the government. The military has general control of everything. A
garrison of two or three troops of cavalry is stationed here, who are
distributed in small patrols all through the park during the summer
to protect the wild game that is there in abundance, principally elk,
deer, buffalo and bears; also to see that no one carries away any of
the curiosities in the way of specimens of the various formations, and
to see that the forest is not destroyed by fire or otherwise. For the
violation of any of the laws that govern the park a severe penalty is
imposed. The same military force serves as a police protection to the
people as well.
While this Wonderland is the property of the general government, it is
in fact the pleasure ground of all nations.
ROBERT VAUGHN.
April 2, 1900.
FROM THE PROSPECTOR’S HOLE TO THE GREATEST MINING CAMP ON EARTH.
Go where you may and if the state of Montana is spoken of the name
will not be repeated many times before someone will inquire and ask
something in reference to her mines; and for me, who claims to be one
of her pioneers, to write what I have about Montana and not tell the
story of her first gold discoveries and of her great copper mines,
would be a breach of trust.
To commence with, I will give the old prospector’s theory of how gold
came into the streams and gulches of the Rocky mountains. In the first
place gold is in quartz, and quartz is in fissures or clefts in the
mountains caused by volcanic action, and, evidently those mountains
have been at one time under water, for on the higher elevations
boulders and gravel can be found. The gulches and channels where
gold is found are but some ancient river beds; all goes to show that
some powerful water current has been in action at one time in these
mountains, whether it was an ocean current or not is a mystery. Quartz
is softer than granite, in which formation gold is invariably found,
and, having been washed down the mountains and gulches, and, coming
in contact with harder stones, the quartz is worn off until nothing
but the gold is left; and, as the gold is heavier than the gravel, it
lodges on the solid bed rock in the beds of those ancient streams. As
neither fire nor rust injures gold, every particle remains as perfect
as it was when laid there by nature’s own hand centuries ago.
In all of the vocations of man, there is nothing that he enters
into with more enthusiasm, takes more risks, endures greater
self-sacrifices, than gold hunting and prospecting in the Rocky
mountains; neither is there anything that has brought him wealth
or made him an independent fortune as quickly as gold mining has,
therefore, as long as ariseth the mountains above the plains the gold
hunter will be there. The first record giving indications of gold
discoveries in the northwestern portion of the United States, and
in what now embraces the state of Montana, dates back to 1739, when
Verendrye, a French explorer, reported to the French government that
“these mountains were rich in minerals.” But previous to the Lewis and
Clarke expedition little was known of this part of the country. Many
other stories have been written giving names and the location of where
the first gold was found in this state. The truthfulness of those I
will not dispute. But there is one that I can vouch for to be reliable,
and that is what Granville Stuart has written on this subject. Mr.
Stuart is a natural born historian; like a tourist, he kept a journal
and set down day by day what was of importance. And Montana is lucky
that he and his comrades were her first gold discoverers, at least they
were the first to find gold in paying quantities.
Mr. Stuart is a Virginian by birth. In 1852, with his father and
brother, he went to California. In 1857 he came to what is now Montana.
He has written a book, dedicated Virginia City, Montana, January 1,
1865, in which he says:
“About the year 1852, a French half-breed from Red River of the
North named Francois Finlay, but commonly known by the sobriquet of
‘Benetsee,’ who had been in California, began to prospect on a branch
of the Hell Gate, now known as Gold creek. He found small quantities of
light-float gold in the surface along the stream, but not in sufficient
abundance to pay. This became noised about among the mountaineers; and
when Reese Anderson, my brother James and I were delayed by sickness
at the head of Malad creek, on Hudspeth’s cut-off, as we were on our
way from California to the states in the summer of 1857, we saw some
men who had passed ‘Benetsee’s creek,’ as it was then called, and they
said that they found good prospects there, and as we had an inclination
to see a little mountain life, we concluded to go out to that region
to winter and look around a little. We accordingly wintered on Big
Hole just above the ‘Backbone,’ in company with Robert Dempsey, Jake
Meeks and others; and in the spring of 1858 we went over to Deer Lodge
and prospected a little on Benetsee creek, but, not having any ‘grub,’
or tools to work with, we soon quit in disgust, without having found
anything that would pay, or done enough to enable us to form a reliable
estimate of the richness of this vicinity, but we found as high as ten
cents to the pan on Gold creek and we resolved to get more grub and
return. We then went back to the emigrant road, and remained there
trading with the emigrants over two years, very frequently talking of
the probability of there being good mines in Deer Lodge. In the fall of
1860 we moved out to the mouth of Stinking Water river, intending to
winter there, and go over and try our luck prospecting in the spring.
