As workers poured in to build Fort Peck Dam, the population of this quiet area surged. Barracks and dormitories were built in Fort Peck to house individual workers, but families had nowhere to live, so more than 20 boomtowns sprang up just beyond the city limits of the carefully planned community of Fort Peck. Most were platted by the local farmer or rancher who owned the land. By 1936, the dam employed nearly 11,000 workers. Many brought their families because the state gave hiring preferences to married men with dependents, and many other people came to open businesses. After the dam was completed in 1940, Fort Peck's population eventually fell back to a little more than 300 people, businesses closed, homes were torn down, taken home, or sold, and little remains of the boomtowns today.