LIVING INDUCTEE
JOCK & JAMIE DOGGETT
DISTRICT 9 - YEAR 2026
The Doggett family adventure in Montana began 160 years ago when Moses Doggett fled the Civil War. Little did he know that five generations of the Doggett’s would continue his legacy as “The Camas Creek Cattle and Sheep Co. under the management of Jock & Jamie Doggett.”
Jefferson Davis Doggett was born in Virginia City, Dakota Territory, on October 31, 1863. He was the first white male child born in what is now the state of Montana. His father, Moses, mined gold at Pikes Peak in Colorado. He was returning from reuniting with his family from Iowa when he heard of a gold strike in Bannack. Moses literally took a sharp right turn arriving in Virginia City in August 1863. He found gold in Alder Gulch and Last Chance Gulch, then decided there was a better future in feeding miners than being one. Jefferson moved the family to the settlement of Canton on the Missouri River, which at the time was in Meagher County. He constructed the first irrigation ditch, taking water out of the Missouri River in 1865. He began raising crops and livestock while operating a dairy to supply the mining community of Diamond City with supplies.
When Jefferson was 21 years old, he went in search of gold and packed supplies for other miners, with a string of horses and mules. He returned from the gold fields to the Smith River Valley with a band of sheep. Jefferson homesteaded on Freeman Creek, in the Lingshire area, 40 miles northwest of White Sulphur Springs. In the mid-1890s he acquired sections of land in the Dry Range and Beaver Flats areas. Jefferson purchased the Tinsley Ranch on Duck Creek, northeast of Townsend in 1898. The next two generations of Doggett’s grew up there. The barn built of local rock is still in use today.
In September of 1917, Jefferson bought the Camas Creek Ranch, twenty miles west of White Sulphur Springs. It consisted of 3500 acres at a price of $16 an acre. At the conclusion of WWI, the ranch was worth only a fraction of that, because of the “Farmers Depression” of the 1930s.
Howard Jefferson Doggett, born in 1903, operated the ranch in Broadwater County. Between the two ranches the Doggett family ran six to eight bands of sheep of 2000 head each, and some cattle. Howard sold the Broadwater Ranch in 1946 and became involved in politics, being a State Senator and Ag Attaché in Brussels and Assistant Secretary of Agriculture in the Eisenhower Administration.
The Camas Creek Cattle and Sheep Company was formed in 1948. Howard’s son, Jeff, moved to Camas Creek Ranch in 1952 and his twin brother, Bill, joined him in 1954, after serving in the military. Raising sheep required intensive labor, and by 1964 ranch hands willing to work with sheep were getting hard to find. Government restrictions were making predator control more challenging. The tough decision was made to sell the long standing ranch staple, the sheep. Bill left the partnership in 1976 and moved his family to the Alder area, which is exactly where his great grandfather began the Doggett family adventure.
Jeff and Mary’s son, Jock, born in ****, returned to the ranch in 1978, after attending Montana State University in Bozeman and began the transition to acquire and manage the ranch with his new wife, Jamie Johnson, born in ****. marrying The couple married in 1983. Since he was five years old, Jock knew that he wanted to spend his life nurturing livestock on the ranch. After getting off the school bus in 5th grade, his brothers would walk home, but Jock would head to the calving barn to clean pens and suckle calves. He was hooked!!! Jock feels that he is the luckiest person alive to be able to spend his life with Jamie on Camas Creek. Jeff was generous with the transition of Jock’s new ideas. Jock benefitted from some “real” stockmen of the ranch who mentored him, the likes of Bob Cashdollar, Pete VanAuken and Dale Beck. Some were gruff and crude and partied hard, but offered life lessons, “Do your work, don’t complain, don’t make excuses, admit your mistakes, and learn from them.”
Jock is very humble and takes little credit for the prolonged success of the ranch. While working on the ranch, Jamie has also been a major contributor, and Jock’s greatest supporter. With the aid of her two Corgis, she enjoys moving cows with them and riding on her 4-wheeler. Jamie is active in the community, being County commissioner and a leader in the Humanities locally, state and nationally. For years Jamie organized and hosted a neighborhood BBQ. Both are supportive of everything to do with Meagher County.
Jock runs an efficient crew of four to six men and women. His management style is a little different than most. He works physically with the crew on every job, and always on Sunday so the crew can have a day off. Many of his crew has worked for him for thirty years and some for as long as forty. Several local kids have learned a good work ethic from working with Jock, some even coming back to make it their last job. Jock is 100% dedicated to his chosen profession, never missing a day of work. Even if the night ran a little long or didn’t end at all he would hold up his end working with the crew. He is a good horseman and will just show up around the county to help neighbors and friends. Jock has lead Search and Rescue searches for lost hunters where only horses could go. He sees ways to offer help that are often overlooked. Jock may call up and say, “Don’t you need some help with something” or call and say “Oh, I found some of your cattle and put them in the so and so field.”
Jock and Jamie loved doing the cow work horseback, meeting the crew before daylight at the barn to get a head start on the day. Jock is not a fancy cowboy, definitely not a buckaroo, but a very practical man, wearing well-worn shoes and clothes to their last threads.
2024 was a year of great change, with no willing heirs the heart wrenching decision to disperse of the legendary Camas Creek Cattle and Sheep Ranch was made. In that final year of Doggett management, the ranch ran 1600 mother cows and 1000 yearlings on 45,000 acres. Jock & Jamie Doggett exemplified the definition of true stockmanship under the Big Sky of the great state of Montana for nearly 50 years.