Butte, Montana

“ From a State of such prosperous activity in the sixties, with a large and well-to-do population, in 1874-75 it grew so dull and so many had left the Territory that [225] those remaining wished they could get away too. In the Centennial year of 1876, however, Montana's true era of prosperity dawned, when rich silver quartz was discovered at the now famous city of Butte, styled 'the greatest mining camp on earth.' The Territory's business in every avenue soon rose from its low ebb to an affluent flood, all kinds and lines almost immediately feeling its vitalizing, stimulating influence. ”

“ Most of the people live in the western or mining section of the State. Montana is predominantly a mining State, and there is a large excess of the male sex, the number in 1900 being 149,842. The total foreign-born numbered 67,067, no one nationality being particularly strong. In 1900 Butte had a population of 30,470 ”

“ Butte City is said to be, not only the greatest mining 41camp in Montana, but the greatest in the world. They boast of the many millions that are brought to the light of day by the magic wand of the miner’s pick. Vance found lodging at the Mercury Hotel, and early the next morning, after breakfasting heartily, started for a walk. ”

“ The Temple Gentiles are not allowed to enter. Outside the irrigation limits the country has a most desolate, desert, hopeless aspect. What nerve the Mormons had to penetrate to such a spot. [3]
It may be noted here that one Sidney Rigdon was the compiling genius of Mormonism; and it was he who concocted the Mormon Bible, not Joe [Pg 257] Smith. And what a concoction! No greater fraud was ever perpetrated.
Hence by Butte, Montana, the great copper-mining city, to Great Falls, where we crossed the Missouri River, there 4000 miles from the sea, yet twice as large as the Thames at Windsor. ”

“ A new America must be won in the restless, throbbing centers of industrial life.
It is in Butte that we find the heart of the great copper region of Montana. From the hill north of the city, ore to the value of a million and a half dollars has been taken. When Brother Van made his first visit there he found but fifty residents. Not only is it now a busy city of forty thousand inhabitants, but the character of the community has entirely changed. The settlers of that period were of American birth and parentage. To-day the great majority of the miners are from distant countries. ”

“ When the railway route cuts into a butte, its interior is disclosed as a pile of red-burnt clay fragments mixed with ashes and sand. Little prairie dogs dodge in and out of their holes, but there is not much else of life. The boundary is crossed 483 into Montana, and the "Bad Lands" gradually give place to a grazing section. Here stands up the great Sentinel Butte, with its reddish-yellow sides, near the Montana border, and the railway route then descends from the higher region to the valley of the Yellowstone. ”

“ The evening of Friday at Columbia Gardens is Society [5] Night for all respectable Butte, irrespective of class; the best floor and the airiest hall in Silver Bow County proving an irresistible incentive to democracy. Moreover, Butte is a city of few resources, and the Gardens at night look like fairyland: the immense room is hung with Chinese lanterns depending from the rafters, the music is the best in Montana; and the richer the women, the plainer their frocks. A sort of informal propriety reigns, and millionaire or clerk pays ten cents for the privilege of dancing with his lady. ”

“ No doubt you could do it for less than six thousand. Montana is regarded as the best grazing country in the world, but we don't eat that sort of stuff in New York. That's why it costs more to live here.
Montgomery Brewster.
Just before leaving his apartments for Miss Drew's home he received this response from faraway Montana:
Butte, Montana, Oct. ”

“ Black Butte, as it is known to-day, in Dawson County, Montana, was left on the left, after which they rode through the valley of Little Porcupine Creek to the Yellowstone, which was crossed with considerable difficulty. Turning more to the east, they passed the rough, precipitous section, the scene many years afterward of the appalling Custer massacre, and now an immense Indian reservation, and, entering the present State of Wyoming, skirted the foothills of the well-known Big Horn range. ”

“ The country of northwestern Montana, where high prairie is broken now and then by steep buttes rising to a height of several hundred feet, and by little ranges of volcanic uplifts like the Sweet Grass Hills, the Bear Paw Mountains, the Little Rockies, the Judith, and many others, was a favorite locality for sheep, and so, no doubt, was the butte country of western North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska, this being roughly the eastern limit of the species. ”

