Waco, Montana

Waco, Montana is a ghost town in Yellowstone County, a reminder of the homestead wave that rolled across the northern plains in the early nineteen hundreds. When the Northern Pacific Railway pushed through this stretch of eastern Montana, small stations and post offices sprouted every few miles to serve incoming farmers. Waco was one of them, established by nineteen oh seven, when its post office opened, during the early homestead rush.

The Enlarged Homestead Act of nineteen oh nine then offered three hundred twenty acres free to anyone willing to farm the short-grass prairie. The experiment largely failed. Drought, brutal winters, and soil that would not sustain dryland wheat farming drove most settlers out by the nineteen twenties.

Waco never recovered, and today only a scatter of foundations and a name on the county map remain.