is the principal tributary, or rather, the upper part of the Clark fork of the Columbia, which name it takes some 2,000 miles northwest from its source, after having received as tributaries the Blackfoot, Bitterroot, and Flathead rivers, and numerous smaller streams.
The sum of $50,000 was appropriated by congress, in 1869, to build a prison at some place to be designated by the legislative assembly of Montana. Deer Lodge was the point chosen. Twelve acres of the public domain were marked off as the site, and the erection of a building was by law placed in charge of the United States marshal, William F. Wheeler, to whom I am indebted for these facts.
The building was completed and accepted in the summer of 1871, the appropriation barely covering the cost of the stone walls, roof, floor, and fourteen brick cells, six by eight feet in size, and grating for the lower windows only. The building was eighty by forty feet; its walls were two feet thick, and twenty-two feet high. A mansard roof afforded room for a third tier of cells. The building has since been completed and furnished. A high board fence was also constructed, enclosing a space 300 feet square for a prison yard. The marshal still retained control of the building, and on the 2d of July, 1871, opened it for the reception of territorial and United States convicts. Twelve criminals were at that time received.
Then, and subsequently, besides furniture and fixtures of every kind furnished, the United States paid all prison expenses, the salaries of officers, superintendent, guards, and physician, who were supplied with rooms and subsistence, the clothing and food of prisoners, fuel and lights, and the territory of Montana paid the general government one dollar a day for the keeping of each of its convicts.
Becoming impatient of govermental leading-strings the territory asked and obtained control from the 15th of May, 18'73, to the 1st of August, 1874; by which
