Diamond City

A view from 1939:

DIAMOND CITY, (4,000 alt.), was one of the richest camps in CONFEDERATE GULCH.

Confederate soldiers captured in Civil War battles near Lexington, Mo., were banished up the Missouri by the Union commander. Two of the exiles, Washington Baker and Pomp Dennis, intent on staking claims in Last Chance Gulch, came up from Fort Benton in the autumn of 1864, prospecting as they went. Here at the mouth of one of the gulches in the Big Belt Mountains, they found unusual amounts of detritus and wash. The first pans yielded 10 cents each, but later returns were greater.

By spring a double line of houses straggled along the single street which followed the bends of the gulch. Prospectors of all kinds poured in—veterans of the gold rushes to California, Colorado, and.Idaho, and amateurs who did not even know how to begin to hunt for the precious metal. One of the amateurs naively asked an old-timer to suggest a place where he could "do some digging." The older man, in true frontier style, pointed out the most unpromising spot in sight and suggested, "Try that bar up there; you might find something." The novice, following the advice, staked the claim. His Montana Bar, placer ground covering less than 2 acres, was one of the richest ever found. Occasional yields of $180 a pan on other claims seemed small when compared with the incredible recoveries made on Montana Bar, where pans worth $1,000 were common. The last of the pay dirt on the bar was sluiced off in one big clean-up that yielded two and one-half tons of gold, worth more than $1,000,000.

During the boom years the streets seethed with excitement and activity. Crews labored night and day to build a flume that brought water 7 miles for hydraulic work. Houses had to be raised 15 feet to save them from burial beneath the avalanche of tailings and boulders that was washed down the gulch. For a time Diamond City had a population of more than 10,000. But as soon as the cream had been skimmed, the prospectors who had not struck it rich moved on. In 1870 the town had 255 people; in another 12 months, 64; by 1883 four families remained. At length these, too, departed, and only a few foundations remain among mounds and ridges of sifted tailings. The total yield of Confederate Gulch is estimated to have been 15 to 17 millions, of which 90 percent was produced before 1870.

Source: Montana: A State Guide Book; Compiled and Written by the Federal Writers' Project of the Work Projects Administration for the State of Montana; September, 1939.