(C) Daily Montanan This story was originally published by Daily Montanan and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Billings ... Montana's river port that never was – Daily Montanan [1] ['Dennis Gaub', 'More From Author', '- November'] Date: 2023-11-13 What if Billings had become the head of steamboat navigation on the Yellowstone River in the 1870s? If that had happened, Billings might have become a sister city to Fort Benton, Montana’s oldest city and the famed river port on the upper Missouri River. And what if Billings had become a gateway to the newly established Yellowstone National Park thanks to its strategic location on a river route into Montana? Meet the author The Daily Montanan is happy to introduce author, journalist and historian Dennis Gaub to you (if you don’t already know that name). We will feature some of his writing on history, Montana and baseball as part of our efforts to bring you robust coverage of the Treasure State. Here’s a short synopsis of his work: Dennis Gaub has authored four books, three nonfiction and the fourth a work of historical fiction designed to be a coming-of-age novel targeted at middle school readers. His most recent book, released in December 2022, was “Lindbergh in Montana: An Air Adventurer Leaves a Legacy in the Treasure State.” All books are based on topics drawn from Montana history. Gaub, a Montana native who received his journalism degree from Northwestern University, spent 25 years as a reporter and editor for newspapers in Colorado, Michigan, Wyoming, and in Montana, for The Billings Gazette. He retired from the tech industry in 2017 and has since devoted his time to creative writing. He is at work on his fifth book, the life story of Billings-born major league pitching star Dave McNally. Gaub and his wife, Cathie, live in Billings. An article published on Nov. 25, 1875, in the Helena Weekly Herald discussed this scenario. The article appeared about five months after Capt. Grant Marsh’s famous voyage aboard the steamboat Josephine up the Yellowstone to the vicinity of present day Billings. On June 7, 1875, Marsh reached a point estimated to be 46 miles up river, that is west of Pompey’s Pillar, which was 250 miles beyond the Powder River, and 483 miles from the confluence of the Yellowstone with the Missouri River, just inside North Dakota. This is from “The Conquest of the Missouri,” Joseph Mills Hansen’s classic 1909 biography of Marsh. According to the book, Marsh’s stopping place was less than 60 miles from the northeast corner of Yellowstone National Park, which had been established in 1872. Marsh tied up the Josephine to a “gigantic” cottonwood tree and carved the name of the boat and the date into the trunk. This spot lies inside Riverfront Park, a Billings city park, and for many years, a marker showed the spot. Reminders of Josephine’s place in Billings history are abundant. They include Lake Josephine in Riverfront Park, and Josephine Crossing, a growing subdivision that’s just east of where I live in the west end of Billings. The Missouri River had been considered the only dependable water route into Montana. However, its channel changed every 24 hours, making navigation a challenge. The Yellowstone River, though, offered more straightforward navigation. Just determine the depth of the stream, and a steamboat captain could decide whether it was navigable at that point and the size of a boat that could ply its waters. Gen. James Forsyth, a member of the party that came up the Yellowstone aboard the Josephine that June, said spring runoff was late. The Josephine was working through seven feet of water on the lowest rapids until it reached a point about 15 miles above the Bighorn River. There the boat had to first use a spar to get over a rapid from then on. (Spars are large timber poles that steamboat crew members used to free boats stopped by sandbars, rocks and other obstructions.) Islands frequently split the river, making it necessary to use spars more often from that point on. Forsyth believed the river to be navigable for large steamers to that point. Captain Marsh wrote the Helena Herald writer a letter in which he said the Yellowstone was far better for steamboats than the Missouri as far as Pompey’s Pillar, and for three months of the year, Marsh said boats could go much higher up the Yellowstone. To back up his belief, Marsh said he would invest in a steamboat and command her if he were assured of a load to carry. The proposed head of navigation mentioned in the article was called “Baker’s Battleground,” a place at the end of a lower section of bottom land. It extended about 20 miles on the north side of the Yellowstone opposite the mouth of Pryor Creek, which is just east of present day Billings. From the article: “Here is an excellent location for a settlement with several townships of good farming land. Cottonwood timber is found in large quantities with tolerable pine in the hills on both sides of the river.” The Northern Pacific Railroad, which would come up the Yellowstone Valley in 1882, had already surveyed its route. This possible town location was 165 miles along the survey route east of Bozeman, which had sprung up in the 1860s to serve gold miners in southwestern Montana. But the writer said a better route would use the Crow Agency road from the agency’s location, then just east of Livingston. The route would stay on the north side of the Yellowstone to the Shields River and make its way past various creeks near present day Big Timber until it reached a gentle plateau between the Missouri and Yellowstone River. From there, freight and passengers would travel until their wagons and horses reached the mouth of Pryor Creek. Colonel Baker of the Army had taken this route in 1872. And it saved almost 40 Miles going from the promising river bottom to Bozeman, making for a trip of about 130 miles. Only once was the distance between places with water on this route as far as 15 miles, but travelers would encounter some Badlands terrain. The Herald writer said the new route was of “highest importance to Bozeman and Virginia (City),” because it would involve shorter distances for wagons to travel than the present route that entailed using wagons loaded from steamboats that disembarked at Fort Benton on the Missouri and driven through Helena in route to Bozeman. The writer concluded that blazing a route from Pryor Creek where the steamboat stopped to Bozeman would benefit Montana territory. It would increase opportunities to do business with the eastern United States and open up settlement in the “almost unknown” eastern half of Montana. Little did pioneers like Marsh know, but in a short time, in 1882, the Northern Pacific Railroad would put down tracks along the Yellowstone River to Billings and Livingston. Then trains would cross Bozeman Pass to Bozeman and continue on to Butte, Missoula and onto the West Coast. That faster, more economical mode of travel would end steamboat traffic on the Yellowstone River almost as quickly as it began. Billings never became a river port, but the Yellowstone still flows past Montana’s largest city on its 670-mile route from Yellowstone National Park to the mouth of the Missouri at Fort Union. No dams hinder its flow. Roll on, Big River! In the next installment, I’ll interview Ralph Saunders, a well-known billings cartographer and historian. Several years ago, Ralph discovered notes and other materials written by Grant Marsh and others on the Josephine. They indicate that the boat may have gone farther up river than previously believed, possibly to a point west of present day Billings. [END] --- [1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2023/11/13/billings-montanas-river-port-that-never-was/ Published and (C) by Daily Montanan Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/montanan/