tracks down the Red River Valley (one on each side of the river) to the
Canada line, sends out various spurs into Dakota, and operates a main
line from Grand Forks westward through the whole of Dakota, and through
Montana as far as the Great Falls of the Missouri, and thence through
the canon of the Missouri and the canon of the Prickly-Pear to Helena—in
all about 3000 miles of track. Its president is Mr. James J. Hill, a
Canadian by birth, whose rapid career from that of a clerk on the St.
Paul levee to his present position of influence, opportunity, and wealth
is a romance in itself, and whose character, integrity, tastes, and
accomplishments, and domestic life, were it proper to speak of them,
would satisfactorily answer many of the questions that are asked about
the materialistic West.
The Manitoba line west had reached Minot, 530 miles from St. Paul, in
1886. I shall speak of its extension in 1887, which was intrusted to Mr.
D. C. Shepard, a veteran engineer and railway builder of St. Paul, and
his firm, Messrs. Shepard, Winston & Co. Credit should be given by name
to the men who conducted this Napoleonic enterprise; for it required
not only the advance of millions of money, but the foresight, energy,
vigilance, and capacity that insure success in a distant military
campaign.
It needs to be noted that the continuation of the St. Paul, Minneapolis,
and Manitoba road from Great Falls to Helena, 98 miles, is called the
Montana Central. The work to be accomplished in 1887 was to grade 500
miles of railroad to reach Great Falls, to put in the bridging and
mechanical structures (by hauling all material brought up by rail ahead
of the track by teams, so as not to delay the progress of the track)
on 530 miles of continuous railway, and to lay and put in good running
condition 643 miles of rails continuously and from one end only.
In the winter of 1886-87 the road was completed to a point five miles
west of Minot, and work was done beyond which if consolidated would
amount to about fifty miles of completed grading, and the mechanical
structures were done for twenty miles west from Minot. On the Montana
Central the grading and mechanical structures were made from Helena as
a base, and completed before the track reached Great Falls. St. Paul,
Minneapolis, and Duluth were the primary bases of operations, and
generally speaking all materials, labor, fuel, and supplies originated
at these three points; Minot was the secondary base, and here in
the winter of 1886-87 large depots of supplies and materials for
construction were formed.
Track-laying began April 2,1887, but was greatly retarded by snow and
ice in the completed cuts, and by the grading, which was heavy. The
cuts were frozen more or less up to May 15th. The forwarding of grading
forces to Minot began April 6th, but it was a labor of considerable
magnitude to outfit them at Minot and get them forward to the work;
so that it was as late as May 10th before the entire force was under
employment.
The average force on the grading was 3300 teams and about 8000 men.
Upon the track-laving, surfacing, piling, and timber-work there were
225 teams and about 650 men. The heaviest work was encountered on the
eastern end, so that the track was close upon the grading up to the 10th
of June. Some of the cuttings and embankments were heavy. After the 10th
of June progress upon the grading was very rapid. From the mouth of Milk
River to Great Falls (a distance of 200 miles) grading was done at an
average rate of seven miles a day. Those who saw this army of men
and teams stretching over the prairie and casting up this continental
highway think they beheld one of the most striking achievements of
civilization.
I may mention that the track is all cast up (even where the grading is
easy) to such a height as to relieve it of drifting snow; and to give
some idea of the character of the work, it is noted that in preparing it
there were moved 9,700,000 cubic yards of earth, 15,000 cubic yards of
loose rock, and 17,500 cubic yards of solid rock, and that there were
hauled ahead of the track and put in the work to such distance as would
not obstruct the track-laying (in some instances 30 miles), 9,000,000
feet (board measure) of timber and 390,000 lineal feet of piling.
On the 5th of August the grading of the entire line to Great Falls was
either finished or properly manned for its completion the first day
of September, and on the 10th of August it became necessary to remove
outfits to the east as they completed their work, and about 2500 teams
and their quota of men were withdrawn between the 10th and 20th of
August, and placed upon work elsewhere.
