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.