and  legends continue. . .

Tom graduated from Montana State University in 1972 with a degree in agricultural business. That same year he married Carol Engel. Carol graduated from MSU in 1970 with a degree in microbiology. They eventually moved to Great Falls then Townsend, and Helena where Tom worked first as an Allied Products Manager and then as a feed and fertilizer salesman for ConAgra.

In 1980, Tom and Carol ventured to Wilsall, Montana to operate and purchase the grain elevator Shields Valley Grain. Tom and Carol have three children, Melissa, J.R., and Stephen, who are fourth generation Montanans.

While still continuing to operate Shields Valley Grain, Tom and Carol started Way Out West in 2002. Montana legends begin, and continue, at Way Out West.

About the store >

The owners of Way Out West carry their own Montana legends. John Peterson, Tom's grandfather, came to the United States from Sweden as a youth of 16 in 1889. He was naturalized in 1895 and worked his way to Dillon, Montana. After walking to the Big Hole valley in 1891 with 25 cents in his pocket, he worked on a ranch for four years, earning from twenty-five to forty dollars a month.

He was of a saving and industrious nature, determined to reach an independent state. He purchased 640 acres, or one section, and afterward continually added to the place until he owned about eight thousand acres. During this time, he asked Tilda Svenson from Sweden to join him in the United States. John wanted to marry Tilda but because of differences in social class, their marriage could not happen in Sweden. Tilda was the daughter of the lumber king of Sweden, Sven Svenson, and a member of the wealthy class. John came from a poor family with 12 children. These two adventuresome people married in May 15, 1907 in Butte, Montana.

John's strong work ethic and astute business mind served him well in the developing West. John had sold his first ranch, and in the spring of 1911 he purchased the Martin Barrett ranch on Horse Prairie. He started buying homesteads in the Big Hole Basin and Grasshopper Valley in the 1920s as people were leaving due to drought and economic depression. This collection of homesteads and other land became the Hairpin and the Cross Ranches. John Peterson had about four thousand head of cattle and an enormous number of stock horses, and this gave him the reputation of owning one of the best stock ranches in the state of Montana.

The west was truly wild at that time, and in 1936, a hired hand shot and killed John. The man was sixteen years old and was a favorite of John’s. The man had requested a car, something none of the hired help were allowed, and John refused him. At the time of his death, John was no longer a member of the poorest class but had worked to become the largest individual taxpayer in Beaverhead County in Montana.

Herman, a son of John and Tom’s father, and Herman’s sister, Alice Cragholm, took over the Hairpin and Cross Ranches. The ranches were sold in 1959 and the family home remained in Dillon, Montana, where Tom grew up.