FROM ALDER GULCH TO LAST CHANCE.
Having remained in Alder gulch all summer working in the mines for Boon and Vivian at ten dollars per day in gold dust, in December, 1864, four of us made a bargain with a man who had two small Mexican mules and an old spring wagon, to take us and our baggage to the new gold mines called Last Chance (now Helena). It was understood that we were to walk, and help the mules (or “Jerusalem ponies,” as one of the boys called them) up the hills. The little animals were not over thirteen hands high, and would weigh about 400 pounds each. We came down the Prickly Pear creek, where now the Montana Central railway is. “Then” there was no town of Clancy, nor a quartz mill nor a smelter on the creek; not a sound could be heard there, except that of the pick of the prospector on the mountains, hunting for gold. We kept on the trail until we got to the new Eldorado, where several hundred miners were at work; many were taking out gold in great quantities, others were prospecting their claims.
Before going any further we will stop a minute and listen to “Now” telling a short story in connection to the creek referred to. “A few days ago I was invited to go to the roundhouse at this place to see two new locomotives which had just arrived from the East. They were the largest in weight and dimensions ever built in any country up to that time, each weighing one hundred and fifty-four tons. Mr. Bruce, the master mechanic at the railway shops, informed me that they were to run on the Montana Central railway from Clancy, on Prickly Pear creek, and over the Rocky Mountain divide. Although this is one of the heaviest pulls in the country, the big engines each are to draw six hundred and seventy tons. Several hundred passengers are drawn over this divide every twenty-four hours, besides about seven thousand tons of freight, principally coal from Cascade county to Butte and Anaconda, and copper ore from the Butte mines to the copper smelters and refiners at the falls of the Missouri river, near Great Falls, and lead and silver ores to the East Helena smelter.
When looking at those two great locomotives I could not avoid thinking of the contrast between them and the two Mexican mules, and of the motive power on the old trail, and the motive power on the new. The little mules were thirteen hands high and drew one thousand pounds; each of the big locomotives is fifteen feet, or forty-five hands, high, and draws six hundred and seventy tons. It is to me like a dream to think of the great changes that have taken place since that time.
Then Helena was but a mining camp, consisting of but a few log cabins. There is where I helped to run a drain ditch, commencing at Discovery Claim, near where now stands the Montana Club building. We reached bed rock in the upper end of the city. Among the gravel in this drain ditch, about forty-five feet from the surface and near where the Helena fire department building is, a mastodon tooth was found; it was a grinder, three inches on top, six inches deep and eight inches lengthwise; it was as perfect as it was when it came from the monster’s mouth, when this northern country was a tropical region. In another claim a tusk was found like that of an elephant. Many other remains of animals have been found in mines and rock formations in the Rockies, showing that the Rocky mountain region has, at one time, been the home of animals that are not now in existence, at least not in the western hemisphere. It is estimated that thirty millions of dollars have been taken out of Last Chance gulch and its tributaries, and most of it from where the streets of Helena now are.
From Painting by C. M. Russell.
A PRAIRIE SCHOONER CROSSING THE PLAINS.
Miners’ wages were then ten dollars per day; common laborers seven dollars. During the winter of 1865 eatables of all kinds were very dear, except meat, for game was plentiful; flour sold for one hundred and twenty-five dollars per one hundred pounds. “Then” my friend Charley Cannon was an humble baker, and was selling dried apple pies that were not sweetened, with crusts as thin as a wafer, for one dollar a piece. “Now” he is an honored and respected citizen and one of the wealthiest men in the state. “Now” Helena is a city of twelve thousand inhabitants and the capital of the state. The capitol building is in course of construction, and, when completed, will be one of the finest in the West. Where the log cabins stood, handsome business blocks and pleasant homes are everywhere visible.
