Frank Hamilton Family - Paid for the Farm in a Single Crop

January 7, 2019

Articles from the Billings Gazette, Feb 2 and April 21, 1925 (both reprinted from the Melstone Messenger), tell the story of the Frank Hamilton family paying off the 158 acre farm they purchased near Melstone in eastern Montana with their first crop of Montana 'dark hard winter wheat.' Pre-depression grain prices were high, and Montana boosters in the local press used the story to promote farming settlement in the area; a follow-up article explains how the Hamiltons' success story was used by the Milwaukee Road railroad in its advertising. Frank Hamilton was a son of Supplina & Sarah Jane 'Jane' Hamilton and was married to Julia Aletha 'Allie' (Templeton) Hamilton. Cousin John Hamilton, on the Cedar Hills Ranch outside of Miles City, Montana (a descendant of Frank & Allie through their son Gaylord), preserved a copy of the story in original printing in the Melstone Messenger. Lynette Hamilton Novak has also preserved, through her grandfather Lloyd Jake Hamilton (also a son of Frank & Allie), a photo of that 1925 harvest featuring the same McCormick Header harvester shown in one of the newspaper photos.

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