Families take action to prevent subdivision

Two local families finalized conservation easements on their properties recently to control future development and prevent subdivision.

Tom and Alvira Jones of Troy and John and Mabel Beebe of Libby donated open space easements to the Montana Land Reliance, a nonprofit land trust. 

“These two easements were designed to protect open space and still allow the Beebe and Jones families to make the management decisions for their property,” said MLR’s western manager, Mark Schiltz, who helped draft the language for the easements.

Tom Jones, a retired forester for the U.S. Forest Service, has harvested wood on his 154-acre property south of Troy for 4-1/2 decades. He didn’t want to imagine the property being cut up into small lots in the future.

“I’ve been managing it for timber and wildlife and water since we bought it in 1965,” Jones said. “We have a lot of blood and sweat into it and I’d just like to see it stay the way it is and be managed for resources and not subdivided.”

In addition to protecting the Jones’s rights to manage the land, the easement will preserve open space for wildlife. The property is home to elk, deer, moose, bears and coyotes, to name a few, as well as every species of evergreen found in Montana.

The Beebe family had been contemplating getting an easement for years to protect the family’s 323-acre farm.

“We never wanted to have our land subdivided,” John Beebe said, “and finally decided we needed to do something about it.”

Beebe bought his property, located south of Libby on Highway 2, in 1947 and his wife, Mabel, joined him three years later. The family has raised cattle and managed the land’s timber for decades, always being respectful of the diverse wildlife surrounding them.

John and Mabel Beebe want the property to stay intact for future generations.

“Working on our farm is a way of life we enjoy and it’s important to us that the kids can live on it and manage the property for both timber and agriculture,” John Beebe said.