I got curious this morning about the “Mineral Land Convention” referenced in the newspaper article I wrote about yesterday. So I “googled” the term “mineral land convention”, together with the word “Montana”, and up popped this newspaper article from the Chicago Tribune – dated December 1, 1889. Bam!!

Apparently, the owners of mining locations (my great grandfather being one) were in danger of losing some mining patents to the Northern Pacific Railroad Company. A resolution was adopted at the Convention asking the Secretary of the Interior to suspend action on issuing grants to the railroad company pending a formal presentation, by the soon-to-be-formed Mineral Land Association, of its views as to the “best methods by which the true character of such lands may be determined.”

If you’d like to read the article embedded below, click on the 4-window icon in the lower left hand corner, click on page 6, and you’ll find the article Montana Mineral Land Convention near the top of the page in the 2nd column.

So interesting.  This is the kind of information that really puts “meat” on our family stories.

I’ll be doing more research to see what happened with the railroad grants. But in the meantime, let me just say – I love Google!!