Then a prospector by the name of Tom Golddigger turned up at Bridger with additional stories of creeks to the north, so that there was a gradual straggling back toward Gold Creek and other gulches.

This prospector had been all over the Alder Gulch, which was ere long to prove fabulously rich.
It was not, however, until 1863 that the Montana camps sprang into fame.

It was not Gold Creek or Alder Gulch, but Florence and other Idaho camps, that, in the summer and autumn of 1862, brought into the mountains no less than five parties of gold-seekers, who remained in Montana because they could not penetrate the mountain barrier which lay between them and the Salmon River camps in Idaho.
The first of these parties arrived at Gold Creek by wagon-train from Fort Benton and the second hailed from Salt Lake.

An election was held for the purpose of forming a sort of community organization, the first election ever known in Montana.

The men from the East had brought with them some idea of law and organization.