 As a result, settlers used a variety of methods to stack and store large amounts of hay, inventing a number of agricultural machines to lift hay including hay derricks and various slides, including a predecessor to the beaverslide called a ram stacker.About 1908 the beaverslide was invented in Montana by two ranchers, Herbert S. Armitage and David J. Stephens, who ranched near Briston, in the Big Hole Valley, of Beaverhead County in southwestern Montana.Armitage and Stephens filed for a patent on September 7, 1909 and it was awarded on May 31, 1910.