Archives West Finding Aid

William H. Reed was born in Wisconsin on March 22, 1880. He worked a variety of jobs while growing up, including lumber production and working as a cook on a Mississippi steamboat. In 1902 he attended a barber school in Wisconsin and then went to North Dakota where he worked as a barber. Reed married Rose Luella Carlisle and the couple had two daughters. In 1910, the Reeds moved to Harlem, Montana to make a homestead claim and lived the remainder of their lives in the community. Reed met M. L. Wilson of the Montana State College agricultural faculty and became influenced by the professor’s advocacy of dry farming techniques. Reed himself became an outspoken advocate of strip farming and summer fallow practices to help producers working on the arid northern great plains. He wrote a pamphlet on the topic in 1920, Where Are We Headed For? and organized his Blaine County neighbors into the Summer Fallow Club to promote safer dryland cultivation methods. Reed died on October 28, 1969.