The first discovery of gold in Montana was made on Gold Creek by a half-breed trapper named Francois, better known as Be-net-see.

This was in 1852, but the news seems to have lain dormant for a time--naturally enough, for there was small ingress or egress for that wild and unknown country.

In 1857, however, a party of miners who had wandered down the Big Hole River on their way back east from California decided to look into the Gold Creek discovery, of which they had heard.

This party was led by James and Granville Stuart, and among others in the party were Jake Meeks, Robert Hereford, Robert Dempsey, John W.Powell, John M.Jacobs, Thomas Adams, and some others.

These men did some work on Gold Creek in 1858, but seem not to have struck it very rich, and to have withdrawn to Fort Bridger in Utah until the autumn of 1860.