Montana’s Last County: Cat Creek Oil, 6,000-Acre Ranches, and the Fight to Keep Winnett Alive
Petroleum County exists because of a cowboy who roped a mountain lion and a wildcatter who struck oil at 660 feet. The cowboy — whose encounter gave Cat Creek its name — is probably apocryphal. The oil is not. In February 1920, the Frantz Corporation’s “Antelope No. 1” well began producing crude from the Cat Creek field in what was then the eastern edge of Fergus County, and the oil was of such extraordinary quality — yielding approximately 50 percent gasoline straight from the ground — that tractors and Model T Fords could reportedly run on it without refining. The oil was so abundant and storage so nonexistent that it was initially dammed up in a coulee and given away free to ranchers and farmers for use as livestock dip. By 1922, the Cat Creek field was producing 2.2 million barrels annually, and Montana had its first genuine oil boom.
The boom created Petroleum County. In 1925, the Montana Legislature carved the eastern portion of Fergus County into a new county, named it for the industry that had put it on the map, and designated Winnett — named for Walter John Winnett, a rancher adopted into the Sioux tribe who had started operations here in 1879 — as its county seat. At the height of the boom, perhaps 3,000 people lived in the area. The Cat Creek oil camp was a rough, raw settlement of tar-paper shacks, company bunkhouses, and a cook house, served only by a post office, a church, a school, and a cemetery. But like all oil booms in the northern plains, the Cat Creek boom was finite. Production peaked early and declined steadily as the shallow reservoirs depleted. Over 54 years, the field produced approximately 23 million barrels of cumulative output before the last wells were abandoned in the mid-1970s. The population followed the oil downward: from 2,045 in 1930 to 685 by 1980 to 496 at the 2020 Census.
Ranching at the Scale of a Small Country
With the oil gone, Petroleum County reverted to what it had been before the boom: cattle and sheep country on a scale that is difficult for outsiders to comprehend. The average farm in Petroleum County is 6,045 acres — nearly 10 square miles — and livestock farming accounts for almost 90 percent of farm income. These are not hobby ranches or gentleman operations. They are working cattle and sheep ranches that produce food and fiber on semi-arid prairie that receives 10 to 14 inches of annual precipitation, that endures winters of bone-chilling cold and summers of relentless heat, and that has been gradually depopulating as the economics of agriculture have made it increasingly difficult for small operators to survive.
The absentee ownership issue is central to Petroleum County’s current challenges. As ranching families have aged out or left, their land has increasingly been purchased by out-of-state buyers attracted by trophy elk hunting, intact native prairie, and the speculative appeal of large landholdings in a remote, scenic landscape. These absentee owners typically do not live in Winnett, do not patronize Winnett businesses, and do not send children to Winnett schools. The result is a hollowing-out effect: the land is still there, but the community that once depended on it is shrinking. Land prices now reflect recreational rather than agricultural value, making it harder for young ranchers to acquire the acreage they need to start or expand operations — a dynamic that threatens the very agricultural foundation on which the county was built.
Winnett ACES and the Fight for Survival
Against this backdrop of depopulation and absentee ownership, a remarkable community organization has emerged. Winnett ACES (Agricultural Community Enhancement and Sustainability), founded in 2016 by local ranchers, has undertaken an ambitious program to revitalize Winnett’s Main Street and create the infrastructure needed to sustain the community through its next generation. ACES has relocated and is rehabilitating the historic Odd Fellows Hall, which is planned to house a retail or coffee shop on the first floor and apartments on the second. The organization is working with the Montana Historical Foundation on a feasibility study to rehabilitate the county courthouse, with upper floors planned for teacher housing and commercial space. ACES has established a grass bank for young ranchers — a grazing cooperative where beginning stockmen can combine herds on shared leased ground — and has worked to place locally produced beef in Winnett’s public school.
