Leaves of Knowledge/Chapter 4
EASTERN AND SOUTHERN MONTANA
CHAPTER IV.
Eastern and Southern Montana.
After remaining in Butte a short time, I went on to Billings, Montana. Arriving there I found the thermometer 28 below zero, which seemed a little chilly to me, as I had been on the Pacific coast for the last two winters. Billings is the largest and most prosperous city in Eastern Montana. The main industries are cattle and sheep raising. I will take this place up again.
At Red Lodge are situated the great Rocky Fork coal mines, owned and operated by the Northern Pacific Railway Company.
The town of Big Timber, which has not a tree within its limits (as one would imagine there would be by its name) is the center and distributing point of an extensive stock country.
Livingston, the division headquarters of the Northern Pacific Railway, is where the branch extends to the Yellowstone National Park, a distance by rail of fifty-four miles to Gardner, the entrance to the park.
At Bozeman, my next stop, is located the State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. Here are the rich farms of the Gallatin valley, which are noted for their production of barley, rye and wheat. The barley makes a superior quality of malt which is used in making beer. Here are also large flour mills, and at Belgrade and still further west are the mills of Manhattan where straw is manufactured into paper. At the head of the valley is Logan, the division of the roads going either to Butte or Helena. A few miles west, on the Helena line, is the junction of the Gallatin, Madison and Jefferson rivers, commonly called the Three Forks of Lewis and Clark, the head of the Missouri river. At Whitehall a branch line extends to Twin Bridges, where the State Home for Orphans is located; and the famous Alder Gulch and Virginia City, where in the early sixties there resided over thirty thousand persons and over ninety-five millions of dollars were taken from its placer mines. At the present time Virginia City has numerous rich gold producing quartz mines, and the patriotic citizens are beginning to realize prosperity as in the days of yore. Also on the same line is Sheridan, where there are a number of valuable gold mines; the town is advancing rapidly.
At Whitehall I again take the train branching off at Sappington on the Pony and Norris branches. Pony was formerly one of the early placer mining camps and is now a thriving town, having a number of producing gold quartz mines, with large concentrators and mills. At Norris, Red Bluff and Sterling are mines and mills in active operation.
Going back to Butte, I take the Oregon Short Line to Dillon, where the State Normal School is located, and which is the largest and most prosperous city in southern Montana. Here is the center and distributing point for the Big Hole cattle country and the many surrounding mining camps. Red Rock is an important cattle shipping station and stage depot. From here the Concord stages daily arrive and depart for Salmon City, Gibbonsville and other towns of Central Idaho. Lima is a division on the Oregon Short Line Railway. From Monida stages make regular trips to the Yellowstone National Park.
As the summers are so pleasant on the Pacific coast, I then made a trip to that fashionable resort, Newport, Oregon.