Bozeman Library

Homesteading on the High Plains

with Lee Silliman

Join Lee Silliman, photographer, archivist, and retired teacher and learn about the frontier settlers who advanced upon the high plains.

Learn about the frontier settlers of Montana.

This talk will focus upon the frontier settlers who advanced upon the high plains with great expectations that their labor and dedication to tilling the soil would eventually be rewarded with land ownership. Their saga is one of triumph and tragedy.

The Homestead Act, signed by Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862, was a major factor in the agricultural development of the West. First utilized by cattlemen in the late nineteenth century to establish operation bases, the homestead movement flowered in the early twentieth century as many thousands of people migrated westward in hopes of becoming successful dryland farmers. This lecture focuses upon the formidable odds against them, such as drought, wind, cold, remoteness and primitive technology. These determined homesteaders established homes, planted fields and gardens, nurtured modest livestock, and constructed supply towns along the emerging railroad lines. At first they flourished, but as the decades advanced, climatic conditions and economic forces conspired against them. Many persevered, and many sold out and moved on. Anthropologist John Martin Campbell aptly phrased it as a “magnificent failure.”

As a former resident of the Judith Basin of Central Montana, Lee Silliman became acquainted with the descendants of these early pioneers. In recent years he has returned to the high plains to photograph the remnants of this earlier era. Abandoned log and frame houses decaying with every storm, rusting machinery collected into “iron piles,” rotting horse collars and harness hanging in old barns, childless schoolhouses dotting remote landscapes, and wooden grain elevators “scraping” the prairie skies, were all focal points for Silliman’s camera and curiosity. This lecture will paint a vivid portrait of a poignant period in western history, using photographs, statistics, and first person narratives. Homestead era books from Silliman’s personal library will be on display, along with a free bibliography handout on the subject.

Lee Silliman is a retired teacher and museum archivist living in Missoula, Montana. He has curated exhibits of photography and vintage engravings that have garnered over one hundred venues in ten states since 1988.

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