The Bloody Cave Gulch Fight - Cont. from last week

Hysham Echo Nov 26, 1925 by Dan R. Conway & Sept. 20, 2013

When Diamond City came into being early in 1865 the little host of gold seekers who had flocked into the gulch and the neighboring diggings, found themselves beyond the reach of law and without the protection of the United States government. The mineral lands had not been declared open to exploration or purchase and there was really no way of acquiring legal title. Actual possession was the only evidence of ownership.
It was Cave gulch, (which was in the trade area of Diamond City), that in the ‘60s was the scene of a bloody vendetta. A party of claim jumpers had been organized in Idaho and Nevada. These men, with knowledge of the fact that no set of laws existed in the territory, and that possession alone was evidence of ownership of a claim, decided to come to Montana, stealing claims from their owners, and to hold them by sheer strength of numbers. They chose the Diamond City region and went to Dave gulch because that area was the most inaccessible and had good gold prospects.

These claim jumpers were a sinister, desperate band of frontier desperadoes, as may be judged from their plan of action. They established their camp and served notice on two miners who were working on a good looking bar, to leave their diggings and make themselves scarce by sunset of the following day, to take the consequences, which they declared would be sudden death.

In alarm these miners consulted with their neighbor prospectors and word was sent out quietly to five or six other camps in the neighborhood. That night a score of miners had gathered with ample provisions for a prolonged siege, and well armed. They portholed one of the cabins not far from the claim of the two men who had been threatened, and secluded themselves therein. They spent the day playing cards, not showing themselves at any time on the outside of the cabin. At dusk a dozen of the claim jumpers appeared, prepared to take possession of the diggings, which they believed had been abandoned in accordance with their orders.
No sooner had the leader of the claim jumpers set foot beside the flume than a shot rang out form the cabin and the desperado fell dead. The followers of the slain man at once opened up a fusillade of shots at the cabin, and the shooting for a few minutes was general. then a party of the miners rushed from the cabin and took a stand in the open. Three of the claim jumpers fell mortally wounded, and in a few seconds the rest broke and ran into the timber. As far as its known this is the first and only attempt of organized claim jumpers to ply their operations in Montana Territory.

According to Mr. Sutherlin, one of the claim jumpers headed over the hills in the direction of Diamond City, closely pursued by the enraged miners, and was shot five times, but lived. Mr. Sutherlin also adds that this episode was the beginning of what was known as the fight between the Irish and the Missourians, which in later months and years resulted in much prejudice and many a bloody and sometimes tragic quarrel.
The situation had thus shown itself as demanding law of some nature to protect the interests of the legitimate prospector, and in the course of a short time, as a result of a mass meeting called by some of the veterans, a set of “miners’ laws of Diamond City” were put into code and backed by what was known as the miners’ court of justice. This maintained law and order in the new boom town and up and down the different neighboring gulches.

Diamond Fades Fast

For a few brief years Diamond City flourished, and then its decline was a rapid as its growth. A decade after gold was discovered, what had been the mining capital of eastern Montana and the county seat of Meagher county, was settling down to slow but certain decay. In the latter ‘70s (and about the time that Editor Sutherlin established the Rocky Mountain Husbandman there ) the camp began to play out, but reference is made to it in the Montana Territorial History and Business Directory of 1879, as follows:
“Diamond City is the county seat of Meagher county, and is located in Confederate gulch, famous for the gold production of Montana Bar, which is a knoll or foothill scarcely two acres in extent, and was undoubtedly one of the richest placers ever discovered. For each of the 100 feet of pay dirt worked, over $100,000 was extracted by the ordinary process of sluicing, up to the fall of 1868. Diamond City is at an elevation of 5,200 feet and contains 225 souls.”

Forty-five years ago, in 1880, the former population which had at one time been as high as several thousands, had dwindled to 64 men, women and children, and in 1883 the late Judge Cornelius Hedges, who had visited the place that summer, wrote:

“Diamond City is desolate, deserted and dreary to behold in the shreds of its departed glory, yet, those who knew it in the days of its pride, wealth and activity, cannot fail to recall pleasant associations. * * * There are only four families left of all the many hundreds that have dwelt there since the glorious days of ‘66. If the goose that laid the nestful of golden eggs can only be found in the shape of a prolific mother vein of gold-bearing quartz, the days of Diamond City’s departed glory may return; otherwise it will disappear utterly within another season.”

The Perfect Camp

Back in the ‘80s Charles M. Russell, Montana’s cowboy artist, passed through Diamond City - then deserted except for two or three gray haired prospectors - and paused there for half and hour to rebuild in his imagination, the old camp as it had been, and to populate once more the deserted streets with the picturesque mountain men, miners, stage drivers, gamblers, and all the other types of western frontier hosts that have passed on forever. Mrs. Russell states that Diamond City was one of the most perfect types of the old mining camp - even in its semi-decay of that time - that he had ever seen.

Diamond City was in the midst of its balmy days when R. N. Sutherlin arrived there in 1865. Even was it yet a place of much importance in 1875 when this veteran newspaper man started the publication in that camp of the weekly paper which he still edits and publishes. Mr. Sutherlin continued the publication of the Husbandman at Diamond City for several years until he removed it to White Sulphur Springs, where it was issued for a quarter of a century and then moved to Great Falls, where it is still being published by its founder, and just now closing the fiftieth year of its existence. Print this post