The Poor Farm Graveyard: Forgotten Lives in Missoula County

This memorial marks the burial ground of the Missoula County Poor Farm, which operated on this land for decades. Poor farms, also called county farms or almshouses, were the last safety net for people who had no other options: the elderly without family, the mentally ill, immigrants who had lost work, and people simply too poor or too sick to survive on their own.

The residents here came from different cultures and backgrounds, brought together only by hardship. When they died, they were buried on the grounds with markers that have long since disappeared, their names scattered to weather and time.

This memorial exists because local people decided that forgetting them entirely was not acceptable. It is a quiet reminder that every era has its people who fall through the cracks, and that the least they are owed is acknowledgment.