Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-01-12
THE UNSETTLED FRONTIER.

Six Weeks of Winter Beyond the Missouri
The Coal Beds-The Railroad Builders
No Bad Lands, but Farming and Grazing
Lands.
Mr.. John Day, of Red Wing, pioneer o.
that solid little city and the first wheat grow
er of Goodhue county, came home a few day.
ago from the Northern Pacific country anG
stopped in st. Paul long enough to call OK
his friends at the GLOBE Office. Mr.. Day
was for the last six weeks at the coal beds
about thirty-ive miles out on the Northern
Pacific extension beyond the Missouri, and
had passed through the worst winter storm:
he ever experienced or that were ever know
to whites or Indians of the Missouri valley
The cold was extreme, mercury thermometer
freezing and blood chilling reports being
circulated that spirit thermometers marked
As to So degrees below zero and one nigh
dropped to Go below. The wind blew gale
day after day, carrying before it clouds Of
snow which it piled into the ravines and val
leys in deep drifts. Mr.. Day was too old g
frontiersman to be caught out in such
weather. He knew that places of shelter
were far apart and all overcrowded and sc
kept near to his own quarters and generally
in comfortable proximity to fire. AS mer
on foot were daily, before the storms, pass
ing up and down the railroad gra'e, between
Mandan and the graders and herders' camps
$50 miles away, he has no doubt that num-
Der must have persisted, but the men with
the supply trains and others who went pre-
pared for emergencies, and the men in the
camps, though they felt the cold and had g
hard time of it, did not SUITE,
seriously. Since the week of billiards., the
weather has greatly moderated, and fail
winter temperature had prevailed in that
region for eight Or ten days. prior to Mr.
Days leaving the coal beds, Wednesday
morning last.
THE COAL OF THAT REGION
is not, according to Mr.. Days observations
available article. What he saw of it was
an inferior quality of bituminous coal, SC
not be used for fuel without a liberal adj
mixture of wood.
As to the railroad building, Mr.. Day says
the men, teams and tools are there, and nc
time will be lost except from inclement
weather. He saw men direct from tbs
graders camps Tuesday last, and learned
from them that the laborers were
well supplied with food, fairly shattered and
generally warmly clad. Their food sup
plies were short when the storm came, bui
not to the point of at all distressing them
and supply trains we're soon got through
which carried ample stores of the few goods
which were deficient at the camps.
AN AGRICULTURAL COUNTRY.
Mr.. Day confirms the impression derived
from others that the real bad lands along
the Northern Pacific occupy SO small space
that in the time to come the passengers who
ri de over that linewill have TO depend on
inquiry instead of observation for learning
whers the so-called bad lands are. MIR. Day
once before visited that country, and he is
familiar with it for sixty miles west of the
Missouri. He is a practical far
mer, and knows what he
gays, which is that the country
beyond the Missouri, as far as he has ex.
plored it, is we'll adapted tn grain and graz
ing and various other agricultural pursuits.
He thinks it will be closely taken up ane
settled within a year or two; and that wher
the railroad reaches the Yellowstone, next
fall, a great rush of immigration will 30
that Wav.