Montana

“ Montana (132) , a State of the American Union, in the NW., lies along the Canadian border between Idaho and the Dakotas, with Wyoming on the S.; has a mild climate, and a soil which, with irrigation, produces fine crops of grain and vegetables. Cattle-raising is profitable, but the chief industry is mining, in the Rocky Mountains, which occupy a fifth of the State. There gold, silver, copper, and lead abound. The Missouri and the Columbia Rivers rise in Montana, and the Yellowstone traverses the whole State. The State was admitted to the Union in 1889, with Helena (9) as capital. ”

“ Montana is a Northwestern State in fact as well as name. It is situated on the high plateau between the Continental Divide and the Bitter Root Range. Fully one-fifth of its area lies beyond the Rocky Mountains, and its northern boundary is the snow-covered region of Canada and British Columbia. The eastern portion of the State, bordering upon the Dakotas, is for the most part prairie land, rising rapidly in the direction of the west, and forming the approach to the mighty Rockies. The western portion, bordering upon Idaho, is much more mountainous in character. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The nights were cool and clear, but the days were hotter than any I had experienced on my entire eastern trip. It is no wonder that the Montana people are so cheerful, when there is so much beautiful sunshine. ”

“ Montana was first discovered by Canadians, some two hundred years ago. The first permanent settlement was early in the present century, and, until within the last fifty years, all goods and utensils used in it were dragged up the Missouri River from St. Louis, a distance of nearly 2,000 miles. When the war broke out, the Territory was occupied almost entirely by Indians, with a few daring fur traders and a number of missionaries, who, in exercise of their duty, had no fear at all. ”

“ 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. ”

“ After traveling more than five hundred miles in Montana, which is surpassed in size only by Alaska and Dakota, we enter northern Idaho, attractive for its wild and picturesque scenery,—a territory of mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, and prairies combined, second only to Montana in its mineral wealth, and possessing also some of the choicest agricultural districts in the great West, where Nature herself freely bestows the best of irrigation in uniform and abundant rains. ”

“ Where the Wind River Chain of the Rocky Mountains stretches far away to the east, and the Bitter Root Range far away to the northwest, like giant arms holding in their embrace the fertile valleys whence the myriad springs which form the two great rivers of the continent take their rise,—on the northern border of the United States, and accessible only through leagues of desert,—lie the gold fields of Montana. ”

“ The junction of Clear Water and the Snake rivers in Idaho is a place of historic interest. We are now in the country traversed by Lewis and Clarke.
The history of the great Northwest is wonderfully fascinating. The history of no part of this great territory is more tragic than that of Montana. Her savage tribes, her cosmopolitan population called into existence by her fur trade and mining industry, all combined to produce in Montana a peculiar phase of civilization, but she has beaten dirks and bowie knives [233] into plowshares and now follows the gentle arts of peace. ”

“ You love the country out there—you must love it, to remember only the sunrises, and the sunsets, and the stars; and forget the torture of long hours in the saddle and that terrific downpour of rain that burst the reservoir and so nearly cost us our lives, and the dust storm in the bad lands, and that night of horrible thirst. Why those few days we spent in Montana, between the time of the wreck at Wolf River and our wedding at Timber City, were the most tumultuously adventurous days of our lives! ”

“ The rush was close on their heels because, on account of the lesser distance to travel, men had been more prone to take a chance even in the face of heavier odds upon the midway and lower claims of the creek. The stampede was driving down like a great wedge, thick at the head and petering out to single teams in the far upper reaches of Montana.
It was twenty-odd miles from Bassett’s claim on Montana to the junction of Indian River and the Yukon, and eighteen more to Dawson itself, a continuous run of approxmately forty miles. ”

“ The boldest imaginations and the most romantic hearts are sequestered in the American “big business” men of today.
[16] Gregory Compton had grown to maturity in the most romantic subdivision of the United States since California retired to the position of a classic. Montana, her long winter surface a reflection of the beautiful dead face of the moon, bore within her arid body illimitable treasure, yielding it from time to time to the more ardent and adventurous of her lovers. ”

“ BILL NYE'S CORDWOOD. Bill Nye on the Cow Industry. A COWBOY COLLEGE NEEDED TO EDUCATE YOUNG MEN TO THIS PROFESSION.
No one can go through the wide territory of Montana to-day without being strongly impressed with the wonderful growth of the great cattle growing and grazing industry of that territory. And yet Montana is but the northern extremity of the great grazing belt which lies at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, extending from the British possessions on the north to the Mexican border on the south, extending eastward, too, as far as the arable lands of Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas. ”

