquired a lot of new land west of the Missouri River, such as 828,000 square miles in the Louisiana Purchase, Bell said.

The Homestead Act was meant to encourage settlement. But the stimulus idea set off a ideological fight, just as it did in 2009 over the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Bell said. One faction, led by the North, saw the Homestead Act as fulfilling the Jeffersonian ideal of America becoming an agrarian nation of small farmers. The southern economy, however, was driven by plantation agriculture, or slavery, and representatives fought the idea of free men and free soil, Bell said. After the south seceded in 1861, Lincoln Republicans passed the Homestead Act and homesteading boomed between 1913 and 1919.

By the time the act was repealed in 1976, 270 million acres or 10 percent of the United States was claimed and settled. "What this did was turn what Thomas Jefferson envisioned as a small agrarian nation into the largest agricultural superpower in human history," Bell said. Montana leads nation In Montana, 151,600 homesteads were successfully claimed on 32 million acres of the state's 93.1 million acres. Both the number of homesteaders and acreage claimed were tops in the nation, a reflection of the state's size and intense promotion by empire builder James Hill and the Great Northern Railroad. As President Lincoln remarked, the Homestead Act was meant to be good for the HOMESTEAD ENTRIES IN MONTANA The Homestead Act of 1862 turned over vast amounts of public domain to private citizens who lived on the land, built a home, made improvements and farmed for five years.

More than 70 percent of homesteading was done in the 20th Century. Year Entries Acres 1873 1 154 1882 75 8,510 1890 352 53,692 1900 905 126,141 1906 1,333 191,941 1908 1,456 218,217 1916 1,456 2,308,311 1918 (Peak) 14,178 3,191,706 1924 2,759 697,616 1930 681 192.436 1934 513 144,604 1940 93 67,784 1946 146 18,016 1952 5 359 1961 36 3,760 Source: U.S. Bureau of Land Management.