Agricultural production in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana officially began in the 1840’s, when priests encouraged the planting and harvest of crops near present-day Stevensville. Salish-Kootenai Indians dug bitterroots [the Bitterroot, Lewisia redivia, is the state flower], picked berries, fished and hunted game, but probably did not plant corn, squash or beans as in other regions. Lewis and Clark traded horses with them, since they used horses to hunt bison east of the mountains. There was little to eat in the Bitter Root, (this is the original wording for the name of the valley), just a few deer and some grouse, forcing the party to eat of their own horses. Elk were transplanted into the Bitter Root in the early 1900’s. Because sportsmen provide the funding for wildlife, some populations of wild game are larger now than any time in history.
Father DeSmet encouraged the cultivation of oats, wheat and potatoes in 1842 and brought cattle from Ft. Colville in Washington territory the same year. The St. Mary’s Mission supplied travelers on the Mullan Road. Major John Owen purchased the Mission in 1850, and raised cattle in the valley, as did more settlers who arrived later.
Late in the Civil War, some settlers escaping the Border Wars in the Ozarks settled near present-day Corvallis, and, as more homesteaders arrived, irrigation systems and grain fields began to appear. When Marcus Daly decided to establish ranches in the valley, he acquired land and by 1890 expanded the production of hay for racehorses, as well as planting grain and fruit trees. Several sawmills were set up and generally stripped nearly all of the lower-lying forests for mine timbers, so all those workers had to be fed from local sources. An era of sheep production on the benches began, and cattle were grazed in the valley and on the forests.
The first successful apple orchard was planted in 1868 and by 1890 there were 6,000 trees in the valley. By 1900 there were more than 300,000 apple trees and by 1913, nearly all the benchland on the east and west sides of the valley was in orchards, having been planted by investment companies that hoped to lure buyers of land. (Soil Survey, Bitterroot Valley Area, USDA 1959, p. 5-7).
With the removal of the Salish-Kootenai Indians to the reservation north of Missoula in 1890, more land became available and investors began what was called “The Apple Boom”. The investors bought homesteaded dryland for two to fifteen dollars an acre, planted thousands of trees even before irrigation arrived, and began an aggressive advertising campaign in the eastern states. They sold land for $400 to $1000 an acre to people who expected to do very little work and make their full-time living growing fruit, especially MacIntosh apples. The “Big Ditch” was developed in conjunction with the sale of orchard tracts, and for a time, the Bitter Root MacIntosh apple was sold nationwide. In 1920 there were 720,000 trees in the valley, and both those who came and those who expected a check in the mail from their investment were often disappointed. The small returns from apples lost the life savings of many, and much of the land went up for taxes. By 1950, there were less than 45,000 trees, and by 2008 only a few farms still maintained apple trees, though their products continued to sell out quickly.
“Tick fever” or Rocky Mountain Spotted fever had a great effect on the valley, starting with the first recorded death in 1873. By the early 1900’s, a number of people were dying each year and by 1908 measures to reduce the tick population and its hosts by killing gophers and dipping livestock began. The orchard tract investors were in direct conflict with the scientists publicizing the disease and wrecked the dipping vats, in fear that news about the disease would scare away investors. The final result of years of deaths and research was the establishment of the Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Hamilton in 1928.
About 1900, Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Bitter Root Inn about six miles north of Stevensville, as part of the orchard development and even before the Big Ditch reached that far. The city of “Bitter Root” (original spelling) was laid out, and until recently, the fireplugs could be seen near Eagle Watch, to serve a town that was never built. The Big Ditch went into bankruptcy in 1918 and the Inn burned down in 1924 and by the 1930’s most of the apple trees had been cut for firewood. (Stevensville Historical Society, “Montana Genesis”, 1971, pp. 163-164.)
Competition from later-established Washington orchards, the invasion of coddling moths (one could not eat a Bitter Root apple in the dark any more), and the frosts of 1921 which killed peach orchards reduced the momentum of fruit production. There were attempts to form a cooperative for marketing, but internal strife and lack of honest cooperation doomed the effort. During the 1920’s, members of the coop packing shed, now the Iron Horse in Hamilton, were offered 5 cents more a box than the cooperative could pay, so they loaded five carloads to send to St. Louis. They were never paid. The next year, another shyster offered the same 5 cent premium, the apple growers fell for it, and again, were never paid.
