Despite the name on the cover, the map on the back of this brochure only shows the Salt Lake Basin north of Ogden. Moreover, it extends well beyond the basin into the Snake River and Missouri River headwaters. Basically, it is a map showing Union Pacific’s branch line to Butte, but it also shows a rail line extending to Helena, which Union Pacific didn’t reach.

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Union Pacific once went as far as Garrison, Montana, about 50 miles north of Butte. The Butte-Garrison portion was called the Montana Union Railway and it was jointly owned by Northern Pacific and Union Pacific. In 1898, five years after this brochure was published, UP decided it didn’t need to reach Garrison, so it leased its half of the line to Northern Pacific for 999 years.

The map is accompanied by about 15,000 words of text providing a preview or travelogue of travel from Ogden to Helena. The brochure doesn’t say so, but the route from Garrison to Helena was owned by the Northern Pacific while Butte to Helena was owned by the Great Northern. As with the previous brochures in this series, this one is based on scans posted by the David Rumsey Collection.