V o l u m e xii. H e l e n a , M o n t a n a , T h u r s d a y , J u n e 27, 1878. N o . 3 2

MONTANA.Interesting and Important Data.

Montana, one o f the largest o f the Ter­ritories o f the United States, lies between 45 and 49 deg. of north latitude, and con­tains 93,000,900 acres of land, o f which 10,000,000 are agricultural, 38,000,000 grazing, 12,000,000 timber, 5,000,000 min­eral, and about 21,000,000 mountainous.It is the best watered country in the Unit­ed States by pure mountain streams and navigable rivers. The tillable lauds pro­duce all the cereals (average wheat per acre, forty bushels,) and every variety of vegetables. The clim ate is mild and equable. T he snow-fall is less than in 1

New York or Maine. The dry, clear air of the Rocky Mountains, and the absence o f malaria and epidem ics, make a health record for Montana equal to any in the world. Population, 20,000. Product o f gold and silver for the year 1877, $0,500,- 000 ; estimated product for 1878, $8,000,- 000, w hich w ill be augmented from year to year in a proportion equal to the in ­creased capital and machinery employed in m ining and m illing, there beiDg no in­telligent calculation o f a time when the supply o f gold and silver w ill become ex ­hausted in the Territory.

Exports are, gold and silver bullion, cattle, wool, robes, hides and furs. Wool j clip o f 1878, 1,000,000 pounds. Surplus | cattle, 200,000. Average wool fleece, six ; pounds. T he meats are fat and ju icy . ! Exem ption laws, liberal and hum ane,—a homestead, o f the value o f $2,500, free to everybody from sale and execution.

The main chain o f the Rocky Moun­tains in Montana afford numerous passes, through which, with little work, wagon roads have been constructed that may be traversed every day in the year. O f the three projected railroads,— the North­ern Pacific, Utah Northern, and Helena and Benton, —two o f them have their ter­minus at Helena.

W ithin Montana are the sources o f the tsvo m ighty rivers o f the continent, that flow’ into either ocean ; besides there are within her borders the Yellowstone, navi­gable for steamboats 500 m iles, and the Jefferson, Gallatin, Madison, Deer Lodge, Bitter Root, Big H ole, B ig and Little Blackfoot, Dearborn, Teton, Marias, Milk and Sun rivers. A ll the water courses have broad bottoms and rich alluvial lands, ca­pable o f bearing heavy crops o f all farm and garden products. M ontana, whose rich gold placers brought the first tide o f settlement in 18(52-2, continues rich in its surface and guich mines, but the main and permanent sources o f her m etallic wealth lie in her quart/, veins, w hich have been discovered by thousands, and which are only just beginning to be developed.

The light, pure mountain air that quick­ens the condition o f the body also invig­orates the intellect, and as an acknow l­edged fact the people o f Montana sustain more hom e newspapers at heavier cost than any equal number o f persons on the face o f the earth, and take more newspa­pers from abroad than any other com ­munity in the country.

The follow ing are the steamboat arri­vals at Fort Benton, and their freights, during tw’o months o f the present year :

Big Horn, April 28th, 150 tons, 40 passRose Bud, M ay 4th, 180 tons, 80 pass.Josephine, May 9th, 140 tons, 44 pass.Helena, May 14th, 202 tons, 50 pass.Benton, May lGth, 200 tons, 100 pass.K ey W est, May 18tb, 245 tons, 14 pass.Big Horn, M ay 29th, 135 tons, 81 pass.Rose Bud, May 20th, 100 tons, 237 pass.N elly Peck, June 2d, 250 tons, 25 pass. |-lohn Chambers, June 4 ,250 tons, 30 pass.Josephine, June 0, 102 tons, 38 pass.Helena, June 0, 250 tons, 25 pass.Far W est, June 0, 212 tons, 20 pass.General Terry, June (5, 225 tons, 15 pass.Red Cloud, JuneO, 280 tons, 115 pass.E. H. D urfee, June 9, 450 tons, 15 pass.Benton, June 15, 20-5 tons, 40 passengers.Total freights by river, 3,730 tons.In addition to the above heavy freights by

river, being only a partial shipm ent for the year by that route confined to a period o f less than fifty days, is the freight by the Un-

