The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-09-17
THAT LINE TO CASTLE.
The Helena Board Of Trade Takes
Steps Looking to
Survey.
Letters Sent To Two Railroads
Calling Their Attention to
the Matter

The Torrey Bankruptcy Bill-Assessments
in the City and the County
Mail Facilities.
The Board of Trade at its meeting last
night took practical steps toward the con.
struction of railroad from Castle to Hele-
ma by appointing a committee to raise &
fund to survey route. In the absence OF
the president and vice president, John Sted.
man was in the chair. Major Walker acted
as secretary. The necessity for prompt
steps III regard to the railroad matter was
suggested by letter read at the meeting
and which had been sent on Sept. to G. E
Perkins, president of the Chicago, Burling-
ton g. Quincy railroad, at Chicago. The
letter is as follows:
S1R:-The following committee appointed
by the Helena Board of Trade to commune
cate with the Burlington d Missouri rail-
ryad with a view OF representing to your
board of directors the advantages to be de-
rived by the Burlington d. Missouri if that
road is constructed via the new and rich
mining district of Castle and the city of
Helena, Mont. respectfully represent that
the construction of the two great railroads
into Montana, the Northern Pacific and
Great Northern. suggests a situation of
peculiar significance to the next great rail-
road that comes from the east to this new
and fourishing state.
The situation is this that owing to the
fact that when the surveys of the Northern
Pacific via Bismark and the Yellowstone
were adopted for that road, the better
route afterwards adopted by the Great
Northern was up to 1879, u hostile country
overrun by savage bands of Indians who
to11 OF yo f<>h he lriu live
run by a white man, which compelled the
Northern Pacific to adopt its present south
ern route, leaving open to the north the
much better route to be utilized in peaceful
times when the savaRes were subdued or
driven of.
It is now known that the Great Northern,
(then the st. Paul, Minneapolis d Man
itoba railroad) utilized the northern
route in 1884, because it had a
road already constructed as far north
from st. Paul as the mouth of Red Lake
river and which now forms part OF the
main stem of the Great Northern from Hell
ena through the Dakotas to st. Paul, thus
leaving open to the next great railroad
what is known as the Muscleshell route, the
best of the three, which is still left invit-
ingly open for the Is. d NJ, or some other
road that may desire to come through Mon
tana on its way to the Pacific ocean.
We represent the citizens of Helena when
We say that we have offered subscription
of 100000 for the construction of a rail-
road from Helena to Castle, by which this
great mining camp would become to Hell
ena what Leadville is to Denver.
Helena has smelter of a daily capacity
of 800 tons of ore, and Castle has the car
Donates in inexhaustable quantities which
Helena wants, hence our desire tor direct
communication by rail with Castle.
The Musselshell route embraces really
the garden spot of Montanr as we'll as the
greatest and most profitable cattle ranges
in the state. The route also is rich in min
erals and agricultural lands; much of tho
later are for sale by the government at
$1.25 per acre.
We can safely say if the Burlington and
Missouri will construct their road through
Castle, White Sulphur Springs and Helena
that it will secure large percentage of the
traffic of the shippers of these three places.
in Montana, would also be on the MUSCLE
shell route and much interested in advance
ing the interests of your great road.
We know that the Burlington and Mis-
souri, is working west of the Black Hills and
isprobably making for Sheridan, Wyo., with
ing the richest and best mines in Montana,
which we know lie within easy reach Of
Helena.
The distance from Sheridan to Billings is
40 miles. The grade is an easy one, only
reaching eighty feet to the mile at three
this place the line could be run to the
Musselshell, near Lavina, or the mouth of
Fish creek; thence up the Musselshell to
Castle, which is on the head waters of the
south fork, thence along the best route to
Helena. From Billings to Castle is about
145 miles, and from Castle to Helena about
eighty miles, the total distance being about
fifteen miles less than by the Northern
Pacific.
We beg leave to say further that our city
probably presents greater activity and a,
better paying business i'll railroad traffic
han any other place in the United States of
its size. The city is compactly built with
business blocks and elegant residences
where electric street cars, electric lights
and all the modern civilizers of the age
give convenience and comfort to our popu-
lation.
To anticipate what Helena will be is to
contemplate city with active, wealthy,
enterprising citizens, whose greatest ambi-
tion is to further aud to the conditions that
have made her the commercial. railroad,
social and monetary center of the North
west.
The outcome of investments in city
property and outlying lots, is return of
from one hundred to Ave hundred per cent.
profit in two years: and this surprising gain
in real estate Investments is not confined
property that figured on the bulletin
boards of two years ago as 'for sale by the
acre" Now these acres are built over and
other additions added, until the proper
tions are expanded from the original town
site of 16O acres to the present city of nine
square miles. East Helena, the location of
the million dollar smelter plant, now turn
ing out daily sixty tons of silver bullion, is
suburb of the city, and ere long will be
embraced in another addition to the city
proper.
The fact that Helena possesses a cash
capital per capita equal to any city in the
world. and that she is surrounded by gold,
silver and copper mines, coal, iron and rich
farm lands, are encouraging evidences that
indicate the future of Helena to be the
great midland city of the northwest, whose
possibilities for pre- commence above cities
of the east of older growth may be forecast
with certainty from the evidences of pros
perity everywhere surrounding her. These
indications are not ephemeral but lasting
and substantial, whose foundations are the
raw material of which our mountains are
constructed, and which hold within their
bosoms the value of incalculable treasures.
1t is, therefore, that We should be conprat-
ulated that We have city of solid wealth
and progressive enterprise that has never
witnessed anything but steady, healthy
growth, and whose great future the most
conservative witness NAV cOnfe,n nj a 70 Wit Il