28ft  CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    ECONOMIC    GEOLOGY,  1904.        [bull.  260J 
apparently  on  Elk  Creek.  In  the  summer  of  1879  a  party,  in- 
cluding A.  J.  Prichard,  moving  northward  from  the  Mullan  road 
over  the  Evolution  trail,  discovered  Prichard  Creek.  In  1882  Gellett, 
another  member  of  the  party,  found  placer  gold  and  located  a  claim 
on  Prichard  Creek.  The  first  quartz  claim  on  Prichard  Creek  was 
the  Paymaster,  near  Littlefield,  located  by  Patrick  Flynn  on  Sep- 
tember 21,  1883. 
The  discoveries  of  Prichard  and  Gillett  were  followed  by  a  rush 
of  prospectors  to  the  North  Fork  early  in  1881,  and  in  May  Eagle 
City,  at  the  junction  of  Eagle  and  Prichard  creeks,  had  become  a 
bustling  town  connected  by  trail  and  telegraph  with  Belknap,  32 
miles  away,  on  the  Northern  Pacific  Railway.  It  was  soon  found, 
however,  that  the  richest  placers  lay  higher  up  Prichard  Creekj 
particularly  in  Dream,  Buckskin,  and  Alder  gulches,  and  the  center 
of  population  soon  shifted  to  the  new  town  of  Murray. 
Although  the  chief  excitement  at  this  time  centered  in  the  richjil 
:  gold  placers  near  Murray,  the  lead-silver  veins  of  the  South  Fork! 
were  beginning  to  attract  attention.     In   1884  Col.   N.   R.   Wallace 
had  a  cabin  and  store  in  the  dense  grove  of  cedars  that  covered  thJ 
future  site  of  the  town  now  bearing  his  name.     His  settlement  waa 
then  known  as  Placer  Center.     At  the  same  time  W.  B.  Ileyburn  be-j 
gan  work  on  the  Polaris  mine,  in  Polaris  Gulch.     The  Tiger  claim,  or|| 
Canyon  Creek,  was  also  located  in  1884  by  John  Carton  and  Almecla 
Seymour,   who  bonded   it  to  John  M.   Burke.     In   1885    the   TigeJ 
mine,  in  spite  of  its  con i j >a rati vely  inaccessible  position,  had   been 
opened  by  three  tunnels  and  had  about  3,000  tons  of  lead-silver  ore 
on  the  dump.     Other  mines  located  in  1881  were  the  Gold  Hunterjj 
Morning,  and   You   Like,  near  Mullan,  and  the  Black   Bear,   San 
Francisco,  and  Gem  of  the  Mountains  (now  comprised  in  the  Helena- 
Frisco  mine),  near  Gem. 
In   1885  Murray,  with  a   population   of  about   1,500,  became  thef 
permanent   seat   of   Shoshone   County.     In   spite   of   the   promising! 
character  of  the  lead-silver  deposits  on  the  South   Fork,  the  gold 
placers  on  Prichard  and  Beaver  creeks  were  still  the  center  of  attrac- 
tion, and  considerable  work  was  being  done  on  the  auriferous  quart:) 
veins  between  Murray  and  Littlefield. 
Communication  with  the  mines  on  the  South  Fork  was  at  this  timii 
difficult.  Small  steamers  plying  across  the  lake  ascended  the  Coeiu 
d'Alene  River  to  the  Mission,  where  passengers  and  freight  were  trans 
f erred  to  wagons  or  horses  and  carried  over  the  rough  Mullan  road 
Murray  was  connected  by  an  equally  poor  road  with  Thompson  Falls 
on  the  Northern  Pacific  Railway,  by  a  road  down  the  North  Fori 
with  the  Mission,  and  by  a  road  with  Delta.  Practically  the  on! 
route  from  the  county  seat  to  the  South  Fork  was  by  way  of  th 
