Distinctly Montana Magazine

62 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • W I N T E R 2 0 2 4 - 2 5 Local farmers platted their land for towns, and people moved in. Many workers built their houses on the spot, but just as many simply trucked in small buildings, storage sheds and chicken coops from their now-abandoned farms. The collective popu- lation of the area remains murky, but several dozen thousand people is probably a safe bet. The number of boomtowns that "popped," "sprang," and "mushroomed" up around the dam is also a matter of debate. Place names like Delano Heights, Free Deal, Square Deal, Martinville, Idlewild, Park Dale, and Park Grove pepper the history books. Some sources cite 18 total com- munities; others call out 21. The most judicious conclusion is that it all depends on how historians are defining a "community," and what kind of infra- structure had to be present for a gathering of people to con- stitute said community. Is Cactus Flat, for example, a clutch of brothels that housed the epicenter of the sex trade at Fort Peck Dam, considered a "community"? Amazingly, it depends on whom you ask. Many men chose to live outside the barracks in Fort Peck because the barracks were expensive. They were either send- ing money home to their families, or more likely, their families were living with them. Hiring priority was given first to married men and unemployed veterans in Valley County; then, to all able-bodied men in Montana; then, to job seekers from out of state. Many workers were former dryland farmers from the area, whose land had been bought up by the Corps and was destined to be drowned by the dam. Dam jobs paid handsomely, 50 cents an hour for 34 hours a week, and they were cutthroat to get, too. People put up with a lot to hang onto their jobs. Women worked, too. On top of raising families, many mothers provided laundry, seamstress, and barber services out of their homes. Married and unmarried women alike worked outside the home, either for the Corps or as (or for) business owners in the boomtowns. This is to say nothing of the many women who were sex workers. In the winter of 1935, all single boomtown men (including married men whose families had not yet relocated to the dam- site) were ordered to relocate to the government barracks in Fort Peck. If they didn't comply, they risked losing their jobs. Two thousand workers signed a petition protesting the order. The petition was sent to Montana Senator Burton K. Wheeler, who wheeled and dealed in Washington to get the order re- scinded. Married men, as well as men who shared a house with other male workers, were allowed to stay in the boomtowns. DAY IN THE LIFE OF A BOOMTOWN Oral histories from the "New Deal in Montana/Fort Peck Dam Oral History Project," recorded in the late 1980s by the Montana Historical Society, relay the texture of daily life in the boom- towns. Homes were of simple-frame construction and covered with plaster, stucco, tarpaper, or asphalt sheet. Floors were typ- ically linoleum or plywood. In Bucking the Sun, three characters install a genuine wood floor inside the first bar in Wheeler, the biggest and most infamous boomtown. Inside walls were paint- ed, whitewashed, calcimined, or covered in wallpaper, newspa- pers, or magazine pages. In Fifty Cents an Hour: The Builders and Boomtowns of the Fort Peck Dam, author Lori Lonnquist relates a particularly memorable account of an early house that was pa- pered inside with blueprints of the dam. In a romantic kind of way, this detail also makes it into Bucking the Sun, as the Duff's MONTANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY (3)

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