The Church on the Changing Frontier Part 4

in 1920. Tenancy has increased 11.9 per cent. in Union during the past decade. This has been partly because so much of the land is held by absentee owners who have proved up on the land, moved away, and are waiting for property to go up in value; also because on account of the high taxation some cattlemen find that they make better profits by renting instead of owning.

Beaverhead County is rich in minerals, including gold, silver, copper, lead, ore, graphite, coal and building stone. Comparatively little mining has been done since the war on account of low prices. A large amount of coal is produced in Sheridan County. Stretching out one after the other in a compact series, there are six large mines north of Sheridan City, set in the midst of an agricultural area and having little relation to the rest of the county. There is also a small coal mine being operated at Arvada in the eastern part of the county. A number of farmers and ranchmen are lucky enough to have small coal veins on their land, and mine their own coal with pick and shovel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MONTANA MINING CAMP]

Oil is thought to be present in both Hughes and Union, but very little has been done with its development. There is some coal in the mountains in Union, and building stone and deposits of lime and alum are found in some communities. There are numerous gas wells in Hughes County. Many ranches have wells giving sufficient gas for all domestic purposes.

Each county has a number of smaller industries, such as printing establishments, lumber yards, etc. Sheridan City has several large plants, including an iron works, flour mill, sugar beet factory and a brick and tile plant. All the counties benefit from the summer auto-tourist trade.

The city and towns all have camping grounds for tourists. Sheridan has a tourist building, with a sitting-room, fire-place for rainy days and rest rooms, in her city park. Sheridan also has a park in the Big Horn Mountains. Both Beaverhead and Sheridan have a small number of resorts.

Sheridan has three "Dude" ranches, the largest of which is the Eaton ranch, established in 1904.

The Young Idea

Good school systems have been developed in the comparatively short time since these counties were organized and running as active units of group life. Buildings are almost all fairly well built. Teachers receive good salaries. Of course, the schools are nowhere near ideal. The isolation and distances present serious school problems. Small rural schools persist where distances are great. Union is the only county of the four with any consolidated schools. The problem of supervision is great. Each county has local school districts and a local board of trustees in each. The county superintendent, a woman in each county, has a difficult time visiting the more remote schools and does not reach them often. Many roads and trails are practically impa.s.sable during the largest part of the school year.

Because of the isolation it is often difficult to find a teacher or to get a place for her to live, when one is secured. School terms vary from five to nine months, the longer terms predominating. Only six communities in the four counties have active Parents' and Teachers' a.s.sociations.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHEN OIL IS FOUND

The Snorty Gobbler Project at Grenville, N. M.]

Besides the two elementary schools in Dillon, used as model schools by the State Normal which is located there, Beaverhead County has forty-six elementary schools. Two of these, the schools in both villages, Wisdom and Lima, offer one year of high school. The only four-year high school in the county, located at Dillon, has sixteen teachers and a student enrollment of 185. The entire school enrollment in the county in 1920-21 was 2,671; the total number of teachers, 100; the total cost of school maintenance $510,006.00. The State Normal had an enrollment of 561 during the summer of 1920; 190 in the winter of 1920-21 and 620 in the summer of 1921.

There were seventy-four schools running in Sheridan County in 1920-21, not including the city schools. In addition to the Sheridan High School, there are five schools in the county offering some high school training. Big Horn has had a four year course, but this year (1921-22) is sending her third and fourth year high school pupils to Sheridan City in a school bus; Dayton offers two years of high school, and Ranchester, Ulm and Clearmont each have one year. An annual county graduation day is held in the Sheridan High School. It is an all-day affair with a picnic in the park in the afternoon. The total number of pupils in rural schools in 1920-21 was 1,850, the total cost of maintenance, $264,647.21. The Sheridan High School with its enrollment of 522 is the largest in the state. The total school enrollment of the county, including the five Sheridan City elementary schools and the high school was 4,772. There was a total of 173 teachers, of which ninety-six were employed in the rural schools. A parochial school in Sheridan City has an enrollment of about 180 and four teachers. The city also has two privately owned business colleges with a total enrollment of 150.

In Union County, there are 108 elementary schools outside of Clayton, with a total enrollment of 4,500 and a force of 170 teachers. Nine schools have some high school work. Five have a two-year course; two have a four-year course. Several elementary schools have been consolidated within the past few years, and occupy new buildings to which the children living at a distance are transported in motor trucks. Besides four earlier issues of school bonds, totalling $79,000, the people have voted, in this year of hard times, an additional issue of $88,000. Clayton has four elementary schools with seventeen teachers and an enrollment of 723. The Clayton High School has twelve teachers and an enrollment of 225. It has a new well-equipped building.

