Historical Marker
Atlantic Cable Quartz Lode
Deer Lodge County · Montana
The cable the miners honored was news less than a year old. The first Atlantic line, laid in 1858, had died within weeks, and in 1865 a new cable snapped in mid-ocean. On July 27, 1866, the Great Eastern, then the largest ship afloat, landed a working line at Heart's Content, Newfoundland, and a few weeks later its crew grappled the broken 1865 cable from the seabed and finished that too. The continents have been linked by cable ever since. The panel's second cable fits either count: the 1866 line was the first that lasted.
What the plaque says
Atlantic Cable Quartz Lode In June 1867, Alexander Aiken, John Pearson, and Jonas Stough located a rich gold quartz lode near here, the name commemorating the recent laying of the second transatlantic telegraph cable. Like many fabulously rich mining properties in Montana, this one was found by accident. Camped on nearby Flint Creek, the men's horses drifted off. In tracking them to this vicinity the men found not only good placer gold in Warm Springs Creek, but also promising gold quartz prospects on Cable Mountain. Within a short time, a small mining camp, called Cable City, grew up around the mines. In 1868, the Helena Weekly Herald found the miners "of this extraordinary camp ... to be men of intelligence, of extended experience, good hard sense and big hearts." The Atlantic Cable Mine operated with indifferent success until about 1880 when miners stuck extremely rich ore deep underground in the mountain. A 500 ft. piece of ground produced over $151 million in 21st century dollars! Butte copper king William A. Clark paid $10,000 for one chunk of ore taken from this mine in 1889 and claimed it was the largest gold nugget ever found in Montana.
Where it stands
46.17027, -113.17135 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site — 26 miA Métis trader's 1862 house, a cattle king's headquarters, and a grandson who threw nothing away.