Scott Leavitt - Early Life

Early Life

Scott Leavitt was born in Elk Rapids, Michigan in 1879 to Roswell Leavitt, an attorney, member of the Maine House of Representatives and later Michigan State Senator, a native of Turner, Maine, where he enlisted in the 17th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and his wife Anna C. (Lawrence) Leavitt. Scott Leavitt moved with his parents in 1881 to Bellaire, Michigan, where his father Roswell served as prosecuting attorney and circuit court commissioner.

Scott Leavitt attended the public schools and while in high school enlisted in the Thirty-third Regiment, Michigan Volunteer Infantry, during the Spanish-American War. Leavitt served in the campaign at Santiago, Cuba during the war. After the war he attended the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He subsequently moved to Oregon in 1901 and began homesteading in the Coast Range Mountains near Falls City. There he worked as a school principal in the communities of Falls City, North Yamhill, Dayton, and Lakeview, Oregon from 1901 to 1907. In 1907 Leavitt entered the United States Forest Service as a ranger at the Fremont National Forest in Oregon. He later served in Minnesota and Montana until 1917.