Montana Territory Area and Resources
Montana occupies nearly the geographical center of the
North American Continent, being situated between 45° and
49° of north latitude and, 104° and 49° longitude,
comprising within its limits an area of about 144,000
square miles and was organized as a Territory in 1864.
It is bounded on the north by the British Possessions,
east by Dakota, south by Wyoming and Idaho, and west by
Idaho. The Territory is divided into the following named
counties, viz: Beaver Head, Big Horn, Choteau, Dawson,
Deer Lodge, Gallatin, Jefferson, Lewis and Clarke,
Madison, Meagher and Missoula. Capital, Helena.
Principal towns: Bannack, Blackfoot, Bozeman, Deer
Lodge, Diamond, Fort Benton, Missoula, Trapper and
Virginia City. Population, estimated at 20,500. Assessed
valuation of property in 1874 was $10,099,817, and the
amount paid into the Territorial Treasurer in the same
year was $58,000; the valuation showing an increase of
$1,734,670 over that of 1869. The treasure product in
1874 was $4,103,204; of which, $3,666,438 was in gold.
$493,766 in silver, and $6,000 in copper. Smelting
furnaces have recently been constructed in various
districts for the reduction of the argentiferous-galena
ores and rich lead will in future be added to the
metallic product While Montana is a great gold and
silver producing region its currency is the paper money
of the east, in which all estimates are made and
business transacted, and thus differing from the States
of California, Oregon, and Nevada, which maintain a
metallic currency. Among other products of Montana, are
large quantities of furs and peltries, including 65,500
buffalo robes. These animals are in countless numbers on
the plains of the Missouri and Yellowstone, and are
slaughtered for their hides and tongues, as well as for
sport, and in many instances by herdsmen in defense of
the grazing grounds whore range domestic cattle.
The Indians, though now partly subdued, have been among
the most savage and unrelentingly hostile of any of that
singularly bloodthirsty race. The number is estimated at
18,000, the principal tribes being the Crow, Blackfeet,
Snake, Teton Sioux, Gros Ventre, Piegan, Blood,
Flatheads, Brule, Ogalalla, and Assiniboine.
As its name implies, the general aspect of the country
is mountainous, the Territory extending over both slopes
of the Rocky Mountains, and embracing within its limits
the sources of the Missouri, flowing eastward, and of
the Columbia, flowing to the Pacific, thus occupying, as
it were, the backbone of the continent. The Rocky
Mountains, however, do not rise in such high and
precipitous ridges and peaks as is the character of the
range both south and north, but presents many
irregularities, offering numerous passes and throwing
out lateral ranges that fall away into the plateau of
the great plains of the Missouri and the basin of the
Columbia. Branching westward are the Bitter Root and
Coeur d'Alene ranges; on the east the Tobacco, Belt,
Judith, Bear's Paw, Big Horn, and Little Rocky ranges,
and others, dispersed in various sections throughout the
interior. In almost every range, minerals of a valuable
character are found, the principal being gold, though
silver, copper, lead, and coal are extensively mined.
But the mountains possess resources aside from their
minerals, some sections being covered with grand
forests, others furnishing excellent pasturage, and
enclosed within the ranges are many fine valleys of
excellent agricultural land. According to the opinion of
the Surveyor-General, given in his report for 1867,
about one-third of the total area, amounting to about
$50,000,000 acres, is susceptible of cultivation. The
valleys lying between the mountain ranges possess an
exceedingly fertile soil of great cereal producing
capacity. Extensive tracts of the Bitter Root, the
earliest settled portion of the Territory, the Prickly
Pear, Madison, and Gallatin Valleys, are now in a high
state of cultivation, and producing annually large crops
of wheat, barley, oats, rye, potatoes, and other
vegetables. About 80,000 acres are cultivated in the
Gallatin alley alone for the production of cereals, more
than one-half of that area being under wheat, and
yielding an average of thirty bushels to the acre.