Hughes County has thirty-nine rural schools outside of Pierre. Four schools offer some high school work, two offering one year, one two years and one three years. Pierre has three elementary schools. The Pierre four-year high school has 220 students. The total school enrollment of the county, including the schools in Pierre, was 1,530, the total number of teachers seventy and the total cost of maintenance $130,199.35. There is a Government Indian Industrial School located just outside Pierre.

The lack of opportunity for high school training in so large a part of each county, brings about an increasing migration into the county seat for educational advantages. Many families leave their ranches and move in for the winter instead of sending a child or two. Some come in for elementary schools, because of bad roads and the inaccessibility of their country school. This is one of the greatest factors in the growth of these centers. To ill.u.s.trate the number of pupils from the country, 150 of the 522 pupils of the Sheridan High School are non-resident and all but about ten are from Sheridan County. In Union County, fifty of the 225 pupils in the Clayton High School come from all over the county, the majority coming from ten miles around Clayton. The number of county children attending Clayton schools is increasing at the rate of about 15 per cent. a year.

These children have certain marked characteristics. They are older for their grade than the town children, they average higher marks, and are anxious to make the best of their opportunity. In other words, they do not take education for granted, like the town or city child.

CHAPTER II

Economic and Social Tendencies

Growth of the Farm Bureau

No greater laboratory exists for scientific farming than in this western country. A Farm Bureau, popularized through county agents, is an a.s.set of prime significance to a region that will endow the rest of the country with the fruits of its development. Hughes, in 1915, was the first of the four counties to organize a Farm Bureau. Sheridan and Union followed in 1919. Beaverhead County has no Farm Bureau. A County Farm Agent was employed for eight months in 1918, but did not have the support of the ranchers. They felt that an agent, in a stock raising county like Beaverhead where hay flourished without cultivation, was a needless expense. As one rancher remarked, "We did not want some one who knew less about our business than we did." As an index to the success attending expert farm advice, one entire community in Beaverhead attempted and abandoned dry farming, whereas in other counties where Farm Bureaus and agents have given service and advice no entire community has failed so completely.

The Farm Bureaus not only improve agricultural methods, but are creating local leaders and a community spirit. The Farm Bureau offers a definite program that is rewarding if adopted. It develops in the individual community a spirit of independence and self-respect which must precede cooperation. The Sheridan Farm Bureau records a typical objective: "to promote the development of the most profitable and permanent system of agriculture; the most wholesome and satisfactory living conditions; the highest ideals in home and community life, and a genuine interest in the farm business and rural life on the part of the boys and girls and young people.... There shall be a definite program of work ... based on the results of a careful study of the problems of the county. It shall be formulated and carried out by the members of the organization, with the a.s.sistance of their agents and specialists as may be available from the State Agricultural College."

Each Farm Bureau has county leaders or a board of directors, each member specializing in and promoting some particular project, as poultry, cattle, marketing of grain, dairying, roads, child welfare, clothing, food and county fair. During 1919-1920 forty-three Farm Bureau meetings were held in Sheridan County, with a total attendance of 1,321. Twenty extension schools or courses were given with a total attendance of 261. Two community fairs were held, and six communities put on recreation programs.

The Farm Bureau upheld Governor Carey's announcement of Good Roads Day by donating $3,300 worth of work on the roads. Seventeen communities were organized; twelve have community committees. Nothing can better create community spirit and enlist cooperation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A FARM BUREAU DEMONSTRATION

The County Agent for Sheridan is making gra.s.shopper poison.]

Each community also adopts a program of work of its own under the leadership of the community committee. A community program for Union County, which is inaccessible to the railroad, is as follows:

Program of Work Goal for 1921 Accomplishments Work Still To Be to Date Done

Poultry Market eggs Letters written Prices not sufficient for markets to warrant shipping as yet

Livestock Organize pig Two talks club Two leaders Organize calf secured club

Home beautifi- Plant trees, Planted cation vines and shrubbery

Road Fix bad Secured county Keep at it places aid. Got bridge

Rodent Rodent poison 11 poisoned Eradication demonstration

Coyote "Kill 'em" Nine put out Complete it coyote poison and killed 48 coyotes

[Ill.u.s.tration: A HOME DEMONSTRATION AGENT

Here is a Woman's Club at an all-day meeting in Union County receiving instructions in the workings of an iceless refrigerator.]

The Farm Bureau works with the County Agents, the Home Demonstration Agents, and the Boys' and Girls' Club leaders, wherever such agents exist.

