Photo book features homesteads of the Bear Paws

Local photographer and book author Peggy Ray has published her third coffee table book of photography featuring life in the Bear Paw Mountains, this time focusing the many homestead shacks still hidden away on modern day ranches.

"Homesteads of the Bear Paw Mountains" has photos from several homestead shacks in various states of preservation and decay, along with some old family photos of the original homesteaders when they could be provided.

The "Homestead" book came about organically from her second book which had a short section with homestead photos.

"In this second book I did a chapter on homesteads, just a couple pages on homesteads," she said, "and that's when people started saying 'hey, I want a homestead book.' Everyone wanted to see them, and I always wanted to do one."

And, unlike her first two books - "Life in the Bear Paw Mountains" and "Life in the Bear Paw Mountains II" - which where strictly photography, she said, this book includes written entries with descriptions of the homestead plots and the homesteaders. Much of the information came from the original land patents which Ray found on file with Bureau of Land Management's Government Land Office Records website.

These records provided all the original legal information on the homesteaders and the property they were homesteading.

"We were able to find 99 percent of the patents," she said - the "we" referring to herself and Brian Evans, who assisted her with the project. "That information is in the book as far as when it was patented and what president signed the patent and all that stuff."

Some of the personal history of the homesteaders has been lost in time, Ray said.

Homesteaders who didn't have heirs who wanted the property sold their property on to someone else when they moved on or it was sold when they died. Also, many of the homesteaders failed to prove their claim - fulfill all the homesteading obligations or be able to pay off the property - and these homestead lands could be purchased by another person or business often for little more than the back taxes, she said.

"Some of these people, it's amazing what they did," she said because some of the properties didn't have much for water, they had to set up their own saw mills to make their own lumber, they had to find and mine coal for heat and more.

One of the problems in the western states is that patents were for a long time limited to 160 acres, which was a lot of land in the wetter Midwest and eastern states, but hardly enough to make a living in the West.

The original Homestead Act in 1862 allowed heads of family to file a patent on 160 acres of contiguous government land. To be eligible, an applicant had to be 21 years old, as well as a U.S. citizen or an alien who had filed for citizenship. Applicants had to live on the homestead for five years, making specific improvements to gain title to the land.

The Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909 doubled the land available to 320 acres and in 1912 the required waiting period was lowered to three years, and let the homesteaders spend five months of the year off the property. Along the Hi-Line, James Hill and the Great Northern Railroad promoted the area heavily for homesteading, greatly increasing the population in the area, especially from 1900 to 1910.

Ray, whose family homesteaded north of Chinook, said the family of her husband, Ronald Ray, including his great-grandfather, great-grandmother, grandfather and grandmother, homesteaded on adjoining property in the Bear Paws in 1898. They all proved their claims and were able to add other acreage along the way. The ranch passed down to Ronald Ray, and at this time the seventh generation is being raised on the family ranch, Peggy Ray added.

She included historical photos of the family homestead in the book, along with some familiar names like the historical M and M Horse Ranch, the Cowan Ranch, which has several homesteads, the Setty Place and many more.

She said a second homestead book will come in the future if this one sells as well as her first two books, which have sold enough to need extra print runs.

"If this one goes over well, we'll probably do a second Homestead book because there are so many more out there," she said.

She and Evans went just last weekend to another homestead to take photos.

"It's not in this book, but it was probably the most fascinating homestead I've been to," she said. "There were still five buildings there. The wild roses that you see around so many homesteads, they were still blooming. The hops that so many of them had was growing up on the side of the house. ... Those roses are probably 100 years old and probably the hops too."

Ray is selling her books - "Homesteads of the Bear Paw Mountains," along with her first two books - through her personal Peggy Ray page on Facebook. People also can order the books by calling her at 406-386-2223. She will also have a vendor booth at the Blaine County Fair, Aug. 10-14.