“ The rural population was therefore in that year 58·8% of the total, and the urban was only 28·7% of the total, but from 1890 to 1900 the urban increased 185% while the rural increased only 55·6%. The principal cities are: Butte, whose population increased from 10,723 in 1890 to 30,470 in 1900 and to 39,165 in 1910; Great Falls (1910) 13,948; Helena, the capital, (1910) 12,515; and Anaconda (1910) 10,134.
Administration.—The state is governed under a constitution adopted in 1889, a month before Montana's admission into the Union. ”

“ Some time since one of the larger houses on the West Side in Butte, built by a millionaire while still faithful to Montana, but whose family now spent twelve months of the year in Europe, New York, or California, had been thrown on the market for less than a third of its cost; new millionaires are not as plentiful in Amalgamated Butte as of old, and that unique camp is still a perch, even for those that make moderate fortunes ”

“ This stream rises near Fossil and flows into John Day River. It was so named because of Black Butte, a prominent point near its source, which served as a landmark. Black Butte has an elevation of about 4000 feet and is about two miles northeast of Fossil.
Butte Falls, Jackson County. Settlers in the Rogue River valley referred to Mt. McLoughlin as Snowy Butte, and the two main streams draining to the northwest from that mountain were known as Big and Little Butte creeks. At the falls on Big Butte Creek a settlement sprang up that took its name from the natural feature. ”

“ Butter Creek is a tributary of the Umatilla River, and the old pioneer road crossed it west of Echo. See Scott's History of the Oregon Country, volume III, page 316.
Butteville, Marion County. Butteville is on the east bank of the Willamette River in the extreme north part of the county and has an elevation of 102 feet. It was named for a well-known hill about a mile to the southwest, called by the early settlers on French Prairie La Butte, a form of name still used by the U. S. Geological Survey on its map of the Tualatin quadrangle, which shows the geography of this region. ”

“ On this line there are no dining-cars, so we had to descend at various stations for scrambling meals, at not by any means nice hotels.
At a distance of about thirty miles from Garrison, we passed the great mining city of Butte, on the west side of the main dividing range of the Rocky Mountains; for an hour or two our car was crowded with holiday people from that wealthy city, decked out very gorgeously, and proud of their display of jewellery. Butte is a city of 18,000 inhabitants, and is called "a mining camp." ”

“ Here, where the river made a quick turn, was the butte from which the station of Little Butte took its name—the superintendent might see its wooded summit rising above the lower hills intervening. It was a long, narrow ridge, more like a hogback than a true mountain, and it held a silver mine, Flemister's, which was a moderately heavy shipper. The vein had been followed completely through the ridge, and the spur track in the eastern gulch, which had originally served it, had been abandoned and a new spur built up along the western foot of the butte, with a main line connection at Little Butte. ”

“ Much of the time we were on a high divide between two creek systems, from which we could see the great landmarks of all the regions roundabout—Sentinel Butte, Square Butte and Middle Butte, far to the north and east of us. Nothing could be more lonely and nothing more beautiful than the view at nightfall across the prairies to these huge hill masses, when the lengthening shadows had at last merged into one and the faint glow of the red sun filled the west. ”

“ With the aid of the glasses we could see the vegetation and rocks on the sides of the mountains quite plainly.
The United States geological survey reports [27] Montana the best watered state in the Union. It has more large rivers than all of the states west of the Mississippi combined. Milk river is five hundred miles long. This valley is one of the finest in Montana. Here irrigation is a perfect success.
Here one sees the cowboy in all his picturesqueness. The saddle is your true seat of empire. Montana cattle bring a big price in the Chicago market. ”

