Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, D.T. [N.D.]) 1875-1878, 1877-04-21
BISMARCK.

BISMARCK.
Not Frederick Williams Ex-Chan-
cellor-But a Town 50 Ycleped, tho
Western Terminus Of the Northern
Pacific Railroad-Its1 Important re-
lation to the Movement Black Hill
swaxd-Having Given Its Name to
tho Most Expiditious Route Be-
yond any ofthe Four Termini OF all
Rail anTransportation- SP1edid1y
Equipped Overland Line to tho
Hi1ls-A Thoroughly Reliable
Route.
social Correspondence.
B1sMA1cK, DAKOTA TERRITORY, April
Is, 1877.-Bismarck, the present terminus
of the Northern Pacific railway, and the
point of departure for the overland emf
grafton by this route to the Black Hills,
is at the outset of the present season be-
ginning to command that public recog-
nition Of the general character of her
through route which must make her
formidable competitor for the business
and travel to and from the far-famed and
muct-sought northern gold-6elds. The
citizens Of Bismarck, confident of its pc
culiar!y favorable location with respect
to that business, and alike confident of
the permanencv and rapid increase of
the business itself, put forth during the
seasonof 1876 the most liberal and enter
prising efforts possible to her own small
| business community to attract the aid
necessary to endow their route to the
Hills and place it on footing of equal
competitive strength with the southern
routes. They die not succeed IN time to
intercept the rapidly augmenting busl-
ness Of last year. The lines of rail trans
portation nonnecting them with the east,
especially the directory of the Northern
Pacific in the remoter east, were slow to
accept beliefin any enduring and profit
able business association with the Black
Hills which would justify special efforts
to capture it. The Development of the
Bismarck route, unlike that of the Un-
ion Pacific routes from sidney and Chey-
enne, was thus left solely1n the very in
adequate resources of local capital and
enterprise. Other facts also tended to
give the southern lines of access to the
Hills early prominence, and to retire
those from the Missouri river, indubita-
bly, the shortest and best overland route,
into the background. The major part of
the first immigration, and the class oflm-
migrants whose discoveries made certain
the existence there of great mineral
wealth, came from the older mining ter
ritories west and south of the new gold
region. Their direct and generally only
access was by Cheyenne, and the latter
point was thus enabled at the start to be-
come at once prominently identified with
the movement to tie Hills and with the
business thus created. Again the Union
Pacific was the great through highway
of commerce and thoroughfare of travel
between the east and the west, and this
fact of itself prepossessed the attention
of the public, but vaguely and indefinate-
| ly informed as to their relative location,
to that road of ingress to the Hills. OF
consequence Notwithstanding the over
land roads from both Sydney and Chey-
enne were much more difficult and
greatly inferior as natural wagon roads,
and the distance by them very consider
bly, longer than by those leading west and
southwest to the Hills from the Missouri
river, they attracted the investment of
large capital in their improvement and
| Cuulp1IlCuI DIS lilACS Sl u dHSPo IoSAOh,
which the Bismarck route has not until
now been able to secure. Without such
full and perfect equipment as stage and
freight line the superior natural advan-
tages of any route would go for nought.
The hard, level. and comparatively short
overland road from Bismarck to the Hills
traversing as we'll watered and wooded
country as can be found on the northern
plains, bnt uuprovided with stages, stage
stations, and supply stores, And without
large freighting organization, could not
compete with the we'll equipped southern
routes. But superadding these facilities,
as this season it does. upon unquestiona-
bly, the most effective natural advanta-
ges, it commands public recognition of
its merits as beng in the average
THE MOST RELIABLY EXPEDITIONS
and economical route from the States to
the Black Hills. OF the two roads to the
hills from the Missouri river-that from
Bismarck and that from old Fort Pierre
the distance in miles is in favor Of the
latter, and the character of the road in
favor of the former. OF the two the Bis
marck road is the harder and considera-
bly, the more level, thus equalizing the
distance and making the through time
about the same on each. The stage time
and distance (conceding that the Pierre
road will be equipped as a stage line,
which at present it is not,) on each of the
four overland roads will be, during the
favorable season, as follows:
To Deadwood from Niles. Hours.
Bismarck. ..21I 80
Pierre. 100 30