Additional Articles

~ "Yogo City or Bust"
~ "Yogo Historical
    Reflections"

Historical Photos


The English Mine was a meandering structure of wooden trestles, tramways, flumes and sluices. High-pressure water jets eroded away weathered sections of rock and clay. The resulting magma, or mud, passed through a series of sluice boxes. In this photograph, miners work the sluices. Courtesy of Montana Historical Society

Extracting sapphires at the English Mine was similar to placer gold recovery. In this photograph, miners clean a sluice box. The fence-like contraption behind the men, or "metal riffles," has been removed from the bottom of the sluice boxes. The riffles act as a trap to capture the heavy sapphires during the "washing" process. Courtesy of Montana Historical Society 


On a wintry day in April 1903, Charles Gadsden and his bride, Maude, stepped down from a stagecoach onto a dirt street in Utica. They covered the remaining 12 miles of their journey to English Mine in a horse-drawn wagon. Although naturalized citizens of the United States, the couple adhered to British ways and never embraced American customs. They did not mix socially with the community, remained true to the English Mine their entire lives, and deeply loved their wilderness home. Courtesy of Lewistown Public Library

Fast Fact
Montana's Yogo Sapphire

If you remember Princess Diana’s ring, which recently resurfaced in the news, on the hand of Kate Middleton, you may also have heard it’s a “Yogo” Sapphire.

What you probably haven’t heard is that the Yogo Sapphire is found only one place in the world – in Central Montana, near the town of Utica. The “Yogo” Sapphire is also the only North American gemstone chosen for the British Crown Jewels.

The word “sapphire” undoubtedly conjures up visions of sultans and sabers – it’s a gem that’s found in many places around the world, but there isn’t a sapphire anywhere in the world more beautiful – more sought after – more valuable than the Yogo.

"Dig Uncovering Mysteries of Freed Slave at Heart of Long Lost Yogo Town"

BY Kim Skornogoski • Great Falls Tribune Staff Writer • July 4, 2010

UTICA — Yogo Town boomed as quickly as it busted.

Word spread far and wide that gold was discovered in Yogo Creek more than 130 years ago, calling miners to its remote riverbeds with greed gleaming in their eyes.

At one point, newspapers — perhaps falsely — boasted that the approximately 70 acres that made up Yogo Town was home to 1,500 miners.

Two years after the first flood of prospectors, the 1880 census recorded only a few dozen people in the area.

Decades after the most optimistic and hearty prospectors gave up hope, a single woman stayed in Yogo Town, reportedly eating nothing but onions as she clung to the belief that she would one day be rich.

As little is known about Yogo Town, far less is known about its longest-living and last resident, a freed slave named Millie Ringold.

"There's lot of unknowns," said area historian Ken Robison, who took an interest in researching Montana's early black settlers. "What we do know is she was a rugged individualist who survived in rough country."

Six University of Montana archeology students spent the last three weeks digging for clues that could unravel one of Montana history's big mysteries.

"It became fascinating to me that this woman would come all the way out here alone and would live alone for so many years," said Jono Mogstad, a UM graduate student who is leading the research team.

"Our job is like a CSI (crime scene investigation) of the past — we get little clues. Hopefully, we'll get a better picture of what was going on up here 100 years ago," Mogstad said.

Placed in the Utica cemetery decades after her death, the tombstone marking Ringold's grave reads: "In Memory of Millie Ringold, BORN unknown, DIED 1906; last resident of Yogo Town."

The few newspaper snippets referring to Ringold even varied in the spelling of her name, using two Gs in some cases and referring to her at different times as Millie, Molly and Mammy.

The 1900 census reports that Millie was born in 1849 in Virginia, but her obituary places her birth at least seven years earlier and notes that she had relatives in Baltimore.

Historians believe she was a slave in Maryland when she was freed during the Civil War.

It was far from unusual for freed slaves to work on steamboats to pay their fare up the Missouri River, hoping to start anew in America's frontier.

