ted to 59,000. Between Lake
Superior (where in the midst of a vast wilderness Duluth had just been
laid out on the lake shore) and the mining camps in the mountains of
Montana, there was not a town nor a hamlet. (There were indeed a few
forts and Indian agencies and a few trading posts.) Northern Minnesota
was a forest, into which even the lumbermen had not gone. The region
from the Missouri to the Rocky Mountains was the hunting ground of the
Sioux, and was roamed over by enormous herds of buffalo.

%524. The Northern Pacific Railroad.%--But this great wilderness was
soon to be crossed by one of the civilizers of the age. After years of
vain effort, the promoters of the Northern Pacific began the building of
their road in 1870, and pushed it across the plains till Duluth and St.
Paul were joined with Puget Sound. As it went further and further
westward, emigrants followed it, towns sprang up, and cities grew with
astonishing rapidity.

%525. The New States.%--Idaho, which had no white inhabitants in
1860, had 32,000 in 1880; Montana had 39,000 in 1880, as against none in
1860. Kansas in twenty years increased her population four fold, and
Nebraska eight fold. This was extraordinary; but it was surpassed by
Dakota, whose population increased nearly ten fold in ten years
(1870-1880), and in 1889 was half a million. The time had now come to
form a state government. But as most of the people lived in the south
end of the territory, it was cut in two, and North and South Dakota were
admitted into the Union as states on the same day (November 2, 1889);
Montana followed within a fortnight, and Idaho and Wyoming within a year
(July, 1890). The four territories, in which in 1860 there were but 5000
white settlers, had thus by 1890 become the five states of North and
South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, with a population of
790,000.[1]

[Footnote 1: Colorado was admitted to the Union in 1876, Washington in
1889 (November 11); and Utah, the forty-fifth state, in 1896, under a
constitution forever prohibiting polygamy.]

%526. Wheat Farms and Cattle Ranches.%--Such a rush of people
completely transformed the country. The "Great American Desert" was made
productive. The buffaloes were almost exterminated, and one now is as
great a curiosity in the West as in the East. More than 7,000,000 were
slaughtered in 1871-1872. In lieu of them countless herds of cattle and
sheep, and fields of wheat and corn, cover the plains and h