Why did railroads want to come to Montana?

Why did many Montanans want railroads?

How did railroads affect Montana Indians?

How did railroads change life for all Montanans?

Detail of the map, Great Falls Montana Its Situation, Surroundings, Resources, Railroad and River Connections, 1893.

Railroads Transform MontanaRailroads Transform Montana

All images courtesy Montana Historical Society unless otherwise noted.

The Stump Horn family

with a horse travois,

Northern Cheyenne,

1890s

The Steamboat Rosebud on the Missouri River, 1886

Helena, ca. 1879

Examples of Pre-Railroad Travel

265 miles traveling at 60 miles per hour

Image from Google Earth

Fort Benton to Virginia

City

= 4 hours and 25 minutes by car

On an average trip from Helena to Virginia City, stagecoaches, like this one photographed in Wolf Creek Canyon, traveled at less than 6 miles per hour.

Trip Variables

•Terrain

•Weather

•Weight

•Road quality

•Quality of stock

Stagecoach en route from Divide to Wisdom, date unknown

Goods delivered by steamboat, waiting

to be loaded onto freight wagons, Fort Benton docks, 1879

Before railroads, getting supplies to mining camps was a difficult undertaking.

Eight oxen could haul three linked wagons carrying a total of approximately twelve thousand pounds.

Bull Team on the Whoop-Up Trailoil painting by Lee Kerr

Preparing and Cooking Camas, by Blackfeet artist Gary Schildt

Montana Indians used some imported goods, but not as many as Euro-Americans. Can you find the trade goods in this painting?

Pack horses carried supplies for trappers

like the one Charles M. Russell imagined in his

oil painting, Free Trapper.

“Red River carts” could carry 600 to 900 pounds. Impressive—but much less than can be carried on a train!

Fort Union on the Missouri, hand-colored aquatint by Karl Bodmer ca. 1845

The fur trade post of Fort Union, on the Montana/North Dakota border, was active long before the railroad arrived.

Mining increased the demand for goods—and the need for efficient transportation.

Wagon Trains at Helena, Montana, hand-coloredetching by W. M. Cary, 1878

“The iron key has been found to

unlock our golden treasures … With

railroads come population,

industry and capital, and with

them come the elements of

prosperity and greatness to

Montana.” From an editorial in the

Helena Independent, July 1875, five years before the

first railroad entered the territory

Jawbone Railroad, Sixteen Mile Canyon oil painting by R. E.

DeCamp

Encampment of the Piekann [Piegan] Indians, hand-colored aquatint by Karl

Bodmer ca. 1845

Increased development made it much harder for Indians to support their families through hunting and gathering.

Alder Gulch, ca. 1870

Would this be a good place to hunt game?

How much of Montana was Indian land...

In 1870 before the railroad came?

1890 after the arrival of railroads and large numbers of Euro-Americans?

In 1850 before the arrival of Euro-Americans?

Montana tribes lost millions of acres between 1870 and 1890, in part due to the railroad.

1881: The Utah and Northern connects Butte to the America’s first transcontinental railroad, the Union Pacific, at Corinne, Utah.

1883: The Northern Pacific Railroad completes its transcontinental line.

1887: The Great Northern Railway builds across northern Montana, reaching Seattle in 1893.

1907: The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific (the Milwaukee Road) enters southeast Montana, completing its transcontinental line in 1909.

Montana’s first transcontinental railroad, the Northern Pacific, crossed the Crow Reservation.

Driving the Golden Spike, oil painting by Amédée Joullin, presented to the Montana State Capitol in 1903

Montana’s second transcontinental line, the Great Northern Railway, created the Hi-Line. This trestle near Glacier National Park is just one example of its many engineering feats.

Two Medicine Trestle, 1891

A Milwaukee Road train, powered by an electric engine, at the Three Forks

depot

The Milwaukee Road was Montana’s third transcontinental railway.

Short lines filled in the gaps. By 1910, Montana nearly 4,300 miles of track.

Railroads brought about rapid population growth.

Neversweat Mine, Butte, ca. 1900, courtesy World Museum of Mining

Railroads made large-scale, industrial mining and smelting possible.

Without trains, Montana’s timber industry would not have grown so big.

Railroad ties stacked on a Union Pacific flatcar

The railroad founded Glendive (shown here about 1950) and many other towns along its tracks.

A parade in Butte, 1939 Photo courtesy of the Library of

Congress

Railroads helped towns grow into cities.

Can you find the tepees and the railroad tracks in this 1890 photo of the Clark Fork River? What, if anything, did Indians gain from the coming of the railroad?

The railroads started Montana’s

tourism industry.

Which railroad sponsored this advertisement?

The railroads promoted homesteading, bringing thousands of people to eastern Montana.

Do you know why? Which railroad published this promotional brochure?

Railroads transformed

everyday life.

For example, you could order lobster

in Montana restaurants in

the 1890s.

Christmas Day menu from the Capital Restaurant, Helena,

1897

Circuses were only one form of exotic entertainment that trains brought to the Treasure State.

Billings, August 1912

What other events—if any—changed Montana as much the

railroad?

The Great NorthernOil painting by Tucker Smith