As the agricultural depression of the 1920’s struck, orchards were pulled out and dairying became more important. The level lands of the valley bottom were also used for sugar beet production, which carried on until well after World War II. With the closing of the sugar processing plant in Missoula in the 1970’s, some farmers tried shipping to Billings one time, but the freight costs forced the abandonment of sugar beets in the valley. (Clarence Popham, Oral History, 1974)
At one time, numerous homesteads dotted the east side, up to the timber line, served by several schools, but all were abandoned and reverted to grass. Today, some dryland grain production still exists on the high benches of the east side, mainly winter wheat. Little of the farmland in the Bitter Root is productive without irrigation, and a complicated network of reservoirs, takeouts, ditches and irrigation works not only supplies the land that is still in cultivation, but is also the only real source of supply to many domestic wells. Before the development of irrigation systems, the valley was mainly a sagebrush desert, with stands of cottonwood trees along streams and scattered ponderosa pine growing where soil and water was adequate.
Throughout development of agriculture in the valley, there was a close tie to the food needs of the mining communities of Butte and Anaconda, since the higher altitude areas around the mines did not produce enough food for the large populations in those centers. Fruit, vegetables and dairy products went by rail, and later, by truck over the primitive Skalkaho road to supply the miners. In the valley, Bulgarian, Serbian, and Italian stonemasons settled after the courthouse building boom of the early 1900’s and began production of berries and vegetables, which were loaded on wagons, and later on trucks, cooled overnight on the top of Skalkaho pass and sold the next day in Butte. They depended on Indians for stoop labor, and lost nearly all of this help when benefit payments appeared in the 1960’s. Mexicans were brought in under the bracero program after the 1930’s, some families remained, and a few Mexicans still come each year under an agricultural visa program.
Fruit and berry production faded as the farmers aged and labor disappeared. Except for a few apple orchards, a tart cherry orchard and some vegetable production by a few young couples, local fruit and vegetable farming ended. The closing of the mines in Butte sent tens of thousands of potential customers away and switched the remaining specialty farmers to sell at farmers markets and some stores. Production of vegetables reached a peak in 1939, with 806 acres harvested, dropped to 134 acres by 1954 and now is less than that among a few dedicated small producers.
Potatoes peaked in 1954 with 654 acres harvested, which has now dropped to a few acres. Strawberries peaked in 1939 with 220 acres harvested, as did other berries with 98 acres. Now there are no commercial berry producers, the last of which stopped production because of state labor regulations. The one tart cherry orchard left in the valley mechanically shakes its cherries and packs them in bulk to be sent out of state. Like many products in supermarkets, those same cherries probably reappear in a can from Washington at a much higher price.
Dry peas reached a peak of 1,572 acres and sugar beets were at 5,355 acres in 1939, with none today. A substantial, though unknown, number of acres throughout the valley have simply been abandoned for any use, awaiting subdivision development. Some rocky, outwash fields, especially on the west side, went out of production by 1929 and have been unused ever since. (USDA, p.8)
Labor is a continuing problem for agriculture. As teenagers have been less willing to do farm work, producers have had to mechanize irrigation, haying and harvesting. Hiring transient labor, especially Latinos, carries immigration, scheduling and legal risks that small operators dare not face. This leaves most producers to rely on their own and family labor, and since the payoff is usually far less than minimum wage, or even a negative, many drop their operations to a hobby level and work in town.
In Missoula, the last truck gardens died out with residential development, until a Korean war bride, Chin Won Reinhardt rallied local people to restart the farmers’ markets which had ended at the beginning of World War II. In 1972, with the help of the Bitter Root Resource Conservation and Development Area, a small farmer’s market was started near the railroad depot on North Higgins and began to grow into what is now two well attended markets. With the end of the Vietnam War, a large number of Hmong tribesmen, who fought for the CIA in Laos, came as refugees and immediately began putting their farming skills to work in the area. None now live in the Bitter Root, but those in Missoula are important local producers of specialty vegetables.
There were several early efforts to start Farmers’ Markets in the valley, which failed. The Hamilton Farmers’ Market is now very successful and a two other markets in Stevensville and Darby provide some income to local producers. These markets also introduce local consumers to the advantages of fresh local products during the relatively short growing season.
Some people estimate that at one time Montana produced locally nearly all the food that was consumed in the state. There was a substantial infrastructure of processing facilities, to which Professor Henry Bahn referred during a 1980’s presentation at Montana State University. As nearly as anyone could recall, in the period before 1900, there were at least 250 processing plants in Montana, with about 80 breweries, nearly as many flour mills and packing plants, dozens of creameries and cheese plants, as well as a substantial vegetable canning industry in the Red Lodge area. (Professor Henry Bahn, Montana State University, presentation to Annual Extension Conference, October, 1985.)
