<P> Montana was a very isolated area and the trail helped to keep Montanans connected to the rest of the United States . Salt Lake City was the only major city between Denver and the Pacific Coast and was a valuable supply and trading center for Montanans . The Montana trail was a much shorter version of the Oregon - California trail . It was one of the only trails to travel north to south, taking supplies from Salt Lake and driving them by pack train to Montana in the north . The trail went across eastern Idaho and passed through the Continental Divide at Monida Pass . The Montana Trail continued north and east through Montana to Fort Benton . It went through Utah, Idaho, and Montana and passed over mountains and crossed streams and valleys . Travel peaked during the mid-summer months when low water levels grounded steamships on the Missouri River . </P> <P> Mountain men and traders explored the Montana Trail area in the 1840s and developed it in the 1850s and 1860s . In the 1870s miners, traders and settlers utilized the road until its decline in the 1880s . The Montana trail started in Salt Lake City and was an important supply point for the early years of the Montana gold rush . In July 1862, gold was discovered in Montana on Grasshopper Creek in Banack City, in southwest Montana . Grasshopper Creek produced $5 million in gold and some outrageous rumors . People said that they could pull out a sagebrush plant, shake out the roots, and collect a pan's worth of gold . </P> <P> Immigrants and emigrants came to Montana in wagons, on horseback, and by foot . Emigrants were also able to take steamboats up the Missouri River to Fort Benton during high water months . From there, however, travelers had to take stagecoaches or wagons to the mining camps . Fort Benton boomed as a transportation hub during the high - water months . Many people traveled over overland trails because they were much cheaper than travelling by steamboat . However, this journey was much more difficult . People used pack trains, mule trains, and oxen on the trails . </P> <P> Overland roads followed traditional pathways that native people, like the Shoshoni and other tribes, had been using for thousands of years . Troubles with the Northern Shoshoni slowed traffic in 1862 . Mining and emigrant travel disrupted Indian hunting and survival practices, and local bands sometimes raided the wagon trains for their goods . The US army halted these raids in a brutal fashion when generals led their troops in a massacre against the Shoshoni at the Battle of Bear River . Not only were the Shoshoni hostile to freighters and emigrants in Montana, but the Sioux were also especially unfriendly to whites whose arrivals at various times represented a breach of treaty with the United States . Over time, people were able to get military protection along the roads . However, Native Americans were fighting back against the prejudices that settlers had created against them . Many stores and towns hung signs outside their doors, barring Natives from entering . </P>

What were the four overland routes into montana