Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1942-12-04
Robert L. Sutherlin Was Montana Pioneer
In Fields Of Agriculture and Journalism

spent the greater part Of his life in
advocacy OF sane and permanent de-
velopment of the agricultural resources
of the territory in which he had
chosen to make his home.
At the age of 81 years. in 1926,
Sutherlin, founder and publisher Of
the Rocky Mountain Husbandman,
died in a hospital at Great Falls.
Sutherlin was a native Of Missouri,
having been born at Bonneville, Oct.
%, 1874. His boyhood days were spent
on the ranch Of his parents. In 1886
he was married to Miss Harriet Hall
of Chicago, whose father was then one
of the leading wool buyers and COM
mission men Of the packing city. They
met in White Sulphur Springs when
the daughter had accompanied Mr..
Hall to Montana on a wool buying
trip.
It was the one great desire of Mr..
Sutherlin that he live to witness the
fiftieth anniversary. or Golden Jubilee
anniversary of the Rocky Mountain
Husbandman. This fiftieth edition was
published from the office of the news
paper in Great Falls, Nov. Is, 1926.
Started at Diamond City In 1875
On November IS, 1875, Sutherlin
printed the first copy Of the Rocky
Mountain Husbandman, at the old
mining camp of Diamond City, NJ. T.
Today, that newspaper which is still
being published, is the oldest news
paper in the state of Montana to be
published continuously under the same
name: and Sutherlin was at the time
of his death, the Oldest newspaper
publisher in the northwest, in years of
continuous. active service.
firm believer in the agricultural
future of Montana. Sutherlin con-
Quoted his newspaper as farm jour-
nal. In the early gold days, as is the
common condition, there were many
disappointments. There were not a
sufficient number of claims to satisfy
all, and many took up claims which
did not prove profitable. AS a result,
scores of those who had been lured
to the foothills of Montana by the call
of "Gold!" were forced to return to
the occupation which they had learned
as youths in the east-farming. The
the beginning that the soil Of Mon
was thus that Mr.. Sutherlin was
UIOuBtlG W d SLS1O1l VI lllC pOooADlAt1Co
of agriculture in the Treasure state.
Pioneering In Agriculture
At one time the paper had the
largest circulation Of all the news
papers then published in the state.
, and from its inception, it has been q
leader in the movement to develop
the agricultural resources of Montana.
Through the columns of the paper ir-
rigation was advocated most Wgor-
ously and in a convincing manner,
and Sutherlin lived to see many Of his
dreams of the arid land converted in
to prosperous farming centers full
filled.
When Sutherlin undertook his ven-
ture in newspaperdom, Montana! terri
tory was still in its placer era, and but
very little effort had been exerted
along lines of scientific agriculture. The
state, at that time, too, was without
railroad facilities. The task presented
in the equipping of a printing office
and the establishment of an entirely
new publication was consequently a
magnitudinous one.
The Husbandman was published in
Diamond City for number of years.
After the establishment of White Sui
phur Springs and the removal of the
Meagher county offices from Diamond
to the new town, the newspaper fol-
lowed to the new location, and was
issued from White Sulphur Springs
for a number of years. later moving
to Great Falls where it is published
today.
Came to State in 1865
Sutherlin's experiences in Montana
did by no means have their beginning
with the first issue of the Rocky
Mountain Husbandman.
The old gentleman harked back to
the days when Diamond City was truly
metropolis, narrating the stories
which had to do with the marvellous
diggings of Montana Bar in Confed-
crate Gulch.
1t was 1865, in the days when fabu-
lous fortunes were being made in the
valleys and along streams in Montana
in placer gold mining, when the more
adventurous of the country's spirits
were being lured by thousands by the
chance of the pick, the shovel and the
pan, in Montana's foothills, that R. N.
Sutherlin, then a young man, arrived
in Diamond City, M. T., to try his
fortune in a new country.
Coming to the new territory with
his brother, he was for year or two
engaged in different occupations. He
was freighter for time, hauling
supplies to and from Diamond City
where the two brothers had located.
Again, he was lumber dealer in
that mining camp metropolis, dealing
in mine timbers and miners supplies.
He, too, tried his whirl with the pan
and pick, and with partner worked
bar, not far from the famous Mon
tana Bar in Confederate Gulch.
Diamond a Ghost City
Diamond City," said Sutherlin, 'is
ghost city. Montana, like every other
western mining state, has a long list
of vanished towns. A history of Mon
tana Territory published in the 80's
purports to give the names of "every
village, settlement or city in the ter
ritory." The list contains many names
that are now only memory, and a
few that are not even that. Among
the latter are Yam Hill which was