The people's voice. [volume], August 02, 1963, VACATION ISSUE NO. 2, Page Page Three, Image 3

About The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969

Image provided by: Montana Historical Society; Helena, MT

                
Chronology of Montana History—1865-1889
1866—Territorial capital moved to Vir
ginia City.
1866-67 — Era of Thomas Francis
Meagher, acting governor aligned
with pro-Southem Democrats.
1866— Meagher followers meet to plan
statehood in Helena.
Green Clay Smith appointed ter
ritorial governor.
Ft. C. F. Smith built on the Big
Horn River,
First longhorns arrive via the
Texas Trail,
1867— Congress annuls acts of
Meagher's second and third leg
islatures.
John Bozeman slain by Indians.
Fort Shaw built on Sun River.
Meagher mysteriously drowned
at Fort Benton,
Episcopal Bishop Tuttle arrives.
Ft. Ellis built near Bozeman.
1867-88—Era of the political "big
four": W. A, Clark, Marcus Daly,
Samuel T. Hauser and Col. C. A.
Broadwater.
1868— Area east of Big Horn Moun
tains assigned to the Sioux and
other tribes; Bozeman Trail
abandoned; Indians burn Ft, C.
F. Smith.
1869— James M. Ashley appointed terri
torial governor.
Corrine, Utah becomes outfitting
point for Montana mines.
1870— Benjamin F. Potts of Ohio ap
pointed governor.
1872—Mining industry gets special tax
consideration b y legislature.
James Garfield comes to parley
with Flatheads; Chief Chariot re
fuses to sign agreement to move
from Bitterroot to Jocko.
Brother Van" Orsdel begins
Methodist Mission career,
1875— Territorial capital moved from
Virginia City to Helena.
1876— Custer command wiped out.
1877— Ft. Missoula, Ft. Keogh and Ft.
Custer built.
Nez Perce flee across Montana
before surrender near Chinook.
1880— Utah Northern Railroad enters
Montana from the south,
1881— Sitting Bull surrenders in N. D.
1883— J. Schuyler Crosby of New York
appointed governor.
1884— C onstitutio nal
convention has
futile meeting in Helena.
Stockmen form Vigilante group
to act against rustlers,
B. Platt Carpenter of New York
appointed governor.
1885— Cattle boom at its height; Mon
tana Stockgrowers organized,
S. T. Hauser appointed governor.
Reil Rebellion in Saskatchewan;
refugees flee to Montana.
1886— 87-^-Disastrous winter marks end
of open range.
1887— Preston H. Leslie of Kentucky
appointed governor.
1888— Forces 'of Daly thrown against
Clark in bid for Congress; "War
of the Copper Kings" commences,
1889— Benjamin F. White, Dillon, ap
pointed last territorial governor.
Montana achieves statehood,
• Joseph K. Toole, first governor.
* »
Open Range Cattle and Sheep, Fattening On
Nutritious, Free, Prairie Grasses, Brought
Eastern Montana Into the Economic Picture
Although it was gold which usually lured
them, some of Montana's most prosperous
men found their fortunes in the food which
fed those who panned the western gulches.
Indeed, agriculture had become important
to Montana long before the gold strikes,
and long after the last wooden gold-wash
ing cradle had fallen into some gulch, this
remained Montana's particular bonanza. It
still is.
Charles Larpenteur of the American Fur
Company had driven four cows and two
bulls up from the Green River rendezvous
in 1833, and by the 1840s, there were a
number of cattle on the Upper Missouri.
The Jesuit missionaries, who also brought
seeds, grinding stones and other agricul
tural equipment, had nearly 60 head of
cattle at St, Mary's Mission by 1846. When
John Owen took over the mission, he rebuilt
the saw and grist mills, fenced some land
for crops, and built up the mission herd.
In the 1850s, Captain Richard Grant be
gan feeding worn-out emigrant cattle in
the Beaverhead and Ruby Valleys and soon
Robert Dempsey and others were doing the
same thing as far north as the Deer Lodge
Valley. It was in the fall of 1864 that Wil
liam C. Orr of the firm of Poindexter and
Orr, drove a herd of California cattle into
the Beaverhead Valley to begin that firm's
cattle activities in Montana.
In 1866, Conrad Kohrs, who had been
working in and operating butcher shops in
Bannack and Virginia City, bought the
Grant ranch near Deer Lodge and built its