The record of track laid is as follows: April 2d to 30th, 30 miles;
May, 82 miles; June, 79.8 miles; July, 100.8 miles; August, 115.4 miles;
September, 102.4 miles; up to October 15th to Great Falls, 34.0 miles—a
total to Great Falls of 545 miles. October 10th being Sunday, no track
was laid. The track started from Great Falls Monday, October 17th, and
reached Helena on Friday, November 18th, a distance of 98 miles, making
a grand total of 043 miles, and an average rate for every working-day
of three and one-quarter miles. It will thus be seen that laying a good
road was a much more expeditious method of reaching the Great Falls of
the Missouri than that adopted by Lewis and Clarke.
Some of the details of this construction and tracklaying will interest
railroad men. On the 16th of July 7 miles and 1040 feet of track were
laid, and on the 8th of August 8 miles and 60 feet were laid, in each
instance by daylight, and by the regular gang of track-layers, without
any increase of their numbers whatever. The entire work was done by
handling the iron on low iron cars, and depositing it on the track from
the car at the front end. The method pursued was the same as when one
mile of track is laid per day in the ordinary manner. The force of
track-layers was maintained at the proper number for the ordinary daily
work, and was never increased to obtain any special result. The result
on the 11th of August was probably decreased by a quarter to a half mile
by the breaking of an axle of an iron car while going to the front with
its load at about 4 p.m. From six to eight iron cars were employed in
doing this day’s work. The number ordinarily used was four to five.
Sidings were graded at intervals of seven to eight miles, and spur
tracks, laid on the natural surface, put in at convenient points,
sixteen miles apart, for storage of materials and supplies at or near
the front. As the work went on, the spur tracks in the rear were taken
up. The construction train contained box cars two and three stories
high, in which workmen were boarded and lodged. Supplies, as a rule,
were taken by wagon-trains from the spur tracks near the front to their
destination, an average distance of one hundred miles and an extreme one
of two hundred miles. Steamboats were employed to a limited extent on
the Missouri River in supplying such remote points as Fort Benton
and the Coal Banks, but not more than fifteen per cent, of the
transportation was done by steamers. A single item illustrating the
magnitude of the supply transportation is that there were shipped to
Minot and forwarded and consumed on the work 590,000 bushels of oats.
It is believed that the work of grading 500 miles of railroad in five
months, and the transportation into the country of everything consumed,
grass and water excepted, and of every rail, tie, bit of timber, pile,
tool, machine, man, or team employed, and laying 643 miles of track
in seven and a half months, from one end, far exceeds in magnitude
and rapidity of execution any similar undertaking in this or any other
country. It reflects also the greatest credit on the managers of the
railway transportation (it is not invidious to mention the names of Mr.
A. Manvel, general manager, and Mr. J. M. Egan, general superintendent,
upon whom the working details devolved) when it is stated that the
delays for material or supplies on the entire work did not retard it
in the aggregate one hour. And every hour counted in this masterly
campaign.
The Western people apparently think no more of throwing down a railroad,
if they want to go anywhere, than a conservative Easterner does of
taking an unaccustomed walk across country; and the railway constructors
and managers are a little amused at the Eastern slowness and want of
facility in construction and management. One hears that the East is
antiquated, and does not know anything about railroad building. Shovels,
carts, and wheelbarrows are of a past age; the big wheel-scraper does
the business. It is a common remark that a contractor accustomed to
Eastern work is not desired on a Western job.
On Friday afternoon, November 18th, the news was flashed that the last
rail was laid, and at 6 p.m. a special train was on the way from St.
Paul with a double complement of engineers and train-men. For the first
500 miles there was more or less delay in avoiding the long and frequent
freight trains, but after that not much except the necessary stops for
cleaning the engine. Great Falls, about 1100 miles, was reached Sunday
noon, in thirty-six hours, an average of over thirty miles an hour. A
part of the time the speed was as much as fifty miles an hour. The track
was solid, evenly graded, heavily tied, well aligned, and the cars ran
over it with no more swing and bounce than on an old road. The only
exception to this is the piece from Great Falls to Helena, which had not
been surfaced all the way. It is excellent railway construction, and it
is necessary to emphasize this when we consider the rapidity with which
it was built.
The company has built this road without land grant or subsidy of any
kind. The Montana extension, from Minot, Dakota, to Great Falls, runs
mostly through Indian and military reservations, permission to pass
through being given by special Act of Congress, and the company buying
200 feet road-way. Little of it, therefore, is open to settlement.