As of the mid-1980’s, there was one flour mill left, no breweries, no canning plants, and only a few dairy plants and small country slaughterhouses. The great majority of raw products grown in Montana were shipped out to be processed elsewhere and then brought back to supermarkets then being developed in the state. It is now estimated that only 10% or less of the food consumed in Montana is grown in Montana. The emergence of supermarkets steered most customers away from small, local outlets, and the buyers for large markets have little patience to deal with anyone who cannot guarantee large, uniform lots of food on a consistent basis.
With hard work, some small enterprises have started again in Montana, producing flour, beer, wine, jerky and other value-added food products. Hutterite farms in the state have prospered, producing milk, meat, grains and supplying vegetables to farmers markets. They are also the principal producers of ducks, geese, rabbits and naturally grown turkeys.
There were no Hutterites in the United States until after World War II, when Canadian limits on ownership caused Hutterite leaders to consider returning. They were the legacy of German followers of Jakob Hutter, a protestant reformer, who were invited by Catherine the Great of Russia, to settle in the Volga region about 1770. When the hundred years exemption from forced service in the Czar’s army was up, many moved to South Dakota, and at the time of World War I, they moved to Canada, since they would not serve in the military and would not stop speaking German. There are at least 50 such farms in Montana, which operate as large cooperative settlements, like the Israeli kibbutzim, and as daughter colonies are needed, will increase in number. They generally live far from population development, essentially have free labor and can amass substantial resources when the opportunity to acquire land and equipment appears. Unlike the Amish, they readily adopt new agricultural innovations.
In Ravalli County, there were about 400 dairy farms, and nearly 10,000 milk cows in the 1950s and up to a dozen plants to receive milk. (USDA, p.8) Since then, all of the processing plants closed and milk must be shipped to Bozeman, to one of the few plants left in the state. One small private plant, Lifeline Dairy has since started up in Victor and five remaining dairy farms send their milk on a 500-mile round trip to Bozeman. Milk prices bounce between profitable and unprofitable, making planning uncertain. For a time in the 1980’s, the Huls family tried to bottle milk and produce cheese in Hamilton, but the effects of high interest rates, cheap foreign cheese, and uncertain milk supplies shut the plant down. The Cheese Factory in Corvallis, now a vehicle repair garage, once shipped more cheese than any plant in the nation. North Dakota has continued to expand cheese production, with very large dairies supplied by broad areas of cropland not threatened by subdivision, and supported by state subsidies for industrial scale cheese plants.
Much of the land once devoted to sugar beets went to hay and grain production and some now produces corn silage, with the advent of shorter-season silage corn hybrids. While dairy cow numbers have decreased, increased horse ownership has created a market for high-quality hay, which at 2008 prices is an important source of income for some farmers who have access to enough land and equipment. Horses are now an expensive luxury item, some are being abandoned, and the loss of horse slaughter plants in the US raises a question about the disposal of millions of horses.
Two USDA inspected slaughterhouses and several small butchering plants in the valley are processing livestock and wild game. Some ranchers will sell animals to order, but as in the marketing of any agricultural product, time, labor, aggravation and expense of hauling and selling one thing at a time, compared to moving a large number, works against individual sales.
There is limited production and sale of lambs and sheep, mainly through the Western Montana Sheep Association, which also markets wool. The lack of interest in lamb by the average consumer, lack of shearers and low prices for wool have diminished sheep numbers over time. The increase in predators makes sheep production virtually impossible except in some protected locations.
Beef cattle are still the largest source of farm income in the valley, since a large percentage of the private land is made up of poor soils which cannot be plowed or planted. Better lands are used for production of hay, grain and some corn silage. Some hogs are still grown, but there is no real market except for individual sales. An attempt to market cooperatively and ship to Utah or California did not work, since not enough hogs of uniform weight and grade could be assembled at one time to fill a semi for the long trip.
At one time there were several large egg producers in the valley, and some production of poultry for meat, but high grain prices and competition from Washington forced local producers out of business. A few people raise chickens for meat and process them for personal use. A few small producers provide some eggs locally. There are a few apiarists who produce honey and sometimes move bee colonies to locations where pollination is needed, but hive collapse syndrome has troubled the bee industry.
A less related aspect of agricultural production is the growing of nursery stock for landscaping and the allied landscaping and lawn care industry. This has expanded as more luxury homes, businesses, and other facilities require open space maintenance. There is a great variation in demand as the economy changes.
Also, there were some fur farmers in the valley, including producers of fox, mink and beaver pelts. The anti-fur advocates and increasing costs also put them out of business, as furs from abroad did not allow prices to change much since the 1930’s. There are a few people raising exotic animals, such as llamas, emus, bison, alpacas, yaks and at one point, musk oxen, but these are hobbies and not really profitable.
adapted from AGRICULTURAL HISTORY OF THE BITTERROOT – by Allen Bjergo, January 2009