Steamboat Bertrand - Transportation Systems and The Montana Territory

Transportation Systems and The Montana Territory

The Bertrand was part of a large water-based regional trading system that developed during the mid to late 19th-century. Only since 1859 had steamboats been traveling up the Missouri River to Fort Benton, Montana Territory. When gold was found in the Alder Gulch Claim in Montana in 1863, streams of hopefuls migrated to the area from other states; they created one of the most prosperous frontier cities: Virginia City, Montana Territory. Within a year of the find, more than 35,000 people would be living within a 10-mile radius of the discovery point.

J.J. Roe and his partners entered the shipping business in 1864, creating a line to ship goods up the Missouri River to the frontiers of the Montana Territory. J.J. Roe & Co. also invested in the Diamond R Transportation Co., which established a system of ox trains to bring goods to more remote locations some hundreds of miles from the river. Prospectors and settlers created the demand for the goods that the steamboats were able to bring up the Missouri. By 1867, there were 113 different businesses registered in Virginia City to provide goods and services. Soon, the Alder Gulch Gold Camp grew into one of the largest frontier gold towns. It would prove one of the largest gold payoffs from the Rocky Mountains. The Missouri River was a major transportation route that sustained these Montana gold mines and the budding cities.