Teton County e a New Mineral District. The Greater Part of the County One of the Principal Cattle and Sheep Districts of the State-Agricultural Resources-The "Ceded Strip" Promising to Develop a Big Copper Camp. Teton county is one of the largest counties in the state, and except for that portion along its western border that is occupied by the east slope of the Rocky mountains, is prairie, range and agricultural lands. The area of the county is 7,900 square miles, and the Blackfeet Indian reservation covers about one-quarter of this, with perhaps half of their allotment in the mountain range. The assessed realty of the county is $761,943, the personal $1,467,035, railways $661,060, making a total of $2,890,038. Teton county was legally organized in 1893, and now has a population of 5,080. The Great Northern crosses the northern part of the county from east to west, and the Great Falls and Canada passes through the eastern part of the county from the northern to its southern boundary. Stock and agriculture have been the only resources of the county until the recent ceding of the "Ceded Strip" of the Blackfeet Indian reservation, which was purchased by the government and opened to mineral locations. This strip comprises a couple of million acres, and lies in the mountains in the northwest portion of the county. During the past year there has been considerable development done on the mines of the Strip, and the revelations of the tunnels seem to demonstrate that it is going to prove a great copperproducing camp, and in this event the county will add one of the most profitable of wealth producing industries to its resources. It is estimated that there are 150 square miles of tillable lands not yet irrigated, and the remainder of the county, except the mountains, is chiefly adapted to grazing. The elevation of the valleys range from 3,000 to 4,000 feet. The soil varies from a sandy to a gravelly loam, and from one to six feet in depth. Wheat, oats, barley, rye, flax, timothy, alalfa and all the vegetables and root crops have been and are being cultivated successfully. All the small fruits, and in some localities apples, are grown. The depth of snowfall ranges from 12 to 20 inches, but chinook, or warm winds, are frequent, and the snow does not remain continuously. Fuel and timber are obtained from one to forty miles from the farms, and water is obtained at a depth of from 10 to 15 feet. Irrigation is necessary everywhere for cultivation. Hay, oats and barley are considered the best paying crops, and what is not fed on the ranches is marketed at Choteau, Great Falls and other points. Great Falls will always furnish a good market or the products of the county. The Mon There are good ranges for stock near all the farms, and there is a good field for farmers who desire to combine farming and stock-raising. tana Land and Water company has brought out a canal with a capacity of 12,000 inches of water, and has reclaimed about 10,000 acres. A large part of this land has been disposed of to settlers, who have colonized and are cultivating the land. Other large ditches are being built, and much land is being brought under irrigation. A co-operative company is talked of to bring water from the north fork of the Sun river to cover a large and fertile body of land in the southern part of the county. During the past year the Conrad Investment company, of Great Falls, has put in an irrigation system in the neighborhood of Dupuyer that covers over forty thousand acres of fertile lands, and a number of private ditches irrigating single ranches have been put in, the water being appropriated from the numerous streams that flow east from the neighboring mountains. In the raising of cattle and the growth of wool the county is among the first in the state, and while with the rapid increase of irrigation the agricultural products will be greatly increased, the free range is so wide that there will not be any curtailment in these important industries. Great Falls is the market for the products of the county, and will always afford a ready purchaser for all the agricultural products. Choteau, the county seat, is a busy little town of several hundred population, and is the distributing point for the largest part of the territory within the county. With the progress of irrigation Teton county will receive the first and most rapid benefits, as it is practically all, except the mountainous portions, susceptible to artificial watering, and as it is next to the source of water supply, will be the first to be served. It will not be a very distant future until the county will be one of the heaviest producers of agricultural products, live stock and wool, in the west, and with the development of its mineral resources, will be one of the wealthiest counties in the state. |