Butte semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1886-1890, 1886-05-26
BITTER ROOT VALLEY.
How Railroad Connection With 1t
Would Benefit Butte.

Special Correspondence to The MINER
A corps OF engineers under the direction
OF Mr.. Ray are now in our valley max ing
survey in the interest OF the Union Pacific
Railway Company. They started last
Saturday at the bridge, four miles below
Stevensville, and are running line up the
valley on the east side OF the river, and are
nt,w somewhere about Corvallis. Mr.. Ray
has returned to Anaconda to bring his
family over to enjoy the salubrious climate
and the beauties OF nature in this lovely
garden valley. The line will be extended to
the valley, and then, am informed, Mr..
Ray will renew bis efforts to find O practi-
cable route by way OF what is frequently
called ''Stanley's trail" to Phiipsburg and
Anaconda.
Our people hail the advent OF these avant
couriers of new civilization with inexpres-
sible delight. When the company is spend
they surely mean business. This iR what
our people think. Their eympathie are
with this enterprise more than any other,
and hope they will uot be disappointed
in their expectations. For years past the
writer Of these lines has believed it to the
interest Of the Union Pacific Railroad to
build into and secure the inexhaustible
timber supply and the traffic of the great
Bitter Root Valley, and has time and again
advocated the enterprise both in public
and private. That road could ill afford to
lose such a vast source of wealth and
business, and rejoice that q movement is
now being made in that direction. The
future will demonstrate it to be wise
move. It would be far better for most OF
our i.eople if the road would cross directly
by Rock Creek and Phiipsburg to Ana
conta. 1t would be q much shorter route,
and we would be in direct communication
with the points we wish to reach, the vast
mining districts that need our lumber our
wood, our fruit, vegetable and other pro.
ducts. Bitter Root Valley could supply
Butte and all that region with everything
in that line, and it would require but
few hours in transit. Your toil-worn
miners and business men could run over
and spend many a holiday in rambling
through our shady hooks and rosy dells
and catching trout in our crystal streams.
just think oft, Butte and Anaconda would
then only be but few hours from
what is acknowledged by all to be the garden
spot OF Montana, and very paradise 80
far as natural advantages are concerned.
You need our products and should have
them fresh from the garden, orchards, f,ld
and forest, instead Of bringing them thous.
and miles or more from other Territories
and States that are able to help them
selves. We need your money to develop
our vast country and make it m gre produc-
tive. We can help one another. Our citi.
zens propose to show Mr.. Ray the most
practicable route across the range between
Bitter Root and Anaconda, and we hope
that he may yet find a pass that will prove
accessible. But if not, we will have to &C.
cept the other by way OF Big Hole as the
next best, and hope that the company
which is looked upon 80 favorably by our
citizens will do the best it can to get our
products to the most accessible markets.
The traffic Of a region of country ten to
twenty-five miles wide and nearly one hun
hundred miles long, rich in timber, mineral,
agriculture, and with the finest climate in
the world, is no small item. Such is the
great Bitter Root Valley. The freight on
our supplies and the passenger traffic be-
tween here and the great Eastern centers is
worth looking after.
The company knows its business, but we
hope it will hasten the building OF this road.
We have waited patiently, we have waited
long. Every other section has had it's
boom, but the biggest boom OF all will be
when We can welcome an excursion party
from Butte, Deer Lodge, Anaconda and
Philipsburg, coming by the Utah'& Northern
Railway to grand barbecue on the banks
OF the majestic Bitter Root River, to unite
in celebrating our deliverance from
long continued and painful isolation, and
hail the ushering in OF an era of prosperity
unprecedented in the history OF Western
Montana. E. is.