Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1942-12-04


porous mining center that some 70
years ago was as well known as Helena
and Virginia City and Bannack. and
was then considered a much better
camp than Butte.
Neither does the list of Montana
Mining districts now include the name
of Confederate Gulch. Yet, for the
area that was worked by the miners,
that almost forgotten gulch was the
richest gold producing district in what
is now known as Montana state.
Confederate Gulch, which was the
nucleus for the existence of Diamond
City, was discovered in 1864, and, dur
ing the fail of that year and the
spring of 1865, prospectors thronged
there, and the vicinity was extensively
mined by men who had come up from
Idaho and from the California fields.
The richness of the pay dirt in Con-
federate gulch was the sensation of
Montana Territory's mining camps.
Miners are said to have ordinarily OBJ
tanned as high as $3.50 to the pan,
and at one of the diggings in the
gulch. pans ran as high as $1,000.
A story has been told by j. x. Beid-
Ter to the effect that in the late COS a
heavily laden freight outfit pulled
away from Diamond Citys streets
with gold dust valued at 5000, 900, the
cleanup of one short seasons work by
three or four men on a rich bar. This
shipment, Beidler says, was hauled to
Fort Benton for transportation down
the river. 1t was transported from
Benton to the states in mackinaw
boats as no steamers were operating
when they arrived there.
Montana Bar Richest In World
Montana Bar was situated above
Confederate gulch, and consisted of
a foothill about one-half mile long
and from two to 300 feet deep, being
! much richer in yield than the main
gulch. Up to the time of the discovery
of the famous Ruby sands near Nome,
Alaska, Montana Bar was the richest
placer diggings the world had ever
known. When the first cleanup was
made on the bar the fumes were
found to be literally clogged with gold
by the hundredweight. When the bed
! rock of this bar was reached the
enormous yield Of $3.50 to the pan was
forgotten at the wonderful yield Of
81 900 to the pan.
Sutherlin stated that P. P. Thomas,
a prospector operating just across from
Montana Bar secured S1,140 from one
pan.
In its issue of June 16, 1866, the
Montana Post, published at Virginia
City, carried the following item:
a. Despeck. who has come over
from Helena. informs us that $4,000
was washed from the claim of John g.
Metcalf on Montana Bar in seven
days, and that he saw $4,000 carried
away in a bucket from Smith &
Burckett's claim after a run Of ten
| hours"
Confederate Gulch was not so large
as Alder. Last Chance, or Orc Elmo
gulches, but it was the richest by far
of all the Montana placer diggings.
Diamond City in the COS" said Mr..
Sutherlin, was not only the trading
center for Confederate gulch, but
also for some IA other gulches in that
vicinity. Among these was New York
gulch whose riches were discovered in
1866, and a TOWNSHIP plated there the
following summer by men who had
high hopes of city springing up
there Another town of Brooklyn was
plated in this area. These camps in
| the midst of the mountains lived their
little hour and passed like mist before
the sun when the yellow metal failed
| to come.
! whites gulch, three miles over the
mountains from Diamond City was
another famous producer which lasted
little longer than did Confederate,
being mined as late as 1885. Cave
gulch, another tributary. was also
famed producer"
Diamond a Boom Town
In describing Diamond City as he
first saw it, Sutherlin pictured for the
period from 1865 to 1868, what was in
every sense of the word one of the
best boom camps of the entire west.
There sprang up, he said, like mush-
rooms up and down the gulch, stores,
saloons, gambling houses, hurdy gurdy
houses, and hundreds of log cabins.
Roads were hewn to camps in every
direction, and soon rumbling stages
began to arrive daily from Last
Chance gulch, where the city of
Helena was growing from Lusty in
fancy to a mountain metropolis
Along the trails walked weather
beaten, booted men with wiry bodies
and strong faces, some with pack
horses and many carrying their
blankets on their backs as they strobe
along. Some OK and mule trains be-
gan to dray into the gulch, hauling
stores of goods for trade with the
miners.
In any new camp of those early
epochal days, there were at first two
sharply defined classes - the old
miners and the pilgrims" Almost in