The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1883-10-12
TURNED OUT TO GRASS.
The Stage Coach Thing Of the Past
..Thsre they 90 ain't they CAV 90

"There they 60; amt they gay ?"
eyes, it's the first play spell those fellows
have had together for many years, Ii ever,
and they're enjoying their circus while they
may"
"Why, what are they"
"Those are the Gilmer, Salisbury & Co.
stage horses, relieved from duty and turned
out to grass"
This conversation occurred as the Utah &
Northern train, few days since, went dash
ing through the meadows near Deer Lodge,
and q couple of hundred horses, including
many fine looking, spirited fellows, crossed
the track, and, with heads and tails up, cir
cled around and eyed the locomotive and
cars with looks that seemed to say, in the
language of All Sin, that railroading was "a
game they did not understand"
The stage horses out to grass, harness hung
in the stables and the coaches packed in the
yards and sheds 1t reminds US that the days
of stage coaching are over in this part OF
Montana, and nearly everywhere. We havn't
seen q coach and six on the streets for a fort
night, and we miss them not altogether with
out regret. If there is prettier street pic
ture of animation than a red Concord coach,
with six spirited horses in bright harness and
good reinsman on the box, we have not
seen 1t. But it was not always clean Con-
cords and six prancing horses. There are the
jerkeys and mud wagons, with two and four
horses, and passengers packed in like sar-
dimes, or footing it through the mud at the
rate of two miles an hour, in the dark back
ground of memory on which the brighter
picture Is painted. ~'
But what unique chapter of history the
stage coaching days of Montana would fur
nish Don't you old timers reccIlect how
Jno. Oliver Ed House and Ed Connover, who
were carrying express from Fort Bridger,
Salt Lake and Bannack, in 1868, soon after
the Alder Diggings were struck in June,
rugged up broncho stage line between Ban
mack and Alder; how they had rope harness
and dead axe springs; how 1t took half
dozen men to hold the bronchos till the last
tug was hooked, and when they were turned
loose they struck dead run and kept it up
to the next station? The drivers didn't
know there were any sleeping places" on
the road those days. And then when Last
Chance was struck in November Oliver & Co.
put IN the Virginia and Helena line, making
the run through, 100 miles, by daylight. In
1865 Ben Holiday came in with the mail con-
tract, and Wells, Fargo & Co. bought the
important stage lines from Salt Lake north.
Then came VIM. ii. Taylor rs superinten-
dent, with Pullman Palace ideas of staging,
giving Montanians the ideal line, but max
ing 1t cost w. +. & Co. so much money that
in 1859 Gilmer & Salisbury bought their lines
for a song and started them again As a money
making enterprise. We didn't always, or
often, have good accommodations or rapid
transit, except when Huntley & Co, Taylor
& Mccormick, Alex. Rallston, Joe Baddow
or L. NJ. Black put on opposition, but rain or
shine, mud to the axles or snow to the blind
ers, the mail and passengers were generally
landed at the home stations about schedule
time; and although we thought the fares ex-
tortionate, it didn't cost much or any more
for local travel then than it does now by car
and bus.
With o. j. Salisbury, VIM. c. Child, and
Captain III. S. Howell as superintendents the
past ten years, the G. s. & Co. lines IN Mon
tana were expanded to a great enterprise,
UdVluB udu az niBu a. ,@oo "'cS Vi mail "ho
passenger coach lines, the most of them with
service daily each way. A year and half
ago the company had 800 head of horses and
$40, 600 worth Of property in service. Six
months ago, with the encroachments of the
railroads, the lines had shortened up, but
they still had 500 horses and $50, 600 worth of
property on hand. Now their total stage
lines in Montana aggregate only IL, miles,
being the Helena and Dillon line, with
branches to Butte and Virginia City. They
have yet on hand, beside the horses, thirty
four and six horse coaches, fifteen jerkies,
twenty sleighs, four road buggies, twelve
deadaxe wagons and harness enough to equip
a thousand miles of road.
Who will speak of the real knights of the
Road who in the past twenty years, by day
and by night, through storm and sleet, over
icy grades, through swollen streams and biz
yards, with a heroism as great and endurance
surprising that it requires to win honors on
the battlefield held the lines over the noun
tain stage teams and with consummate skill
and honorable fidelity safely carried the
tens of thousands of passengers entrusted to
their care? The stage coaching days of Mon
tana are full of incident and anecdote that If
fairly told would be most entertaining. Who
| will be the historian and the biographer of
the stage coach and the stage drivers?
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