FERGUS COUNTY. 



Fergus county is located in the very center of the state. Practically every agri- 

 cultural growth favored in a temperate zone finds hearty encouragement in its soils. 

 Stock raising has always been carried on extensively in the county. No other county 

 in Montana offers a more profitable field for agriculture and stock raising. 



In the past ten years agriculture has supplanted every other industry in im- 

 portance. The famous Judith Basin, which comprises the western half of the 

 county, is now known as one of the important wheat producing sections of the 

 world. Its 2,000,000 acres will all be yielding grain or hay crops within the next 

 five or six years. Recent settlement of the eastern sections of the country has 

 demonstrated its worth for grain crops of all kinds, and in the country tributary 

 to the Musselshell and Missouri rivers exceedingly fine crops of corn are grown. 

 Until a few years ago the fact that corn could be grown within the confines of 

 Fergus county was not even considered. 



No country on earth produces a greater yield of wheat per acre than the 

 Judith Basin. Reliable statistics have shown the average yield per acre in 

 some years to exceed 35 bushels. In the eastern sections around Grass Range and 

 Winnett, which lie outside the Judith Basin, unusually large crops of wheat have 

 resulted during the few years such crops have been grown there. In addition to 

 the wheat crop, which is the most important, large crops of oats, rye, barley, and 

 all the hay crops, are grown in all parts of the country. 



Fergus county is a wealthy community. The entire state does not offer in 

 any of its divisions a people who are in general more happily situated. 



The waterway?, draining the county are Judith River, which conveys the 

 waters of the Judith Basin to the Missouri River and the Musselshell and Flat- 

 willow, which traverse the eastern sections. 



There are numerous thriving towns in Fergus county, places of less than a 

 thousand people, which supply big prosperous tributary regions. Among these 

 might be mentioned Hobscn, Moore, Denton, Windham and Stanford, all in the 

 Judith Basin, and Grass Range, Roy, Winnett and Winifred, in the eastern and 

 northern sections. 



Lewistown, the county seat, has claimed for many years with considerable 

 foundation for the assertion, that it does more business in dollars and cents than 

 any city of its size in the world. With an estimated population of 7,500, Lewistown 

 is recognized as one of the leading business points of the entire state. Recent 

 activities in railroad building by the Great Northern and Milwaukee systems are 

 bringing every part of the county into close touch with the county seat. When 

 ther.e lines shall have been completed, Lewistown will be the most important rail- 

 way center in the state. During the past two years several large wholesale and 

 jobbing houses have opened branches in Lewistown, and two cement and stucco 

 plants, employing several hundred workmen, have been built, one of them being an 

 extensive producer at this time. The four banks of Lewistown show resources 

 approximating $6,500,000.00. 



Two very important features in the affairs of Fergus county are its efficient 

 school system and its good roads. Practically every school district has its com- 

 fortable, well located school house. The fact that Fergus county roads are the best 

 in Montana is admitted by every one who knows. 



The mining district has been and is now an important factor of the county's 

 wealth. Kendall and Maiden have been steady producers of gold ore, with some 

 silver-lead production in the latter camp, while recent discoveries in the Cone 

 Butte district of the Judith Mountains have disclosed extensive ledges of high 

 grade copper ore. Gild Edge, at one time the country's greatest gold producer, is 

 showing much activity this year. In the western part of the county, at the 

 foothills of the Belt Range, an English syndicate is mining sapphires from a 

 great ledge which has been exposed for a length of fully four miles. These gems 

 equal the famed sapphires of Ceylon and Burmah, both in brillance and value 

 as gems. The ledge is located in the Yogo district. 



There are not any large areas of desirable lands left for the homesteader in 

 Fergus county, but the price of deeded lands is reasonable. Many of the big early- 

 day holdings are being segregated into tracts to suit the purchaser, while other 

 lands may be acquired at prices that are attractive when their producing qualities 

 are known. 



The assessed valuation of the county in 1918 is $28,424,013 including railroad 

 property. 