But the Indians became insolent and began to kill our cattle, when we
moved over, later in the fall, and settled down at the mouth of Gold
creek and began to prospect. We succeeded, during the following summer,
in finding prospects that we considered very good, upon which we began
to make preparations to take it out ‘big,’ and wrote to our brother
Thomas, who was at ‘Pike’s Peak,’ as Colorado was then called, to come
out and join us, as we thought this a better country than the ‘Peak.’
How events have fulfilled this prediction will be seen hereafter.
Thomas showed our letters to quite a number of his friends, and they
became quite excited over them, and in the spring of 1862 many of them
started out to find us, but became lost and went to old Fort Lemhi, on
Salmon river, and from there they scattered all over the country, a
few of them reaching us about the first of July. We were then mining on
Pioneer creek, a small fork of Gold creek, without making more than a
living, although some adjacent claims paid good wages.
“About this time quite a number of people arrived who had come up the
Missouri river intending to go to the mines at Florence and Oro Fino,
but not liking the news from that region when they arrived in Deer
Lodge, a part of them went no further, but scattered out and began to
prospect. The ‘Pike’s Peakers,’ soon after their arrival, struck some
good pay on a small branch of Gold creek, now known as Pike’s Peak
gulch. The diggings of this region did not, as a general thing, pay
very well that summer, and they have not been much worked or prospected
since from the following cause: Many of the ‘Pike’s Peakers’ became
rather lost and bewildered in their attempts to reach Deer Lodge and
were scattered all about through the mountains; this though a source of
infinite vexation to them at the time, proved of great ultimate benefit
to the country, for one small party of them discovered some gulch
mines at the head of Big Hole prairie in the spring of 1862 that paid
tolerably well during the summer of 1862, but they seem to have been
exhausted, as they have not been worked since that time. I have been
told by men who worked there that they worked across a vein of good
coal thirty feet wide in the bed of the gulch, and that they put some
in the fire and it burned brilliantly.
“Another party happening to camp on Willard’s creek in July, 1862,
began to prospect and found very rich diggings, where a great many
men made fortunes during the summer and winter. This attracted almost
every man in the country to the spot, and the mines at Gold creek were
deserted for the richer ones at ‘Bannock City,’ a small town that
had sprung up at the head of the canon of Willard’s creek. About the
time the Bannock mines began to decline a little and people began to
think of branching out again, a party of six who had started to the
Yellowstone country on a prospecting tour, and had been driven back
by the Crow Indians, who robbed them of nearly everything they had,
camped, as they were returning, on a small branch of the Stinking Water
river, afterwards called Alder creek because of the heavy growth of
that wood. They camped on the creek about half a mile above where the
City of Virginia now stands, and on washing a few pans of dirt they
‘struck it big,’ getting as high as four dollars to the pan. They
staked off their claims and went to Bannock City to get a supply of
provisions, and to tell their friends to return with them and take
claims, which they did. The creek proved almost fabulously rich,
thousands of men having made fortunes in it.”
A letter was written by Lieutenant James H. Bradly concerning the
first gold discoveries in Montana. It was dated Fort Shaw, September
21, 1875, and appeared in the Helena Herald. Bradly, at one time, was
stationed at Fort Benton, afterwards at Fort Shaw, and was killed in
the Gibbon battle with the Nez Perces at Big Hole in 1877. He was
an interesting writer and very fond of reading histories. I have
heard some of the old timers of Northern Montana speak of this man
Silverthorne and his gold, to whom Lieutenant Bradly refers to. It
appears that there is some doubt where this gold came from. In this
letter Bradly says:
“I read with interest the extract from the Northwest (published at Deer
Lodge), contained in your weekly issue of the 16th instant, relative
to the ‘First Gold Mining in Montana.’ Anything Mr. Granville Stuart
has to say about the early history of Montana is sure to be interesting
and valuable, and it is probably rare, indeed, that his views should
require subsequent modification. But in reference to the first gold
mining done in Montana, I am in possession of some facts apparently
not known to Mr. Stuart, and which may be equally unknown to the great
majority of your readers.
