There was no railroad into Montana in August 1864 when four prospectors found gold along the banks of Silver Bow Creek in Montana.[1] As prospectors built cabins there and on the nearby butte (now the City of Butte), they were anxious for a way to transport mining equipment and supplies to their new claims.

     By January 1875, Montana miners had extracted 120 million dollars’ worth of silver, quartz, and other minerals. Michael Hickey then staked a new claim and called it Anaconda. It was destined to grow into America's greatest copper mine.[2]Seeing the potential of the Montana mines, the long-established Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) decided to advance.

     In 1878, UPRR began the march north through Idaho to Montana. The line reached Monida, near the Montana border, in 1880. In December 1881, the rail line reached the Montana Subdivision’s northern terminus at Silver Bow.[3] By then, the advancing railroad had led to the establishment of depots, new villages, and surrounding farms, providing both transportation and a means of trade all along its route. 

     The UPRR’s Montana Subdivision continued to support local agricultural and mining communities through two world wars and the growth of the trucking industry in the twentieth century. Livestock shipments were finally discontinued in the 1970s, but lumber, talc, potatoes, sugar beets, and grain continued to move north and south on the old rail line. By the late twentieth century, however, some of the large industrial plants, including Butte’s once mighty Anaconda Copper Mine, no longer required freight services.[4]

Credits and Sources: