Unbroken Montana: Vol 1. The Saga of Big Mike and Roy - Paperback

by Barry W. Bennett (Author)

Montana in the 1890's was booming. Thirty years earlier, mining had provided the territory with the wealth and jobs needed to begin settling a wild, harsh land. The Grant family began running cattle in the Deer Lodge area in the 1860's and this operation evolved into the famous Grant-Kohrs Ranch and showed that livestock would become a huge part of early Montana.

Sheep were first brought to Montana to help feed miners and the vast lands supported large flocks. Unlike other places in the West, sheep and cattle operations mostly got along, with many ranches raising both with few issues.

Montana was full of opportunity and thousands of immigrants were drawn to the land. Hard work, luck and more hard work gave the dream of freedom and success to men and women not born to privilege.

These people would be the core of modern Montana.

The Hanson Ranch was born of simple struggles and had developed into a going concern in Fergus County, near the beautiful town of Lewistown. Big Mike Hanson had built a thriving sheep operation and was a widower with a young daughter. His foreman was a brooding, troubled soul named Elmer and Mike relied on him heavily.

Mike wanted to improve his flock and create a championship herd. His ideas was to travel to Scotland to buy breeding stock and start a new era for the Hanson ranch.

And this is where the story of Unbroken Montana begins.

A chance meeting with a young, smart but impoverished 18 year old boy named Roy Douglas would alter the future for both.

Unbroken Montana is like a stew of stories, with histories and tales of how settlers lived and often died, struggling for a new future.