Land Grab - Chapter Two: The Big Deal

In chapter two of Land Grab, our narrative for the season kicks off in earnest. We meet the key figure for the rest of the show: Andrew B. Hammond, and chart his journey from teenage lumberjack to prospector to partner in the corporation that will become the Missoula Mercantile.  In the Bitterroot Valley, future President James Garfield arrives and forges an agreement that claims Chief Charlo’s Salish band are willing to leave their homelands. The forgery enrages Charlo and sets the Salish up for decades of tensions with the Valley’s white settlers.  And we finish up the episode by examining the most consequential business deal in Montana history, as the Northern Pacific Railroad comes to town and partners with Hammond and the Anaconda Copper company to create a new timber monopoly in the territory that will build the railroad and the giant smelter at Anaconda.