Harold M. Hagen Papers, 1924-1965

Harold M. Hagen was born in Helena, Montana to Fred and Anna “Kinney” Hagen, May 15, 1909. In 1921, Hagen and his family moved to the Bitterroot Valley in western Montana, purchasing farmland from the Bitterroot Valley Irrigation Company originally settled as a homestead by Peter Whaley in 1877. The Hagen family were amongst the first to plant corn in the Bitterroot Valley and soon began raising dairy cattle, sugar beets, and potatoes.

Hagen graduated from Stevensville High School in 1927, going on to attend Montana State College (now Montana State University), in Bozeman, Montana. In 1939, Hagen married Willie May Sherwin, settling north of Stevensville, Montana. A year later, Hagen took over operations of his family’s farm from his father. Between 1940 and the late 1960s, Hagen became a prominent figure in the farming community of the Bitterroot Valley. It was also during this time that Hagen and Willie May would have two sons, David and Douglas, and one daughter, Helen. In the late 1960s, Hagen’s son David would apply to and be accepted to the University of Oregon Medical School, receiving an M.D. degree in 1968.

Through the mid-1960s and early 1970s, Hagen, with the support of Montana Senator Lee Metcalf, worked to convert his and neighboring farms into a wildlife refuge. Hagen relinquished the final parcel of his land, including his house, in 1974 to the newly established Ravalli National Wildlife Refuge (renamed to the Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge in 1978). However, Hagen retained life use rights to the property, and he and Willie May lived there until 1988. The Hagen farm was listed to the National Register of Historic Places as the Whaley Homestead in 1992.

Hagen died February 6, 2007, and is buried in Stevensville, Montana.