FROM THE FARM TO THE CITY OF GREAT FALLS.
GREAT FALLS, MONTANA.
In the year 1889, after meeting with my great loss in the death of my wife, I sold my farm in the Sun river valley and came to Great Falls, and built the “Arvon Block,” and the “Vaughn Building,” in which I now live, in rooms fifteen and sixteen, with my dear little ten-year-old daughter. Like the man who chased his shadow, I have chased myself from place to place for the period of sixty-one years, and for the distance of six thousand miles, and at last have caught up with myself. Now it is in order to give a sketch of my first visit to this spot where I now reside. It was in the winter of 1870, and it was rather a cold day, when, mounted on my gray mustang and looking down from the summit of the hill on the west side, where now stands the residence of Hon. T. E. Collins, I first saw the beautiful landscape, the site of the city of Great Falls. As I bent in my saddle to view the panorama before me, I longed to be an artist, that I might portray it. It was a picture that I shall never forget. On the south side of Sun river lay an Indian village, two tepees were on the north side, and one on Indian hill. The latter, I was afterwards told, sheltered a lookout who watched for the approach of an enemy and to observe in what direction the buffalo herds were moving. On Prospect Hill was a band of antelope, and through the low divide, west of J. P. Lewis’, a herd of buffalo were slowly moving in single file towards the river. In the grove some of these monarchs were rubbing against the trees, and, I should judge, were enjoying themselves immensely. Further east, on what is now Boston Heights, several hundred more were feeding on the grasses of the bench lands. While viewing the open plains, stretching on to where the Highwood and Little Belt ranges rose, covered with the first fall of snow, the winding rivers, the confluence of the Sun and the Missouri, following the latter in its course until lost to view between high bluffs, I forgot all save the scene before me, hearing only the roaring of the waters as they rushed over the Missouri falls further down the river. Just then I saw an Indian about half way between myself and the two tepees; he was on foot and coming towards me. As I had not lost any Indians, I put the spurs to my horse and headed for home. When I had gone about a mile I looked back and saw the Indian standing where I had been but a few minutes before. Today I once more looked down from the summit of the same hill, but what a changed picture was spread before me! The plains that were “then” dotted with buffaloes are “now” covered with pleasant homes and imposing business blocks. Where was once an Indian village, today the stock farm of Hon. Paris Gibson is located. The two tepees are replaced by The American Brewing and Malting company’s plant, and at the foot of Prospect Hill, where the antelopes were, a water plant for a city of fifteen thousand inhabitants is in full operation. On the commanding bluff, “then” occupied by the lookout tepee, “now” the lofty smokestack of the Boston and Montana copper smelter stands in bold relief against the blue background of the sky, a landmark for hundreds of settlers for many miles around. The Missouri river is spanned by several steel bridges which carriages and locomotives cross at will. The buffalo trails have given place to electric railways, and the grove, where these shaggy-looking animals used to rub their coats, is now a beautiful park echoing with children’s laughter. But the greatest change of all has been wrought at the falls of the Missouri. Its mighty voice “then” paramount, “now” has been overpowered and well nigh silenced by the humming of dynamos and the sound of the great ore crushers as they labor on day and night, the slaves of the white man’s civilization. A brief sketch of these falls is proper at this time. The falls of the Missouri river were first made known in 1805. Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, was a leading figure in the purchase of Louisiana, which embraced the country west of the Mississippi from its mouth north to the forty-ninth parallel at the Lake of the Woods. The forty-ninth parallel constituted the northern boundary to the Rocky mountains; the western line was the summit of the Rockies to the Arkansas river, to the one-hundredth meridian, thence south to the Red river, thence down that river to the ninety-fourth meridian, thence southerly along that meridian to the Sabin river, thence down the Sabin river to the Gulf of Mexico.
COPPER SMELTER AT GREAT FALLS, MONTANA.
In 1803 Jefferson sent a message to congress, asking for an appropriation of $2,500 for the exploration of the Missouri and Columbia rivers. The result was that the amount was granted. Lewis and Clark were chosen to take charge of the expedition.
The expedition spent the winter of 1803–1804 near the mouth of the Missouri river. The Northwest was then a wilderness. The expedition ascended the Missouri river to Fort Mandan north of Bismarck, where they laid over during the winter of 1804–1805. Their means of transport were several rowboats. July, 1805, they arrived at the falls of the Missouri river, where they spent two weeks surveying and making a portage. Lewis and Clark were the first white men who visited the falls of the Missouri river, or at least they were the first to make its existence known to the world.
The lower falls, known, as the Great Falls, is a perpendicular fall of about ninety feet. The river at this point is estimated to contain a volume of water about three times greater than that of the Ohio at Pittsburg. This immense volume is here confined between rocky walls on either side, from two hundred to five hundred feet in height and about three hundred yards in width. Next to the right bank nearly half the stream descends vertically with such terrific force as to send continuous and always beautiful clouds of spray sometimes two hundred feet or more in the air. The other side of the river is precipitated over successive ledges of from ten to twenty feet, forming a magnificent view some two hundred yards in breadth and ninety feet in perpendicular elevation. A vast basin of surging, foaming waters succeeds below, its deep green color and commotion betraying a prodigious volume and depth.
From Painting by C. M. Russell.
LEWIS AND CLARK MEETING THE MANDAN INDIANS.
Five miles above are the Crooked and Rainbow Falls, the latter fifty feet in perpendicular descent. Here the entire river, one thousand two hundred feet wide, hurls itself over an unbroken rocky rim, as regular in its outline as a work of art, into a vast rock-bound amphitheater, where when the sun is shining a rainbow spans the river from bank to bank. This with the sprays, the roar and commotion of the water make a fascinating scene. From this rainbow the falls received its name.
Another two miles up the stream is the Black Eagle Falls. Here the entire river takes a vertical plunge of twenty-six feet. On an island, and just below this falls, there formerly was a large cottonwood tree, in the branches of which a black eagle had built its nest. It is from this that the Black Eagle Falls received its name.
The river where these falls are located flows through a grand natural canyon, where in its ceaseless flow, has cut a path for itself through the rock of the plains, sometimes to a depth of five hundred and fifty feet. The series of falls and cascades add a wild beauty to the scene.
In no place has there been found so great a water power. Within a distance of ten miles, including falls and cataracts, there is a descent of five hundred and twelve feet.
Robert Vaughn.
June 27th, 1899.