A Sketch of Lewistown, Montana History

(Indian Days – 1884)

Part IV

BY

Anna R. Zellick & John R. Foster

Gold was discovered in 1880 in the Judith Mountains of Central Montana. By 1881, the town of Maiden, with its surrounding hamlets of Rustle, Alpine, and Andersonville, was the largest community in Central Montana. Opened mainly by placer mining, hundreds of prospectors poured into the Judiths. Claims were staked abundantly amid gunfights, claim jumping, murders, and brawls in the streets.

By August of 1883, Maiden had a newspaper. The Mineral Argus, which later moved to Lewistown in 1886, was the forerunner of the Lewistown News Argus. Its pages reek with the ups and down of the early gold fields - - the gradual shift from placer mining to big business stamp mills.

The Collar Mill, Maiden’s first, provided hope. But it went broke in abut six months, leaving workers unpaid and machinery not paid for. It sold at a sheriff’s sale to the highest bidder. The Collar Mine and Mill were never reopened.

Next the citizens collected money for a community venture, the "smelter". It, too, went broke and sold at a sheriff’s sale leaving the stockholders cursing in despair.

Two paying mines, the Spotted Horse and the Maginnis, produced thousands of dollars for their owners, but in the political process had their ups and downs, and were sold a time or two at sheriff’s sales as they changed owners.

Originally within the boundary of the Fort Maginnis Military Reservation, Maiden and the mining district, consisting of some 1500 persons, were due to be evicted by the Army in 1883. Prompt action of Maiden’s citizens led the U. S. Congress and the President of the United States to take acting in shrinking the Fort’s boundaries to exclude the gold fields.

The development of cyanide in gold mining later led to the revolutionization of golf mining in Central Montana, and the latter day towns of Gilt Edge in 1893 and Kendall in 1901. For many years Fergus County was one of the state’s leading producers in gold production.¹¹

Footnotes

¹¹ All information mining is from The Mineral Argus: April 10, 1883; August 23, 1883; April 13, 1884; May 1, 1884: May 22, 1884; June 5, 1883; June 12, 1884; June 19, 1884; July 3, 1884; August 21, 1884; October 23, 1884; November 20, 1884; November 27, 1884; December 4, 1883; April 16, 1885; April 30, 1885; May 14, 1885; May 28, 1885; July 2, 1885; July 23, 1885; August 6, 1885, August 27, 1885; and October 1, 1885.