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Yogo City or Bust

During Montana Territory’s mining heyday, freed slaves found opportunity

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Millie Ringold joined the gold rush to Yogo City in 1878. "She could get up the best meal with the least grub of anyone I knew," recalled Finch David. Other acquaintances noted MillieOn a wintry day in April 1903, Charles Gadsden and his bride, Maude, stepped down from a stagecoach onto a dirt street in Utica. They covered the remaining 12 miles of their journey to English Mine in a horse-drawn wagon. Although naturalized citizens of the United States, the couple adhered to British ways and never embraced American customs. They did not mix socially with the community, remained true to the English Mine their entire lives, and deeply loved their wilderness home. Courtesy of Lewistown public libraryExtracting sapphires at the English Mine was similar to placer gold recovery. In this photograph, miners clean a sluice box. The fence-like contraption behind the men, or "metal riffles," has been removed from the bottom of the sluice boxes. The riffles act as a trap to capture the heavy sapphires during the "washing" process. Courtesy of Montana Historical Society
The English Mine was a meandering structure of wooden trestles, tramways, flumes and sluices. High-pressure water jets eroded away weathered sections of rock and clay. The resulting magma, or mud, passed through a series of sluice boxes. In this photograph, miners work the sluices. Courtesy of Montana Historical Society
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