“Now” Montana has its courts of civil and criminal jurisdiction equal to any state in the Union, and the sturdy stroke of the miner followed by that of the mechanic, farmer, stockman and manufacturer has brought out her hidden treasures, until today Montana is the wealthiest state in the Union in proportion to its population. The total value of the product of her mines and ranges for the year 1897 amounted to $69,139,675, or about $324 per capita of her population, which is about 210,000.
To carry on the vast commerce given rise by this great wealth, Montana has in operation 2,928 miles of railroad, equipped equal to any railway system in the world.
The yearly lumber product is estimated to be worth $1,500,000. The coal product, at an average valuation of $2.60 per ton, is counted at $8,000,000. Nearly all of the lumber and coal are consumed at home.
The towns and mining camps that were “then” propagating crimes and greed, and filling the air with blasphemy, “now” have well selected libraries and are lavish in their expenditures to secure the best class of educational and beneficent institutions. Forty years ago there were but two places of worship in what is now Montana, and they were at St. Mary’s and St. Ignatius’ missions, where Fathers Giorda and Hoecken were teaching Christianity to the red men of the forest. The four religious denominations—Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics and Episcopalians—have in Montana “now” over two hundred churches, and other denominations will add seventy-five more to the number. There are social and benevolent organizations, and nearly every secret society known is represented with well-equipped lodges. “Now” Montana has 709 public schools, 55,473 pupils, and 1,186 teachers, and it has its normal school and school of mines, state university and agricultural college. It has 488 postoffices, eighty weekly and fifteen daily newspapers, besides ten semi-weekly and monthly journals.
An Eastern writer tells of the libraries in some of the cities of the West and expressed his astonishment at the intellectual character of the people. The facts are, as far as reading is concerned, that the people of the West are a long ways ahead of those of the East. The brightest, most energetic young men and women of the East make up the leading element of the West. There are more college-educated men in the Western cities than in cities of the same size in the East. People in the West are generally more progressive than in the East. Few towns of the size of this (and none of its age) in the East have the electric lights, the miles of electric railroads, the telephone exchange, the churches, the public library, the elegant opera house, the fine public school buildings, the beautiful parks and, in fact, all the modern improvements which this city has. As to her resources, no one but nature herself can lay claim to placing them where they are. The many precipices, where the mighty Missouri plunges over one and then another with a force of several hundred thousand horse-power, the mountains of various minerals that are near by, the extensive coal fields that are at her doors, the thousands of acres of rich pasture and farming land that surround her. All these have been placed there by Him who created all things; and it seems to have been kept in reserve for a permanent camping ground for the advanced civilization of the West. The great water power at the falls of the Missouri is “now” largely employed in operating reduction works and smelters that reduce ore of the Rocky mountains to the amount of two thousand tons every twenty-four hours and here is operated one of the largest electric refining plants on the continent, where all kinds of metals are separated and refined. All this industrial growth has taken place during the last ten years. This is only a small portion of the development that has taken place in this state during the same length of time.
It is not Montana alone that has experienced these changes during the last thirty-six years. The “Then and Now” has revolutionized things in many other sections of the West as greatly as it has in this state. For “then” there was no Southern Pacific railway, no Union nor Central Pacific, no Great Northern or Northern Pacific, neither a Canadian Pacific, nor any transcontinental railway in existence. “Now” it is safe to say that 30,000 miles of railway have been built west of the Missouri river since “then.” And “now” great cities have sprung up on the sites that were “then” occupied by Indians and wild game. Verily, great have been the changes wrought in the mighty West by “Then and Now.”
Robert Vaughn.
Dec. 2, 1899.