Several grist mills are employed in converting the grain
produced in this valley into flour, and a number of
others are in course of erection. Among the unsettled
sections most prominent for the extent and fertility of
the agricultural land contained within them are the
Judith, Muscleshell, and Yellowstone Valleys, which are
now the resort of numerous herds of elk, deer, antelope
and buffalo, and the favorite hunting grounds of savage
hordes of Indians, whose determined hostility to the
whites effectually prevents them from settling and
bringing these hinds under cultivation at once. The few
men who have succeeded in travelling safely through the
Judith Valley, pronounce it to be one of the most
beautiful and fertile regions in the Territory,
possessing a rich, deep soil, and well-timbered and
watered throughout. The Missouri Valley, which river
rises in the Rocky Mountains in the southwestern portion
of the Territory and flows through the interior, winding
in a semi-circle around the Belt Mountains, contains a
vast extent of unsurpassed agricultural land, with every
facility for irrigation where such is required.
As a rule, the soil of Montana Territory is a dark,
vegetable mould of great richness, having the
in-valuable quality of being porous without being
spongy, being thereby easily worked and very productive.
The sub-soil is composed of a light clay, or clay mixed
with sand. In addition to that portion of the Territory
unsuited for agricultural purposes on account of its
mountainous character, are a number of high plateau, or
barren clay table lands, called by the early French
settlers "Les Mauvais Terres" or Bad Land, which name
they still retain. It is an extensive barren region,
unbroken, excepting those parts intersected by the
Little Rocky and Bear Paw ranges. This section is
drained by the Milk and Marias Rivers, whose banks are
thinly skirted with Cottonwood, producing a striking
contrast to the surrounding region, which is composed of
a sedimentary deposit, abounding in fossils and
petrifactions, with occasional outcroppings of
sandstone, but utterly destitute of vegetation.
Montana, however, agriculturally, is pre-eminently a
grazing country. Everywhere on the mountain slopes and
in the fertile valleys, where not otherwise covered with
forests of timber, an unlimited and luxuriant growth of
bunch grass, the most nutritious of grasses known, is
obtained. The statement made by the Territorial
Treasurer in his report for 1873, shows that the total
area of land then under cultivation within the
territorial limits, amounted to 318.039 acres, and the
aggregate number of stock, such as horses, mules, horned
cattle, etc., exceeded over 100,000 head.
Although destined eventually to become a great farming
and stock-raising State, its principal resources at
present consist of its mineral deposits. Gold was first
discovered in paying quantities on Willard or
Grasshopper Creek, in 1802. The rich and extensive
mining district, of which Helena, the largest city in
the Territory, is the center, was discovered in 1864,
and has continued to yield largely ever since. The
alluvial deposits are spread over a great area of the
country, and from an estimate made of the creeks and
gulches known to contain gold in supposed paying
quantities, it contains mining land of an aggregate
length of about five hundred lineal miles. From the
annual returns of the products of gold since the time of
the discovery of the mines, the yield has been
satisfactory, and as they give no signs of exhaustion,
their promise of continuing to do so in future is
equally as favorable. Up to 1807, the attention of the
mining population was devoted entirely to placer mining.
Since that time, however, it has been much divided with
the development of its more permanent quartz ledges, a
great number, rich and well defined, having been
discovered, many of which are now successfully worked.
Over thirty silver-bearing ledges and twenty copper
veins are also in a high state of development. Rich
mines of gold, silver and copper are known to exist on
the head waters of the Judith, but on account of the
hostility of the tribes making it their headquarters, it
remains almost unexplored. Coal beds have been found on
the Missouri, Yellowstone and Gallatin Rivers. The
deposits on the former are situated at a point a short
distance above Fort Benton, the present head of
steamboat navigation, and supply the river steamboats
with the necessary fuel. The vein on the Yellowstone is
of a fine bituminous quality, twenty-two feet in
thickness, and is very profitably worked. Helena is
supplied with coal for gas, fuel, foundry, and other
purposes, from a vein worked on the Dearborn, about
forty miles distant. Numerous beds of lignite have also
been found on the Blackfoot, Marias and Teton Rivers,
and various other localities in the Territory. About
one-fourth of the Territory is covered with dense
forests of white and yellow pine, hemlock, fir and
cedar, the pines equaling in size and quality the famous
pines of Oregon and Washington Territory.