“It is probably generally known that the American Fur Company, founded
by Mr. Astor and subsequently controlled by Pierre Choteau, Jr., & Co.,
had a trading post at or near the site of the present town of Fort
Benton. Major Alexander Culbertson was for a number of years in charge
of that post, and was at the time of which I have to speak--namely,
the year 1856. In the month of October a stranger appeared at the
fort, coming by the trail from the southwest, now the Benton and
Helena stage road; he was evidently an old mountaineer, and his object
was to purchase supplies. Producing a sack, he displayed a quantity
of yellow dust which he claimed was gold, and for which he demanded
$1,000, offering to take it all in goods. Nothing was known at the
fort of the existence of gold in the adjoining country, and Major
Culbertson was loth to accept the offered dust, having doubts of its
genuineness. Besides, even if gold, he was uncertain of its value in
this crude state, and he was, therefore, about to decline it, when an
employe of the post, a young man named Ray, came to the aid of the
mountaineer, by his assurances as to the genuineness of the gold and
the value of the quantity offered, induced Major Culbertson to accept
it. Still doubtful, however, he made it a private transaction, charging
the goods to his own account. The mountaineer was very reticent as to
the locality where he obtained the gold, but in answer to numerous
questions, he stated that he had been engaged in prospecting for
a considerable period in the mountains to the southwest, that his
wanderings were made alone, and that he had found plenty of gold.
Receiving for his dust a supply of horses, arms, ammunition, blankets,
tobacco, provisions and other supplies, he quietly left the fort on his
return to the mountains. Major Culbertson never saw or heard of him
afterward, and was ignorant, even of his name. The following year,
1857, he sent the gold dust through the hands of Mr. Choteau to the
mint, and in due time received as the yield thereof $1,525, the dust
having proved to be remarkably pure gold. Thus, as early as 1857, three
years before Gold Tom hewed out his rude sluice boxes on Gold creek,
Montana gold had found its way to the mint, and contributed a small
fortune of the shining pieces to the circulating medium of the country.
This much I obtained from the lips of Major Culbertson, just enough
to pique curiosity; and the mysterious miner who had been the first
to work the rich gulches of Montana, made the earliest contribution
to the world of its mineral treasure, and whose subsequent fate and
very name were unknown, often returned to my thoughts to vex me in
my apparent powerlessness to lift any part of the veil of mystery
that shrouded him. But one day I mentioned the circumstances to Mr.
Mercure, an old and respected resident of Fort Benton, who came to the
territory in the interest of the American Fur Company in 1855. To my
great satisfaction, he remembered the old mountaineer, the event of his
golden visit to the fort having created quite an enduring impression.
When Montana’s great mining rush began, Mr. Mercure quitted the service
of the fur company and sought the mines. There he met the mountaineer
again and immediately recognized him. His name was Silverthorne, and
his habits were still of the solitary character that had distinguished
him in former days. For several years he remained in the territory,
occasionally appearing at the trading posts with gold in abundance;
but after supplying his necessities by trade, he would again disappear
in his lonely rambles. He could not be induced to divulge the secret
of his diggings, but always declared that his mine was not a rich one
yielding him only four or five dollars a day. Mr. Mercure believes,
however, from the quantity of gold always in the possession of
Silverthorne, that he greatly understated the value of his discovery.”
After writing the foregoing I sent it to Mr. Stuart for correction and
in reply he sent me the following:
_Robert Vaughn, Esq., Great Falls, Mont._:
Dear Sir--Your manuscript about the early discoveries of gold in
what is now Montana, and your request that I correct any mistakes
therein, received. In the interest of true history, I will gladly
do so.
