The progress of Montana in mining, as indicated in the previous chapter, had received a partial check from about 1870 to 1880. The reason of this was that surface mining had declined, the placers being exhausted, and deep mining had not yet been sufficiently developed to give equal returns. There were other causes operating at the same time, such as the great cost of transportation of machinery, and the financial crisis resultant upon the suspension of Jay Cooke & Co., with the consequent embarrassments of the Northern Pacific railroad company, to whose advent in the territory all eyes had been turned in hope.
Neither had agriculture advanced materially; for no other market than the mines could be reached by wagons, the only means of transporting farm products to consumers. Besides, a few years were needed in which to build more comfortable houses, erect saw and grist mills, fence farms, lay out roads, start schools and churches, and set in motion all the wheels within wheels which move the complicated machinery of society. Perhaps from having so long observed the processes of state building, I have come to render more willingly than others the need of praise to these men of sturdy frames, intelligent brains, and deft hands who robbed the secret treasury of nature to spread over the mountains and plains thriving cities and happy homes. In hew little have they failed! Great is an army with banners, but greater is a hest with ploughs and picks. One destroys, while the other creates.
Time enough had elapsed between 1870 and 1880 to establish the comparative capabilities of the several counties 1 when the railroad era dawned, which solved the transportation problem for Montana. The Utah Northern branch of the Union Pacific railroad reached Helena, then the principal commercial city of the territory, in 1881, and the Northern Pacific reached it from east and west in 1883. The completion of this road was celebrated with imposing ceremonies on September 8th at Independence Creek, on the north bank of Deer Lodge River, sixty miles west of Helena, the place being named Gold Spike Station, in commemoration of the joining of the last rails by a spike of the chief Montana product. The event of the opening of the Northern Pacific was of greater interest than simply a commercial one, because it carried out the original Jeffersonian idea of a highway to the mouth of the Columbia, and thence to China. No other route or road was ever the theme of so much argument, eloquence, and poetry. 2
The advent in the territory of the Union Pacific and Northern Pacific gave a wonderful impetus to every branch of industry, and encouraged the construction of other lines. In 1889 there are three transcontinental railroads within its boundaries, each doing a profitable business. Numerous short branches or feeders have been extended to mining centers or agricultural valleys, and several local roads are rapidly being constructed by home companies. 3 The third of those was the St Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba railroad, running from St Paul, Minnesota, to Great Falls, Montana, with the intention of extending its line to the lower or northern end of Puget Sound. So true is it railroads create the business they thrive upon that each of all these in Montana were earning good receipts. The imports into Montana by the Northern Pacific in 1888 were 132,696 tons; the exports, 100,181 tons. The business of the Union Pacific was 55,833 tons imports, and 47,990 tons exports, the local business of handling ores, coal, lumber, and merchandise not being included in the tonnage, but which far exceeds the through freight in amount. The value of the exports from Montana in 1888 were reported by the governor, “at a very conservative estimate,” as being $45,750,000. These consisted of gold, silver, copper, lead, beef cattle, horses, sheep, wool, hides, pelts, etc.
One of the latest developed resources of Montana is coal, which until the advent of railroads could not be profitably mined. It is now known that along the eastern bases of the Rocky Mountains coal of excellent quality exists in practically inexhaustible quantity. The mines on Rocky Fork, in Park County, in 1888 produced 500 tons per day; these of Sand Coulee, in Cascade County, 500 tons; and these of Timberline, in Park County, 200 tons daily. Choteau, Beaver Head, and Gallatin Counties are also rich in coal. The output during the year ending June 30, 889, was 118,000 tons, and this amount was expected to be doubled in 1890.
The most serious drawback to the general prosperity of the last decade was the great loss of cattle in the extraordinarily severe winter of 1886-7. The previous season had been one of unusual drought, in which large areas of forest were burned over, destroying timber to a large amount, and adding by heat and smoke to the discomfort of men and animals. This was followed by terrible winter storms, high winds, deep snows, and extreme cold, prevailing for a period long enough to destroy cattle valued at several million dollars. The loss resulted, as such losses usually do, in better provision for the support and safety of herds during these occasional inclement seasons. The increase of stock on the ranges since 1886-7 has not yet brought the number up to the previous amount, judging from the assessor’s returns, although it is probable that with so many railroads carrying stock out of the territory fewer remain upon the ranges than heretofore.
