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Yellowstone City

A view from 1939:

In YELLOWSTONE CITY, (5,250 alt.), only rotting log foundations of its early buildings remain, but some new cabins have been built by prospectors now plying pick and pan in the gulch.

Gold was found in upper Emigrant Gulch on August 30, 1864. The usual stampede followed, and Yellowstone City began as a tent camp. When cold weather froze the sluices, the miners moved down into the valley and lived in holes dug in the mountain sides. The first winter was severe and supplies ran short; a 96-pound sack of flour cost $28, tea sold for $2 a pound, and "chawing" tobacco for $5 a pound. Game, plentiful in the vicinity, provided most of the food.

Yellowstone City boomed briefly but the strike was not a rich one. Crow killed several whites, and in 1866, the place was abandoned.

In the cemetery nearby is the Grave of Donald L. Bynum, judge of the miners' court that tried and convicted George Ives, the first of the Virginia City road agents to be brought to justice.

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.