The Canon City record with which is consolidated the Canon City cannon., 1916-09-21
COMRADE JENKINS TELLS
OF HIS TRIP Thru WEST
Corvallis. Ravalli County. Montana,
August 22nd, 1916.

wife and boarded the Santa Fe train
at Canon City at 6:45 a, m. and reach
ed Denver at $3.50 p. m. where we
Soaisy Jenkins for two hours. At 1920
p. m. we took a sleeper for Missoula.
Montana. on the Burlington Railroad.
Being tired we sought rest in the
arms of Morpheus, and travelled thru
northeastern Colorado, thence north
to Alliance, Nebraska, thence north
west thru Nebraska and across the
southern corner of South Dakota to
Edgemont, where we arrived at day
light Friday, August 11th.
From this point our route was in
the daylight, which took US northwest
across the northeast corner of Wyom-
ing and into Montana. The major
part of this stretch of country is quite
level and from our car window our
vision feasted on beautiful villages and
towns, with magnificent farms, cover
ed with ripening grain. intervening.
After crossing the north line of
Wyoming and running some fifty miles
into Montana, the Custer battlefield
was painted out to us. which is situat-
ed on a plateau probably mile to the
northeast of the railroad line, where
on June 25th, 1873. on the right bank
of the Little Big Horn river. General
Custer with $50 of his men were
massacred by Sitting Bulls band of
Sioux Flatheads and Blackfoot In
dams. Sitting Bull had about 5000
braves and General Custer had only
$50 of his command with him. So
Custer had to fight twenty red skins
to every one of his blue coats, every
one of whom were killed and scalped
except General Custer. They did not
take his scalp. they said, because he
was SO brave. We can plainly see the
head stones of these graves from the
car windows.
just below the Custer battlefield, We
came in to the Crow Indian reserva-
ton. Here these Indians have fine
farms with splendid residences on
them. but in passing these fine homes.
in most places we saw tepees in the
back yards with the squaws out of
doors cooking supper with kettles
hanging on poles supported by two
forks, and stick fire blazing cheer
fully under the kettles. This reserva-
ton extends for about twenty miles
along the railroad line.
Toward night, we came to the main
line of the Northern Pacific railroad
at Huntly, Montana, on the Yellow
stone river and we journeyed up this
river and across long bridge which
took US into Billings, Montana. Bill
ings looks to be about the size of
Pueblo, Colorado. and the Yellowstone
river looks to be a mile wide in many
places, and is interspersed with many
islands.
We did not leave Billings until after
dark. We went to bed soon after dark
and saw none of the country as we
travelled due west from Billings until
daylight Saturday morning. August
18th, when we reached Butte, Mon
tana. Here we found ourselves in the
midst of the Rocky Mountains, with
gorges and chasms. deep holes and
rugged hills all around us. Butte, ap-
pears to be right in the heart of the
Continental Divide.
From Butte we had daylight as we
Travelled down the Missoula river to
Missoula, where the Bitter Root river
comes into the Missoula out of the
Bitter Root valley from the south. We
got here at 500 a. m and had Just
twenty minutes to get breakfast and
our tickets for Woodside, for our train
was due to leave for the south at $40
a. m.
Going up the Bitter Root valley the
country is a garden of beauty Orch
ards. fields and farms meet the eye
on each side of the railroad. The
valley averages ten miles wide and
is one hundred miles long. This
makes 1000 square miles almost every
foot of which is tillable land. The val
ley land is all irrigated but the upland
in the foot hills is titled almost ex-
clusively by the dry farming method;
and such wheat and oats have never
seen growing. They thrash from these
hillsides from thirty to fifty bushels
of wheat and eighty bushels of oats
to the acre.
The first bench, or low valley, is
very rich, heavy soil; the second
bench is rather light soil and these
two benches are marred to some ex-
tent by patches of cobble stones. The
third bench however is very de arL