Helena weekly herald., 1886-07-15
THE RAILROAD SCRAMBLE.

me HeIC6 sCTlIc OF TlNdl TdllIOdu COHl-
panies in Montana and the distant rum
blings of other great roads coming in
this direction have a cause and mean
ing that it is not difficult to understand.
The whole secret lies in the rich mines
that have been developed in and around
Butte and Helena. The Butte branch
Of the Union Pacific has proved one of
the best paying railroad enterprises in
the United States. 1t has done more to
sustain the main line of the Union Pa
cific than all the through business for
which the line was originally construct
ed. The same is true on a smaller scale
of the Wickes branch of the Northern
Pacific. These facts have become known
to all the great railroad companies in
the Northwest. They have had shrewd
agents here looking over the ground and
their reports have had the effect of stim-
ulating all to turn in our direction and
enlist them all in the grand rush to get
in and share the rich harvest. The
mines of Butte alone are enough to en-
sure lucrative business for many years
to more than one great railroad COM
pany, and there is this fact about it that
is different from all other mining camps
and discoveries. The wealth of the dis
trict does not depend upon any one
mine, but there are hundreds of them
and new ones being found and
opened every season. One mine, how.
ever, rich for time, like the COmstock,
might fail at any time, and its working
controlled and kept back for speculative
purposes but when there are scores and
hundreds of such mines, it becomes i'm
possible that they should be monopolized
and equally unlikely that they should
all fail for years to come. In fact the
development has reached a stage that
renders it likely that the yield from
these mines will continue to increase for
years to come, till we have here in the
center of Montana the great mining CEN
ter of the world.
But even the rich cluster of mines in
and around Butte is but one item in the
greater aggregate. Those around Helena,
at Wickes, Boulder, Elkh2rn, Red Noun
tain, Marysville, are just beginning to
loom up and are attracting the eyes of
the world. Wherever mining work has
been pushed prudently and systemat-
ically the return has been remunerative
and encouraging. Here are mines by
the thousand that will be worked for a
hundred or more years to come.
Now only the richest of the mines
are worked, and out of these only the
richest of the ores is selected. For one
ton that is worked there are thousands
that will not pay to work or ship at
present. With cheaper process of work
ing and greater facilities for transporta-
ton, ten thousand car loads of ores can
be sent out of Central Montana every
day. Right in the line with our mining
districts enumerated there are those of
Cable, Philipsburg, Bear Gulch, and
still further west in Montana and in the
Panhandle of Idaho.
1t is this vast region of ascertained
mineral wealth that is the attraction to
all the great railroad companies of the
east and the west.
Our pasturage will fail as the country
becomes settled and cultivated, but the
mines will yield more and more for gen.
erations to come.
The lay of the country is suited for
profitable railroad hauling. The heavy
trains loaded with ores will almost run
by gravity to the eastern seaboard,
while there are equally profitable long
hauls for return loads of lighter eastern
wares.
There is room for a dozen trunk lines
and for each of them to do ten times
the amount of business that any has
heretofore done. In all ages the posses
sion of mines of the precious metals
has been the chief incentive to enter
prise and industry. Even where such
mines have been locked up in almost in
accessible and unhealthy regions, enter
prise has burst over these barriers.
With us our mines are of easy access
and in temperate, healthy region, of
fering no obstacle to their rapid devel-
ment