A meeting was held where the name Helena was agreed on for the settlement, streets were laid out, and a primitive government based on mining law was outlined. The men kept their discovery quiet so as to avoid a rush to their new diggings but nonetheless a small population of miners arrived at the gulch by the fall. Gold was discovered in Last Chance Gulch in the summer of 1864 by four prospectors that came to be known as “the Four Georgians”.
Although discoveries at Bannack (1862) and Virginia City (1863) resulted in the first major gold rushes to Montana territory, the strike at Helena resulted in the establishment of what became one of the West’s most important cities. Helena was the location of one of Montana’s earliest gold discoveries.
