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Rails To Gold And Silver Lines to Montana’s Mining Camps Volume 1 1883-1887
Northern Pacifics Rails To Gold And Silver Lines to Montanas Mining Camps Volume 1 1883-1887
By Bill & Jan Taylor
Softbound 148 pages
Copyright 1999 FIRST PRINTING
Table of Contents
The Northern Transcontinental
Samuel T. Hauser and the NP
Rocky Mountain Railroad
Helena & Jefferson County RR
Helena & Red Mountain Railroad
Helena & Northern Railroad
Helena, Boulder Valley & Butte RR
Drummond & Philipsburg RR
Missoula & Bitter Root Valley RR
Northern Pacific & Montana RR
Appendix: 1896 Branch Line Reports
Sources
Index
Introduction
In 1902 the Northern Pacific Railway announced it had commissioned San Francisco artist Amedee Joullin to paint a mural documenting the completion of its transcontinental railroad line in 1883. The Driving of the Golden Spike was presented to the state of Montana to hang at the head of the grand stairway in the rotunda of the new capitol. Former President and Civil War hero Grant poses in the center, holding a spike maul. He is flanked on his left by Henry Villard, builder of the railroad, and on his right by Montana's Territorial Delegate in Congress Martin Maginnis and Territorial Governor J. Schuyler Crosby. At Grant's toe is a golden spike, awaiting his mighty swing to send it home. The crowd of onlookers includes a cross section of the people associated with the great work.
We know, however, that the spike was not golden but rusty-significant as the first spike driven in the monumental effort of spanning the continent, but not made of the stuff of dreams. The faces of the principals are rendered in detail and are easily recognizable on this auspicious occasion, but some faces in the crowd, while less detailed, seem skeptical, suspicious, or even bored. Joullin has captured some of the mixed emotions of the day.
Montana Territory welcomed the railroad with open arms. Reliable transportation would make marginal mines profitable, fallow lands fertile and fill the growing towns with industrious immigrants. Every detail from route selection to completion was newsworthy. Residents felt a certain ownership and pride, from the local reporter right on up through the president of the bank. When Villard announced his intentions to commemorate the event "about sixty miles west of Helena," the locals quickly pointed out the advantages of holding the event nearer the Territorial capital, perhaps near Mullan tunnel in the valley of the Little Blackfoot River. The tunnel represented hardships overcome, the scenery was ideal, and a larger number of the locals could attend.
Villard didn't see it that way. First of all, the Mullan tunnel was yet to be completed, necessitating the construction of a costly overhead line when he could ill afford the expense. Secondly, he had relied heavily on his foreign investors to complete the railroad and saw his primary obligation to them, not to the Territory. Finally, Villard appears to have wanted the more remote location, perhaps because he was a little concerned about crowd control. While the guest list of foreign dignitaries had been published in the territorial newspapers, invitations for the locals were few and clearly an afterthought.
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