The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1947-10-17

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Wyoming in 1868, the Minnesota Mon
. tana road in 1866, the Corinne-Virgin
. ia City road Unto Utah, eonnectin,
with the Central-Pacific-U Pacifi
; Railroad) in 1862 River transporta
ton along the Missouri was inaugur
ated in 1900 along the Yellowston
in 1905. Boats piled the Clarks Forl
of the Columbia, Flathead Lake ant
the Kootenai River The Northern
Pacific, going westward, reached east
ern Montana in 1881, was completed il
1883. The Great Northern was finish
ed in 1892 Writes Merrill Burlin
game: "The network of railroads
which had been constructed across the
state by 1890 was distinct mark of g
mature community
Dependency on Federal Aid Not New
Life in early Montana would have
been impossible for whites without
the influence of federal troops. In
deed, one is amazed at the extent to
which life in Montana has always been
rather greatly dependent on federal
aid, from the beginning. The army
operated at first a series of forts, but
as travel and military methods chang
ed, reliance was placed more and more
on mobile units brought in at various
times of need, threatened or actual.
Not all of the work of the soldier was
purely military. AS Burlingame OBJ
serves:
"The army mas never received the
proper credit for its work of peace
full nature, although much of this
work has had highly dramatic touch
es. More attention has been given
to the major battles, than to the the
many years of work in exploring,
guarding and developing the west
ern country. The conquest of the
Great Plains displayed the army in
! it's most peaceful and constructive
mood, and at the same time in the
greatest fury of it's capacity for ruth
! less destruction. The many trails
of exploration and construction were
often crossed by even wider trails of
war and humiliation. The two
phases were blended to suit the
needs of the situation, which was
created by the courageous but often
grasping and impulsive pioneer in
search of land and mineral wealth."
Nevertheless, heavy-handed tactics
were employed, and the successive so
called Indian "wars'-Piegan in 1870
Sioux in 1876, Nez Perez in 1877-were
followed by the muddled and exploit
tive reservation policy; most tracts
of land were thus cleared for white
settlement ga shameful record of
broken promises" Howard has writ
ten, Stands against the white man in
his Montana relations with the Ind
ians
Beef Bonanza, Then Disaster
The cattle kingdom ruled eastern
Montana in the seventies and eight
les. Cattle were first brought into
western Montana, from Oregon, Wash
ington and California, partly to meet
the rising demands of the new mining
camps. By 1870 the western valleys
had reached their limits, and cattle
men in Montana and other Rocky
Mountain areas turned to the Great
Plains sections of the state. Into Mon
tana came the great herds OF Texas
longhorns, brought along the famous
Texas trail. The ranges became a
great bonanza, a beef bonanza" as
General j. S. Brisbin called it in his
book on How to Get Rich on the
Plains" By the eighties the ranges
began to show the inevitable disast-
rous consequences. Granville Stuart
wrote in his famous diary of the per-
iod:
"There was no way of preventing
the overstocking of the ranges as
they were free to all. The range
business was no longer a reasonably
safe business; it was from this time
on. gamble, with the trump cards
in the hands of the elements"
But it was twenty years before the
open range disappeared.
Although copper was discovered in
the sixties, at Copperopolis, the de-
post was not significant. Copper did
not become important until the eight
les when Marcus DAILY discovered in
his silver mine, the Anaconda, in Butte
in 1878, the richest vein of copper in
the world w. A. Clark established
a refinery; new capital came into the
state, formed company to which
Clark sold his interests, engaged young
and popular engineer Fritz Heinze in
battle and outslugged him, established
in the 'nineties the states largest in
dustrial concern, The Anaconda Cop
per Mining Company. By the turn of
the century the mining forntier had
come to a close.
Anricijture Started Late