600-head herd into Montana's largest indi
vidual cattle holding.
And it was also in 1866 that Nelson Story
drove 600 head of Texas longhorns into
Montana, and for the first time the vast
acres of lush grasses in eastern and cen
tral Montana seriously entered the econom
ic picture. Here were more than 40,000,000
acres, drained by the Yellowstone and Mis
souri, and their tributaries, and broken only
slightly by small mountain ranges. It was
some of the best grazing land in the world.
Cattle and the cowboys who drove them
over the trails and managed them in the
classic roundups on the range are most
often thought of in connection with this
era, but sheep-raising is a vital part of the
picture. The woolies did not come to Mon
tana as early as cattle, but the Jesuits had
some at St. Ignatius in 1857 and by 1862
Major Owen was raising sheep at Fort
Owen. Conrad Kohr drove a band of 400 to
his Deer Lodge range the next year. Indeed,
the growth of sheep-raising in Montana was
even more spectacular than cattle. In 1870
there were believed to be only about 3,000
in the Territory, but in 1876 this had grown
to at least 60,000. And in 1880 the total
was a staggering 400,000, with Montana
wool clips bringing more than $1 million.
The hard winter of 1886-87, roughly
considered the end of the open range peri
od, was not as devastating to sheep as to
cattle and this induced some cattlemen to
turn to raising woolies although they were
inexperienced in this trickier business and
many had looked upon it with scorn. The
sheep bonanza was at its height in the Gay
Nineties, and by 1900 there were 6 million
sheep in Montana, more than in any other
state. The day of the big sheepman con
tinued until the homestead period began
in earnest in 1910, when smaller operators
came with their fences and plows.
The story of the homesteader or "hon
yocker" began with the penetration of the
transcontinental railroads, notably the
Great Northern which brought most of
them to eastern and central Montana. The
lure of virtually free land led to the settle
ment of some 93 million acres and the crea
tion of more than half of Montana's 66
counties.
Crude Oil To Grease An
Immigrant Wagon
Becomes A Vital Industry
Near the Big Horn River in southern
Montana in the summer of 1864, an immi
grant wagon train stopped to fix the metal
tire of a wagon wheel which had loosened
in the dry heat. While searching for water,
men of the train found crude oil in a small *
pool hidden in a grove of trees. They took
some of the oily substance back to the
wagons and used it to lubricate the axles.
This is said to be the first discovery and
use of Montana crude oil.
Natural gas, often a corollary of oil, was
found in present Teton county when two
cowboys, stopping to make coffee, acci
dentally lighted a gas seepage, Granville
Stuart, credited with Montana's first gold
discovery, found crude oil in Petroleum and
Musselshell counties and made note of it.
But the day of the gasoline engine and the
importance of petroleum had not yet come.
Just before the turn of the century, oil
seepages were found near Red Lodge, in
connection with coal deposits. Similar dis
coveries were made in 1892 in Flathead
county and these even caused a minor stam
pede of prospectors. But the first important
oil discovery was in the Oat Creek area in
Petroleum county, these shallow wells pro
ducing high grade crude at the initial rate
of more than 3,000 barrels a day.
When the Great Northern Railway, bring
ing homesteaders into Montana, converted
many of its locomotives from coal to crude
oil burners, the oil industry in the state for
the first time achieved some importance.
Geologist Gordon Campbell, considered by
many to be the "father of Montana's oil
industry", became active in Montana and
drilled a successful wildcat well near Kevin,
north of Shelby. The Kevin-Sunburst field
is one of Montana's largest and most im
portant, its fields extending to the Cana
dian border.
The methane gas produced in the Cut
Bank field and many others, including the
new and massive Williston Basin, is pipe
lined through Montana, Idaho and into
Washington and is now a major industry.