Milton D. Snodgrass was born March 14, 1876 in Jasper County, Indiana. In 1881 he moved with his family to Little River, Kansas where he attended school. He fought in the Spanish-American war between 1898-1899. After taking courses in the Kansas Agricultural College he graduates with a B.S. degree in animal husbandry in 1906. After graduation he served as assistant in Crop Production in the Kansas Experiment station.

On June 1907 he marries Margaret and move to Kodiak, Alaska to accept the superintendence position on the Kodiak Experimental Station for the Federal Department of Agriculture to investigate cattle-raising on the island. They remained on Kodiak from 1907 to 1917, during which time Milton Snodgrass establish the Matanuska Valley Experiment Station at the request of the U.S. Agricultural Department in Palmer. He was later transferred to Seward and then transferred to the Fairbanks Agriculture Experiment Station, until August 1921, when he was assigned to Palmer. He was in charge of the Matanuska Valley Experiment Station until 1929. Mr. Snodgrass became a colonization agent for the Alaska Railroad and brought 55 families to settle in the Matanuska Valley. Mr. Snodgrass resigned his post to engage in farming on his homestead in the Matanuska Valley.