Remember When?

110 YEARS AGO • NOVEMBER 18, 1910

HENRY EDGAR DEAD

Henry F. Edgar, the man who panned the first gold from Alder Gulch, died last Saturday at his farm near Olive in this county. His funeral was held at Plains Monday and the body buried beside the remains of his wife, who died many years ago. The funeral was one of the largest ever held in Sanders County and was attended by many pioneers from all over the state. At the time of his death he was 84 years of age, the greater part of his life being spent in the mountains of Montana prospecting for mineral.

Mr. Edgar seldom missed the meetings of the Pioneers and was styled at these gatherings as the “ The Grand Old Man of Montana,” and the title was in every way fitting, for few men commanded the love, the admiration and the high respect and esteem as did Henry Edgar. During his life in Montana he found several good mines but never realized very extensively on them, and at the time of his death owned a number of prospects in which he had unlimited faith.

His Own Story – “I remember that it was a warm afternoon, and the sun was shining brightly. It was the turn of Fairweather and me to make camp and stand guard. The other four went up the gulch to what is now Highland, prospecting. Just before sundown Bill went across the creek to a kind of bar to picket the horses.

“There is a piece of bedrock sticking out” said Bill, and we had better go over and see if we can’t get enough money to buy a little tobacco.

“So Bill took the pick and shovel and I took the pan we crossed over. We dug up the dirt and shoveled it into the pan. I went down to the creek to wash it. While I was washing the dirt he scratched around in the bedrock with his butcher knife. He picked out a piece of gold and called, “I’ve found a scad.”

“I had the pan about half washed down and I replied, ‘If you have one I have a thousand!"

And so I had. That first pan weighted us about $2.30. We washed three pans before dark and the three came to $12 and some cents. As we stopped, the other four came back tired and hostile because we hadn’t taken care of the horses. They had only found a color. I showed Sweeney what we had and asked him what he thought of the pan.

“Salted, by G_d!” exclaimed Sweeney.

“You know well enough if you pike me down and run me through a sluice you couldn’t get a color,” said I.

The next morning as soon as daylight came we were all out, Sweeny’s first pan weighed $2. Hughes and Culver went up the gulch above, Fairweather and me and Rogers and Sweeney went down the gulch below us. We took two claims apiece, 200 feet to the man, all the claims adjoining each other. We took 500 feet on each side of the creek.

We got about $180 that day altogether.

The next morning we spent the forenoon measuring the ground and staking it off. I wrote the notices.

“What shall we call the gulch?” I asked

“You name it,” he said.

So I called it Alder Gulch, on account of the heavy clumps of alders growing along the banks of the creek.

He was referred to in later years as the only one left of the six who discovered and named Alder gulch and took out the first thousands in gold. Whimsically the pioneer would refer to the fact that all of the six have “gone broke.”

30 YEARS AGO • NOVEMBER 13, 1980

COACH BENCHES LION IN CLOSE ENCOUNTER

Although mountain lion season doesn’t open until December 1, biologist Bruce Sterling has already had to check one of the bigger cats he’s seen for this area.

And for Blue Hawk Coach Mike Benson, an encounter with a large tom has him wondering about the safety of hunting alone in the woods.

Benson told The Ledger that he was following an elk November 5, in a light snowstorm northwest of Hot Springs, when he saw a movement up ahead. Feeling confident that it was an elk, he prepared his rifle and moved in closer. As he neared a small clearing, he was expecting the elk to emerge at any time.

To his surprise, instead of the elk, a mountain lion jumped out, stared him in the eye, laid his ears back and took a crouched position. With his tail swinging like a flag in the wind, the animal began to move forward.

Benson said his rifle was poised for the elk and when the cat cast his threatening stares and moved towards him, only 25 feet away, he was in a position to protect himself.

Benson said the look in the cat’s eyes sent shivers up his spine and he made the split second decision to dispatch the cat rather than wait for him to make his move.

He said the large “pumpkin face” of the tom was all the more threatening.

After returning to town, he phoned the game warden who then had him return to the site and retrieve the cat, which weighed nearly 200 pounds. After an investigation into the incident, the state chose not to prosecute and supported Benson’s claim of self-defense

Ironically, it was the second such determination in as many weeks.

Lion encounters in northwest Montana have become more frequent in the past year, for unexplained reasons. The worst incident was when a lion killed a young boy near Evaro, about 75 miles east of Thompson Falls.

Benson commented he didn’t want to slay the cat but he knew the prudent approach was to not wait for the cat to make his decision first.

Biologist Bruce Sterling, who investigated the incident, said it was one of the largest mountain lions he has seen from this area. The animal was sent to the wildlife lab at Montana State University in Bozeman for tests and the skull and hide will be preserved for educational research.