Though no one knows for sure, Ringold apparently went to work for an Army general named Switzer, whose family journeyed up the Missouri but never as far as Ringold's eventual destination, Fort Benton.

Relying on county assessment logs and newspaper clippings, Robison believes Ringold settled in Fort Benton, where she ran a small restaurant and a boarding house for a little more than a year.

In 1879, word hit Fort Benton that gold was discovered in creek beds in the Judith Basin. With gold fever pumping through her veins, Ringold joined the stampede.

Having sold her property, Ringold hopped on a wagon pulled by two old Army mules and loaded with whiskey. She had $1,800 to her name and miles of rough country ahead of her.

Even today, the trek to what was Yogo Town is taxing — the nearest town of Utica is 12 miles away on a narrow rutted road.

The first band of eager miners, including Ringold, took a far more treacherous path over steep bedrock that then dropped into a hilly valley. Miners eventually blasted away a slim strip of limestone, creating a corridor where armed guards charged a toll to all who passed.

The UM archeology students spent their first summer of study scoping the hillsides for signs of structures, bottles and other artifacts.

Ranchers tore apart the remaining buildings long ago and used the lumber for barns and fences.

However, the researchers found the footprints of 30 homes where miners carved into the hill to save themselves the time of building all four walls while also providing better shelter from wind and cold.

The miners took few pictures of the short-lived town.

"I don't have a single picture of this hillside," Mogstad said. "To have that would be gold."

In one photo from that era, Ringold stands proudly in front of her home and hotel, her worn but smiling face shaded by a ragged brimmed hat. Mogstad keys in on a treed ridgeline that is faded in the distance but seems to match the backdrop of where he and his fellow archeology students found a footprint of four structures thought to be Ringold's home of 28 years.

Said to be the best cook in the basin and certainly the most charming, Ringold quickly built up a miniature empire.

Though small by today's standards, her home was the largest in Yogo Town. Her house included a restaurant and saloon, a boarding house and an outbuilding.

Early Charlie Russell painting, "A Quiet Day in Utica," features Ringold standing in front of a general store, watching the commotion as cowboys ride the streets.

When not feeding miners, she worked by their side, hauling her wheelbarrow, pick and shovel to dig at various claims named after the presidents she admired, such as Garfield and Lincoln.

At night, she would entertain her neighbors by singing and playing handsaws, mouth harps and dishpans.

Rose Gordon of White Sulphur Springs once wrote that she couldn't get home from school fast enough to visit Ringold.

"She could make better music in an empty five-gallon can than most people can on a piano," said Finch David, who landed in Utica in 1882, according to Robison's research. "Her favorite tunes were 'Coming Through the Rye' and 'Coal Oil Johnnie on a Bum-Bum Soiree.'"

Others admired her tenacity.

One man wrote to his sister about his first encounter with Ringold. She was so short, her feet barely touched the bottom of her wagon, even though she sat on the edge of the seat. He watched in awe as she navigated an icy river, shouting to her mules: "Ho! Go long! Git in da! Pull 'um out!"

As miners gave up, Ringold would buy their claims, never giving up hope of one day striking it rich.

"She was the heart of Yogo City for many years," Robison said. "She was just a believer — Yogo had gold, and she was going to find it. She never lost faith in that."

A shard of clear glass hints of a more permanent structure with windows, whereas olive-tinted glass probably held champagne or strong liquor. A rusted square-headed nail dates a building to the 1890s.

Tiny items that are meaningless or might go unnoticed by the average person offer archeologists significant clues about a place, a time and a lifestyle long gone.

Sadly, many of the clues in Yogo Town have been removed over the years — either by collectors or the curious.

Mogstad said that since his previous dig last summer, looters removed a cache of bottles and ATV riders tore up the hills.

It's not enough to know what was taken. The clues must be taken in context. One bottle of whiskey might indicate a home, whereas a group of them would suggest a saloon or restaurant.

Federal law protects the site, which is in the Lewis and Clark National Forest. However, most people don't realize removing items is illegal and even if they do the Forest Service doesn't have the resources to monitor such remote places.

