Thar’s Gold in Them Thar Hills

In 1864, prospectors discovered promising placer gold deposits in Confederate Gulch, named for their political sympathies during the Civil War. This led to a huge gold rush that brought thousands of people to the gulch and the discovery of some of the richest placer gold deposits in Montana. The placer gold came from gravel in Confederate Creek and from gravel bars above the creek deposited during the Pleistocene Epoch (Ice Age). Gold from Montana Bar, a 2-acre gravel deposit on a bench above the gulch, was so plentiful it actually clogged the miners’ sluice boxes. Some miners may have taken $15,000 to $21,000 (in modern currency) per pan. The bonanza ended after only three years, and the gulch was all but empty by 1900. In all, Confederate Gulch produced nearly $150 million in gold. The gold-bearing gravels overlie the Precambrian Spokane, Greyson, and Newland Formations of the Belt Supergroup, deposited in an inland sea over a billion years earlier. These extremely old rocks were brought to the surface by huge thrust faults that stacked older rocks over younger, forming the Big Belt Mountains. Confederate Gulch is crossed by a line of igneous plutons, including Miller Mountain, Boulder Baldy, and Mount Edith, all of which formed from a single magmatic event. The magma intruded the Belt Supergroup rocks between 69 and 74 million years ago, solidifying to rock before it reached the earth’s surface. The pluton on Miller Mountain has been extensively prospected as a lode gold source. Diamond City In December 1864, ex-Confederate soldiers built log cabins adjacent to the gulch later named for them. The paths in the snow between the cabins formed a diamond pattern, giving the name to the new mining camp. When news of the richness of the gold deposits became known outside the Big Belts, the ensuing gold rush brought at least 5,000 people to Diamond City. For a short time, the camp was the seat of newly created Meagher County. The settlement boasted stores, saloons, hurdy-gurdy houses, and hundreds of log cabins. Famed Montana cowboy artist Charlie Russell believed Diamond City the most perfect type of mining camp. Today nothing remains of the camp.