These reservations, naming them in order westward, are as follows: The
Fort Berthold Indian reservation, Dakota, the eastern boundary of which
is twenty-seven miles west of Minot, has an area of 4550 square miles
(about as large as Connecticut), or 2,912,000 acres. The Fort Buford
military reservation, lying in Dakota and Montana, has an area of 900
square miles, or 576,000 acres. The Blackfeet Indian reserve has an area
of 34,000 square miles (the State of New York has 46,000), or 21,760,000
acres. The Fort Assiniboin military reserve has an area of 869.82 square
miles, or 556,684 acres.
It is a liberal estimate that there are 6000 Indians on the Blackfeet
and Fort Berth old reservations. As nearly as I could ascertain, there
are not over 3500 Indians (some of those I saw were Créés on a long
visit from Canada) on the Blackfeet reservation of about 22,000,000
acres. Some judges put the number as low as 2500 to all this territory,
and estimate that there was about one Indian to ten square miles, or one
Indian family to fifty square miles. We rode through 300 miles of this
territory along the Milk River, nearly every acre of it good soil, with
thick, abundant grass, splendid wheat land.
I have no space to take up the Indian problem. But the present condition
of affairs is neither fair to white settlers nor just or humane to the
Indians. These big reservations are of no use to them, nor they to
the reservations. The buffaloes have disappeared; they do not live by
hunting; they cultivate very little ground; they use little even to
pasture their ponies. They are fed and clothed by the Government,
and they camp about the agencies in idleness, under conditions that
pauperize them, destroy their manhood, degrade them into dependent,
vicious lives. The reservations ought to be sold, and the
proceeds devoted to educating the Indians and setting them up in a
self-sustaining existence. They should be allotted an abundance of good
land, in the region to which they are acclimated, in severalty, and
under such restrictions that they cannot alienate it at least for a
generation or two. As the Indian is now, he will neither work, nor keep
clean, nor live decently. Close to, the Indian is not a romantic object,
and certainly no better now morally than Lewis and Clarke depicted him
in 1804. But he is a man; he has been barbarously treated; and it is
certainly not beyond honest administration and Christian effort to
better his condition. And his condition will not be improved simply by
keeping from settlement and civilization the magnificent agricultural
territory that is reserved to him.
Of this almost unknown country, pierced by the road west from Larimore,
I can only make the briefest notes. I need not say that this open,
unobstructed highway of arable land and habitable country, from the Red
River to the Rocky Mountains, was an astonishment to me; but it is more
to the purpose to say that the fertile region was a surprise to railway
men who are perfectly familiar with the West.
We had passed some snow in the night, which had been very cold, but
there was very little at Larimore, a considerable town; there was a
high, raw wind during the day, and a temperature of about 10° above,
which heavily frosted the car windows. At Devil’s Lake (a body of
brackish water twenty-eight miles long) is a settlement three years old,
and from this and two insignificant stations beyond were shipped,
in 1887, 1,500,000 bushels of wheat. The country beyond is slightly
rolling, fine land, has much wheat, little houses scattered about, some
stock, very promising altogether. Minot, where we crossed the Mouse
River the second time, is a village of 700 people, with several brick
houses and plenty of saloons. Thence we ran up to a plateau some three
hundred feet higher than the Mouse River Valley, and found a land more
broken, and interspersed with rocky land and bowlders—the only touch
of “bad lands” I recall on the route. We crossed several small streams,
White Earth, Sandy, Little Muddy, and Muddy, and before reaching
Williston descended into the valley of the Missouri, reached Fort
Buford, where the Yellowstone comes in, entered what is called Paradise
Valley, and continued parallel with the Missouri as far as the mouth of
Milk River. Before reaching this we crossed the Big Muddy and the Poplar
rivers, both rising in Canada. At Poplar Station is a large Indian
agency, and hundreds of Teton Sioux Indians (I was told 1800) camped
there in their conical tepees. I climbed the plateau above the station
where the Indians bury their dead, wrapping the bodies in blankets
and buffalo-robes, and suspending them aloft on crossbars supported by
stakes, to keep them from the wolves. Beyond Assiniboin I saw a platform
in a cottonwood-tree on which reposed the remains of a chief and his
family. This country is all good, so far as I could see and learn.
