blackfoot-valley

for level of permanent homesteading settlement along its route did not mate- rialize and it was a longterm money loser. Its depot on the south bank of the Clark Fork by the Higgins Street Bridge in Missoula is still a more striking land- mark than the old Northern Pacific station on the north side of town. Both are now architectural and historic relics housing various offices, with explanatory plaques outside recalling their glory days. Beside the Northern Pacific build- ing, an old workhorse steam locomotive and coal tender car are on display. While the large-scale Montana boom in cattle raising did not take place until the 1880s with the arrival of the railroads and the great influx of mine workers and others which provided both major markets for meat in the region and a ready means of shipping it, the history of livestock raising in Montana goes back several decades earlier. The first cattle in Montana were brought in by the Catholic missionaries of St. Mary’s Mission in the Bitterroot Valley south of Missoula; the traditional date given is 1842. The pioneer cattlemen came in the late 1850s, one of these few being Richard Grant and his son John, who started their ranch operation in Deer Lodge Valley. While they estab- lished themselves well before the gold discoveries of the 1860s, it was those strikes that provided the first dependable market for cattle, which also attract- ed more ranchers to serve the mining camps. What is now Powell County thus became the first cattle raising center in Montana, centered around Deer Lodge. Ranching in the vast plains east of the Great Divide came years later. The Day of the Stockmen on the open range “Buccaroos” by Charles Russell 79