THE NORTHERN PACIFIC ROUTE. 121 
At East Helena there is a smelter on the left (south), established 
when this district was a large producer of silver-lead ores, but recently 
most of the ore smelted here has come from the Coeur 
d’ Alene district in Idaho. The railway on the left is 
the Great Northern line that runs from Great Falls 
by way of Helena to Butte. At East Helena the 
Northern Pacific crosses a number of long-distance 
electric-power transmission lines which extend from the large power 
plants at Great Falls, Canyon Ferry, and Hauser Lake, to Helena, 
Butte, and Anaconda, furnishing light and power not only for 
municipal purposes but also for the great mining and smelting plants 
at or near these towns. 
The traveler has now arrived at Helena, the capital of Montana 
East Helena. 
Elevation 3,902 feet. 
Population 1,139.* 
St. Paul 1,126 miles. 
Helena. 
Elevation 3,955 feet. 
Population 12,515. 
St. Paul 1,131 miles. 
Adolph Knopf.* 
and a division terminal of the railway, and while the 
engine is being shifted he may be interested in read- 
a sketch of the early history of the city by 
1 Helena is situated in Lewis and Clark 
County at the eastern foot of the Conti- 
nental Divide. Its history dates from 
1864, when the town sprang into existence 
as the result of the finding of extraordi- 
narily rich gold-bearing placers where it 
now stands. At that time Virginia City, 
on Alder Gulch, 125 miles to the south, 
the great center of population in 
Montana, as the discovery of gold there 
in almost fabulous quantities in the pre- 
vious year had drawn many people into 
the region. In the spring of 1864 reports 
reached Alder Gulch of a great strike in 
the Kootenai Valley, and among those who 
had taken the trail for the new Eldorado 
site of Helena when they learned from a 
party of returning prospectors that Koo- 
tenai was ‘‘played out.”” They then de- 
cided to turn eastward and continue pros- 
pecting, but after a season’s fruitless effort 
been obtained on the outward journe 
As one of them expressed it, “That little 
gulch on the Prickly Pear is our last 
chance”; and the place thus became 
known to the party as Last Chance Gulch 
before the actual discovery of its wealth 
Gold in paying quantities 
rapidity characteristic of placer camps. 
On October 30 a meeting was held for the 
purpose of appointing commissioners to 
lay out a town, as well as to adopt a name 
for the settlement. During the following 
winter 115 cabins were erected in the 
Helena, aided by its situation 140 miles 
from Fort Benton, the head of navigation 
of commerce in Montana. Virginia City, 
then the Territorial capital, had already 
passed its zenith, but it t 
taken from the 
Gulch, mostly before 1868. In the fall 
of 1864 gold-bearing quartz veins had 
been discovered 5 miles south of Helena 
at the heads of Oro Fino and Grizzly 
gulches, branches of Last Chance Gulch. 
The finding of placer and lode gold were 
thus nearly contemporaneous. The find- 
ing of gold in its bedrock source stimu- 
