THE CHURCH ON
THE CHANGING FRONTIER
BIG HOLE RIVER, MONTANA
COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS SURVEYS
TOWN AND COUNTRY DEPARTMENT
Edmund deS. Brunner, Director
THE CHURCH ON
THE CHANGING FRONTIER
A STUDY OF
THE HOMESTEADER AND HIS CHURCH
BY
HELEN O. BELKNAP
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
MAPS AND CHARTS
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1922,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PREFACE
The Committee on Social and Religious Surveys was organized in January, 1921. Its aim is to combine the scientific method with the religious motive. The Committee conducts and publishes studies and surveys, and promotes conferences for their consideration. It coöperates with other social and religious agencies, but is itself an independent organization.
The Committee is composed of: John. R. Mott, Chairman; Ernest D. Burton, Secretary; Raymond B. Fosdick, Treasurer; James L. Barton and W. H. P. Faunce. Galen M. Fisher is Associate Executive Secretary. The offices are at 111 Fifth Avenue, New York City.
In the field of town and country the Committee sought first of all to conserve some of the results of the surveys made by the Interchurch World Movement. In order to verify some of these surveys, it carried on field studies, described later, along regional lines worked out by Dr. Warren H. Wilson[1] and adopted by the Interchurch World Movement. These regions are:
I. Colonial States: All of New England, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
II. The South: All the States south of Mason and Dixon’s line and the Ohio River east of the Mississippi, including Louisiana.
III. The Southern Highlands Section: This section comprises about 250 counties in “The back yards of eight Southern States.”
IV. The Middle West: The States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and northern Missouri.
V. Northwest: Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and eastern Montana.
VI. Prairie: Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska.
VII. Southwest: Southern Missouri, Arkansas and Texas.
VIII. Range or Mountain: Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada and western Montana.
The Director of the Town and Country Survey Department for the Interchurch World Movement was Edmund deS. Brunner. He is likewise the Director of this Department for the Committee on Social and Religious Surveys.
The original surveys were conducted under the supervision of the following:
Beaverhead County—Rev. Charles T. Greenway, State Survey Supervisor of the Interchurch World Movement for Montana. The County Leader was Rev. Thomas W. Bennett.
Hughes County—Mr. C. O. Bemies, State Survey Supervisor of the Interchurch World Movement for South Dakota. The County Survey Leader was Rev. H. H. Gunderson.
Sheridan County—Mr. A. G. Alderman, State Survey Supervisor of the Interchurch World Movement for Wyoming and Utah. The County Survey Leader was Rev. M. DeWitt Long, D.D.
Union County—Rev. H. R. Mills, State Survey Supervisor of the Interchurch World Movement for New Mexico. The County Survey Leader was Professor A. L. England.
In the spring of 1921 the field worker, Miss Helen Belknap, of the Committee on Social and Religious Surveys, visited these counties, verified the results of the survey work previously done, and secured additional information not included in the original study.
Special acknowledgment should be made to the ministers, county officers and others in these counties for their helpful coöperation and assistance in the successful completion of the survey.
The statistical and graphical editor of this volume was Mr. A. H. Richardson of the Chief Statistician’s Division of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, formerly connected with the Russell Sage Foundation.
The technical advisor was Mr. H. N. Morse of the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, who was also associate director of the Town and Country Survey in the Interchurch World Movement.
Valuable help was given by the Home Missions Council; by the Council of Women for Home Missions through their sub-Committee on Town and Country, and by a Committee appointed jointly by the Home Missions Council and the Federal Council of Churches for the purpose of coöperating with the Committee on Social and Religious Surveys in endeavoring to translate the results of the survey into action. The members of this Joint Committee on Utilizing Surveys are:
Representing the Federal Council of Churches
Anna Clark C. N. Lathrop Roy B. Guild U. L. Mackey A. E. Holt A. E. Roberts F. Ernest Johnson Fred B. Smith Charles E. SchaefferRepresenting the Home Missions Council and the Council of Women for Home Missions
L. C. Barnes, Chairman Rodney W. Roundy, Secretary Alfred W. Anthony Rolvix Harlan Mrs. Fred S. Bennett R. A. Hutchison C. A. Brooks Florence E. Quinlan C. E. Burton W. P. Shriver A. E. Cory Paul L. Vogt David D. Forsyth Warren H. Wilson
INTRODUCTION
THE POINT OF VIEW
This book is a study of the work of Protestant city, town and country churches in four counties on the Range. It discusses the effect on the Church of the changing conditions in the Rocky Mountain States, and the task of the Church in ministering to the situation which exists to-day. This survey, therefore, does not attempt to deal directly with the spiritual effect of any church upon the life of individuals or groups. Such results are not measurable by the foot rule of statistics or by survey methods. It is possible, however, to
The four counties studied in this book are Beaverhead in Montana, Sheridan in Wyoming, Union in New Mexico and Hughes in South Dakota. Many considerations entered into their choice. For one thing, it must be borne in mind that this book, while complete in itself, is also part of a larger whole. From among the one thousand county surveys completed or nearly completed by the Interchurch World Movement, twenty-six of those made in the nine most representative rural regions of America were selected for intensive study. In this way it was hoped to obtain a bird’s-eye view of the religious situation as it exists in the more rural areas of the United States. All the counties selected were chosen with the idea that they were fair specimens of what was to be found throughout the area of which they are a part.
