The Livingston enterprise. [volume] (Livingston, Mont.) 1883-1914, 1890-03-01

influenza which is making such ravages
in all parts of Europe and thought to be
prevalent in the United States. This
decree, it is said, will be quite surprise
to Roman Catholics, as it is stated to be
the first one of the kind ever issued in
the history of the church.
An Inte resting Letter.
A correspondent of the St. Paul Dis
patch, writing from Cooke City under
date of February 18th, tells the follow
ing interesting story of the New World
mining district:
Few people east of St. Paul have ever
heard of this place, central point in
vast district of natural scenic beauty
such as makes the beholder wonder why
he should relinquish, for the time, his
familiarity with the resplendent face of
Mother Nature even for the ease and
Establishments which are the accompa-
niments Of life in the large cities None
of your readers who have had the inesti-
mable enjoyment of paying thorough
visit to the National Park will fail to
appreciate the statement that here at
| the extre eme northeast corner of the
| Yellowstone Park, nature may, with the
aid of guide and couple of ponies, be
seer in such garb as not only delights
the EIDE, but lifts the human soul to the
con temptation of those things which are
n OF of the earth.
It is but fifteen years since the first
adventurous prospector found his way
| into this region. It was then part OF
the Crow reservation. Rich in all that
| promises to make Montana the crown
Jewel of the nation, it is no wonder that
the prospector stayed, that he has been
followed by his constant attendant, the
shreWd investor, and that between them
| they have uncovered wealth of min
eral tire asure, ranging all the way from
exhaustless beds of coal to deposits of
silver and lead.
| The traveller over the line of the
Northern Pacific need not be told where
the towns of -Cinnabar and Livingston
are located. They are as yet the out
posts of this unexplored empire. Sixty
miles to the east of Cinnabar stands
Cooke City. A less distance to the east
of Cooke City lies Red Lodge and north
by east is Livingston. In the mountains
hereabouts are found the head waters of
those rapid, limpid streams Clarke s
Forks, Soda Butte creek and the Still
water-at once the friends of the hunts
man, the prospector and the settler.
Cropping out on the rugged mountain
side are constant evidences of the great
natural wealth which has as yet been
barely scratched This is the valley of
the Yellowstone, sometimes known as
Pleasant valley, in the very heart OF
which your correspondent sits in plain
view at once of the American school
house and of the somber solitude of the
primeval forest.
But it is not great distance that
must be travelled from or to Cooke City
before other evidences of modern civil
zation beside the school house are in
sight. Cinnabar stands mountain SEN
tinel, burning day and night the fires OF
it's two or three hundred coke ovens,
surrounded by the deposits of coal from
which the Northern Pacific draws its
supplies, and adjacent to it's sister cities
of Red Lodge and Livingston, with their
teeming, growing populations and with
all the evidence of settled fruitfulness
scattered over the entire valley of the
Yellowstone, from Cinnabar to Living
ston.
One day this frontier outpost will ask
the people of the northwest metropolis
and ultimately of the entire country tc
enable us to realize "our manifest des-
tiny" We are ambitions. We think
We have right to be. We believe, as
the early settlers of the obscure Pigs
Eye believed, that we have great future
before us; that we have all the elements
of enduring prosperity and wealth; that
we need only "a show" to enable us to
add in substantial millious to the pros
perity Of the northwest and to the vast
accumulative wealth of the American
people. The reader will say: swell,
whatever other good qualities Cooke
City possesses, certainly modesty is not
one Of them" And yet, strange as it
may be, believe we are-very modest!
Personally have visited every mining
camp from Port Arthur to Virginia City.
I have been in Butte, in DeadWood and
in Denver. I have seen them all in their
infancy, in adversity and in prosperity;
and in full view of all have seen and
heard am prepared to say that Cooke
City, in Park county, Montana-now a
mere hamlet of two or three hundred
people-has as good prospects as any of
the communities named started out
with
But one day we will call upon the peo-
pie of st. Paul to help us. Our only
want today is railroad facilities. We
have silver and lead, thousands Of tons
of it, and we have the smelter to reduce
it. But Cooke City is full sixty miles
from the nearest railway station-that
of Cinnabar. Our only means of trans
portation are over wagon road, well
planned and built in it's way, but prac-
tically useless for all our industrial pur
poses. Twenty miles it is to Soda Butte,
twenty miles from Soda Butte to Pleas
ant Valley Ranch, and twenty miles
from there to Cinnabar. Had we not
the misfortune to lay at the northeast
extremity of the Yellowstone National
Park, Cooke City would long ago have
had it's extension of the Northern Pa
clfic. We have struggled against adver-
sity over our wagon road, and we find
| that sixty miles is little too much for