What I wrote in 1865, as quoted by you, is an absolutely correct
account of the discovery and first working of gold mines in what
is now Montana, except that it does not tell of the mining done
on Gold creek by Henry Thomas, known as “Gold Tom,” and which
I contributed to the first volume of the Historical Society of
Montana in 1875, and which is referred to by Lieutenant Bradly.
Upon learning of Bradly’s statement about Silverthorne’s gold and
which was a surprise to a considerable number of old timers, myself
included, who were intimately acquainted with him (Silverthorne),
I took steps to ascertain where that gold came from and the late
W. F. Wheeler and myself found in the journals kept by John Owen
at Fort Owen in the Bitter Root valley since the year 1852 the
evidence that John Owen brought that gold dust up from the Dalles
in Oregon, and sent Silverthorne over to Fort Benton to buy goods
with it to trade with the Flathead Indians, and besides all the
old timers knew that “Silver,” as we used to call him, never owned
that amount of gold in his whole life (he’s dead now, rest his
soul), and never knew of nor worked any secret mines because there
never were any in Montana, and we who well knew “Silver” could
readily imagine the pleasure it gave him to stuff the American Fur
Company’s men at Fort Benton (none of whom knew anything about
mining) with his yarn about his secret mines, etc., etc.
Very truly yours,
GRANVILLE STUART.
Mr. Stuart is one of the self-made men of Montana, and no other man has
done more to make Montana what it is than he. He was elected to the
council from Deer Lodge County for the session of 1871-2, and to the
house session 1873-4, and to the house from Lewis and Clarke County,
session of 1878-9, and extra session of 1879, and from Fergus County
to the council, session of 1882-3 and was president of this session.
In February, 1894, he was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary to Paraguay and Uruguay by President Cleveland, and he
served until December, 1897. Mr. Stuart is now in business in Butte,
Mont.
Alder gulch, or Alder creek, as Mr. Stuart called it, was discovered in
the spring of 1863 and soon became the Mecca of restless prospectors.
It was not many months afterwards before Bevan, Last Chance, Nelson,
Confederate, Highland, Lincoln, McClellan, and a score of other gulches
were swarmed with miners who were taking out gold in great quantities.
And thus the history of the mines of Montana began.
[Illustration: QUARTZ MINING AT NIEHART, MONTANA.]
Since 1862 her mines and gulches have made rich contributions to the
world’s treasure. For many years gold was in the lead as the chief
production, but after the richest placer mines of the bars and gulches
had been worked out, the gold production rapidly declined, and the
new era in mining began by giving attention to quartz veins. It was
not long before quartz mills and smelters were in operation, and, the
consequences were that silver took the lead, but it did not hold the
position very long before the base metals took the lead over the two
precious metals. And now copper is king over all other metals put
together, as can be seen by the following table which I received some
time ago from Hon. Eugene Braden, United States assayer, at Helena, to
whom I had written for the information. He says:
“The production of gold, silver, copper and lead in the state of
Montana from 1862, the year of discovery of gold, until the end of the
year 1898 is as follows:
1862 to 1897 (inclusive). 1898 (estimated).
Gold $257,533,727 $5,167,958.66
Silver 273,033,393 20,040,407.03
Copper 217,487,224 27,669,000.00
Lead 9,817,112 793,800.00
------------ --------------
$757,871,456 $53,671,165.69.”
The regular annual report of Mr. Braden for the year 1899 has just
been made public. The value of the minerals mined during the year was
$68,457,307.54, an increase of $17,138,240 over the preceding year. The
output of the state was as follows:
Copper, fine pounds 245,602,214
Silver, fine ounces 16,850,764
Gold, fine ounces 233,126
Lead, fine pounds 20,344,750
Their value is given as follows:
Copper, at $16.75 per cwt $40,941,905.74
Silver (coinage value) 21,786,834.52
Gold 4,819,156.95
Lead at $4.75 per cwt 909,410.33
--------------
Total $68,457,307.54
The gain is more than 33-1/3 per cent in the value of the production
over 1898. There was an increase of nearly 28,500,000 pounds in the
production of copper, and this means a gain of $15,000,000 in this
metal alone.
