O'Fallon Historical Museum / Fallon County Jail

Montana’s “county-splitting” craze during the 1910s nearly doubled the number of county governments – from twenty-eight in 1910 to fifty-four in 1920. The Progressive Movement in Montana brought about the means for the change when it affected the passage of a legislative bill in 1911 establishing petition-and-election as an alternative to legislative creation of counties. Every small town that could muster the minimum four-million-dollar taxable valuation for a new county began setting its sights on county seat status.  

Custer County encompassed most of southeastern Montana, including what was later to become Fallon, Wibaux, Carter, Prairie, Rosebud, and Powder River counties, into the first decade of the twentieth century. Completion of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific’s railroad line through the area in 1908 brought an influx of homesteaders and agitation for closer county services. During 1909 or 1910, county splitters proposed a new county of Burt to be taken from Custer County’s eastern extremes. Few opposed the idea of a new county, but the pretenders to county seat status, among them Baker, Ekalaka, Wibaux, and Ismay counties, spent the next five years in pitched battle. In the end, only Ismay surrendered; Baker became the county seat of Fallon County in 1914, Wibaux became the county seat is Wibaux County (created from portions of Fallon and Dawson counties) in 1914, and Ekalaka became county seat of Carter County (created from portions of Fallon County) in 1917. 

The town of Ismay first lay claim as the county seat of the newly proposed Burt County, but Baker immediately challenged Ismay’s claim. Burt County joined the list of over fifty proposed Montana counties that were never created. In 1911, proposals for Fallon County surfaced, but again division efforts foundered. In July 1913, the Custer County Commissioners called a special election for November to consider county division, the location of the county seat, and the election of county officers. Ekalaka and Baker counties mounted heated campaigns that reached a fevered pitch by the first of November 1913. Editors of the local newspapers devoted their entire front pages to the battle. Baker County argued that its location on the railroad made it the better choice, Ekalaka countered that it was more centrally placed.  

Nearly eighty percent of eligible voters turned out to cast their votes in the November election. Fallon County was created and Ekalaka won the county seat by eighteen votes. The city of Dennis’s entrance to the race served the purpose of taking away one-hundred-sixty-nine votes that surely would have gone to Baker – a move that was designated by an alliance created between Ekalaka and surrounding counties against Baker. Because no town received a plurality of votes, another election was required. Baker again challenged Ekalaka in November 1914. When the votes were counted in the second election, Baker won by sixty-two votes. Ekalaka, however, was not conceding the county seat so easily. An Ekalaka County supporter filed a suit in the district court under the corrupt practice act seeking an injunction restraining the commissioners from moving the county seat. The suit made its way to the Montana Supreme Court which, in July 1915, ruled against Ekalaka.  

Upon the court’s decision, the county commissioners moved quickly to ensure Baker County’s claim to seat went unchallenged. The commissioners began investigating sites on which to build a courthouse and a jail. The commissioners had acquired the architectural firm of Link & Haire to prepare plans for a new courthouse and jail on a donated block several blocks from the courthouse to cost less than $10,000 and another for plans and specifications for a jail and heating plant to cost less than $9,000.  

In April 1916, the Fallon County Commissioners approved the plans of Link & Haire for a new county jail and a heating plant for the jail and courthouse. All bids submitted for the project were rejected in May when they exceeded the $10,000 limit. The commissioners apparently directed the architects to modify their plans, and they again received bids in July on a one-story jail, a two-story jail, and plumbing and heating. The commissioners accepted local concrete contractor H. F. Griesy’s $5,620 bid for a two-story jail and A. C. Jasperson’s $3,904 plumbing and heating bid. The Pauly Jail Building Company received the steel contract for $4,220. 

The Fallon County Jail instinctively called for a structural system repellant to escape and resistant to fire. Concrete was the logical choice of building materials. At the same time, the then popular Craftsman Style promoted concrete construction for the decorative quality found in its “severe simplicity of line”. Concrete and stucco also met several other Craftsman ideals such as being durable and inexpensive, lending itself to simple designs, having plain straight lines and unbroken wall surfaces, and being an indigenous material to the environment – Montana – where it was built.  

Fallon County Jail, National Register of Historic Places. Accessed January 13th 2021. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71975873.

Fallon History, Fallon County Website. Accessed January 13th 2021. https://www.falloncounty.net/#gsc.tab=0.

O'Fallon Historical Museum, Fallon County Museum - Way Back Machine. Accessed January 13th 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20110725231425/http://www.falloncounty.net/Museum/OFallonMuseum.htm.