The Thomas Hagerty Homestead

Like many privately owned properties throughout Montana, the Thomas Hagerty homestead came into private ownership thanks to the Federal government which first surveyed the land, and later opened it up for homesteading.

Hagerty, a single man, filed to homestead Sept. 29, 1915 on 160 acres in the Swan Valley. In 1920, a Forest Service inspector wrote that the southern area of this parcel consisted of a spruce swamp bordering Barber Creek which was practically level and covered with water "owing to numerous beaver dams."

The inspector went on to record that during the first five years on the clai...