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SignatureMT | 47 around the gold mining boom camps. ese "prospector" counties were the first nine counties, carved out chiefly to align with corresponding mining districts. By contrast, the vast "homesteader" counties emerged when eager farmers poured into central and eastern Montana during the nine- teen-teens. e late historian Dave Walters explains it this way: "e earliest counties, smaller in size, were in the south- west, where the mining centers were and the really big ones were in the eastern part of the state…and nobody's out there." at would all change with the Homesteading Era and the great "county-spliing" boom. e thousands of homesteaders who arrived in the nineteen teens brought with them a demand for local county seats of govern- ment that were aimed at addressing their agrarian needs: sutler-like towns with sturdy brick banks, implement and hardware stores and grain elevators. e rapid expansion of counties added during the Homesteading Era, 1910- 1925, was twenty two. e 1909 Enlarged Homestead Act figured heavily in all this. Hardy homesteaders, bent on prosperity and quick riches from seed crops, anointed their balkanized counties with hopeful names like Treasure, Golden Valley and Wheatland. ey divided large counties into smaller ones in a frenzied pace. It made more sense to them to have a county seat 60 miles away instead of 260 miles away, and, so, small towns that formerly had lile claim to anything became the central place for farmers to file for deeds, register brands or automobiles, obtain titles to land, secure marriage licenses or start a county school. County seats, then, became magnet communities where folks gathered for the county fair or rodeo or election speeches. The "Homestead Boom" is often regarded as the "women's frontier" as many women filed for homestead rights under their own names. Tar-paper and sod houses dotted the landscape across central and eastern Montana. SAVE THE DATE Montana Audubon's Annual Bird Festival June 9–11, 2017 Great Falls, Montana Co-sponsored by the Great Falls Upper Missouri Breaks Audubon umbaudubon@gmail.com www.umbaudubon.com Vendor & Sponsor Opportunities Available Cathie Erickson (406) 443-3949 cerickson@mtaudubon.org www.mtaudubon.org www.facebook.com/MontanaAudubon 40 CELEBRATING YEARS Photo by Russell Hill Malibu/Axis Surf/Watersport Boats 4250 Lower River Road • Great Falls, MT mrboats.com • 406.761.1851 Surf Montana Test drive at our On-The-Water showroom MISSOURI R I V E R M A R I N E Start making family memories