How Nelson Reservoir got it's name

A man named H.H. Nelson who in 1904 had property by Vandalia, between Glasgow and Hinsdale, along the Milk River, and with some other landowners from the Glasgow area formed the Lower Milk River Users Association. Their vision was getting water (liquid gold) from the proposed reservoir west of Saco to Valley County. They spent two years convincing Congress and Teddy Roosevelt for funds to develop the project.

"Mr. Heindrick Hans (H.H.) Nelson was born in Denmark, moved with his mother to Minnesota in 1866. In his late teens, got a job out of Bismarck, N.D., to be the trail boss of about seven men to take 300 head of horses to Deer Lodge, MT.

They came across the badland near Glendive, then to Coulson, which is now Billings up the Yellowstone to somewhere by Three forks, then up to Helena over the Mullan Pass and on into Deer Lodge.

It was the fall of 1881. Then it was up the Old North Trail to his first job, watching a cow camp over the winter located near where the Marias meets the Missouri.

We now know this as Decision Point, the place where Lewis and Clark had to figure out which channel was the Missouri.

The horses he was training at this job got stolen so he tracked them all the way to the Cypress Hills in Saskatchewan and spent three days talking the chief into returning his horses.

After this winter he went to work as a sheepman near Sun River at Eagle Butte. He was willing to help H.H. get his own sheep. They called this "sharing".

Then in 1883 H.H. filed on his Missouri River property between Cascade and Ulm, calling this place Riverdale.

A series of misfortunes occurred, and he missed a payment to the bank. They foreclosed. He was left with only a parcel of land west of Glasgow on the Milk River.

He named his place Vandalia. Instead of returning to the sheep business, he became an earth mover. He had 100 mules for digging irrigation canals and building railroad beds.

A group of men from Glasgow, called The Milk River Water User's Association, wanted to irrigate northeastern Montana. H.H. was one of them. They spent two years convincing Congress and Teddy Roosevelt to give them the money to build dikes from St. Mary Lake in Glacier Park so the water would flow into the Milk River. Near Havre, they started building a series of dams that would end at Nelson Reservoir by Saco at Buffalo Hot Springs.

The Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) started a geological study in 1902, implemented and developed the massive project of getting water from St. Mary Lake near Glacier Park to eastern Montana. One of the first was the construction of a twenty-nine-mile canal to North Fork Milk River which flows into the Milk River, into Canada for 200 miles, and back into the United States. An agreement between Canada and the United States had to be negotiated, the Boundary Waters Treaty was signed in January 1909. In addition to resolving potential conflicts with Canada, it was necessary to adjudicate the water rights.

Constructions started in 1907 before the agreement was signed for water to reach areas of the U.S. using steam shovels and excavators to build the twenty-nine-mile canal, as well as Tribal labor using teams of horses and scrapers because the canal traversed the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. The end of the St. Mary canal was constructed with five drops (one failed and one showed extensive damage in 2020 and was rebuilt that fall) to reach the river. Watered flowed started to flow in 1916.

Sherburne Dam on Lake Sherburne was started in 1914 for more storage that feeds into Lower St. Mary Lake, after many setbacks and other complications, it was completed five years later.

Construction of Fresno Dam west of Havre started in 1933 for storage and was completed in 1939. This was very beneficial to the irrigators downstream for a stable water supply to irrigate an entire season (May to September). It is popular today for fishing and boating.

West of Dodson construction started in1908 to build a diversion dam to form canals to take water north and another to take water south to a reservoir. A major project was to dig a canal to get water to the dam for storage west of Saco, much of the lower part was done by draglines in 1913 and 1914. Some of the gravel for the dam was hauled from about three miles north of what is now Saco Dehy and about four miles west to the building site by horse and wagon. The first water left the dam in 1917 and reached fields west of Saco in 1918. This dam was named Nelson Reservoir to honor H.H. Nelson for his foresight, skill in surveying the location, and using his 100 mules for constructing the dams and canals to help complete the vision. Later he was instrumental in the construction of a diversion dam at Vandalia for more storage and canals for water to reach the Nashua area. A total of 140,000 acres are irrigated by water from St. Mary/Milk River project. There are 8 irrigation districts in the project: Alfalfa, Zurich, Paradise, Ft. Belknap, Harlem, Dodson, Malta, and Glasgow.

The irrigators had to file for water rights with the districts. The cost of all the management, engineers, construction costs that the BOR did not cover was passed onto the users in the form of Operation and Maintenance based on acres irrigated and the amount of water used. Personnel is employed in each district for the upkeep of the canals, turnouts, ditches, bridges, property, bookkeeping and to stay in contact with the users, document usage, and etc. for compliance with their water rights. These costs are also passed on to the irrigators. Irrigated acres in the Malta District is 39,000.

The Milk River supplies water to several towns including Havre, Chinook, Harlem, and Fort Belknap Agency. Nelson Reservoir has become a popular site for recreation, cabins, and homes on lots leased from the BOR. H.H, Nelson died before the reservoir was completed. That was in l914 and he was only 54.

Some of the information was obtained from a report, "Milk River Project" by William Joe Simonds written in 1998, a highway sign between Hinsdale and Glasgow along US 2 titled "Liquid Gold" north of Vandalia, an article written by H.H. Nelson's granddaughter, Nancy Greenfield, and memories of local irrigators. Norma Kelly provided much of the information and inspiration for this history.