In selecting the counties an effort was made to discover those which were typical, not merely from a statistical viewpoint, but also from the social and religious problems they represented. For example, the four counties described in this pamphlet were chosen because they are representative of large sections throughout the Range area.
It is recognized that there are reasons why exception may be taken to the choice of counties. No area is completely typical of every situation. A careful study of these counties, however, leads to the conclusion that they are fair specimens of the region they are intended to represent.
All these studies have been made from the point of view of the Church, recognizing, however, that social and economic conditions affect its life. For instance, it is evident that various racial groups influence church life differently. Germans and Swedes usually favor liturgical denominations; the Scotch incline to the non-liturgical. Again, if there is economic pressure and heavy debt, the Church faces spiritual handicaps, and needs a peculiar type of ministry. Because of the importance of social and economic factors in the life of the Church the opening chapters of this book are occupied with a description of these factors. At first glance some of these facts may appear irrelevant, but upon closer observation they will be found to have a bearing upon the main theme—the problem of the Church.
Naturally the greatest amount of time and study has been devoted to the churches themselves; their history, equipment and finances; their members, services and church organizations; their Sunday schools, young people’s societies and community programs, have all been carefully investigated and evaluated.
Intensive investigation has been limited to the distinctly rural areas and to those centers of population which have less than five thousand inhabitants. In the case of towns larger than this an effort has been made to measure the service of such towns to the surrounding countryside, but not to study each church and community in detail.
The material in this book presents a composite picture of the religious conditions within these four counties. Certain major problems, which were found with more or less frequency in all four counties, are discussed, and all available information from any of the counties has been utilized. The opening pages of the book, however, summarize the conditions within each county. While this method has obvious drawbacks it is felt that the advantages outweigh them, and that this treatment is the best suited to bring out the peculiar conditions existing throughout this area. The appendices present the methodology of the survey and the definitions employed. They also include in tabular form the major facts of each county as revealed by the investigation. These appendices are intended especially to meet the needs of church executives and students of sociology who desire to carry investigation further than is possible in the type of presentation used for the main portion of the book.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE I The Range Country 19 II Economic and Social Tendencies 40 III What of the Church? 56 IV The Church Dollar 71 V To Measure Church Effectiveness 77 VI The Preachers’ Goings and Comings 90 VII Negro and Indian Work 96 VIII Non-Protestant Work 98 IX Seeing It Whole
ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS AND CHARTS
ILLUSTRATIONS Big Hole River, Montana Frontispiece PAGE. The Town Lock-up 23 Loneliness in Union County 25 After Some Years 25 Two Community Centers 27 A Spanish-American Type and a Typical Adobe House in New Mexico 31 Where Main Street Might Have Run 33 A Wyoming Ranch 35 A Montana Mining Camp 36 When Oil is Found 37 A Farm Bureau Demonstration 41 A Home Demonstration Agent 42 A Truck Farm in Hughes County 44 Fruits of the Earth 45 Up-to-date Reaping on the Plains 47 Wisdom is Justified 49 Camping in Sheridan County 51 A Frontier Celebration 53 A Voice in the Wilderness 57 No Room for Both 58 Episcopal Church and Parish House 64 A Neglected Outpost of Christianity 75 Not a Store but a Church 78 A Case of Coöperation 80 Happy Little Picnickers 85 A Good Time Was Had By All
THE CHURCH ON THE CHANGING FRONTIER
CHAPTER I
The Range Country
A vast expanse of endlessly stretching plains, dun-colored table-lands, mysterious buttes against a far horizon, and “always the tremendous, almost incredible distances”—this is the typical Range country. There are a sweep to it and a breadth, and such heavens over the earth! In the East, unless some crimson sunset attracts indifferent eyes, the sky makes less of the picture than the earth. But this is sky country.
Roughly, the Range area comprises the states between the Middle West and the Far West, and includes a wide variety of landscape. Contained in this picturesque area are eight states with parts of others, a million square miles over which are spread four million people about a third less than are crowded into New York City. The four counties here studied, each in a different state, provide fair samples of a great deal of the country. Beaverhead County, in Montana, and Sheridan County, in Wyoming, are not far distant one from the other. Both are partly mountainous, rugged in contour, with wide valleys rimmed by mountains, and miles of undulating range land and low-lying hills traced by rivers. This is the country where “the smoke goes straight up and the latch-string still hangs on the outside of the old-timer’s cabin,” where still the “sage-hen clucks to her young at the water-hole in the coulee ... with lazy grace, the eagle swings to his nest in the lofty pinnacle and the prairie dog stands at his door and chatters.”
