Emigrant Gulch

The panel's three emigrants have names: David Weaver, David Shorthill and Frank Garrett. The men they found already at work were following Thomas Curry, who had found gold here in 1863, and the first claims lay in what was called the Curry District. All of it was on land then part of the Crow Reservation. Miners coming up the gulch in 1864 found a lone pine with some twenty elk antlers lodged in it, which they took for Jim Bridger's work; he had wintered with the Crow near here in 1844 and 1845.

What the plaque says

Emigrant Gulch In August 1864, three emigrants, who came to Montana on the Bozeman Trail, arrived here and found men already hard at work mining the creek. The new arrivals decided to try their luck farther up the rugged gulch, finding pay dirt high up the side of Emigrant Peak. The strike caused a stampede that drew several hundred miners and a few women to this remote area deep in Crow Indian country. The miners worked the gravel with moderate success for several weeks before cold weather drove them down to Yellowstone City, near the mouth of Emigrant Gulch. The settlement was a collection of fifty rough log cabins with dirt roofs and elk hide floors. Supplies ran short during that winter; flour was scarce and tobacco cost $300 a pound, making it worth its weight in gold. The only thing plentiful was venison - for breakfast, lunch, and dinner during the long winter months. In the spring, the shortages ended and the men went back to work on their claims. By 1866, most of the miners drifted away because of hostile Indians and dwindling placer gold. The Emigrant Gulch strike was not a fabulous one, but snug stakes rewarded many of the pioneers for their energy and hardships.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chico Hot Springs — 3.8 mi
  A miners' wash pool turned hotel, turned hospital, turned the valley's favorite place to soak.
• Roosevelt Arch — 21 mi
  Half of a railroad's front door; the station it faced came down in 1954.
• Bozeman Trail at Bozeman Pass — 23 mi
  The pass at the end of a gold-rush shortcut through other nations' hunting ground, the one road a Native war closed.
• Museum of the Rockies — 26 mi
  The bronze T. rex on the lawn is a cast of the one that went to Washington.

More markers nearby

• The Absaroka - Beartooth Wilderness — 4.2 mi
• Hepburn's Mesa — 4.2 mi
• Bozeman Pass — 23 mi
• The Bozeman Trail — 25 mi