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I still find it hard to believe this part of recorded history. It is unbelievable that none of them heard the digging of the others, or the excitement of the find!

I have panned for gold in a few areas like this narrow gulch within the hills over the years. Normally three of us would split up and work the inside corners of various streams after they split. (When gold is found in a large stream you locate where it splits, and figure out which way it came from). Even a mile away from each other, you can hear a shovel when it strikes rocks while digging. You can also hear the bang of the pan when you "clear it" against a rock to get rid of the heavy black sand, (to start over with a fresh scoop from another location). When we got so far away from each other we could no longer hear those sounds, we would fire off a round and all go back to where we split to discuss our finds. We had all been in the Army, knew a 30" step and a "four mile an hour" stride. This was how we mapped the areas… Often it was more than 20 or 30 minutes before the last man came in, that would be over two miles apart! This gulch has very large "echo" walls and I think all three "discovery" locations could have heard each other. I am sure they could see the cook fires…

Rough estimates say there was over a thousand illegal "sooners" running all over the hills for more than a year now, most of them experienced at finding gold and watching for signs of others doing any exploring… For sure all of them were now far into the wilderness and constantly on guard for anything out of the ordinary. This was the most important discovery, other than the Homestake Mine, in the history of the gold rush, and could not really have happened the way it is reported. To imagine all three parties came from different directions, staked claims running three hundred feet each, all up or down the same area, and all at the same time! Each group just happened to find this area on their own, stayed for days, and never heard each other?

What I believe happened, at least with William Smith, John Kane, (and the other 3 in that party on Spruce Gulch). Is another way of "prospecting" common at that time. Your group covered as much ground as possible each day, mostly on horseback, normally only looking for "signs." When you saw small "sample digs" along a creek, you just passed them by. If you saw an overnight stay with many diggings, you knew they found something, but it was not paying much, or it was only a small pocket. In other words you let others do the hard work and you looked for something they missed, like a hidden wash coming into the stream just above a "diggings" that was not follow up on. A few times they would come up on someone with a fairly good strike and kill him for it. That was why most people traveled in larger groups than two or three! This happen more often than was reported, normally it was blamed on the Indians instead. The Smith party may have come upon the Bryant party and saw they were building a cabin, a sure sign of a good area. They went far enough away as to not be seen and made their own claim. The Blanchard party may have done the same thing, but they had come in from the other way, and it could have just been a coincident.

The trail from the plains, coming into the top of this area, later named discovery number 2, was well known and traveled often by many in the years before this. Discovery number 1, at the bottom of Deadwood, was recorded by all Indians as far back as stories are told. This was where Whitewood creek joined others, and was often referred to as the "killing valley." The stories told described how the water of this creek was not running clean, and when they followed the muddy water they often found the camp in this area. The group was always killed, and most of the time any gold was hidden. Only once was it reported that they traded the gold for many thousands in goods at a fur trading post. This caused "much trouble" for all concerned, which was the reason it was forbidden.

Gold that had been naturally blended with other rare minerals, common only to this area of the entire earth, was found as far away as Spain. Obviously the Indians were not able to kill all early explorers of this area.

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