Valley of a Thousand Haystacks
Posted by: 
BruceS
N 46° 35.462 W 112° 39.423
12T E 373065 N 5161052
Historical marker commemorating the haying operations in the area.
Waymark Code: WM23E4
Location: Montana, United States
Date Posted: 08/28/2007
Views: 34
The Valley of a Thousand Haystacks
The Little Blackfoot Valley is filled with lush hay fields. You
already may have noticed rounded haystacks and commented on the strange-lodgepole
structures standing in many of the fields. This contraption that looks
like a cross between a catapult and a cage is hay-stacker that actually acts
like a little of both. It was invented before 1910 by Dade Stephens and H.
Armitage in the Big Hole Valley about sixty miles south of here. The
device called a beaverslide, revolutionized haying in Montana. It helped
keep the wind from blowing the hay and cut stacking time considerably.
To work the beaverslide a large rake piled high with way is run up the
arms of the slide (sloping porting of the "catapult"). At the top of the
hay dumps onto the stack. The side gates (the cage part) keeps the stack
in a neat pile and make it possible to stack higher. The sides were added
to the system in the late 1940's. Although the lifting of the rake is
usually powered by a take off from a tractor, truck or car axle, on some
operations horse teams still provide the rpm's to muscle the hay up the slide.
Aside from minor improvements, the beaverslide has remained unchanged
since its inception. Once used throughout a good portion of the northern
west, modern technology that can shape hay into bales, loaves or huge jelly
rolls have replaced it in many areas. The Little Blackfoot is one of
several valleys in Montana where you can still see the beaverslide and its
distinctive haystacks.~ text of marker