ns were orderly geometric affairs. Laid out on rectilinear grids, the rail lines formed the spine of the townsite, with streets for businesses and homes projecting away at right angles. Taking advantage of the unique way that Billings straddled two sections, Clark platted the town to include two main commercial streets, paralleling and fronting onto the rail line. These twin streets, named Montana and Minnesota for the mother company that gave them life, formed the commercial center of the new town.
On April 1, 1882, Heman Clark arrived at Billings. Detailing the creation of the Billings townsite, what he described was basically an instant city planned to hold 20,000 inhabitants. Eight or nine sawmills, a 16-mile (26 km) irrigation system, rail spurs to nearby mines and money for the first bank in town came with the package. The railroad's promise to pump massive capital into the town "lit the fuse of a crazed land boom", and when M&MLI agent G. B. Hulme joined Clark the following week, the land rush was on.
Meanwhile, work on the approaching NP line continued at breakneck pace. Henry Villard, then president of the NP, was pushing hard for the transcontinental connection. While rail crews built east from Portland, others continued west up the Yellowstone valley. In August 1882, the line was completed to Billings, and on September 8, 1883, spike-driving celebrations at Gold Creek, Montana forged the final link in the NP's chain across the continent.
By May 1882, there were three buildings on the spot destined to become Billings. They were headquarters to lodge railroad survey crews, H. Clark's townsite office and mercantile, and a lone residence. Immediately, the building of town began. Many of the first structures were tents that sheltered hustling new businesses and town residents. Alongside them, cabins of rough-hewn log sprouted in about equal numbers and rapidly replaced the tents. By mid-June the first year, 79 tent shelters were in