It gave me a sense of geographical deficiency in my education to travel
three hundred miles on a river I had never heard of before. But it
happened on the Milk River, a considerable but not navigable stream,
although some six hundred miles long. The broad Milk River Valley is
in itself an empire of excellent land, ready for the plough and the
wheat-sower. Judging by the grass (which cures into the most nutritious
feed as it stands), there had been no lack of rain during the summer;
but if there is lack of water, all the land can be irrigated by the Milk
River, and it may also be said of the country beyond to Great Falls that
frequent streams make irrigation easy, if there is scant rainfall. I
should say that this would be the only question about water.
Leaving the Milk River Valley, we began to curve southward, passing Fort
Assiniboin on our right. In this region and beyond at Fort Benton great
herds of cattle are grazed by Government contractors, who supply the
posts with beef. At the Big Sandy Station they were shipping cattle
eastward. We crossed the Marias River (originally named Maria’s River),
a stream that had the respectful attention of Lewis and Clarke, and the
Teton, a wilfully erratic watercourse in a narrow valley, which caused
the railway constructors a good deal of trouble. We looked down, in
passing, on Fort Benton, nestled in a bend of the Missouri; a smart
town, with a daily newspaper, an old trading station. Shortly after
leaving Assiniboin we saw on our left the Bear Paw Mountains and the
noble Highwood Mountains, fine peaks, snow-dusted, about thirty miles
from us, and adjoining them the Belt Mountains. Between them is a
shapely little pyramid called the Wolf Butte. Far to our right were the
Sweet Grass Hills, on the Canada line, where gold-miners are at work.
I have noted of all this country that it is agriculturally fine. After
Fort Benton we had glimpses of the Rockies, off to the right (we had
seen before the Little Rockies in the south, towards Yellowstone Park);
then the Bird-tail Divide came in sight, and the mathematically Square
Butte, sometimes called Fort Montana.
At noon, November 20th, we reached Great Falls, where the Sun River,
coming in from the west, joins the Missouri. The railway crosses the Sun
River, and runs on up the left bank of the Missouri. Great Falls, which
lies in a bend of the Missouri on the cast side, was not then, but soon
will be, connected with the line by a railway bridge. I wish I could
convey to the reader some idea of the beauty of the view as we came out
upon the Sun River Valley, or the feeling of exhilaration and elevation
we experienced. I had come to no place before that did not seem remote,
far from home, lonesome. Here the aspect was friendly, livable, almost
home-like. We seemed to have come out, after a long journey, to a place
where one might be content to stay for some time—to a far but fair
country, on top of the world, as it were. Not that the elevation is
great—only about 3000 feet above the sea—nor the horizon illimitable, as
on the great plains; its spaciousness is brought within human sympathy
by guardian hills and distant mountain ranges.
A more sweet, smiling picture than the Sun River Valley the traveller
may go far to see. With an average breadth of not over two and a half to
five miles, level, richly grassed, flanked by elevations that swell up
to plateaus, through the valley the Sun River, clear, full to the grassy
banks, comes down like a ribbon of silver, perhaps 800 feet broad before
its junction. Across the far end of it, seventy-five miles distant, but
seemingly not more than twenty, run the silver serrated peaks of the
Rocky Mountains, snow-clad and sparkling in the sun. At distances of
twelve and fifty miles up the valley have been for years prosperous
settlements, with school-houses and churches, hitherto cut off from the
world.
The whole rolling, arable, though treeless country in view is beautiful,
and the far prospects are magnificent. I suppose that something of the
homelikeness of the region is due to the presence of the great Missouri
River (a connection with the world we know), which is here a rapid,
clear stream, in permanent rock-laid banks. At the town a dam has been
thrown across it, and the width above the dam, where we crossed it, is
about 1800 feet. The day was fair and not cold, but a gale of wind
from the south-west blew with such violence that the ferry-boat was
unmanageable, and we went over in little skiffs, much tossed about by
the white-capped waves.
In June, 1886, there was not a house within twelve miles of this place.
The country is now taken up and dotted with claim shanties, and Great
Falls is a town of over 1000 inhabitants, regularly laid out, with
streets indeed extending far on to the prairie, a handsome and
commodious hotel, several brick buildings, and new houses going up in
all directions. Central lots, fifty feet by two hundred and fifty, are
said to sell for $5000, and I was offered a corner lot on Tenth Street,
away out on the prairie, for $1500, including the corner stake.
