The Huntley Project is an

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been devel ...

project in southern

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

that was established by the

United States Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...

in 1907. The district includes the towns of Huntley, Worden, Ballantine, and Pompeys Pillar. Since the Huntley Project was established, the district's main cash crops have been

sugar beets Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

and

alfalfa Alfalfa () (''Medicago sativa''), also called lucerne, is a perennial flowering plant in the legume family Fabaceae. It is cultivated as an important forage crop in many countries around the world. It is used for grazing, hay, and silage, as ...

Silage Silage () is a type of fodder made from green foliage crops which have been preserved by fermentation to the point of acidification. It can be fed to cattle, sheep and other such ruminants (cud-chewing animals). The fermentation and storage ...

for the local cattle industry is also important.

History

Bison-hunting

Plains Indians Plains Indians or Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies are the Native American tribes and First Nation band governments who have historically lived on the Interior Plains (the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies) of ...

, especially the

Cheyenne The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enr ...

Crow A crow is a bird of the genus '' Corvus'', or more broadly a synonym for all of ''Corvus''. Crows are generally black in colour. The word "crow" is used as part of the common name of many species. The related term "raven" is not pinned scientifica ...

, and

Sioux The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin (; Dakota: /otʃʰeːtʰi ʃakoːwĩ/) are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations peoples in North America. The modern Sioux consist of two major divisions based on language divisions: the Dakota and ...

, frequented this region south of the Yellowstone River from the 17th century.

William Clark William Clark (August 1, 1770 – September 1, 1838) was an American explorer, soldier, Indian agent, and territorial governor. A native of Virginia, he grew up in pre-statehood Kentucky before later settling in what became the state of Miss ...

passed through in July 1806 with members of the Corps of Discovery and inscribed his name on Pompey's Rock. The Yellowstone River provided a route into this sagebrush-covered country for

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White ...

fur trappers, hunters, and settlers. The

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

made war on the Indian tribes over several decades, and the famous Battle of Little Bighorn took place nearby in June 1876. The district that now includes the Huntley Project was designated as part of the

Crow Indian Reservation The Crow Indian Reservation is the homeland of the Crow Tribe. Established 1868, the reservation is located in parts of Big Horn, Yellowstone, and Treasure counties in southern Montana in the United States. The Crow Tribe has an enrolled member ...

under a treaty ratified on May 7, 1868. This preserved the area from occupation by white homesteads and cattle ranches, but by 1880 the virtual extinction of the bison made the traditional Crow economy impossible to sustain. By 1895 Crow farmers successfully irrigated and farmed part of the reservation, which had been considered an arid wasteland. In 1882 the city of

Billings Billings is the largest city in the U.S. state of Montana, with a population of 117,116 as of the 2020 census. Located in the south-central portion of the state, it is the seat of Yellowstone County and the principal city of the Billings Metro ...

, linked to the

Northern Pacific Railroad The Northern Pacific Railway was a transcontinental railroad that operated across the northern tier of the western United States, from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest. It was approved by Congress in 1864 and given nearly of land grants, whi ...

, was founded within a few miles of the Crow reservation. In 1904 the United States government obtained the northern part of the reservation by cession from the Crow Indians.

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

authorized the Reclamation Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior to survey the land for a possible irrigation project. The Huntley Project, the fifth federal project to convert arid western land to farmland, was authorized in April 1905, and construction began in October. Despite cost overruns and unforeseen problems, the Pryor Division of the project, including Worden and Ballantine, was completed and receiving water by 1907. The project took its name from the town of Huntley, a station on the Northern Pacific Railroad. In 1907 the new Huntley Project townsites of Worden, Ballantine, and Pompeys Pillar were laid out at intervals of about six miles along the railroad. On May 21, 1907, President

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

declared the Pryor Division to be open for settlement. Farm units were distributed by lottery, but the pace of settlement may have been slowed by "lottery fanatics" from nearby Billings who drew numbers out of idle curiosity, with no intention of settling on the land. Of the first 1,000 names drawn, only 76 applied for a farm unit. The population of Huntley Project farms rose to 2,107 in 1917, but fell again to a probable low of 1,015 in 1923. Much of the irrigation infrastructure of the Huntley Project had been poorly designed and cheaply built, and replacements were soon needed. Growing demand for water required more irrigation canals and an auxiliary pumping station, and by 1913 problems with inadequate drainage had caused hundreds of acres of arid land to become waterlogged. Settlers found that

alkali In chemistry, an alkali (; from ar, القلوي, al-qaly, lit=ashes of the saltwort) is a basic, ionic salt of an alkali metal or an alkaline earth metal. An alkali can also be defined as a base that dissolves in water. A solution of a ...

in the soil made it difficult to profitably farm the area, and many farms failed in the

recession In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction when there is a general decline in economic activity. Recessions generally occur when there is a widespread drop in spending (an adverse demand shock). This may be triggered by various ...

following

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. Poor crop yields made it difficult for farmers to pay their portion of the district's costs, so Reclamation refused to fund needed improvements. Tensions between Reclamation and the district farmers peaked during the 1920s, until on January 2, 1927, the two sides settled their dispute with a new contract. Low water and dry weather in the 1930s led to the construction of the first retention dam, then a concrete weir in 1934. The

Anita Dam Anita or ANITA may refer to: Arts * ''Anita'' (1967 film), an Indian film * ''Anita'' (2009 film), an Argentine film * ''Anita'' (2021 film), a Hong Kong film *'' Anita: Swedish Nymphet'', a 1973 erotic film People * Anita (given name), people ...

and Reservoir project, about six miles southeast of Ballantine, was completed in 1937 by

Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government unemployment, work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was a ...

workers.

References

External links

"Huntley Project"
by Timothy A. Dick, Bureau of Reclamation
Huntley Project Museum of Irrigated AgricultureHuntley Project School District
{{Yellowstone County, Montana Engineering projects Buildings and structures in Yellowstone County, Montana Irrigation Districts of the United States Civilian Conservation Corps in Montana Yellowstone County, Montana United States Bureau of Reclamation 1907 establishments in Montana