Mining continues to be the leading industry of the Montana people. Notwithstanding the low price of silver, copper, and lead, an ever increasing amount of capital has sought investment in mines, giving them a remarkable development from 1886 to 1889. In 1883 a table prepared from official returns gave the mount of gold and silver produced in the United States at more than two billions of dollars. It placed California first, with an accredited product of over one billion. Montana came third in the list, with a trifle more than $468,000,000, as a total of the production of its mines for twenty years, an average of $23,400,000 annually. The output of 1887 was bout $30,000,000, and that of 1888-9, $41,000,000, which makes Montana the leading mining state of the union. The single camp or mining town of Butte, in Silver Bow County, where are located silver and copper mines, and which produced $1,000,000 in 1880, increased its product to $23,000,000 in 1888. Owing to a fall in the price of copper, the output of this district in 1889 will not be valued at over $18,000,000, but the mines seem inexhaustible.
Butte, which fifteen years ago was a small placer mining village on a mountain side, is today the leading town of Montana in population, having 30,000 inhabitants, and is the first mining camp in the world, with handsome business houses and elegant residences. To the workmen in its mines and smelters is paid $500,000 per month in wages, its more than a hundred smoke-stacks, ever pouring, sending out day and night great volumes of dense smoke which testify to the ceaseless industry of the place.
The Anaconda, which was at first worked for silver, is now the most celebrated copper mine on the American continent, and with the other mines in this district, and one or two others, furnishes one third of the dividends paid on mining property in ten states and territories having dividend-paying mines. 4 The Anaconda was visited by a fire, which broke out November 23, 1889, in the adjacent St Lawrence mine, and was communicated by a cross cut to the Anaconda on the 500-foot level, cutting off from escape a body of miners on the 800-foot level, who perished miserably, as did four others who attempted their rescue. The mines were closed to extinguish the fire, but in January 1890 they were still burning. The destruction of the timbers in the several levels will occasion serious caving-in of the walls, and a very large loss to the owners. The city of Butte sustained a loss of $350,000 by fire in September 1889, adding another to the curiously coincident conflagrations of this year in the northwest. 5
Phillipsburg, in Deer Lodge County, is another great mining camp. The Hope silver mine is the oldest in Montana, having been opened in 1866, and successfully worked, the ore being of the free-milling kind, the greater operations of getting silver out of base and refractory ores having to wait for the advent of railroads. The original Hope mill of ten stamps is still pounding out the precious metal, and paying regular dividends in the midst of its over-shadowing rivals. The corporation owning it is the St Louis and Montana Company, the stock in which is held principally in St Louis. The most important group of mines, although not the oldest, is the Granite Mountain group, discovered in 1872, but not profitably developed until about 1884. The principal mine is the Granite Mountain, now producing more silver than any in the world. It is stocked for $10,000,000, and also owned in St Louis. Although so recently developed, it had paid in dividends to its stockholders, 1 November 1889, $7,600,000, or ten dollars per share on 400,000 shares of a par value of $25. 6
Next in importance to this group of mines is the West Granite group, opened in 1886, and owned by a Montana company, of which J. K. Pardee was in 1887 general manager. 7 Money for the first development of the mine was raised by the sale of 30,000 shares at a dollar a share. A number of other companies, St Louis and Philadelphia corporations, own lines in this district. 8 The town of Phillipsburg was named for Phillip Deidesheimer, famous for his connection with mining on the Comstock. The camp has bout 300 population.
Other towns in this county depending upon mining re in the full tide of prosperity in 1889. Anaconda, 9 Deer Lodge, and Drummond may be mentioned. Deer Lodge is less important as a mining town at present than as the seat of the United States penitentiary, the only federal building, except the assay office, in Montana. It is, however, in the midst of mining districts, and derives support from them. 10 A private institution of learning called the Montana College 11 is located at Deer Lodge. The population is about 1,000.
The Helena mining district is the third in importance in Montana, containing several dividend-paying mines, of which the Drum Lummond is the most prominent, and dividing $100,000 12 quarterly among its share-holders. The Drum Lummond is a gold mine, and is situated at Marysville, twenty miles in a northwest direction from Helena. The Helena and Northern Railroad, a remarkable piece of engineering, connects it with the capital. This road for ten miles scales the sides of a steep mountain, and is built almost a third of the distance on trestles. The Drum Lummond has but recently been sufficiently developed to display its qualities as the first gold producer of the world, but has greatly increased the expectations of his district. A movement is on foot to organize a company to purchase the old Whitlatch-Union property at Unionville, near Helena, and resume operations. It is believed this mine would still produce gold in paying quantities.