It is difficult to write of this country without seeming exaggeration,
and the habitual frontier boastfulness makes the acquisition of bottom
facts difficult. It is plain to be seen that it is a good grazing
country, and the experimental fields of wheat near the town show that it
is equally well adapted to wheatraising. The vegetables grown there are
enormous and solid, especially potatoes and turnips; I have the outline
of a turnip which measured seventeen inches across, seven inches deep,
and weighed twenty-four pounds. The region is underlaid by bituminous
coal, good coking quality, and extensive mines are opening in the
neighborhood. I have no doubt from what I saw and heard that iron of
good quality (hematite) is abundant. It goes without saying that the
Montana mountains are full of other minerals. The present advantage
of Great Falls is in the possession of unlimited water-power in the
Missouri River.
As to rainfall and climate? The grass shows no lack of rain, and the
wheat was raised in 1887 without irrigation. But irrigation from the
Missouri and Sun rivers is easy, if needed. The thermometer shows a more
temperate and less rigorous climate than Minnesota and north Dakota.
Unless everybody fibs, the winters are less severe, and stock ranges and
fattens all winter. Less snow falls here than farther east and south,
and that which falls does not usually remain long. The truth seems to be
that the mercury occasionally goes very low, but that every few days
a warm Pacific wind from the south-west, the “Chinook,” blows a gale,
which instantly raises the temperature, and sweeps off the snow in
twenty-four hours. I was told that ice rarely gets more than ten inches
thick, and that ploughing can be done as late as the 20th of December,
and recommenced from the 1st to the 15th of March. I did not stay long
enough to verify these statements. There had been a slight fall of snow
in October, which speedily disappeared. November 20th was pleasant, with
a strong Chinook wind. November 21st there was a driving snow-storm.
The region is attractive to the sight-seer. I can speak of only two
things, the Springs and the Falls.
There is a series of rapids and falls, for twelve miles below the town;
and the river drops down rapidly into a canyon which is in some places
nearly 200 feet deep. The first fall is twenty-six feet high. The most
beautiful is the Rainbow Fall, six miles from town. This cataract, in a
wild, deep gorge, has a width of 1400 feet, nearly as straight across as
an artificial dam, with a perpendicular plunge of fifty feet. What makes
it impressive is the immense volume of water. Dashed upon the rocks
below, it sends up clouds of spray, which the sun tinges with prismatic
colors the whole breadth of the magnificent fall. Standing half-way down
the precipice another considerable and regular fall is seen above, while
below are rapids and falls again at the bend, and beyond, great reaches
of tumultuous river in the canon. It is altogether a wild and splendid
spectacle. Six miles below, the river takes a continuous though not
perpendicular plunge of ninety-six feet.
One of the most exquisitely beautiful natural objects I know is the
Spring, a mile above Rainbow Fall. Out of a rocky ledge, sloping up some
ten feet above the river, burst several springs of absolutely crystal
water, powerfully bubbling up like small geysers, and together forming
instantly a splendid stream, which falls into the Missouri. So perfectly
transparent is the water that the springs seem to have a depth of only
fifteen inches; they are fifteen feet deep. In them grow flat-leaved
plants of vivid green, shades from lightest to deepest emerald, and
when the sunlight strikes into their depths the effect is exquisitely
beautiful. Mingled with the emerald are maroon colors that heighten
the effect. The vigor of the outburst, the volume of water, the
transparency, the play of sunlight on the lovely colors, give one a
positively new sensation.
I have left no room to speak of the road of ninety-eight miles
through the canon of the Missouri and the canon of the Prickly-Pear to
Helena—about 1400 feet higher than Great Falls. It is a marvellously
picturesque road, following the mighty river, winding through crags and
precipices of trap-rock set on end in fantastic array, and wild mountain
scenery. On the route are many pleasant places, openings of fine
valleys, thriving ranches, considerable stock and oats, much laud
ploughed and cultivated. The valley broadens out before we reach Helena
and enter Last Chance Gulch, now the main street of the city, out of
which millions of gold have been taken.