Wonderland; or, Alaska and the inland passage: With a description of the country traversed by the Northern Pacific RailroadHyde, John
History
Wonderland; or, Alaska and the inland passage: With a description of the country traversed by the Northern Pacific Railroad
Hyde, John
Alaska -- Description and travel; Northern Pacific Railroad Company; Northwest, Pacific -- Description and travel
If the Red River of the North may justly be regarded as the true
Arimaspes, the Yellowstone may, with equal propriety, be designated the
modern Amphrysus. It is upon its banks and those of its tributaries that
there has been developed, since the opening of the Northern Pacific
Railroad, that vast grazing interest which has given Montana as great a
reputation for its stock as Dakota has for its wheat.
For many years,--up to and including the winter of 1881-82,--this was
the finest buffalo hunting country on the continent. But the slaughter
that season was enormous, 250,000 hides being shipped East, principally
from Miles City. Few have been seen since that time. There are hunters
who believe that small herds might still be found north of the
international boundary; but, so far as the United States is concerned,
the buffalo is practically extinct. There is, however, a small herd in
the National Park. Safe from the hunter's deadly repeater, they will
probably multiply rapidly, as it may be supposed that they will soon
know instinctively the limits within which they are unmolested.
Miles City, a few years ago the principal rendezvous of the hunter, is
now the great resort of the grazier and cowboy, it being the metropolis
of the stock interest of the Territory.
The development of this interest within recent years has been as rapid
as that of wheat raising in Dakota, and the economist who should turn to
the United States census reports for 1880 for the present condition of
any considerable section of the Northwest would be led seriously astray.
In 1880, Montana contained 490,000 cattle and 520,000 sheep. According
to a recent report of the Governor of the Territory, it contains, at the
present time, 900,000 cattle, 1,200,000 sheep, and 120,000 horses. The
grazing interests of the West are moving steadily toward Eastern
Montana; for, so rapidly do cattle thrive on the nutritious grasses of
these northern valleys, that a yearling steer is worth $10 more in
Montana than in Texas.
Glendive, already mentioned as the point at which the railroad enters
the Yellowstone valley, is second only to Miles City in importance as a
shipping and distributing point. It is also a divisional terminus of the
railroad.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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