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.
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.”
For further illustration of the greatness of the mines of Butte I have in my possession the following statement from the Anaconda Company’s last year’s report. There were brought by rail to the smelters at Anaconda one million four hundred and fifty-nine thousand tons of ore from the Butte mines. This company shipped one hundred and twenty-four million four hundred and eighteen thousand pounds of copper, and paid fourteen thousand dollars express charges, on five million seventy-four thousand and thirty-six ounces of silver and one hundred and thirty-five thousand two hundred and forty-four ounces of gold. One hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of powder and forty-one thousand seven hundred and sixty-one dollars and forty-nine cents worth of candles, were used in their Butte mines. The pay roll of this company alone amounted to five million three hundred ninety-two thousand three hundred and twenty-three dollars and twenty-three cents. As the above amounts are so large, I put them in words instead of figures, so that the reader will understand that there has been no mistake made, as often occurs in copying figures.
The Boston and Montana, The Butte Reduction Works, The Butte and Boston, The Montana Ore Purchasing Company and other companies that are operating in Butte, I am not familiar with. According to Mr. Braden’s account for the year 1899, the copper output of the mines of Butte was two hundred and twenty-three million pounds of refined copper.
The monthly pay roll of this “Greatest Mining Camp,” including smelters, is over fifteen hundred thousand dollars, or over eighteen million dollars per year.
The wealth of the copper deposits at Butte was first recognized officially by the United States commissioner of mining statistics, Raymond, in his report of 1870. From that date to the present time the development of the copper deposits has been rapid; and, at this writing the state contains not only the richest copper mines of the world, but also the largest and most modern reduction plants. Thus, in brief, are the footprints of the prospector and the “from the cradle to the throne” of the mines of Montana.
After this faint effort to give an illustration of the “Then and Now,” I can but think of the “Now and Then” thirty-six years hence, and that someone, perhaps, will have this little book in the year 1936 and take up where I have left off and write the “Now and Then.” “I wish I were a boy again;” if I were, I would not give my chances to watch the progress that will be made in the valleys and mountains of the West during the next thirty-six years for the pay roll of the “Greatest Mining Camp on Earth” from the time of its first existence until then.
Now I end this series of letters, hoping that the reader will have as much pleasure in reading them as I had when writing. If so, both of us will be satisfied. Faithfully yours,
Robert Vaughn.
Great Falls, May 30, 1900.