540 



MONTANA. 



One of the greatest works on the extension of 

 the Great Northern is the Wickes tunnel, which 

 will require about 15,000 carloads of granite and 

 will cost more than $200,000. The granite 

 conies from a quarry fifteen miles south of 

 Helena, on Clancy creek. At Great Falls about 

 $100,000 is to be expended in the erection of 

 car shops. Great smelters are now in course of 

 construction at that place. 



Mineral Lands and Railroads. An impor- 

 tant controversy is in progress in regard to the 

 claim of the Northern Pacific to mineral laiids. 

 It was to forward the interest of the State in this 

 matter that the office of Mineral Land Commis- 

 sioner was created. Following is an extract 

 from his report : 



The vast land grant of the Northern Pacific Kail- 

 way Company stretches from the eastern to the western 

 boundary of the State of Montana in one broad belt, 

 which, including indemnity lands, is nearly 70 miles 

 wide and over 700 miles long. The Congress which 

 created this corporation gave it one half the lands 

 within these limits, carefully excluding all mineral 

 lands, and emphasizing their reservation from the 

 grant by giving to the company indemnity for such 

 lands as might turn out to be mineral. Little pro- 

 specting had then been done; very little was known 

 of the character of these lands. All the discoveries 

 of mineral land had yet to be made, the mines 

 upon them to be developed, and these to be finally 

 segregated from the land grant of the company and 

 the company recompensed therefor with other lands 

 not mineral. Nothing would seem to be plainer than 

 the fact that the reservation went with and was part 

 of the grant ; and that future exploration, survey, and 

 classification would be necessary to define the non- 

 mineral lands, which would become the property of 

 the company, and the mineral lands, which were re- 

 served to be forever open to the prospector and the 

 miner, under the mining laws of the United^ States. 

 It was not until later that the audacious claim was 

 set up that lands not then known to be mineral, or 

 known to be mineral at a certain date, were therefore 

 not mineral, and, by consequence, passed to the cor- 

 poration. 



One object of the great grant was to secure an im- 

 mediate or a rapid construction of the road. The 

 railroad did not, as its charter and its grant contem- 

 plated, open up and develop the country for the 

 people ; but the people opened up and developed the 

 country for the railroad. For financial reasons its 

 construction was delayed until the Indians had been 

 subdued, the mines, or many of them, discovered, 

 and cities and towns had been builded and farms 

 opened along the line of its route. All that portion 

 of the railroad in this State, and in other States where 

 the mineral lands are in controversy, was delayed in 

 building beyond the time limit fixed for forfeiture 

 both of the charter and the land grant, and but for 

 the successful operations of a financier of great vigor 

 and ability, mignt not have been built yet. Although 

 the railroad failed in its mission as a prospector and 

 a pioneer, and although its construction was delayed 

 until the country which it was designed to open was 

 so far occupied and developed independently of it 

 that other companies felt justified in building equally 

 good railways without any land grant at all. Con- 

 gress did not exercise its power of forfeiture, but, 

 recognizing the greatness and the value of the enter- 

 prise, permitted the company to complete its line 

 and to acquire its immense grant, which makes it the 

 most extensive land owner in America outside of the 

 General Government itself. A large portion of the 

 lands inside the lines of the grant has never been 

 surveyed or in any way examined, prospected, or 

 classified by the Government. The labor and toil of 

 the voluntary prospector and miner has alone made 

 known which are mineral districts and which are 



not Suddenly the astounding claim was set up that 

 all the portions of the country which had not been 

 voluntarily examined by the individual prospector, 

 acting under no agency of the government, but at his 

 own expense, and therefore proved to be mineral at 

 a certain date, were to be considered non-mineral and 

 to become the property of the Northern Pacific Kail- 

 road Company in spite of the fact that the charter 

 itself said that such lands never should be, and that 

 the company could take other lands in lieu thereof in 

 order to make up the quota that it claimed. 



The Legislature passed memorials on the same 

 subject, one to Congress, and one to the Legisla- 

 tures of other States and Territories interested. 

 The following is the memorial to Congress : 



Whereas. The Northern Pacific .Railroad, running 

 400 miles through the mountainous mineral portions 

 of Montana, claims ownership to over 8,000,000 acres 

 of our mountainous mineral lands, none of which are 

 coal or iron lands, and has been permitted to select 

 already about 2,000,000 acres of our choicest mineral 

 land, embracing the most productive mining camps of 

 Montana, and on which are more than 4,000 mining 

 properties, discovered and recorded, but as yet un- 

 patented, and over 1,000 patented mines bearing gold, 

 silver, copper, or lead; and none of these lands are 

 agricultural, or such lands as they are entitled to 

 under their grant; and whereas, under the present 

 decisions of the courts, if the patents to these 2,000,000 

 acres of selected land should be issued to this railroad 

 company, it would wrest from their rightful owners 

 these thousands of mining properties, and all the un- 

 discovered mines in this vast area of mineral lands 

 would become the property of the Northern Pacific 

 Eailroad Company ; and whereas, we believe that the 

 Congressional action can alone save these mines to 

 the people to whom belongs this heritage of untold 

 millions : 



Now, therefore, the Legislative Assembly of Mon- 

 tana do earnestly request of your honorable bodies in 

 Congress assembled, that you will pass such an act or 

 acts as will forever preserve to the people, not only 

 the discovered but all the undiscovered mines of 

 Montana, bearing gold, silver, copper, and lead, and 

 all other valuable mineral except coal and iron. 



Some suits involving these, claims have since 

 been decided against the railroad. In another 

 case the court decided that the legal title to the 

 land rested with the railroad company. But. as 

 the land had been taken up as a mineral claim 

 and the patents issued, the case would rest be- 

 tween the patentee and the Government. 



Irrigation. A bulletin of the Census Bureau 

 on the subject of irrigation in Montana shows 

 that there are in the State 3,702 farms irrigated 

 out of a total number of 5,604. A State congress 

 met in Helena, Jan. 7, 1892, to consider the best 

 means for securing irrigation for the arid lands, 

 and especially to get an expression from the peo- 

 ple of the State on the resolutions of the irriga- 

 tion congress that met in Salt Lake City in 

 September, calling for the cession to the States 

 and Territories by the General Government of the 

 unoccupied portions of the arid regions of the 

 public domain. 



Education. The number of children of 

 school age was 29,353 ; number attending public 

 schools, 19,051; the number of teachers em- 

 ployed, 585 ; average monthly wages of teachers, 

 $51.08; total amount paid to teachers, $273,- 

 276.27; amount collected for school purposes, 

 '$548,021.61 ; amount paid for libraries, $6,289.50; 

 for school apparatus, $7,621.42; for incidental 

 expenses, $54,197.54 : sites and buildings, $1,- 

 100.570,13. 



