The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

Montana has important economics based on mining and agriculture, which rely on movement of materials of a bulk nature extensively involving railroads. Up to the days of the 1908 Homestead Act, mining and ranching were key, but that was all changed primarily with the arrival of railroads in the 1880's. Before railroads, shipment of supplies to Montana was by river steamboat, which travel time took months, or by wagon with limited load capacity. None of the railroad expansion would have been economically possible without the invention and economic development of steel specifically for steel r...