After losing the Congressional election, Barrows (who had suffered financial reverses in the real estate which constituted most of his wealth) organized a group of colonists who arrived in Martinsdale, Montana (a train stop on the main line of the Milwaukee Road), in June 1879. He brought a herd of blooded cattle with him, and went into stockraising, which he pursued for the rest of his life. Soon after his arrival there, he and Edward P. Allis of Milwaukee partnered to build a large sawmill, and began the manufacture of lumber at Sawmill Gulch in what was then Meagher County, Montana. He homesteaded 160 acres in a place he called Ubet, also known as U-Bet or U-bet in what was then Fergus County. He built a stage stop hotel, saloon and general store on the stagecoach route, and moved there himself in 1881, becoming (with his family) among the first permanent white settlers of the Judith Basin.