Montana oil and mining journal. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1931-1953, 1935-02-16
(By JAMES E. STUARTl
use q little AlabaHna coon; i amt
heen horned very long:

been horned very long:
members = big r0und moon, an
hearin' one sweet song"
Somewhat like that picbaninny, I
too remember seeing things and hear
ing things; but cannot truthfully
say that Il amt been horned very
lang.1 / not only remember seeing
things and hearing things, bat also
well remember smelling, tasting,
and feeling things. am not certain
that I did not also experience the de-
lights Of q marvellous sixth sense the
while I mOOned about In Hell Gate
canyon, Montana territory, during
several summer months Of the year
1852.
The Northern Pacific railway was
then under construction eastward from
Missoula as well as westward from Hell
ena toward this great gap in the Rock
les through which flows He'll Gate
river to join the Columbia and the
greatest ocean on earth.
Prior to the completion Of this stu
pendous undertaking, transportation
through Hell Gate canyon, as well as
throughout the greater part Of the ter
ritory, was laboriously accomplished by
saddle horses or by Concord stage
coaches for passengers, mail, and ex-
press. Heavy freight was transported
by long bull-teams, mule-teams, or
horse-teams slowly and patiently plod-
ding their weary ways along tortuous,
poorly constructed roads here and there
dragging cumberous wagons, often sew
era1 in tandem.
At that time road of this sort
wound precariously through Hell Gate
along its narrow floor or in places,
like "the three mile grade" along the
steep, rocky, and often heavily timber
ed ramparts.
In retrospection it now seems that
such crude mode Of travel must have
been very dangerous; but, such was the
expertness of the horsemen. mule
SINNERS" and "bull- whackers' Of that
day and place, that few serious acci-
dents occurred. Today what differ
encel With our high-powered pas
senger automobiles and freight trucks
speeding at 40, so and even so miles
per hour along hard smoothly surfac-
ed roads over and around cur ponder
Gus old mountains we are killing a
hundred or more human beings COM
pared with only one or two who SUI
fered thus during the good old days Of
saddle horses, stagecoaches, and ami
mal-drawn freight wagons
Those transport contriVances, often
clumsy and Wabbly, moved very slowly
though comparatively surely and safely
along the crude roads of that giim-
mering day of the romantic past. But a
people must either progress or retro
gress. For us there seems to be no
standing still And, much like wild
prairie fire in high wind, with equal
or even greater destruction Of life and
property, we are certainly progressing
after fashion.
Yet, despite these contumelious COM
parsons, who of us would willingly re-
vert 10 those glamorous old dayS2 Very
few, If any. We are on our memorable
way toward God only knows where or
what. and somehow we must keep on
going.
During and for some years prior toI
the time Of the building of the North
ern Pacific railway, Montana territory
had only one telegraph line, puny
single wire suspended on short lodge
poles set by our federal government
primarily for military service. Tele-
phones were then coming into sporadic
use. This tenuous lonely telegraph line
approximately followed the stage road
through Hell Gate canyon at that time.
In places the poles and wire had to be
moved as railway construction pro-
crossed. Our federal government
granted to the railway construction en-
gineers permission to use the wire in
return for changing it where necessary
and keeping it otherwise in repair.
Early during the summer of 1882,
having recently passed my 18th birth