Helena, the capital of Montana, has a population of 8,000, is situated at the eastern foot of the main chain of the Rockies, and close to the famous "Last Chance" gold mines, out of which $10,000,000 worth of gold has been taken, and which still yields a considerable amount annually. This circumstance, and the fact that it is the nearest point in the mining region to the head of navigation on the Missouri river at Fort Benton, gave Helena a great start in earlier days, and it is certainly likely to maintain its position as the chief commercial town of Montana territory. It is surrounded by mountains, rising one above the other, till the more distant are lost in the clouds, forming a view of striking beauty and grandeur.
The town itself, so far as we had time to observe, is not well built; the streets are narrow, crooked, and steep; but it has all the appearance of wealth and prosperity. It has four national banks, a fine opera house, seating 1,200, and two daily papers. The shops are large, and full of attractive-looking "stock." The city is lighted by the Brush electric light system.
The hotel we stopped at is very large and very comfortable, but they won't black one's boots. If you wish to indulge in this luxury you must descend to the boot-black's quarters, and mount on his stool. He will polish you off in five minutes, and scorns anything less than a shilling for doing it. Why should he take less when he finds full employment all the day long at this rate of pay? I reckoned that fellow was making thirty shillings a day by his blacking.
Next morning we started for Garrison. The route from Helena to "The Mullan Pass" is most picturesque, taking us through the charming valley of "Prickly Pear," and past great masses of craggy rocks and boulders. "The Mullan Pass" takes us over, or rather through the main range of the Rocky Mountains by a tunnel 3,850 feet in length, and at an elevation above sea-level of 5,547 feet.
Now we are at Garrison, where we leave the Great Northern Pacific Railway, on which we have travelled so pleasantly over 1,200 miles of country, through scenes as tame and scenes as wildly picturesque as are probably to be found in any other part of this great country.
Our route now lies due south for a distance of nearly 500 miles to Ogden and Salt Lake City.
The cars being narrow gauge, we did not find them so pleasant as those we had just left; but as we secured sleeping compartments, and the passengers for part of the way were few, we had nothing to complain of. On this line there are no dining-cars, so we had to descend at various stations for scrambling meals, at not by any means nice hotels.
At a distance of about thirty miles from Garrison, we passed the great mining city of Butte, on the west side of the main dividing range of the Rocky Mountains; for an hour or two our car was crowded with holiday people from that wealthy city, decked out very gorgeously, and proud of their display of jewellery. Butte is a city of 18,000 inhabitants, and is called "a mining camp." It is the county seat of Silver Bow county. There are over 1,300 patented mines in this district, five smelters, and nine quartz mills. The mines produce silver, copper, and gold, the shipments of which amount to $6,000,000 annually. The adjoining city of Anaconda, which two years ago consisted of two tents, has now 3,000 inhabitants, and boasts of having the largest smelter in the world. It cost a million dollars, and the two owners are said to be worth forty million dollars each—they own two mines. This smelter pays the Union Pacific a hundred thousand dollars a month for carrying ore over a little branch line of nine miles in length.
The train passes through the Cache Valley, which is fifty miles long and ten miles broad; it is wholly occupied by Mormons. On the south-east side of the valley is the city of Logan, where a fine temple overlooking the whole of the valley has been built. There are seventeen separate settlements in this most fertile valley, and these, seen from the railway, look like green patches of verdure dotted over the great brown prairie, each settlement being hidden in groves of green trees.
We reached Ogden at 5.30 p.m., and took train the same evening for Salt Lake City, where we arrived at the Walker House Hotel at eight.