Progress on the nation's second transcontinental railroad slowed in 1873. The Northern Pacific's proposed middle--the 250 miles between present Billings and Glendive, Montana--had yet to be surveyed, and Sioux and Cheyenne Indians opposed construction through the Yellowstone Valley, the heart of the[...]
Hoping to complete its transcontinental route, the Northern Pacific Railroad set out in 1872 to survey the Yellowstone Valley. An emissary from the Lakota chief Sitting Bull had warned the two surveying expeditions (eastern and western) not to enter the valley. But no one--certainly no Northern[...]