A gleaming Curtiss P-40 Warhawk streamed through a warm, still sky over Fort William Henry Harrison s old air strip to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the First Special Service Force
Editor s note
This story is the last in a three-part series about the discovery of gold in Helena.
In 1864, prospectors later known as the Four Georgians discovered gold in Last Chance Gulch (now downtown Helena). The discoverers were John Cowan, D. J. Miller, John Crabb, and Reginald Stanley.
Only Cowan was from Georgia. The other three came from Alabama (Miller), Iowa (Crabb), and England (Stanley). This raises a question.
The favored explanation has the Four Georgians so called because they used the âGeorgian method of prospecting.â That method is said to involve digging through the gravel until hitting bedrock, then panning the material taken from that level.