She closes the Dooley section humbly; “please forgive our omissions and mistakes — our memory went with the town.”

A second edition of the book in 1985 adds only a few details, and a third edition published in 2005 wasn’t publicly available in the Montana Historical Society’s digital collections. But a documentation of Sheridan County historic resources for the National Register of Historic Places sheds more light on the growth and demise:

The land that would become Sheridan County was part of the “Great Blackfeet Reservation,” which several American Indian tribes were forced on to. The sweeping block of land in Northern Montana was broken up in 1888 and divided into three smaller reservations, including the Fort Peck Reservation, which only included a small part of southwestern Sheridan County.

Railroads would go on to market much of Montana that was previously viewed as unsuitable for agriculture as a “mecca for prospective farmers.” Some of Sheridan County’s land proved useful, but by the late 1910s a drought hurt crop yields and wheat prices collapsed. Many farms consolidated, and displaced families often left the region.

The dominance of railroads was also challenged soon.