Gold in Alder Gulch

The strike this panel counts in troy ounces began as a hunt for tobacco money. Henry Edgar's account has him and Bill Fairweather minding camp on May 26, 1863, while their companions prospected upstream, when Fairweather saw bedrock across the creek and proposed washing out enough to buy tobacco. The party had just been turned out of Apsáalooke hunting country on the way to the Yellowstone. Edgar named the gulch for its alders. When he died in 1910 on his Sanders County farm, he liked to say all six discoverers had gone broke.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Virginia City — 2.3 mi
  A gold camp one couple began buying in 1944, and the state bought from their family in 1997.

More markers nearby

• Adobetown — steps away
• Nevada City — 0.7 mi
• Virginia City — 2.3 mi
• Garnets, Vigilantes and Gold Dredges — 4.7 mi