The city of Helena, which is now inferior in population to Butte, is still the chief commercial city, with 5,000 inhabitants, and the improvements for 1888 cost $3,055,000. It has a number of handsome public buildings. The Lewis and Clarke county courthouse cost $200,000, and contains the legislative halls of the territory. The high school, graded, and ward schools are constructed of brick, and supplied with every modern convenience. The city has a good water supply, a well-organized fire department, gas, electric lights, and well-equipped street railways. Its rail-bed facilities are excellent. It has five banks of deposit, whose capital stock, surplus, and undivided profits amount to $8,322,699, more than can be found in any city of equal size in the world. The name of Heleena City is not an inappropriate one. 13
Great Falls, in the new county of Cascade, established in 1887, is rapidly growing in reputation. It is situated upon a sloping site at the junction of Missouri and Sun Rivers, commanding a view of four mountain ranges. Here are the great cataracts of the Missouri, having a total fall of 512 feet. The first, or Black Eagle fall, has a sheer descent of 28½ feet, and an available fall of 54 feet, which will be utilized the present year (1889). The Rainbow fall has a perpendicular descent of 49 feet; Colter’s fall, 14 feet; Horseshoe fall, 20 feet; and the Great fall, 100 feet, with rapids between – the whole constituting a waterpower unequalled. Coal, iron, and limestone abound within a few miles of the new town of Great Falls. The advantages of the place have been recognized, and a million dollar smelter has been erected, with a capacity for reduction of 250 tons of ore daily; although the works are only one fourth their proposed size, as it is intended to make this the largest smelter for the reduction of silver-lead ores in the world. The population of Great Falls is 2,500, and its improvements, exclusive of the Manitoba and Montana Central Railroad properties, are valued at $2,500,000. There is a branch railroad line to the Sand Coulee coalmines, where 350 persons are employed, and will be extended to the silver, copper, and Galena mines in the Belt range. A stone and iron wagon bridge 1,000 feet long spans the Missouri at Great Falls. The town is a shipping-point for stock and wool. About 29,000 sheep, 10,000 cattle, and 1,000,000 pounds of wool were shipped from there in 1888. It has been incorporated as a city, has water-works in progress, has a large saw and planing mill, the largest flour-mill in Montana, two agricultural implement houses, three churches, and a $20,000 school building. Such is the vigor of Montana’s population. 14
Benton has 1,000 inhabitants, and is a well-built, thriving town. A substantial iron bridge 875 feet long spans the Missouri at this place, at a cost of $65,000. The town has electric-light and water-works systems, a fire department, board of trade, a public-school building costing $33,000, a court-house costing $60,000, two fine hotels, one costing $50,000, and a First National bank building costing $20,000, besides private banks, handsome mercantile houses, several churches, a hospital, and other evidences of the intelligence and prosperity of its citizens. Benton is in the wool-growing district of Montana, and the town is supplied with wool compressors and warehouses for the convenience of shippers. But although the counties of Cascade and Choteau have been regarded as grazing districts, good crops of cereals are raised upon the bench-lands, as well as in the rich soil of the valleys bordering upon streams, and the quality of the upland grain is superior, while thirty bushels to the acre is garnered from land that has not been irrigated. It is but recently that the value of these northern plateau for farming purposes has impressed itself upon the consciousness of a people chiefly interested in mining and grazing – in gold and grasses – to which should now be added grain. The opening of the great reservation extending from the Missouri River to the boundary of British Columbia has added 18,000,000 acres of government land which is open to settlement, embracing the Milk River valley, traversed by the St Paul and Manitoba railroad. With all these fertile acres, and a transcontinental railway, northern Montana has a grand future, by no means very distant, in which Benton will have its share. 15
The northeastern and eastern portion of Montana remains a great stock range, of which Miles City, in Custer County, is a shipping centre, and the third town in population in the state. A board of stock commissioners, with a member in each county, looks after the administration of the written and unwritten laws concerning the sole industry which rivals mining in Montana, 16 and to which a very large amount of its money capital is due. 17 It is contended by these capitalists that the government is unnecessarily jealous of their aggressiveness, for the territory occupied by them is too broken for agriculture. Opinions change with circumstances, and expediency will determine the limit of indulgence, which the future shall discover.
I have here gathered together some evidences of the material prosperity of Montana. It was once wittily said that mining-towns consisted of ophir-holes, gopher-holes, and loafer-holes. All that has been changed as far as Montana is concerned, if we except the ophir-holes, which are as much as ever sought after. Merchants are no longer compelled to store their goods in caves in the earth to protect them from fire or plunder; the rude first dwellings have been replaced by elegant, or at the least tasteful and comfortable, homes; the fashions of good society prevail in place of unseemly revelry; education and religion are fostered, [↩]
The events of 1888 were the completion of the wagon-road and railroad bridges, the establishment of great reduction works, the holding of two terms of court, which cleared the moral atmosphere to a considerable extent, the building of a jail and two churches, the