Beaverhead is in the extreme southwestern corner of Montana, slightly northwest of Yellowstone Park and straight south from Butte. It is bounded by Rocky Mountain ranges on the west, south and northwest. On the south and west it faces the State of Idaho. The county is well drained and watered by the two principal rivers, the Big Hole and Beaverhead, and by their tributaries, and here, too, the Missouri River has its source. Beaverhead County embraces 5,657 square miles or 3,620,480 acres. Of this area, 1,365,000 acres are included in the Beaverhead National Forest Reserve scattered over the north, west and southern parts of the county. A small part of the Madison National Forest also extends into the county on the west. The altitude at Monida, in the southern part of the county, is about 6,500 feet above sea level.
MONTANA AND WYOMING
Locating Beaverhead and Sheridan Counties.
The Wyoming county, Sheridan, lies in the extreme north central section of the state, about 110 miles east of Yellowstone Park, Montana forming its northern boundary. Sheridan is about 100 miles long and thirty miles wide, the total area being 2,574 square miles, or 1,647,360 acres, less than half the area of the Montana county, Beaverhead. The Big Horn Forest Reserve covers 383,493 acres of Sheridan County. Rivers and creeks are numerous, the chief ones being Tongue River, Powder River and Big Goose, Prairie Dog and Clear Creeks. The city of Sheridan, the county seat, has an altitude of 3,737 feet above sea level.
The other two counties, Union in New Mexico and Hughes in South Dakota, consist largely of plain lands. Union lies in the northeastern corner of the state of New Mexico, with three states, Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas, to the north and east of her. Union included 5,370 square miles, or 3,436,800 acres, at the time this survey was made. About one-sixth of the southwestern part of Union County has, however, been added to part of Mora County, to the southwest, to form a new county named Harding which was formally inaugurated on June 14th, 1921. The land consists mainly of dry, level plains and mesas, although there are some mountains and isolated hills or buttes. Aside from the mountainous area, which is wooded, there are scarcely any trees with the exception of a few along the larger creeks and those cultivated around ranch houses. The northwestern corner of the county is the most mountainous. The county is drained chiefly by Ute Creek, flowing southeast through the western and southwestern sections into the Canadian River, and in the northern part by the beautiful Cimarron. There are a number of small streams, but many are dry during a large part of the year. Union has exhilarating, bracing air and radiant sunshine.
SOUTH DAKOTA AND NEW MEXICO
Locating Hughes and Union Counties.
Hughes is a small county almost exactly in the center of the State of South Dakota. It has the shape of a right-angled triangle with the Missouri River forming its hypothenuse from the northwest to the southeast corner. It covers 485,760 acres of high and rolling prairie, with river and creek bluffs and bottom lands. Several creeks and small rivers flow directly through Hughes, and it is on the whole one of the best-watered counties in South Dakota. Pierre, the county seat, is the capital of the state.
Early Days on the Frontier
The story of these counties is bound up with the discovery and subsequent history of the West. It is, as Viola Paradise says, “the story of Indians and early explorers; of hunters and fur traders in the days not so very long ago when the bison ranged the prairies; then of a few ranchmen, scattered at great distances; of great herds of cattle and sheep, succeeding the wild buffaloes; and of the famous cowboy; then of the coming of the dry farmer with his hated fences; and of the crowding out of the open range cattlemen and the substitution of the homesteader.”
THE TOWN LOCK-UP
This primitive jail at Bannock, once chosen as the capital of Montana, has held some rough characters in its time, but is now abandoned.
It was at Two Forks, in Beaverhead County, near what is now the village of Armstead, that Lewis and Clark, at a critical point in their expedition, were met and befriended by the Shoshones, the tribe of their Indian girl guide, Sacajawea.[2] This was on August 17, 1805. White fur traders soon followed in the track of this famous expedition, and after them came Jason and Sidney Lee, in 1834, the first missionaries to reach Montana.
The next landmark in the county’s history is the “gold strike” on Grasshopper Creek, in 1862. News of the find spread like
Montana was established as a territory in 1864, Bannock becoming the first capital, and in the sane year the first county seat of Beaverhead County. The capital was removed to Virginia City in 1865, but not until 1882 did Dillon become the county seat. The boundaries of Beaverhead changed very little until 1911, when 938 square miles of Madison County, 600,320 acres in all, were annexed. Men began settling on the land west of Bannock as early as 1862; stock men mainly with herds. A few farmers also began to take up choice bits of land along the rivers. The railroad, then the Utah Northern, entered from the south in 1879. As it was being built, tent towns were established every fifty miles. One of these towns was never moved and grew into the present town of Dillon.
The first attempt to open up to the white man the land along the Powder and Lower Tongue Rivers, in what is now Sheridan County, was made by General Patrick E. Conner on August 29, 1865, and was eminently successful. He attacked the Arapahoe Indians with a force of 250 regular soldiers and successfully routed seven hundred warriors. The next effort ended, however, in disaster. On the twenty-first day of December, 1866, at a point on Sheridan’s southern boundary now known as Massacre Hill, eighty-two officers and men sacrificed their lives to the hostile Sioux and Cheyennes in attempting to open a road across the country from Fort Laramie to Montana.
LONELINESS IN UNION COUNTY
The black spot in the center of this not very attractive picture is a squatter’s hut.