The Big Hole Valley once was known as "The Land of 10,000 Haystacks". Summer Haying Season was such a huge thing that men from all over The West flocked to Wisdom to find haying jobs. A strange contraption called the "beaverslide" was actually invented in The Big Hole. It helped ranchers create gargantuan three-story stacks of hay. Putting up that much hay required a lot of manpower hence the need for many men on all of the area's ranches.
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| A beaverslide ready to dump. |
Luckily, the Farm Security Administration sent photographer John Vachon to the Big Hole in 1942. Vachon's timeless photos are archived at the Library of Congress. We created an album of his haying photos.
Wisdom Haying Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/GYp5Wz5ChAkBapi57
The men shown in the photos were simply called "hay hands". Ranchers would put them up in a bunkhouse and feed them, too. The hay hands collected one paycheck at the end of each hay season. Oftentimes much of that sole paycheck was spent in a Wisdom saloon.
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| Chow time for hay hands. |
