Milton Simpson Collection, 1885-1942

The Milton Simpson collection consists of eighteen photographs of the Simpson ranch and cattle, 1903-1942, two receipts for taxes and horse purchases by Charles Simpson, a 1941 letter from the Montana Stockgrowers Association to Milton Simpson, and an 1885 memoranda book kept by Arthur H. Sanborn. Sanborn was a civil engineer from Massachusetts who worked as a ranch foreman for Charles Chandler Stephens and kept the memoranda book to record his expenses during trips into Miles City, Montana, for supplies between June 27, 1885 and September 16, 1886. In 1886, Sanborn filed for water rights on Pumpkin Creek in Custer County, but his holdings were likely absorbed by Charles Simpson before Sanborn moved on to Berkeley, California with his wife, Julia Stephens Sanborn and her children. The information Sanborn recorded in his memoranda book include items and services purchased, along with the price paid, in chronological order. The photographs each have some identification written on the verso, and actual titles of individual images have been put in quotation marks.