Cabinet (1,020,960 acres), Custer (590,720 acres), Deerlodge
(1,080,220 acres), Flathead (2,092,785 acres), Gallatin (907,160 acres),
Helena (930,180 acres), Jefferson (1,255,320 acres), Kootenai
(1,661,260 acres), Lewis and Clark (844,136 acres), Lolo (1,211,680
acres), Madison (1,102,860 acres), Missoula (1,237,509 acres) and
Sioux (145,253 acres in Montana; 104,400 acres in South Dakota).
A large part of the woodland contains no trees fit for lumber; nevertheless
the value of the lumber was $3,024,674 in 1905. More than
one-half of the product is yellow pine and the remainder is principally
red fir and tamarack. There is scarcely any hardwood timber
in the state.
Minerals and Mining.—Mining has been the leading industry of Montana ever since the discovery of gold in 1862. It contains the largest copper producing district in the world, and in 1907 mined more copper than any other state or territory except Arizona; this metal constituted nearly three-fourths in value of the state's mining products in 1907, the total value being $60,663,511 and that of copper $44,852,758. The most important copper mines are in Silverbow, Broadwater, Jefferson and Beaverhead counties. Gold was discovered in Deerlodge county as early as 1852 but very little mining was done until ten years later. In 1863 the famous Alder Gulch in Madison county was discovered and in the next year, Last Chance Gulch in the south of Lewis and Clark county. In 1865 the product reached its maximum, as the value of gold and silver combined (the value of the silver being relatively small) was $18,000,000; the production then decreased and in 1903 the value of the gold was only $1,800,000. Then copper mining rapidly developed and considerable gold was obtained from copper ores. Until the development of copper mining, silver was produced only in small quantities along with gold, but as much more silver than gold was obtained from the copper ores the value of the silver product increased from $2,630,000 in 1881 to $24,615,822 in 1892. The product then fell off, but in 1907, when it amounted to 9,317,605 fine ounces, valued at $6,149,619, more than nine-tenths of it was derived from the copper ores in Silverbow county. It was in 1882 while Marcus Daly was sinking a shaft at Anaconda in preparation for milling gold and silver ores that he discovered the first rich copper ledge. Other discoveries about Butte followed, and the output of copper increased from 11,011 long tons in 1883 to 129,805 long tons in 1906, more than 99·6% from Silverbow county. The industrial and political life of Montana have been strongly influenced by the copper industry and by the tremendous wealth controlled by the copper interests; in the industry three men were long dominant—Marcus Daly, William A. Clark and F. Augustus Heinze; later the Amalgamated Copper Company gained control of a large part of the mines.
Coal was discovered in Montana before 1880, when 224 tons were mined. In 1907 the output was 2,016,857 tons, and in 1908 1,920,190 tons. The coal underlying the east half of the state, the “Great Plains,” is lignitic and of inferior quality, but that in the mountain districts is bituminous and generally suitable for coking. The principal fields are: the isolated Bull Mountain deposit, 45 m. north-east of Billings, in Yellowstone county; the large Clark Fork field in Meagher, Sweet Grass, Yellowstone and Carbon counties; the small but valuable Rocky Fork field in the south central part of Carbon county; the Red Lodge field in Carbon county; the Yellowstone field, chiefly in Gallatin and Park counties; the Trail Creek deposits, 10 m. south of Bozeman; the Cinnabar field in south Park county; the Great Falls field in Cascade county; and the West Gallatin, the Toston and the Ruby valley fields. The output steadily increased until 1895 when it was 1,504,193 short tons; but from then to 1905, when it was 1,643,832 short tons, the quantity varied little from year to year. From 1905 to 1907, when the output was valued at $3,907,082, the increase in production was steady.
Granite, sandstone and limestone are abundant in the state, but have been little developed. Granite was quarried in 1907 to the value of $102,050. Limestone quarried in the same year was worth $124,690; and sandstone was valued at $39,216. Some light grey sandstone found in Rocky Canon, Gallatin county, looks much like the Berea (Ohio) sandstone; and a sandstone quarried at Columbus, Yellowstone county, was manufactured into grindstones equal to those made from the Berea stone. Gypsum in Carbon county and in Cascade county is worked for plaster. Sapphires are found in several gulches, especially on Yogo Creek, 16 m. from Utica, Fergus county, where blue stones are found, and on Rock and Cottonwood creeks, where green, yellow, red and blue sapphires have been found. Many of the sapphires are shipped to Switzerland for watch jewels and for bearings. In 1907 the total value of precious, stones was $229,800.
