Archives West Finding Aid

Isaac R. Swigart, M.D., his wife Mary Frances Farman Swigart, and their four children, Leslie, Francis, Natalie, and infant son John, set out from Beloit, Kansas in May 1896 on their way to Oregon. The move was due to John’s poor health. When the family reached Laramie, Wyoming, residents persuaded Dr. Swigart that the city needed another physician, so the family abandoned their plans to go on to Oregon and settled in Laramie instead. Dr. Swigart obtained permission to practice medicine from the state of Wyoming in 1899.

In 1900, Swigart’s interest in minerals led him to a partnership with E.P. Baker in the Strong Mine, located 18 miles northeast of Laramie on Horse Creek. The mine, originally known as the Swigart-Baker Group, produced copper ores and was operated by the Strong Copper Mining Company. It was abandoned in 1915 for lack of money. The town of Leslie was part of the Company’s development and was named after Swigart’s eldest daughter, Leslie. Mary Swigart operated the town’s boarding house and was also the postmistress of the post office that operated there from 1904 to 1909. Natalie Swigart Hanson, who received a diploma in Music from the University of Wyoming in 1909, played the piano and organ for community events held at the town’s schoolhouse and community center. In 1906, Dr. Swigart gave up his medical practice in Laramie and moved to Leslie where he lived until his death in 1909.

Following Dr. Swigart’s death, Mrs. Swigart moved the family to their original destination, Oregon. All went except Leslie, who had graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1902 and afterward taught school in Laramie, Sheridan, and then in Wheatland, Wyoming. There she met a young medical doctor named Marshall Kent and they were married in 1908, after which he practiced for a short time in Centennial, Wyoming. The Kents had one child, a daughter, Mary Louise, in 1909. Because of Dr. Kent’s ill health, they had to leave Centennial and go back to his family home in Kenesaw, Nebraska. He did not improve with the change however, and died in 1912.

Leslie decided to attend Lincoln Medical College at Lincoln, Nebraska, where she graduated cum laude in 1917. She applied for a license to practice medicine in Wyoming. It was granted and she took a position with Dr. Fred W. Phifer in Wheatland. She then moved to Hiawatha, Kansas and in 1921, joined the rest of her family in Oregon. In 1923 Leslie moved to Eugene where she lived and worked for the rest of her career. She served as vice president of the American Medical Women’s Association and was the first woman president of the Oregon State Medical Society. Leslie Swigart Kent, M.D., died of cancer in May 1953.