“ LAKE McDONALD AND ITS TRAIL IN the northern part of Montana, towards the Canadian border, the Main Range of the Rocky Mountains has been rent and carved by glacial action during ages gone by, until the peaks, like tusks, stand separate and distinct in a mighty, serrated line. No one of these reaches so great a height as Shasta, Rainier or Hood, but here the huge, horned spine rises almost sheer from the sweep of tawny prairie, and not one, but hosts of pinnacles, sharp as lances, stand clean cut against the sky. ”

“ The Northern Pacific Railroad runs through this wonderful State, with so great a future before it. Helena, the capital city of Montana, was originally a mining camp, and early prophecies were that it would not outlive the mining enthusiasm. These prophecies, however, have proved entirely mistaken. It is no longer a mere mining town, with rough, busy, uncultured men rushing hither and thither in the eager pursuit of their daily avocation. It is now not only the judicial capital of Montana, but it is also the great center of educational advance. ”

“ What sort of a climate do you call it, anyway?"
"A perfect one," returned Allie loyally.
"Not much! Montana buys up the job lots of weather left over from the other States, and cuts them up small before she serves them out again, just as they happen to come. Montana weather and Montana slang are the two richest crops in the State."
The past two months had been unbroken by any event of marked importance. Between their lessons and their frolics, the time of the young people had been well filled, and the days had hurried by, without any one's stopping to ask where they had gone. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ As it was, we but touched the waters of the north and south branches, and striking southwestwards availed ourselves of the American railway lines in Montana for our return. It was most interesting to compare the southern mountains and prairies with our own, and not even the terrible events which have recently cast so deep a gloom upon our neighbours, as well as ourselves, could prevent our kinsmen from showing that hospitality and courtesy which makes a visit to their country so great a pleasure. ”

“ The women of Montana, today, are the splendid products of the more adventurous and the more courageous, who fought their way along the ever-extending frontier, building in so short a time, a people who enjoy the highest standard of living, the highest degree of education, who have gone out to meet the needs of the community in a spiritual and moral way. ”

“ There are a great many people settled in Montana in the land that belonged to the Indians. These people are raising lots of cattle and ought to be good to the Indian. I have been on this land for over twenty years, but we are not yet accustomed to the white man's food: we love the meat yet, and we long for the buffalo. There is a great deal of land leased by cattle men in Montana, and the money ought to go to buy more cattle for the Indian, and clothes for our children. ”

“ Every child brought any book he might possess. Now schools were becoming common in Montana. Daily papers were needed and in place of the Montana Post which had been published in the cellar of a log cabin in Virginia City and dates from May, 1868, came the Montana Record Herald.
Montana had a state pride and no man could surpass Brother Van as he sang the praises of his adopted state. As civilization progressed the new State-house now standing on Capitol Hill was needed. This was a thrilling time in the life of the young state. ”

“ Around that interesting room is a record of the history of Montana. War-bonnets and tomahawks hang from pegs. In a rack are rifles which tell the story of firearm progress from the flintlock to the Springfield, and then to the Winchester. Indian beads, rugs, baskets, and blankets form a wealth of color on the walls, and before a great fireplace stands an easel, and lo, the artist is telling our story in a finer way. There are the figures of Lewis and Clarke on the canvas. An Indian village is in the background, and in the center we recognize the woman guide, Sacajawea. ”

“ Now, what they would do was go into Canada and work for several weeks and roundup all the American cattle they could find and bring them out to Montana and report the same just like they did when they went in. They would take them about three or four miles across the line into Montana—several thousand head—then they would brand the calves, cut out the beef cattle that was fit to ship—and then turn the main herd loose right there and, of course, in a couple of days those cattle would all be back in Canada, and nothing to bother about for another year. ”

“ In the year of 1897 the Circle Diamond outfit turned loose 5,000 head of Arizona yearlings on their range on Milk River in Montana and instead of settling down and locating there they kept on going north until the outfit heard of some of them 200 miles up in Canada.
So they sent an outfit of about 20 men with horses and bed and chuckwagon to bring them back and try to locate them on their own range. ”

“ I left Montana in Spring of 1866, for Utah, arriving at Salt Lake city during the summer. ”

“ Montana, in the winter of 1862 and 1863 had a total population of 670 inhabitants of whom The Chronicle complacently says: "Fifty-nine were evidently respectable women." Like Idaho, it attracted an element of Southern men escaping from the draft into the Confederate Army, but from then on a large part of its population was from the Northern States. Its growth of population was closely linked up with the fortunes of the mining industry. ”

“ Just now [110] they may be before us, or behind us, or on either side of us, and if we waste time prospecting around this neighbourhood after them they may get clean away from us. Now, as far as I’m concerned, I’d just as soon go to Montana as anywhere else,—I’ve been there before, and I know the country,—and my scheme is to go straight ahead and ride along the stage-road until we come to the Snake River bridge, and if they haven’t gone by, to sit down there and wait for them. ”