P a g e 4 G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r A LOOK BACK ON PIONEER Main St. in Pioneer, Courtesy of the Great Falls Tribune MAY 11, 1935- OLD WEST STILL LIVES IN TOWN OF PIONEER, MONTANA Pioneer, the quaintest little town in Montana, and tucked snugly at the feet of the newly-made mountains of rock dredged from 50-foot depths in the bottom of Gold creek, holds to her ancient spirit of pioneer days; holds to her quaint atmosphere of the old West and to her pristine state of hospitality, her primitive buildings and her venerable lure for gold. Protected at her back by a panorama of a mountain range and at the front by rolling foothills and on either side by piles upon piles of rock, she rests snugly in the cradle of her birth. On the inner walls of the old stone buildings may be seen the names of old pioneers carelessly scrawled there with their dates going back to nearly three quarters of a century ago. Many old prospectors still roam "them thar hills'' for gold with their burro, brawn, beans and bacon for subsistence while they pick hundreds of tiny holes in the mountain side in search of that precious metal. But more than that, "for there's gold in that thar crick", the Pioneer Placer Dredging company in November, 1933, installed a gold dredge that weighs more than 1,500 tons and takes 7,000 cubic yards of rock and dirt from the bottom of Gold creek every 24 hours. A long line of heavy steel buckets of nine cubic feet capacity, and each bucket weighing almost a ton, continually swoop to the bottom of the river and fill themselves with rock, sand and gold, and without pause carry their burden up a ladder weighing more than 100 tons, to a hopper where they dump their load of rock, sand and gravel. From the hopper a big distributor takes the cargo and sends the dirt and gravel to the sluice boxes where water takes the small pebbles and the dirt rolling and rippling down the boxes and the gold is picked up by quicksilver and carried by gravity to the bottom. A big revolving screen separates the finer pebbles and dirt from the big rock. The smaller rocks are taken on a rubber carrier up the 100-foot stacker to the top of the great piles of rock on the bank and the heavy rocks are deposited back in the bottom of the river. The dirt and sand, after being robbed of the gold, is taken on carriers to a distance of about 25 feet from the spud, or big steel post at the back of the dredge which serves as an anchor for the dredge to swing from, An old landmark in Pioneer, Courtesy of the Great Falls Tribune
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