"Some people think if it's public land, anything goes," said Sandi French, a forest archeologist with the Lewis and Clark National Forest. "They don't realize it's like taking away a piece of the puzzle. If you have the entire puzzle, then we can see a picture of the place, but if not, it deprives the public of the history."

The students hoped to find some evidence of Ringold's roots — an item that could be traced back to Maryland or Virginia — or other items, such as garter pins or dress fabric, which would indicate a woman once lived at the dig site.

The biggest treasure trove was actually an outhouse. There the students found butchered cattle bones, the bottom of a leather shoe, shotgun shell casings, a tin sardine can, a metal belt buckle, numerous nails and the bottoms of several bottles and jars.

Once back in Missoula, they will further research the items.

The most exciting discovery — a pewter disc that could have topped a teakettle or a cream container — Mogstad kept tucked in his pocket.

A tiny leaf on top indicates it wasn't something sold at the general store.

"You couldn't find this in Utica," Mogstad said. "If you were willing to carry something like that — it meant something to you. Something like this is great. It could be really important."

The first blue pebbles found in Yogo Town were a nuisance, tossed aside in the hunt for precious metals.

Jake Hoover, a trapper, prospector and buddy of cowboy artist Charlie Russell, began collecting the stones in 1895, after failing to strike gold.

He sent a box of the stones to New York, where they wound up in the offices of Tiffany & Co. Instead of returning the exotic stones, the elite jewelers sent a check for $3,750 for the "sapphires of unusual quality."

Shortly thereafter, a British enterprise set up shop, collecting more than 16 million carats of Yogo sapphires over the next 30 years. The gems were valued then at a combined $2.5 million.

Today, Yogo sapphires are as valuable as diamonds and as precious as the sapphires of Burma or Madagascar, which are treasured by European royalty.

The queen of Yogo Town never mined a one.

In the final years of her life, Ringold spent stints in area poorhouses — first in Meagher County and later in Great Falls.

A 1904 newspaper article reads: "For years she fought a hard battle single-handed, prospecting in the mountains and cooking and washing for other prospectors, and managed to keep the wolf from her door, though he several times jumped the fence."

What was once a mining-town mansion was then described as a shack uninhabitable by hogs. Clothed in rags, Ringold didn't have enough water to wash them.

Some neighbors feared she was demented, guarding her worthless claim day and night, an old shotgun at her side.

At times, all Ringold would have to eat were rutabagas and onions. She claimed her cat — named George Washington — would hunt rabbits and bring home rodents big enough to share.

On a good day, Jim "Bedrock" Bercham, another freed slave who hung around Yogo Town years past its prime, would bring over potatoes and carrots and the pair would enjoy Mulligan stew.

The county auditor paid for supplies to be delivered to Ringold — while the cost of food and fuel was low, bringing them to her remote door doubled the bill.

She fought so fiercely against going to the poorhouse and leaving her claims that the sheriff found her jobs working for area families.

In December 1906, word spread to Utica that Ringold was sick, and a doctor drove up to the old gold camp only to discover she was beyond medical aid. She died that evening.

English sapphire miners carried her body out in a wagon and buried her in a piano box in the Utica cemetery.

With no documentation about Yogo Town's history, the site was initially found ineligible for the National Historic Registry in 1984.

However, the university students' work over the past three years has revealed many of the town's secrets and defined its role in developing central Montana.

French said the Forest Service is beginning the intensive paperwork process to get the town added to the registry, which would open the door for preservation grants.

Now eligible for the list, the site falls under a separate, more restrictive law that protects what little remains.

"Whatever we learn here will help us be good stewards," French said. "Now that it's eligible, we'll keep an eye on it and follow up on any new disturbances."

Mogstad plans to spend the next year digging through documents — census records, newspaper articles and ledgers.

He hopes to travel to Washington, D.C., where records are kept on early slaves and their owners.

"Unfortunately, we can't do a total excavation now, but maybe down the road we can come back," Mogstad said.  "I want to know how (Ringold) lived, how she survived, how people dealt with the conditions."