“ This was the nucleus of the great city—the second in rank of the many wonderful cities of the United States. Fifty years ago the pioneers of the Badger and Prairie States were doing what the old-timers and pioneers of Montana are doing to-day, building towns and founding cities. In the Eastern pioneer States where a few straggling hamlets were first fashioned by the efforts of the early emigrants, there are thousands of towns and cities, where the unpretentious log cabins and town sites were no more inviting than those of the early settlers of Montana. ”

“ An architect of genius might profitably study this work of Nature: upon that subject, however, I shall presently have more to say. The Butte is highly interesting in a geological point of view; it shows the elevation of the adjoining plains in past ages, before partial deluges and the rains of centuries had effected the great work of degradation.
Again we sighted the pretty valley of Black's Fork, whose cool clear stream flowed merrily over its pebbly bed. The road was now populous with Mormon emigrants ”

“ The acquisition of a dignified Latin name seems to have been the first forward step in its career; from the simple ornament of the primeval wilderness and friend of the Indian, this blushing beauty has risen to the magnificent position of chosen flower of Montana, the Treasure State, and has given its English name—bitter root—to a mountain range, a river, and to the famous Bitter Root Valley.
Bitter Root Valley, the depression which separates the Bitter Root Mountains from the Rockies for a distance of about 105 miles, long before the white man penetrated the great West, was a favored spot. ”

“ The mountains are intersected by numerous valleys and cañons, through which flow most beautiful rivers. The highest point in the State, Emigrant Peak, is 10,969 feet high, and Mount Powell is 10,500 feet high. The principal river systems in Montana are the Shoshone, the Missouri, and the Yellowstone. The Shoshone rises in the Rocky Mountains in the S. part of the State, and after flowing W. turns N. and forms portion of the Idaho boundary. The Missouri river, formed by the Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin rivers crosses the N. E. part of the State and enters North Dakota. ”

“ Before it was over I knew a lot more than when we started out, and had got hard as nails; riding on round-up beats a gym for putting wire muscles under a man's skin, in my opinion. We worked all around White Divide—which was turning a pale, dainty green except where the sandstone cliffs stood up in all the shades of yellow and red. Montana, as viewed on "horse round-up," looks better than in the first bleak days of March, and I could gaze upon it without profanity. I even got to like tearing over the newborn grass on a good horse, with a cowboy or two galloping, keen-faced and calm, beside me. ”

“ It took us to Toby’s door, and went flat as I turned into my own driveway. Thus did our guardian angels stay with us, like the guide’s mule, to the end.
Like tired horses whose heads are turned homeward, our pace accelerated steadily as we moved east. Each day we put two hundred miles or more behind us. Montana, brown and parched like all the West, yet magnificent in the tremendous proportions of its mountains and valleys, we left with regret. We followed the Great Northern to the bleak town of Havre, then dropped south to the perfidious Yellowstone Trail. ”

“ Butte is a city of fine, substantial buildings that are up to date in style and beauty of architecture, and yet it is a bald and barren town, for not a tree, a leaf, a bush, a flower, or a blade of grass can we see anywhere within the length or breadth of its limits. It is surrounded on every hand by smoking smelters and grinning mines, and its streets are filled with rugged, stalwart miners. The eight-hour system of labor is in vogue here, and the mines and smelters run day and night. ”

“ We see with open eyes what a half-century of American genius and Western enterprise has wrought; may we not see by a prophetic vision a grander half-century's work as the future of Montana? As certain as history repeats itself, the prospector's wickie-up will become the mining camp, the corral of the round-ups will furnish the location for rustic villages, the villages will become towns, and scores of towns will become cities, each one of which must be larger than the other, and one of which must be the great metropolis of the Northwest. ”

“ Utterly different, yet in its way no less sublime, is the immense panorama of big peaks as seen from Montana. Here again{174} (though perhaps, strictly speaking, you are in the Rhone valley) there is no impression of being in a valley at all, so lofty is the shelf on which Montana stands, so swiftly the ground plunges into the Rhone valley proper below. But this is no narrow cleft as at Mürren, and the hills that climb out of it on the further or southern side are miles away. But what a row of glistening giants is piled up on those hills. ”