Manufactures.—With the exception of the smelting and refining of copper, manufacturing is in Montana a decidedly minor industry. In 1905 the total value of the “factory” product was $66,415,452, and the value of the copper (by state reports) was $48,165,277. Lumber and timber products, which ranked second, increased in value from $2,846,268 in 1900, to $3,024,674 in 1905. Flour and grist mill products rose during that period from $937,462 to $2,003,136; and malt liquors increased in value from $1,267,331 to $1,731,691. In 1905 the value of the products of the factories of Anaconda and Great Falls was 63·5% of that for the entire state.
Transport.—Montana is served by three transcontinental railways: the Great Northern traversing the north, the Northern Pacific traversing the south-east, south and south-west portions, and, north of the Northern Pacific, the Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound, an extension of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul to Seattle and Tacoma, practically completed in 1909; branch lines of the Great Northern, from the north, connect with the Northern Pacific and the Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound at Butte, and with the Northern Pacific at Laurel. The Oregon Short Line from the south connects with the Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, and the Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound at Butte, and the Burlington system, also from the south, connects with the Northern Pacific at Billings, Yellowstone county. The Butte, Anaconda & Pacific railway carries ore from the mines at Butte to the smelters at Anaconda. The first railway was the Oregon Short Line, which was completed by the Union Pacific Company from Ogden, Utah, to Butte in 1881. The Northern Pacific reached Helena two years later and the railway mileage in the state increased from 106 m. in 1880 to 4012·62 m. in 1909. River transport has been of relatively little importance since the advent of railways.
Population.—The population of the state increased from 39,159 in 1880 to 243,329 in 1900, and to 376,053 in 1910. In 1900, 67,067 were foreign-born, 11,343 were Indians, 2441 Japanese, 1739 Chinese and 1523 negroes; most numerous among the foreign-born were 13,826 Canadians, 9436 Irish, 8077 English, 7162 Germans and 5346 Swedes. The Indians are mostly members of the following tribes: the Piegan, the Crow, the Salish (or Flathead), the Sioux, the Assiniboin, the Arapaho Atsina (miscalled Grosventres) and the Northern Cheyenne. The Piegans, with small remnants of a few other tribes, numbering (1900) about 2060, occupy the Blackfeet reservation in the north-west of Teton county, the Crows, numbering 1857, occupy the Crow reservation in the south central part of the state; the Salish, with small remnants of the Pend Oreille, the Spokan, the Lower Kalispell and the Kutenai, numbering 1837, occupy the Flathead reservation in the north of Missoula and the south of Flathead county; Assiniboins and others of Sioux stock, numbering about 1793, occupy Fort Peck reservation in the south-east of Valley county: Atsina and Assiniboins, numbering about 1429, occupy Fort Belknap reservation in the east of Chouteau county; and the Northern Cheyennes, numbering about 1357, occupy Northern Cheyenne reservation in the south-east of Rosebud county. Many of the Indians are engaged in stock-raising; the Crows have an irrigation system and are extensively engaged in farming. Roman Catholics are more numerous in Montana than Protestants, having 72,359 communicants out of a total of 98,984 of all denominations in 1906, when there were 7022 Methodists, 4096 Presbyterians, 3290 Protestant Episcopalians and 2029 Baptists. In 1900 the urban population (i.e. population of places having 4000 inhabitants or more) was 69,989; the semi-urban (i.e. population of incorporated places having less than 4000 inhabitants) was 30,270; and the rural (i.e. population outside of incorporated places) was 143,070. 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. The requirements for amending this constitution are: an affirmative vote in each house of the legislature of two-thirds of its members, followed, not less than three months later, by an affirmative vote of a majority of the electors voting thereon at a general election; or, by a like vote of each house of the legislature and of the electorate, a convention may be called to revise or amend it, a revision or amendment in this manner requiring the ratification of the electorate not less than two months nor more than six months after the adjournment of the convention. General suffrage is conferred on every male citizen of the United States who is twenty-one years of age and who has lived in the state one year, and in the county thirty days immediately preceding an election, the only exceptions being idiots or insane persons; a woman who has the qualifications for suffrage that are required of a man, may vote at any school district election
