Spring fever in Montana usually hits in full force in April, prompting its victims to plan summertime gardens. Though rival town Missoula was given the nickname “Garden City,” historically, the Bozeman area has been known for its successful seed pea industry, grain crops and, of course, sweet pea flowers. In the past, many in-town homes had vegetable and flower gardens, but several larger-scale farms graced South Church Avenue and Sourdough Road, stretching south from Bogert Park. Somewhat sheltered by the lengthy ridge to the east and benefitting from a proximity to Bozeman Creek as well as to downtown Bozeman, this corridor became home to several family farms and gardening operations that supplied Bozeman residents with fresh produce and flowers in the first half of the twentieth century.

The Stanton and Lessley families farmed for decades on this fertile ground. In the 1890s, newlyweds Eugene Frank and Rosalie Williams Stanton established their home on South Church Avenue, outside of the city limits. As an infant in 1866, Rosalie Williams traveled with her family from Utah to the Willow Creek area, where her father established a cattle ranch. Her husband E. Frank Stanton was a teacher and taught in several locations in Gallatin County, including Willow Creek, in the 1880s and 1890s. In about 1905, Stanton made a career pivot and became a rural carrier for the U.S. Postal Service. Also a self-taught lawyer, Stanton retired from his rural route in the early 1930s and until his death in 1936, became a “truck farmer” at his home on South Church.

Truck farming, or market farming, refers to small-scale, often family run operations that supply fresh produce and flowers to local residents and buyers. Though Stanton’s small farm appeared to be mostly a hobby in his retirement years, his son-in-law Herbert Lessley expanded truck farming into a larger family enterprise. A native of Missouri, Herbert Lessley Sr. initially worked as a chef at the Bozeman Hotel and the Bungalow Drug on Main Street. Herbert married Frank and Rosalie Stanton’s daughter Iva in 1917, and the couple settled into their own home on South Church, close to the Stanton place.

Herbert and Iva Lessley had a loyal customer base in Bozeman for over forty years. According to Herbert’s 1961 obituary in the Gallatin County Tribune, “Lessley was well known to hundreds of Bozeman folk who purchased their flowering plants and vegetables from him year after year.” Herbert Lessley Jr. certainly inherited his father’s green thumb. In 1925, young Herbert Jr. won first prize at the Gallatin County Fair for his cauliflower and celery entries, and second place for his lettuce. As an adult, he ran the family farm, studied horticulture, and operated Milam Greenhouses in Bozeman. The Lessley name may be familiar to longtime Bozeman residents for another reason. Herbert Junior’s brother William Wallace Lessley was a well-known local district court and water court judge until his retirement in 1982.

The name “Lutes” was also mentioned multiple times on the list of 1925 Gallatin County Fair winners in the vegetable department. Kentuckian Buford Lutes was recorded as a “truck gardener” living on South Church on the 1920 U.S. Census. Buford and his wife Deborah raised seven children, and members of the Lutes family continued to live on South Church Avenue into the mid-1970s. The April 28, 1939, issue of the Bozeman Courier highlighted several construction projects around town, including two cabins built by Herbert Lessley and Harold Lutes (grandson of Buford Lutes) along South Church. The Courier explained, “The Sourdough road on South Church Street is becoming an ever increasingly popular location for business men and women. Many of the cabins are being built by persons who work in town and find it convenient to raise a garden or keep a cow to help the family budget along... the neat log house belonging to Harold Lutes is typical of many being erected in this enterprising community... the log cabin which is almost completed, and owned by Herbert Lessley, has two rooms. A basement with an outside entrance provides space for storing canned goods.”

Others listed in the city directories as “market gardeners” on South Church Avenue in the early decades of the twentieth century included brothers William and Charles Hapner, Theophilus Hayes, and Louise Buehling. William and Charles Hapner and their siblings came to Bozeman at the turn of the century and almost immediately established their small farm on South Church Avenue, which they operated for the next forty years. Their sister Leora Hapner spent a long and distinguished career at Montana State College in the Department of Education and Psychology and served as department head from 1932 to 1947. Hapner Hall on the MSU campus was named in her honor in 1959. In her memoirs, written in the late 1950s, Leora provided some insight into her family’s attraction to growing things: “We always had an abundance of vegetables because mother and father worked days and weeks with hoes in the garden. Then they enjoyed giving them away to neighbors who did not seem so lucky.”

Theophilus Hayes first appeared in the Bozeman city directories on South Church Avenue in 1904. Theo and his wife Anna raised their seven children on their market farm until they retired to California in the early 1940s. German immigrant Louise Buehling and her husband Carl first settled in Butte, Montana after arriving in America in the late 1880s. According to her 1946 obituary, “In 1906 they moved to Bozeman and two years later they bought a little truck garden on Sour Dough and that has been her home since.” Louise loved her garden dearly “and spent most of her time working in it. She had little interest outside of her little place and seldom even came to town.”

Despite the impression of small-scale farming operations on South Church as quiet and peaceful endeavors, the activity was not immune from danger. In 1926, Bozeman newspapers reported a fire in one of the Lessley outbuildings. According to the Courier, the blaze “destroyed a warehouse on Herbert Lessley’s truck garden farm...with a loss of about $5,000 partly covered by insurance.” The report stated that members of the Lessley family and their neighbors attempted to extinguish the fire after it was spotted late afternoon on November 29. With the help of the Bozeman Fire Department, some shipping crates and machinery stored in the building were saved and the fire was isolated to just one structure.

The Lutes family suffered their own fire in 1941, when Emory and Mollie Lutes’ home burned to the ground. Emory, one of Buford and Deborah Lutes’ sons, owned his own small farm on South Church. According to the report, Emory Lutes started a fire in the kitchen range early one morning, then went outside to tackle a few chores. He returned “to find the kitchen in flames and the fire coming out the roof of the dwelling.” The Lutes home was a total loss, but with the help of the Bozeman Fire Department, the surrounding outbuildings were saved. The fire was attributed to a defective flue in the kitchen range.

Another interesting report occurred in the Gallatin County Tribune in June 1959, when Iva Stanton Lessley was “struck in the back by a spent bullet while working in her garden. Fortunately, the bullet only penetrated her clothing and barely broke the skin.” Gallatin County Sherriff Don Skerritt investigated the incident and while the party responsible was not found, it was determined an accident. Authorities assumed the stray bullet came from a minor’s inaccurate gopher hunting.

The stories of these family farms evoke memories of a simpler time in a beloved corner of Bozeman. This growing season, whether you are planning a small vegetable garden or preparing for a booth at the farmer’s market, carry on the heritage of these South Church Avenue families.