Copper is the paramount feature of the mining industry in Montana. More
than 80 per cent of the total values won in the state during 1899 came
from the mines at Butte in the shape of gold, silver and copper.
Like the story of the “Mustard seed,” is the story of the mines of
Montana. From the prospector’s hole on Gold creek, in 1862, only a few
miles away “now” is Butte City, which is today the greatest mining camp
on earth, its population being between forty-five and fifty thousand.
Though the ore is principally copper, yet as can be seen, it carries
much gold and silver and is separated in the refineries at Butte,
Anaconda and Great Falls. A writer in the Anaconda Standard, January,
1899, gives an interesting account, in a manner, so that the reader can
comprehend the magnitude of this great camp. He says:
“Ten miles of mining shafts have been operating in Butte during the
past year. This does not include the old and abandoned shafts on which
work has been stopped, but of shafts on which work has been actually
done during the year. It includes work done on mines which have been
leased or are worked by small owners and not by the companies. The
total depth of shafts operated by the regular mining companies amounts
to 49,075 feet. Adding to this the depth of mines operated by leasers
and operated by small owners, and the total will exceed 52,800 feet, or
ten miles of shaft depth.
“More than a mile and a half of shaft depth has been sunk the past
year. This is the largest amount of depth ever added to the mining
development in the history of Butte. The total depth for the mining
companies is 8,512 feet, and the returns from the small mines will
increase this total. The development of the past year exceeds anything
else in the history of this camp. The total number of men reported
employed is 7,548. This includes the big companies only. Individual
owners of mines and leasers employ 800 more, which would make the total
numbers of miners employed in the camp 8,350.
“Ten miles of shafts--add to that the length of drifts and stopes that
lead in all directions beneath the city of Butte, and the figures would
be enormous. These drifts form the streets and by-ways of another city
underground. Along these subterranean highways there moves, day and
night, a procession of toilers that reproduce beneath the surface the
busy scenes that are enacted upon the streets of the surface city and
her suburbs. Night and morning the actors in these busy scenes change
places. Those from the surface take their turn in the activity under
ground and those whose toil has been in the dimly lighted thoroughfares
of the city where the sunlight never enters are relieved.
“The visitor in Butte marvels at the bustle and stir that he witnesses
upon her streets. Were he to pause and consider that hundreds of feet
below him are thousands of men, moving back and forth, repeating down
there beneath the very spot upon which he stands the activity that he
sees before him, his amazement would be even greater.
“Ten miles of shafts--hundreds of miles of drifts and workings--in
these passage ways of the nether city there is life and stir and busy
movement that would cause a boom in many a city whose name is in large
letters upon the map and yet there is no mention of this underground
city upon any chart; its existence is noted in no atlas. Along the dark
streets of this city there daily move 8,300 men in the performance of
their duty. Here they labor day after day, creating the wealth that
gives Butte her proud rank in the sisterhood of cities.
“Of the two Buttes--the surface city and that underground--it is
not improbable that the latter possesses more and greater points of
interest than the visible town. There are no drones there. The dark
city’s people are all workers. There are no crimes committed there and
vice does not enter. There is no police patrol--none is necessary.
The laws that govern this underground city are recognized and obeyed
without the necessity of brass buttons and nickel stars. When a man
enters this city he lives under new conditions as long as he remains.
He is a member of a well organized community, working under its laws
and regulations, and for the time he loses his connection with the
municipality upon the surface.
“There are no paving contracts let in this city that is out of sight.
There are no legislative elections there, and the bungstarter’s union
has no standing in the remarkable community. The boodler is unknown
in the business of Underground Butte and the Salvation Army has no
barracks there. All in all, this second Butte is a wonderful place.
Many tales might be told of deeds of heroism performed within her
limits, of devotion to duty that surpasses many an act that has been
emblazoned upon the scroll of fame. The sturdy, honest toilers of this
city work on without the inspiration that prompts deeds of valor upon
the field of battle. They do their duty because it is their duty. They
have made Underground Butte even greater than the greatest mining camp
on earth.”