From the huge piles of dirt and stone that mar the beauty of the gulch, has been taken out $30,000,000 worth of gold dust. Of the ten thousand men that once worried and toiled and fought for gold, only about one thousand remain; yet the city is improving, and has a good future in store.
The next discovery of rich mines was on the Prickly Pear Creek. The Fisk Brothers with a colony from Minnesota had crossed the plains to this point and worked on quietly until the fame of the “Last Chance Mines” went abroad throughout the land, and a city arose like an exhalation, taking the name of Helena from the resemblance of the surrounding hills to those in the isle of St. Helena. Helena is not only the political capital, but the commercial, literary, social and religious center of the territory. It has many handsome buildings and is growing rapidly.
In the meantime discoveries were made in many directions and small camps of miners flourished until their gravel beds were worked over, or a new excitement enticed away the miners. The latest developed and most flourishing of the mining centers is at Butte, which has become the largest city in the Territory.
Among the beautiful villages with a promising future may be mentioned Deer Lodge, situated in a beautiful grazing valley. The first white settler was Johnny Grant, who had among his wives a squaw from every tribe that roamed that section. When the Flatheads passed by his ranch, no woman was to be seen but a Flathead, and when the Blackfeet came the sole wife of his bosom was a Blackfoot. And thus he lived at peace with the natives, a sharer in their spoils and an arbiter in their quarrels.
Down the Hell Gate River to the northwest of Deer Lodge is the broad, rich valley of the Bitter Root, with Missoula as its thriving county-seat. For many years the great Hudson Bay Fur Company had a station in that valley and monopolized the fur trade. From thence westward the natives speak the famous Chinook jargon, invented by the company to facilitate trade with the natives. Words were borrowed from the English, French, and various Indian tongues and worked into an incongruous combination which the all powerful influence of the company introduced everywhere. The Flathead and Pend d’Oreilles Indians that now inhabit that region are under papal influence. Among them is the Jesuit mission of St. Ignatius.