Besides the Montana Central, which runs north and south and through Helena, the transcontinental line of the Northern Pacific connects the Atlantic and Pacific by extending east and west. Their freight and passenger depots are located on the old mining claims, where husky miners, in their overalls and flannel shirts, swung the picks and tossed the shovels with their brawny arms and contributed thousands of dollars to the world’s treasury. Today railroad conductors and other officials are skipping over the same ground in broad cloth, with pen and pencil behind ears that are braced up by high collars attached to boiled shirts.
And so it goes—the miner, the mechanic, the herdsman and plowman, the conductor, the railroad official and the man with the pencil, yes, the tie ballaster and the newsboy, all are linked in the endless chain of Western progress. And now a commerce is created which brings a revenue to our government amounting to millions of dollars annually, besides many millions more to the laborers and those who furnished the money to carry on these industries and enterprises that are continually developing and adding to the wealth of the nation.
Thus the wheel of progress has moved forward with tremendous speed since my first arrival in Helena in 1864 with the man who had the two “Jerusalem ponies.”
A SCENE IN THE CITY OF HELENA.
From Helena I went to Nelson gulch, where there were some very good diggings. The richest was that owned by the Maxwell & Rollins company, near the head of the gulch. In July, 1865, this company had a crew of ten men running a set of sluice boxes in very rich gravel. The man who used the fork to throw the stones which were too heavy for the water to carry out of the boxes, noticed that one small stone that he cast away was very heavy for its size. Wishing to know what kind of a stone it was, he went to the pile and examined it. To his astonishment it was a nugget of gold worth two thousand and seventy-three dollars. All hands quit work to see the big nugget, and the men on the adjoining claims came also to view it. Finally three cheers were given, and repeated several times until the echo went up and down the canyon. I was about a quarter of a mile down the creek at the time. Hearing the yelling, many thought that a serious accident had occurred. Soon the men came down the gulch with the big nugget suspended from the center of a pole, with the crowd following, and, as they marched down the gulch, everybody joined the mob: and when they reached the town which was near the lower end of the gulch where there were two stores and as many saloons, besides several miners’ cabins, the crowd numbered three hundred or more. From two to three hundred dollars was spent by the Maxwell & Rollins company in treating the boys. The nugget was pure gold with no quartz. It was the shape of a hand with the thumb turned under. In 1877 another nugget worth one thousand and fifty dollars was found in the same gulch by Mr. Rogers. The gold of the Nelson and Highland gulches is the purest of any ever found in Montana.
The largest nugget was found in Snow Shoe gulch in 1865, which weighed one hundred and seventy-eight ounces and was worth three thousand two hundred dollars; there was some quartz attached. This nugget was long in shape, more like a foot than a hand. Snow Shoe gulch is located on top of the main range of the rockies, and near the Mullen tunnel on the Northern Pacific railway.
Deitrick and Brother found a nugget on their claim in Rocker gulch in 1867 worth eighteen hundred dollars. Many other large nuggets were found in different gulches, but these were the largest. The placer gold varies in size from microscopic powder to the monster slugs spoken of, and in quality from 600 to 990 in fineness.
Several hundred bars and gulches were in operation in the years 1865–1866, and were producing thousands of dollars daily. Those mines extended through a region one hundred and twenty-five miles square. The greatest producer of all was Alder gulch, with thirteen miles of pay ground. It is estimated that from seventy to eighty-five million dollars have been taken out of this gulch. Last Chance ranks next. Many other gulches were as rich, but not so extensive. It is safe to say that Confederate gulch produced more gold from the same number of square yards and in less time than any other placer mine ever found in the state. In the summer of 1866 a party of men took out of this gulch two and one half tons of gold worth one and one half million dollars. Early in the fall of the same year it was hauled by a four-mule team, escorted by fourteen armed men, to Fort Benton for transportation down the Missouri river. Mr. Lindiman and Mr. Hieediman, the two men who were the owners of most of the gold, accompanied the outfit.
Robert Vaughn.
Dec. 18, 1898.