Montana authors Bill & Jan Taylor have made a career out of their love for Montana history with four books to date on former Northern Pacific and Great Northern segments. Here they tackle the rather short Montana Central that connected Great Falls with Helena and Butte. By 1883, James J. Hill who was to build the Great Northern, had build a railroad and industrial empire centered on St. Paul, MN. The next year, Hill traveled to Great Falls, MT, Paris Gibson’s namesake city by the banks of the Missouri River. For here, there was money to be made by travel to the area for its beauty as well as the extensive copper, silver, and coal deposits around nearby Butte. Hill was looking for investment opportunities and bought holdings in silver mines, thus giving him a direction to seek when expanding his Stg. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway, the forerunner of the GN. Over 800 miles needed to be closed to tap into this region as a step to the west coast. But Hill set about to do just that aided by Marcus Daly, Butte’s future copper baron and Charles Broadwarter, Helena banking magnate. The Montana Central was just a small link but when it became apparent that Hill was coming from St. Paul to link up with his “Manitoba Railway,” he set off the Northern Pacific that envisioned this as their territory. That set off a war between two dominant forces. The Taylors’ book records the history of the area, construction of the MC, the NP’s response, and all of the key players while bringing the MC itself into 2000 and beyond. This is a 170-page oblong softcover. Gloss paper. New shrinkwrapped copy.

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