The Ronan pioneer., 1917-08-17
WAS POTATO KING
OF PIONEER DAYS
FREDERICK TIMNONS GREW THE
FIRST TUBERS FOR MINERS
OF OLD ALDER.
Buyers FlOcked to His Place on Mill
Creek, Anxious to Purchase New
Grown Potatoes; One Wagon Load
of 20 Sacks Brought Him $500 in
Gold Dust.

Before Pat Carney Of Waterloo be-
came the potato king of Montana
there was another potato potentate.
His name was Frederick Timmons
and he was the first man to plant po-
tatoes in Montana. He grew potatoes
for the placer miners of Virginia City,
and made a small fortune in couple
Of seasons.
Timmons had come to Montana to
mine. The gold camps around Vir-
ginia City contained a population at
that time of about 10000 people. Up
until 1866 potatoes were brought by
OK teams from Salt Lake City and
sold for $65 per hundred pounds.
That was the wholesale price. The
merchants sometimes retailed pota-
toes as high as 81 per pound.
Before coming to Virginia City, :.
Timmons had been a farmer. He
knew all about growing potatoes. He
was getting SIS day working in the
placer mines, but it cost him half
his wages to pay his expenses, and he
resolved to go to potato growing.
Land Was Free.
In the fall of 1864 he went down
the Ruby valley and picked out what
he thought was the best piece of
ground for potato growing. 1t was
on Mill creek, near where the pros
porous town of Sheridan is situated,
and the land was his for the asking.
A few squatters had located up and
down the valley, now thickly populat-
ed, but most of the ground was open.
Timmons spent all of one season
preparing. He managed to buy
team of horses, and got a blacksmith
to work over and repair parts of an
old plow with which he broke the
sod. He made arrangements with
number of restaurants to cut out the
"eyes" of sprouting potatoes in the
spring, and use the body of the tu-
ber for their customers. In this way,
by a slow and laborious process, he
accumulated his Seed
He managed to plant 20 acres of
potatoes in the spring of 1865. He
titled his ground carefully, and ran
little ditch out of Mill creek with
which to irrigate his patch. He had
stopped long enough in Salt Lake
City to acquire little knowledge of
the merits of irrigation. He knew,
too, that he must not get too much
water on the growing plants. He
even laid in a little store of paris
green to kill the potato bugs which
never came.
Watched Patch Carefully.
No mother ever watched her first
born more jealously than did Tim
mons that little potato patch. When
l.,
a few friends of his, miners who had
been working in the placer diggings
all summer, out to his ranch to help
him gather his crop. They were glad
to get out into the country for a few
days. Before their arrival he went
up into the Tobacco Root foothills
just back of his ranch and killed
couple of deer. This venison was
hanging in his improvsed smoke
house when his friends arrived. The
first night he gave them a dinner of
venison mulligan with plenty of new
potatoes in it. 1t was feast for the
gods, and before they started to work
the next morning they insisted on
warming up what was left of the null
ligan for breakfast
Buyers Come to Him.
In a few days he had his potato
harvest in sacks and was ready to be-
gin business. He did not have to
haul them to Virginia City. Men
made rich in a few months in the
mines drove down the 20 miles that
separated his place from the diggings,
paid over yellow gold dust for the
fruit" and hauled their purchases
away. Tom Baker, then on one of
the Virginia City newspapers. printed
story about this crop of potatoes,
and after that Timmons had all he
could do for few days selling his
produce. AS the store diminished,
like good merchant, he raised his
price.
Finally the demand subsided lit
tie and he concluded to haul a load
of potatoes to market. He had prob
ably 20 sacks of potatoes in this load,
and was sold ont clean 80 minutes
after his arrival in Virginia City. The
20 sacks brought him $500 in gold
dust
Timmons realized something like
$1,000 on his first crop of potatoes.
He continued to grow potatoes for
several years, but in the meantime
others had gone into business. and
soon they were a drug on the market
soon they were drug on the market.
He afterwards sold out his place and
went into the Bitter Root to live.
FOrger Is Insane.