Bismarck weekly tribune., 1889-06-14
QUIGG'S LETTER. !.
What the New York Tribune Cores
pondent Has to Say About the
Bismarck Region.
The Building Of Railroads to This
Section Will Settle the Fuel
Problem in Dakota.
A Few Of the More Eloquent and
Interesting Facts in Single
Forceful Group.
Bismarck's Future is Bright.

Bismarck's Future is Bright.
BISMARCK, N. d.. May Still the capi-
tai of both Dakotas. and hereafter to re-
main, for time at least, the capital of
North Dakota, Bismarck occupies a COM
manding place among the cities of the new
northwest. Its people are not numerous,
but they have a great talent for pulling all
together. Their social organization is
strong and compact. Incidentally they
may be railroad or anti-railroad, ring or
anti-ring, republican or democrat, farmers
or corporation men, Methodists or Catho-
lies, but primarily they are for Bismarck,
and no other interests are allowed to come
in where the interests of Bismarck are in
volved. This concentration of local forces,
when sagaciously directed, never fails to
make city and to put it into prominence,
Bismarck owes everything to the single
ness of purpose and the unity of action
which have characterized her people.
They undertook to build a town before
they had settled the country. Even yet
two states, each larger than Massachusetts
could be made from the public domain
now awaiting entry in the Bismarck land
Office. Any reader who wishes to get
really accurate conception of the land
question here should follow my description
with map. Any good atlas will do, but
the Northern Pacific folder furnishes the
best. This can be had at any large rail
way station, or by application to the COM
pany's Office in st. Paul.
The seventh standard parallel divides
the Dakotas. leaving each of them 400 miles
wide by 200 miles long. The Northern
Pacific runs across North Dakota in
straight line from Fargo. Its land grant
includes every other section, that is, every
other block one mile square, for fifty miles
on either side of its track. All the country
west of the Missouri and below that grant
in both Dakotas, except the Black Hills
region lying within the two forks of the
Cheyenne river, is Indian country, and is
now the subject of negotiation between the
Sioux and the Government Very little of
this reservation is in North Dakota, but
that larger half of the State west from
jamestown is unsettled. The Manitoba
Railroad, with its central Office in st. Paul,
crosses the territory from Grand Forks,
along line about $50 miles north from the
line of the Northern Pacific. 1t passes
through some of the finest wheat lands in
Dakota, still untouched and subject to
entry at the United States Land Office in
DEVILS Lake. AS the Manitoba road nears
the border, it reaches a country which
well as for diversified farming. About
twenty miles west from jamestown is the
long line of hills and ravines called the
Coteaux du Missouri. These lands are sup
posed to be unavailable for farming,
though i noticed as pretty fields of wheat
there as elsewhere. The fact is, I fancy,
that they have been deprecated simply
because the land beyond them is every
where level and more easily worked. In
the valleys between the coteaux there are
thousands of little lakes and ponds, and, as
the coteaux grow thick, luxuriant grass,
they furnish the best facilities for stock
farming.
WEST OF BISMARCK
And the river the country is generally
level until the Bad Lands are reached.
They are not bad lands at all, but wonder
full lands. They constitute one of the most
marvellous physical appearance to be OBJ
served on this continent. They are come
up suddenly, and without any suggestion
that the prairie level is to be so strangely
broken. All at once numberless peaks, as
sharp in their formation as the fingers on
your hand, rise straight up from the earth
an army of massive buttes. They are of
all conceivable shapes, some are circular
pyramids. perfect in form. Others rise
like quartz crystals, with sides as smooth
as a board and frequently from one of
these straight and regular bnttes the pet,
riied stumps of enormous trees will pro-
trude, silicifed by the action of the same
waters that gave figure to the. buttes
themselves ages and ages ago. The Bad
Lands begins about 100 miles west of Bis
marck and follow the course, north and
south OF the Little Missouri river. y
THE FUEL QUESTION.
LII SOMe pdTGS VI DdkOCA Cnc Iuel 5QueS-
ton is serious one. Within an era marked
by a radius of 200 miles not stick of nat
ural timber rises above the plains. Not a
suggestion of coal appears under them.
All fuel, of whatever nature, must be
fetched in by the railroads, and the rail-
roads don't give their services Tor nothing.
With suchflong winter seasons, the cost of
living is heavily increased by the
freight charges on fuel. In the course
of few years the situation
will be materially alleviated. North and
west of Bismarck, on both sides of the
river, are coal fields of such immense pro-
portions as to be practically inexhaustible.
They extend in all directions, running
north almost to the international line, and
west into the bad lands. They run deep
into the earth. Several veins have been
followed to q length Of 5000 feet without
any indication that they intended to give
out. In Bismarck and all along the line
of the Northern Pacific this coal is used
almost exclusively. It is a Ignite fOrma-