P a g e 3 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 other gulches in the vicinity that produced gold. Pioneers of the state will recall a number of these gulches with interest. Among these was New York Gulch, whose rich treasures were discovered in 1866 and a town site platted the following summer by men who had high hopes of a city springing up there. Opposite, at the mouth of Trout creek, the town of Brooklyn was platted and the placer mines there mined successfully until 1869. These camps in the midst of the mountains with their high-sounding names, lived their little hour and passed like mist before the sun when the yellow dust was exhausted. For three years the population of the Trout creek gulches were counted by thousands. Ten years later the population of the district numbered 49. White's Gulch, three miles over the mountain from Diamond City, was another famous gold producer that lasted longer than Confederate or any of the other placer gulches in the neighborhood, being mined as late as 1886. It was discovered in May, 1865, by a man of the name of White. Bloody Cave Gulch Fight Cave Gulch was famed for its rich mines and was famous also in the ‘60s as the scene of a bloody vendetta. A party of claim jumpers, which had organized in Idaho and Nevada, decided to come to Montana and operate, stealing claims from their owners and hoping to hold them by strength of numbers. They chose Cave Gulch as the place to start operations because it was inaccessible and had good gold prospects. These claim jumpers were a sinister, desperate band of frontier desperadoes, as may be judged from their plan of action. They established a camp near Cavetown, in the Kingsbury mountain district, and boldly served notice on two miners, who were working on a good-looking bar, to leave their diggings and make themselves scarce by sunset of the following day or take the consequences, which, they declared, would be sudden death. In alarm, these miners consulted with their neighbors who were placer mining, and word was sent out quietly to five other small camps in the neighborhood. That night a score of miners gathered at Cavetown, and before dawn took possession of a cabin near the claims of the two men who had been threatened, they spent the day, playing cards and not showing themselves outside the cabin. At dusk a dozen of the claim jumpers appeared, prepared to take possession of the diggings, which, they believed, had been abandoned in accordance with their orders. No sooner had the leader of the claim jumpers set foot beside the flume than a shot cracked from the cabin Fight in Cave Gulch near Diamond City. Drawn by Charles M. Russell
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