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The continental U.S. was settled in a steady wave of westward expansion that began when the Virginia colony was founded in 1607 and ended when Arizona, the last of the western territories, became a state in 1912.

Everywhere settlement happened, it happened in a predictable way: first came the pioneers; then the homesteaders; then communities and churches; then the reach of law and other trappings of civilized society.

One interesting element of this story is why the pioneers went where they went in the first place. The answer, in plenty of cases, was the quest for mineral riches. Men, often of lowly means, followed the lure of gold, silver, gems, and what-not, yearning to strike it rich.

The treasure-seekers set the stage for the development and growth that followed. They paved the way for the America we know and love today, characterized by such wonders as social media, reality TV, the NSA, and urban sprawl.

Typical of how the early prospectors made their mark is the story of the Montana Gold Rush.

Rise of the Boom Towns

In 1862, prospector John White discovered gold in Grasshopper Creek in southwestern Montana. The unfortunate Mr. White was murdered two years later while prospecting, but in the wake of his eureka moment, the Montana Gold Rush was on.

By 1863, the boom town of Bannack, population 3,000 and growing, had arisen along the creek. It happened fast. Most of the inhabitants merely came east across the Rocky Mountains from Idaho, the site of an earlier gold rush.

Soon, more gold was discovered in Alder Creek, 80 miles east of Bannack, and the boom town of Virginia City sprouted there.

Although Montana was Union territory, Virginia City was founded by Confederate loyalists. They wanted to call the town “Varina,” in honor of Varina Davis, the First Lady (the first and only) of the Confederacy.

Unfortunately for them, the local presiding judge was a Union man from Connecticut, and he objected to the choice. Instead, the judge registered the town as Virginia City.

The population of Virginia City ballooned quickly to 10,000. Over the next few years, the area yielded $30 million in gold.

The residents, to their credit, tried to organize themselves honestly and for mutual benefit. They established a miner’s court to settle disputes over claims. Many of the early merchants made large investments, determined to stay after the inevitable boom was over. More families arrived, and a public school was built. The territory was becoming downright civilized.

The Visionaries

Prospecting, of course, is an iffy profession, and few miners in the region became rich. The real fortunes were made by savvy businessmen who furnished goods and services — owned the freight wagons, milled the lumber, supplied the cattle, flour, tobacco, and alcohol.

Among those visionaries was William Andrews Clark, who went on to became one of the 50 richest Americans ever. Clark started as a prospector, switched to hauling freight, became a trader, then a banker, then a wealthy industrialist and railroad magnate, and eventually a U.S. Senator.

In a 1907 essay, Mark Twain described Clark as a thoroughly evil and villainous man, typical of the excess and corruption of the time.

“He is as rotten a human being as can be found anywhere under the flag,” Twain wrote. “He is a shame to the American nation, and no one has helped send him to the Senate who did not know that his proper place was the penitentiary, with a ball and chain on his legs. To my mind he is the most disgusting creature that the republic has produced since Tweed’s time.”

Twain’s opinion of Clark undoubtedly was influenced by an 1899 scandal in which Clark was discovered to have bribed members of the Montana State Legislature to appoint him to the U.S. Senate.

(The bribery scandal was a national sensation. It was a major factor in the passage of the 17th Amendment, which established the election of U.S. Senators by popular vote instead of appointment by state legislatures.)

After the bribery came to light, the U.S. Senate refused to seat Clark. He wasn’t seated until 1901, after a second and supposedly clean campaign.

But Clark did not gain fortune and success by being reticent or thin-skinned. When the scandal first came to light, he said, “I never bought a man who wasn’t for sale.”

Nuisance Pebbles

In 1895, prospector Jake Hoover discovered gold along Yogo Creek in the Little Belt Mountains of central Montana. A determined man, Hoover had been in Montana throughout the gold rush era, but had little to show for it.

Hoping he had hit pay dirt at last, Hoover formed a partnership with two friends. Together, they raised enough capital to begin mining.

Alas, after a year, Hoover’s share of the enterprise was a mere 40 ounces of gold, worth about $700.

One problem all miners on Yogo Creek encountered while panning for gold was the presence of what they called “nuisance pebbles,” small blue rocks that clogged the sluice boxes and slowed down the work. The pebbles were an annoyance, and the miners discarded them.

But Hoover thought the stones were pretty, and he saved some of them in a cigar box. By the time the box was full, he had become curious about them .

So, he sent the cigar box to the local assay office, asking that the contents be identified and assessed for their value, if any. The assay office, in turn, sent the box to Tiffany & Co. in New York.

An appraiser at Tiffany’s declared that the pebbles were high-quality sapphires of exceptional color and clarity. He called them “the finest precious gemstones ever found in the United States.”

Tiffany’s paid Hoover $3,750 for the contents of the cigar box — five times the value of his share of the gold for the last year.

The three partners immediately stopped panning for gold and concentrated on collecting what came to be called Yogo Sapphires.

According to Tiffany’s, Yogo Creek yielded “more wealth than all the other sapphire mines in America put together, and a finer quality of gem.”

Before Hoover’s discovery, a lot of optimistic miners panned for gold in Yogo Creek, and they probably discarded countless “nuisance pebbles” every day.

You have to hope the poor souls were spared the knowledge of what they threw away.

Bannack, Montana, now a ghost town in Bannack State Park.

Yogo sapphires are still being mined today.