The climate is remarkable for its equability and
salubrity, being generally open and mild during the
winter, with summers pleasant and healthful in the
extreme. The season of 1875 was exceptional in its
severity, the temperature in some localities falling as
low as 50° below zero, but not with standing this, stock
passed the winter without shelter or care, and suffered
but little loss. The large quantities of stock and game,
and the vast herds of buffalo which range and thrive
throughout the year, give proof of the mildness of the
climate and the capability of the country for grazing.
Although far to the north and of high altitude, it bears
a clime corresponding to that of seven or eight degrees
further south on the Atlantic coast.
The rivers, like the mountains, are on a grand scale.
The Missouri, one of the largest rivers in the world,
has its sources in Montana, being formed by the junction
of the Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin rivers, each
large streams, and receives in its course a great number
of other streams, the principal of which are the Teton,
Sun River, Marias, and Milk River on the north, and the
Arrow, Judith, Mussel, Shoal, and Yellowstone on the
south, the latter having the Big Horn for one of its
branches. The Missouri and Yellowstone are navigable,
the former to the Falls, a few miles above Fort Benton,
2,000 miles from its junction with the Mississippi, and
steamboats ascend the Yellowstone to the mouth of the
Big Horn. Above the Falls of the Missouri the river is
large, and with slight improvement could be rendered
navigable for two or three hundred miles, making it the
longest line of navigable inland water on the globe.
This constitutes a grand channel of commerce during the'
summer, but is closed in winter. Steam-boats ply upon it
from St. Louis and Omaha, and smaller boats, constructed
to float with the current, descend loaded with
merchandise and passengers, a cheap and pleasant way of
making a long journey. The Missouri of Montana is a
rapid and beautiful stream of pure, clear water, and is
not entitled to its sobriquet of "Big Muddy" until it
receives the turbid waters of the Yellowstone.
West of the Rocky Mountains in the great basin enclosed
by that range and the Bitter Root and Coeur d'Alene
ranges are the Pen d'Oreille, or Clark's Fork, Flathead,
Hellgate, Blackfoot, Bitter Root and Kootenai rivers,
all being tributaries of the Columbia. Clark's Fork is
navigable but is obstructed by Thompson's Falls, at
which point navigation ceases. These navigable streams,
reaching out both east and west, will, when the
resources of the country are developed, and its rich
mines and fertile plains become peopled, become of
incalculable value as aids to commerce. The railroad,
however, is the great desideratum. The Northern Pacific
is the hope of the country. This is needed to bring this
isolated region into easy and cheap communication with
the world, to bring population, machinery and
merchandise, and to boar away the products. The country
that has been the favorite home of the Indians and fed
the countless herds of buffalo, is surely an attractive
one to the skilled labor, industry and enterprise of the
white race.
Montana contains many grand and attractive features of
natural scenery, and for its health-giving atmosphere,
mysterious wilds, abundant game, rich mines and grand
objects in nature will become a resort of tourists from
every section of the world. The Valley of the
Yellowstone presents scenes most weird, and
awe-inspiring of any section known to man. A region of
one hundred miles square has been devoted by Congress to
the purposes of a National Park, and forever open to
visitors in search of the wonderful and curious. Here
are waterfalls of great magnitude, deep cañons, sulphur
springs, boiling springs and geysers, one of which
throws a stream of boiling water and steam from 300 to
600 feet into the air. The grand scenery of the National
Park of the Yellowstone is already attracting tourists
from all parts of the world, and as railroads open the
country it will become the resort and pleasure grounds
of multitudes of people, as nothing so sublime and
peculiar exists elsewhere.
Such are the features of Montana. A country of lofty
mountains, great rivers and broad plains; with resources
of gold and silver, copper, lead and coal beneath the
surface, towering forests, grass-covered hills and
plains and fertile valleys to invite the agriculturist
and manufacturer, game without limit for the sportsman,
and grand scenery for the curious and scientific, and
thus promises to become one of the noblest of the
sisterhood of States.
Pacific Coast Business Directory
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Montana Territory Index
Source: Pacific Coast Business
Directory for 1876-78, Compiled by Henry G. Langley, San
Francisco, 1875.
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