From Milk River the party went on to Fort Benton, but the boats were not able to get up that far except with very great delay, and it was decided to hold the expected council at the mouth of the Judith River. The goods were stopped at that point and hither repaired the Commissioners and the various Blackfeet bands to the number of about two thousand. The work was completed and in about ten days the Indians departed with their lavish presents. The era of the fur trader had ended and that of the Indian agent had come. In this case, as in all that had preceded it, the change, so far as the Indians were concerned, was a change for the worse. [Sidenote: GREATNESS OF FORT BENTON.] These events bring our sketch of the history of Fort Benton down to the point already reached in our regular narrative. The arrival of the first steamboat in 1859 was an epoch in her history. Followed, as it was, almost immediately by the discovery of gold in Montana, and the consequent rush of emigration, it changed the whole order of things at the post. Stores and other buildings began to appear, and in 1865 a town site was laid off.[40] The young city grew with astonishing rapidity and became a place of very great importance. Strange indeed must it have seemed to the Indians and to the old trappers to behold upon this spot, where for so many years there had been only a single palisade--sole habitation of white men within five hundred miles--buildings of metropolitan style and quality, trains of wagons coming and going, and lines of noble steamboats lying at the bank along the entire front of the town.[41] It was a wonderful metamorphosis, scarcely paralleled in any other city of the country. Mushroom towns have sprung up all over the West, but no permanent city from causes like those which built up Fort Benton. Her rise and greatness were due solely to her position as a strategic point in the commerce of the far Northwest, not from any great mineral discovery in her neighborhood. Her supremacy she maintained until other commercial routes had rendered useless the great natural highway which found its terminus at her door.[42] [Illustration: FORT BENTON LEVEE] [Sidenote: AMERICAN FUR CO. LEAVES THE RIVER.] The American Fur Company, founders of Fort Benton, continued to do business on the upper river until 1864, when they sold out to the firm of Hawley, Hubbell & Co., under the style of the Northwestern Fur Company. The negotiations were concluded in the winter of 1864–65, and the actual transfer accomplished in the following season. In 1869 the Northwestern Fur Company sold out all its interests below Fort Union to Durfee & Peck, and in 1870 abandoned all the trade above Fort Union. CHAPTER XX. LINCOLN ON THE MISSOURI.