These efforts are notable not just for their ambition but for their context: a community of 188 people, in the least populous county in Montana, is doing more to address housing, economic development, and agricultural sustainability than many communities several times its size. For landlords, the ACES housing developments represent the only significant new rental inventory likely to emerge in Petroleum County in the foreseeable future. The teacher housing component is particularly relevant — recruiting and retaining teachers for Winnett’s K-12 school has been an ongoing challenge, and available, quality housing is a critical factor in whether teachers accept and remain in positions this remote.
The Rental Market That Barely Exists
Petroleum County does not have a rental market in any conventional sense. The entire county has approximately 300 housing units, of which a significant percentage are vacant, abandoned, or used seasonally by absentee landowners. The number of actual renter-occupied units may be fewer than 50 countywide. There is no property management company. There are no apartment complexes. Rental housing, to the extent it exists, consists of individual houses or units owned by local residents and rented through word of mouth to school employees, county workers, oil field personnel, or ranch hands.
The legal framework that applies to these arrangements is identical to the framework that governs a 200-unit apartment complex in Billings. MCA Title 70, Chapter 24 applies with the same force in Winnett as in any Montana city. Security deposits must be held in separate bank accounts. The 24-hour cleaning notice must be given before deducting cleaning charges. The 3-day nonpayment notice must be properly served before filing a FED action. The temptation to operate informally in a community where everyone knows everyone is enormous — and it is a temptation that landlords should resist, because the legal protections exist for both parties regardless of community size.
War Horse, Dinosaurs, and the Intact Prairie
Petroleum County’s natural assets are quietly extraordinary. Three units of the War Horse National Wildlife Refuge lie within the county, providing habitat for waterfowl and other wildlife on lakes and wetlands when water conditions allow. Yellow Water Reservoir is stocked with trout and provides fishing access. The county’s northern boundary reaches the Missouri River and the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, one of the largest wildlife refuges in the lower 48 states. Significant dinosaur fossil discoveries — including a Tyrannosauridae skeleton in the Judith River Formation and an Alamosaurus in the Hell Creek Formation — have been made in the county’s ancient geological formations. An unusual acid shale forest of ponderosa pine on 225 fragile acres in the War Horse unit is a botanical curiosity with no parallel in the surrounding grasslands.
The intact native prairie itself is perhaps the county’s most valuable natural resource, though its value is measured in ecological terms rather than economic ones. Petroleum County sits within the target area of the American Prairie Reserve (now American Prairie), a nonprofit working to create the largest nature reserve in the contiguous United States by purchasing private ranches adjacent to the CMR and federal lands. The APR’s presence has generated intense local opposition from the ranching community, which views the organization as a threat to agricultural livelihoods and culture — a tension visible in the “Save the Cowboy: Stop American Prairie Reserve” signs that line Winnett’s streets. This conflict between conservation and agriculture is a defining political issue in Petroleum County and affects land values, community dynamics, and the long-term trajectory of the local economy in ways that landlords should understand.
Petroleum County landlord-tenant matters are governed by the Montana Residential Landlord and Tenant Act of 1977, MCA Title 70, Chapter 24, and the Montana Tenants’ Security Deposits Act, MCA Title 70, Chapter 25. Nonpayment notice: 3-day pay or vacate. Minor lease violation: 14-day cure or quit. Major lease violation: 3-day cure or quit. No-cause termination (month-to-month): 30-day written notice. Security deposit: no cap; 10-day return if no deductions, 30-day itemized return if deductions; must be held in separate bank account; bank name and address provided to tenant; 24-hour written cleaning notice required before deducting cleaning charges (MCA § 70-25-201(3)). Landlord entry: 24 hours’ advance written notice (MCA § 70-24-312). No rent control. No local ordinances beyond state law. Federal lead paint disclosure required for pre-1978 properties. FED action filed at Petroleum County Justice Court in Winnett. Consult a licensed Montana attorney before taking legal action. Last updated: April 2026.
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