The People
All these counties were settled chiefly by homesteaders who came from all over the United States, but chiefly from the Middle West and Southwest. Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma are the states most widely represented. A great many are children of original homesteaders.
The breathless haste with which settlers occupied and developed this great primeval region of the West, rich in natural resources, is shown by the following figures of population:
| Beaverhead | Hughes | Sheridan | Union | |||||
| 1870 | 722 | |||||||
| 1880 | 2,712 | 262 | ||||||
| 1890 | 4,655 | 5,044 | 1,972 | |||||
| 1900 | 5,615 | 3,684 | 5,122 | 4,528 | ||||
| 1910 | 6,444 | 6,271 | 16,324 | 11,404 | ||||
| 1920 | 7,369 | 5,711 | 18,132 | 16,680 |
The greatest period of growth for Beaverhead was from 1870 to 1880; for Hughes from 1880 to 1890; but both Union and Sheridan made their largest increase from 1900 to 1910, while Beaverhead during those years has made a slow, steady gain.
Hughes has had “booms,” and has gained and lost population in succeeding decades. Sheridan and Union, the newer counties, have forged rapidly ahead of the others in population. Sheridan, on account of her city, has made a rapid urban increase, but her rural increase has been slow and steady. Union is a large county with no Forest Reserve area and has been homesteaded rapidly. Although, in 1903, 265 square miles were taken away from Union, the population in 1910 was 11,404, or an increase of 151.9 per cent. during the decade from 1900. The density of rural population per square mile in Beaverhead is 9.8, in Sheridan 3.5, in Hughes 3.3 and in Union 3.
The West has a smaller percentage of foreign-born population than the East or Middle West. In three of the states represented, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota, the percentage of foreign-born has decreased in the last decade. In Montana, it decreased from 24.4 per cent. to 17 per cent.; in Wyoming, from 18.6 per cent. to 13 per cent.; and in South Dakota, from 17.2 per cent. to 12.9 per cent. New Mexico, with the smallest proportion of foreign-born of any of the four states, went from 6.9 per cent. in 1910 to 8 per cent. in 1920.
Sheridan, with 15.9 per cent., is the only one of the four counties studied whose foreign-born population remained constant. In Beaverhead, the proportion fell from 18.1 to 14, in Hughes from 11.4 to 8.1 and in Union from 2.2 to 1.7. The total number of foreign-born in all four counties is 4,670, or 9.7 per cent. of the total number of people. Germans predominate in Union, Hughes and Sheridan. In Beaverhead, the predominating nationalities are Danes, Swedes and Austrians. The New Americans in Beaverhead, Hughes and Union are largely on the land; in Sheridan County, the majority are in the mining camps.
