Episode 1 of 2
Discovery of Gold in French Creek
- When
- 1874
- Where
- French Creek
Custer's 1874 expedition confirmed gold deposits in French Creek, in territory the 1868 treaty exempted from non-indigenous settlement.
The expedition, led by Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer, discovered gold in French Creek in 1874. This was the first confirmation of deposits previously known only through rumors. The discovery occurred in the Black Hills, which the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 had exempted from all non-indigenous settlement. A gold rush subsequently drew miners to the region.
Sources
- Black Hills Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-19
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.