1951 Map of Grosfield Ranch

About this map

Family-named ranching and homesteading claims define this high-country landscape in Sweet Grass County, mapped just after the mid-century. The terrain is deeply inscribed by the livestock economy of the era, visible in the numerous irrigation Ditch lines that divert water from South Fork Big Timber Creek and Whitetail Creek to sustain the bottomlands. The map reveals a high density of early 20th-century residential history, often noting which sites remained active, such as the Buffalo Jump Ranch and Plaggemeyer Homestead, and which had been left behind. Sites like the Langus Homestead (Aban'd) and Vik Homestead (Aban'd) are explicitly marked as abandoned, providing a precise spatial record of the shifting settlement patterns in the foothills below Big Timber Canyon. Extensive topography shows the complex drainage systems of Long Gulch and Plaggemeyer Gulch as they descend toward Swamp Creek.