MAP OF A PORTION OF MONTANA TERRITORY,

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ion Pacific Railroad and the Diamond “ R ” Overland Trnnsportation Line from the termi­nus o f the Utah Northern, which amounts for the same period to tiro thousand tons.Total No. ot tons by wagon.. Total “ “ ** river—

.2,000

.3,736

736

The cost o f this freight from N ew York, Chicago and St. Louis is seventy dollars per ton, which gives the startling figures o f four hundred and one thousand, five hundred and

twenty dollars paid out by Central and W est­ern Montana merchants und shippers for only a part o f one season’s freight business. Add to this two thousand tons which w ill yet com e in by the first o f November, making a total o f 7,730 tons, which, at $70 per ton, w ill amount to $541,520, enough in one year to pay the interest for the same time on a nar­row’ gauge railroad 140 miles to Benton, seven times over. For general purposes and to show’ the heavy contributions laid upon Montana for her business there is to be added

the steamboat freight up the Yellowstone for Eastern Montana, which is only to be esti­mated by thousands. Probably no business elsewhere could flourish under such an un­equal ban, and certainly no country but M on­tana, whose vitals are ribbed and braced with native gold and silver, could stand any such drain and live. I f our merchants and business men succeed and make money as they do and whose credit, when they want any, stands A No. 1 in the East, what would be their condition under the favor­

a b le auspices o f quick transit for Montana freight to and trom the head o f navigation on the Misssouri ?

! The grazing lauds produce the peculiar bunch grass, upon which subsist hundreds of thousands ot cattle, horses and sheep without other food, iu winter or summer, and upon which they live the year round without shelter or other care, except the presence of the shepherd.

The timber lauds produce the best o f building lumber of yellow’ and white pine and cedar, and poles for fencing. By

j special act ot Congress no royalty is to be paid the Government for wood and lum-

! her for domestic purposes.The mineral lands yield gold, silver,

.copper, lead and coal.Helena, the capital and commercial me­

tropolis, is eligibly situated iu the midst ! o f the largest mineral region in the world,

within twelve miles o f the Missouri river, overlooking the beautiful Prickly Pear

! valley, fifteen miles wide, prosperous in ; agriculture and varied by scenery pictur­esque and magnificent. •

Within a radius o f sixty miles, with Helena as a center, are embraced most o f the richest gold and silver mines in Mon­tana, including those of Butte City and Silver Bow and all those famous mines of gold and silver quartz and placer now working and producing, and designated as Philipsburg, Cable, Indian creek, Lincoln, McClellan, Virginia creek, North and South Boulder, B lackfoot, Nevada creek, Diamond, Duck creek, Eldorado bar, Spokane bar, Brown's gulch, Grewell’s bar, W ashington bar, Carpenter’s bar, Norwegian, Cave, N ew Y'ork, W hite’s, Magpie, Mitchell, Benton. H olm es’, Thom pson, Tucker, Confederate and A v­alanche gulches, American bar, M ing’s bar, French bar, lveatingsville, Cedar

; Plain, Deer Lodge and Dan Tucker.The 120-mile radius contains other as

: great mines, o f both gold and silver quartz and placer, designated as the Broadway, Iron Rod, Green Campbell, Victoria, Aurora, Quincy, Borealis, Ever­ett, Hudson, A jax, Gold Rose, Pony, Highland, Hot Springs, Cherry creek,

I Mill creek, Alder gulch, Bivens gulch, W isconsin creek, Bannack, Emigrant gulch, Sun river, Pioneer, Y'am H ill and Flint creek.

The head o f steamboat navigation on tbe Missouri liver is within ihe 120-mile radius, at Fort Benton.

