Year: 1871

TIE NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD.


The development of the great North West
is going on at gratifying rate. On Friday
last, the Northern Pacific Railroad Company
contracted, we understand, for the construc-
ton of about six hundred and twenty miles
of railroad, on which, by the terms Of the con-
tract, the cars are to be running in fifteen
months from the 1st of the present month.


One year ago, the 1st of July last this Com
pany commenced work amid the forests of
Minnesota west of Lake Superior, building
road through an unbroken wilderness toward
the rich wheat lands lying west of the Mssis-
sippi. Those fertile acres have been reached;
the grading is completed to the Red River;
the track-layers are putting down three miles
of iron per day; and early in November the
cars will be running from Lake Superior west
ward across the State of Minnesota, a distance
of two hundred and fifty miles. The contract
Just closed includes the construction of the
Dakota division from the Red River to the Mis-
souri,, distance of two hundred miles,tO be COM
pleted by the 1st Of July next. The contractors
propose to have about fifty miles graded be-
fore the Winter sets in, and will complete the
work in season to enable the company to do
the freigbting business of the upper Missouri
country the coming year. The magnitude of
that business will doubtless astOnsh those who
are not cOnversant with the facts. Last year,
Montana paid out about Four Million dollars
for freight on goods and machinery sent up
the Missouri, and by wagons from Cornne on
the Union Pacific road; the Government trans
portation for the forts of the Upper Missouri
amounted to nearly as much, making total
of about Eight Million dollars. This great
traffic will be transferred from its present
route to the line Of the Northern Pacific in
July next, and of itself should be sufficient to
pay the interest on the cost OF the road from
Lake Superior to the Missouri The opening
of the Dakota division cannot fail of giving
new life to the mining interests of Montana,
which under all its present disadvantages of
naccessibility, is yielding greater amount of
the precious metals than any other State or
Territory in the Union.


Freight will be transported next summer
from Duluth to Fort Benton in about ten
days, instead of being from forty to sixty by
the present route.


The Company have also contracted for the
construction of the line from. st. Cloud to
Pembina, distance of about three hundred





and seventy -fve miles, to be completed In ff-
teen months. This line runs through the fer
tile Sauk Valley, already thickly settled, and
down the Red River through its fine wheat
lands. The construction of these two divi-
sions the coming year will throw open to set
tlement not less than twenty million acres of
land, exceedingly fertile and suited to the
production of wheat, barley, oats. and other
cereals; and all this vast acreage will be within
reasonable distance Of railway facilities


Possibly, important political results, as well
az agricultural and commercial, will grow out
of the construction Of these lines. With such
inviting lands open for settlement, there past
be continuance of the present rush of emf
grafton toward the northwest. The lands in
Manitoba beyond the forty-ninth parallel are
quite 90 fertile % those this side of the inter
national boundary. Sharp-eyed Yankees, ias
u.ll IA nan,diana and half -hrupI, will un.u-