Community News For The Colchester Edition
courant.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from courant.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Live Rogue Valley theater, livestream plays: April 23
mailtribune.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from mailtribune.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Editor s note
This story is the second in a three-part series about the discovery of gold in Helena. Next Monday: Why they were called the Four Georgians.
Paul Cartwright
In the summer of 1864, a band of prospectors later known as the Four Georgians discovered gold in Last Chance Gulch. Even before that discovery, miners and settlers were traveling the roads and trails of the Helena Valley.
Earlier that year, in the spring, William Gillette had built his road from Virginia City to Fort Benton, guided by Native American trails. Gilletteâs road crossed the Helena Valley, coming from over the Boulder Hill, running along the Montana Avenue/Green Meadow corridor, and going over to the Mullan Road north of Silver City. (The Mullan Road ran from Fort Benton to Walla Walla, Washington.) Cargo coming upriver from St. Louis bound for Montana mining camps would have been shifting to this new route about the time the Four Georgians appeared.