Drawing the distance from Helena by a closer radius o f tweuty m iles, within which are found the renow’ned Penobscot, which show’s hundreds of thousands o f dollars in gold in sight, and the other mines in the same district o f less celeb­rity, but all very rich, viz.: the Belmont, Black Hawk, Snowdrift, Viola, Grey E a­gle, Emma Miller, Green, W hippowil, Mount Pleasant, Blue Bird, Northern Light, Griff, H ickey, Drum Loman, Hum Bug, and Long Tong Tom, some o f w’hich are extensions o f tbe Penobscot. A lso there are the silver mines o f the Consol­idated Gregory, Comet, Rumley, Alta, Bismarck, V on Arnim, Lexington, Mam­moth, Legal Tender, Australia, Emmet, Virginia Bell and the galena m ines o f the Red Mountain and Ten Mile districts. The Montana Company’s mills, concen­trator and smelting works, at W ycke’s are also within twenty m iles, and the gold mines o f the National Min’g Company and the Columbia Company are at Union ville, only three miles distant, w’hich also em ­braces the gold placers o f Nelson, the Park and Scratch Gravel. The smelting works o f Midgèon & Farrell and the Last Chance gold m ines are within the town proper. »

Contributing as all these mines and in ­dustries do to the business o f the Metropo­lis, it is but reasonable to suopose that ere long it w ill be the city o f tbe Mountains. And Helena now’, with its commodious churches, schools, academies, attractive resi­dences, public buildings and charities, quick­ened by the liberal and enterprising spirit o f her citizens, presents a9 favorable surround­ings as m ay be found elsewhere by the stranger seeking a home, or by those who w’ith the star o f empire take their wrestw’ard way.

HELENA.A H ir d N ^ y e V ie w o f t h e C o m m e r c i a l M e ­

tr o p o l it* a n d C a p i t a l o f M o n t a n a .

The view’ o f Helena, presented in this issue

of the H erald , is taken in reduced form from the lithograph by E. S. Glover. It pre­sents to tbe general public a pretty correct representation o f the town occupying the first place in population and com m ercial impor­tance in Montana. Its geographical position

—central to the principal towns and mineral districts o f the Territory—has given to it a

permanence, stability, and growth in w ealth and population second to no tow n in the Rocky Mountains. H elena at this tim e has between 5,000 and 0,000 inhabitants. T w o newspapers—the H e r a l d and Independent —publishing daily and w eekly editions, have a circulation reaching every point covered by mail and express lines in Montana. ̂ There are three banking houses—the First National, Peoples National, and Hershfield & B ro.’s — with a large capital answering the essential wants o f the people. In trade are the usual number o f sterling houses, am ong which are a half dozen largely engaged in the grocery trade, three in dry goods, three in hardware, three in drugs, two in harness-ware, five in liquors, w ines and cigars, one in queens- ware, one in books and stationary, .etc., etc. The usual number o f retail shops are here, but not enumerated in this incom plete mer­cantile list. T he industries are represented by planing mills, sash, door and blind fac-

B I R D ’ S - E Y E V I E W O F H E L E N A . tories, flouring m ills, sampling and smelting works, breweries, distillery, etc. The prin­cipal public buildings are the U. S. A ssay Otfice, Public School Building, County Court House and Jail, Post Office, Masonic and Odd Fellow s Halls, St. V incent Academ y, St. John's Hospital and Asylum for the Insane, The Herald Publishing House, Music Hall, International Hall, etc. P laces o f public worship—all o f them elegant structures—are the Broadway M. E. Church, Presbyterian Church, Catholic Church, and Grand Street Church.- The Episcopal congregation, wor­shiping in the County Court House, is about to erect a handsome church building, to be completed, probably, the present year. The city has a Public Library numbering nearly 4,000 volumes, and a Historical Society o f considerable membership. T he view shows the location o f th e town, built under the brow o f Mount Helena, a spur o f the Main Rocky Range, east side. Its altitude is 5,700 feet above sea level, and looks down on the broad, beautiful valley o f the Prickly Pear, w ith the Belt Range o f mountains as a grand and picturesque back-ground.

Helena w^s located in 1804, along the bord­ers o f the famous Last Chance gold gnlcb, from which m illions o f treasure have been extracted, and from which large amounts o f gold dust are still washed annually. It is probably to-day the most flourishing town o f its population ip the country, aud for its numbers transacts yearly a larger business than any other community in the mountains.