Editor s note
This story is the first in a three-part series about the discovery of gold in Helena. Next Monday: The way to Last Chance Gulch.
Paul Cartwright
Gold was discovered in Last Chance Gulch by Reginald Stanley âon or about the 15th of July,â 1864. Stanley, along with his partners John Cowan, D.J. Miller, and John Crabb, would later be known as the Four Georgians.
In Stanleyâs own words, â⦠while my partners dug some holes near the mouth of the Gulch ⦠I made my way up stream looking for a promising bar on which to put down a hole likely to have bedrock. ⦠I commenced a hole on a bar the opposite side of the gulch from where the first National Bank was afterwards erected; and put it down to bedrockâ¦.â