In 1874, the owners of the Diamond R Freighting Company tried to divert lucrative steamboat trade from Fort Benton merchants by building a new port on the Missouri River near the mouth of the Musselshell in Montana Territory. Named for Matt Carroll, the settlement was a cruel collection of log huts on a cut bank above the river, and its success depended on a road linking it to the outside world. In 1873, the Diamond R blazed a 225-mile road to Carroll from Helena, and the first freight train traveled the trail the following year. Accounts of the route differed, with one claiming plentiful wood and water while others described little vegetation and a landscape incapable of sustaining man or beast. In dry conditions, freight trains took about a month to travel between Carroll and Helena, but when wet the road became a greasy, slippery, fathomless mass of clinging mud through which straining animals could hardly drag the heavily weighted wheels. Carroll failed to make money for the Diamond R, and the company abandoned the post and the trail in 1876.