Competition among railroads to enter the Redwater Valley ended on May 27, 1927, when the Interstate Commerce Commission authorized the Northern Pacific to build a 62 mile line from Glendive to Circle and Brockway, and Foley Bros received the contract to begin construction at once. Surveying continued as work advanced on roadbeds, bridges, fences, wells, corrals, and rails, with about 1500 people employed, including local residents who lived in tents or boxcars along the route with horses and equipment provided. Sidings were established at Green, Woodrow, Lindsay, Rimroad, Valgate, Circle, Friend, and Brockway, with depots and agents at Lindsey, Circle, and Brockway, and wool houses at Circle and Brockway that were later combined in Circle; the Circle Depot and Wool House eventually ended up at the McCone County Museum. The project cost more than $2,500,000 and used 2 million board feet of lumber, 10,000 tons of steel rail, and 200,000 ties, along with purchased horses and mules and many other construction needs. Over the years the line carried a wide range of freight in addition to animals and farm products, including relief supplies during the Depression, grasshopper poison during the insect invasion, and materials for the oil industry during the 1950s, and it even sent special care out for a sick lady. Circle celebrated completion of the branch line on June 2, 1928, when 10,000 people attended festivities that included the Governor, the president of the NPRR, Pathe news, Indians, pilots, neighbors, speeches, parades, free train rides to Brockway, the driving of the golden spike, barbecue from 3 steers and 2 hogs, and dancing late into the night; Brockway held its own celebration a month later. The last train arrived in 1999, and the line declined because of drought, war, better roads, population loss, and trucks delivering directly to consumers. Earlier, in 1864, Congress had granted the Northern Pacific Railroad 40 alternating sections of land per mile of track, covering much of southern McCone County, where the company opened a land office and sold much land to immigrants arriving with the railroad. In 1970 the NP, GN, and Chicago, Burlington and Quincy merged to form Burlington Northern, and in 1984 BN dismantled and sold the portion of line from Circle to Brockway, ending a business that had served the area well while retaining land and mineral rights and contributing taxes that helped during the Depression.