326 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Mat 20, 1886. 



COOKE AND THE CLARK'S FORK "MINES. 

 rpHE number of untrue statements put forth by the advocates of the Cinnabar & Clark's Fork R. R. is 

 rather surprising. In a case of this kind we are apt to look about for a motive, but here it seems 

 difficult to find one, for these people must have known when they made their misstatements that many 

 persons besides themselves are acquainted with this region, and could at once show their allegations to be 

 false. Perhaps they acted on the old adage that a lie can travel a hundred leagues while truth is putting on 

 his boots. The strongest recommendations of their route came from a man who has never been over it, and 

 who has never been over any other route to Cooke City. The absurd assertions as to the difficulties of 

 crossing the range and the impracticability of building a line up its eastern slope have been pretty well 

 knocked to pieces by articles published in these columns. 



Among other utterly wild and baseless statements made by the Park Railroad people and repeated in the 

 favorable reports made by Congressional committees, is the allegation that Cooke City is the central point 

 of the Clark's Pork mining district, the implication being that all the mines are tributary to it. That an 

 assertion so unfounded and so easily disproved should be made, only shows how entirely the promoters of 

 this railway project rely on the ignorance of Congress, and how much faith they have in 

 their ability to rush the bill through both Houses without any investigation whatever. To 

 hear Cooke City spoken of as the center of a thriving mining district is extremely comical 

 to any one who knows that the town is a collection of twenty or thirty Jog cabins and 

 canvas shanties of the most temporary kind. It is just such a mining town as mav be 

 found in any district which has yielded a few good prospects, but which may be deserted 

 to-morrow for some other site and left to the occupancy of the hawks, owls and coyotes. 



Cooke is not the center, geographical or commercial, of the Clark's Pork mining district. 

 The town was located near one of the earlier discoveries of the region, and is on its extreme 

 southern border, almost all of the claims and prospects being to the north and separated 

 from the town by an impassable mountain range. Prom most of the mines the ore would 

 have to be hauled by wagons for a long distance to the south and east to the south branch 

 of Clark's Pork, and then — if the Park Railway should be built and Cooke should be its 

 terminus— up that and over the divide to Cooke. This would be a great thing for the town, 

 but it would not be so good for the mine owners. A railroad built up Clark's Fork would 

 enable the great body of the mines to get their ore to a shipping point by a much shorter 

 haul than if it were necessary to take it by wagon down to the Billings road and then up 

 the river to Cooke, for of course the ore would be delivered at the nearest railway station. 

 A railway terminus at Cooke would benefit chiefly the two mines which lie close to that 



MAP SHOWING LOCATION OF MINES AND COOKE. 



place. To most of the other mines some point east of Cooke would be far more convenient, 

 as well as much cheaper. Cooke City real estate owners and the proprietors of the mines 

 adjacent to it will be satisfied with nothing less than a railway to Cooke, but so far as the 

 development of the district is concerned, that small town may be altogether left out of 

 consideration. 



A glance at the accompanying map will show the reader more clearly than any expla- 

 nation, the relation which Cooke City bears to the mines of the district. It will be seen 

 that it is just on the borders of the National Park, and quite a distance south of many of 

 the mines. There is no reason why it should be the terminus of the railway. 



The projectors of this railway scheme desire a road built to Cooke not because of any 



relation which this town bears to the mines, but because it is so close to the borders of the 

 Park that it furnishes them an excuse for urging the building" of a road through the 

 reservation. What they want is not to tap the mines so much as to tap the Park; not so 

 much to secure an outlet for the ore as to secure an inlet for passenger traffic in the Park ; 

 not so much to establish the industries of this mining camp as to establish themselves in the 

 people's pleasure ground; not so much to develop the Clark's Fork mining district as to 

 benefit themselves. With all the forces to be commanded by money and influence, they 

 are laboring to secure the assent of Congress to the project which they have in view, but 

 they will scarcely succeed so long as the interests of the people are guarded.by men like 

 Senator George G. Vest and Senator Chas. F. Manderson. 