The County Agents are giving themselves whole-heartedly to their jobs, and the demands for their services keep them busy driving through counties for purposes of demonstration or organization. The Hughes County agent reports the following schedule: fifty days on animal disease, thirty-seven and one-half days on boys' and girls' club work, thirty-seven days on organization, twenty-three days on marketing and 116 days on miscellaneous work.

Sheridan and Union have Home Demonstration agents, energetic women, who go out over the county organizing groups of women and giving demonstrations and talks. Some of their achievements in Sheridan County may be cited.

Hot lunches were established in six rural schools in cooperation with the Public Health Nurse; some phase of health work was carried on in four communities and in Sheridan City schools a clothing school was held; 200 women were taught the Cold Pack method of canning; four home convenience demonstrations were given; five pressure cookers were purchased; twenty-five flocks were culled; twelve American cheese demonstrations were given, and 500 pounds of cheese made.

Boys' and girls' club work is carried on in every county except Beaverhead. The boys and girls all over the county are organized into clubs and work on various kinds of projects. Union County's record for 1920 is notable:

Kind of Club Total Membership Value of Products, 1920 Pig Club 83 $8,107.00 Calf Club 39 1,568.00 Poultry Club 30 367.00 Cooking " 36 220.00 Serving " 36 310.00 Bean " 13 165.60 Maize " 10 120.00 Corn " 25 1,765.00 --- ---------- Total 272 $11,622.60

Pure-bred hogs and cattle owned by boys and girls are sold under the auspices of the Farm Bureau. Prizes are offered. In Sheridan County, the county club champions are sent to the "Annual Round-up" at the State University. In Hughes, three teams of three members each were given a free trip to the State Fair as a reward for their efforts and achievements. One member of the Cow-Calf Club won a free trip to the International Live Stock Show in Chicago as a prize for his exhibit at the State Fair.

Development of Cooperation

Irrigation means cooperation, but cooperation in buying and marketing is comparatively a new development. Cooperation, however, is a necessity because so many farmers are distant from the trade centers and shipping points. Cooperation is the prime interest of the Farm Bureaus which, in some counties, undertake cooperative buying and selling. The Hughes County Farm Bureau has been especially effective in promoting cooperative enterprise. Says the County Agent:

The Medicine Valley Farm Bureau has done considerable work along different lines, but the most outstanding has been the promotion of a Farmers' Cooperative Elevator. Most of the stock in this enterprise has been sold and work will be started very soon on the building....

The Harrold Live Stock Shipping a.s.sociation was promoted by the Farm Bureau Community Club south of Harrold. Several meetings were held by this club on marketing. Members were supplied with cooperative shipping instructions and information. At the present time, most of the stock shipped out of Harrold is shipped through this organization.

It has proved a success. This community club was also instrumental in the promotion of a cooperative elevator at Harrold ... in addition to the organization projects on marketing, considerable buying and selling in car-load lots has been done by the different Farm Bureau Community Clubs. The Snake b.u.t.te Community Club has bought four car-loads of coal for its members, with a saving of at least $200.

They have also bought a car of flour, a car of apples and a car of fence posts, all of which has effected a saving of another $200. Three other community clubs have bought supplies by the car-load. These purchases have netted members of the county a saving of approximately six hundred dollars.... (The Farm Bureau through its exchange service has located 4,550 bushels of seed flax, 495 pounds of Grimm alfalfa seed, 200 bushels of seed wheat, 100 bushels of rye and 800 bushels of seed corn.) One thousand, six hundred and eighty-five pounds of wool was also directed to the state pool of the National Wool Warehouse and Storage Company at Chicago, Illinois.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A TRUCK FARM IN HUGHES COUNTY]

Beaverhead County has three active stock-growers' a.s.sociations, the most active of which is the Big Hole Stockmen's a.s.sociation which established stock yards at Wisdom and at Divide, their shipping point. They finally induced the railroad to help pay for the yards. This a.s.sociation was founded chiefly to work for a road from the Big Hole over into the Bitter Root Valley. The Forest Service was willing to help build the road if Beaverhead and Ravalli Counties would also help. Beaverhead County did not favor the project because it feared compet.i.tion from the Bitter Root products. But the Big Hole Valley wanted the road on account of the business it would bring in. The Stockmen's a.s.sociation raised about $7,000 towards it and the county finally put in $3,500. Besides their contribution of money, the members of the a.s.sociation donated time and teams. One reason why they have held together so well and so long was because they shared the debt. It has been hard sledding, but they have won out. Their wage scale, which is established annually, was successfully operated for the first time last year (1921), when all but two ranchers stuck to the prescribed wage of $2.00 per day for hay hands. They have fixed up the Fair Grounds at Wisdom and give a Pow-wow there every year.