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Holcomb View Trail
(3.2 miles)
Click to enlarge.
| Bill,
being a fine marksman, was hired by other prospectors to
hunt bear for its meat.
One hunting trip led him up Polique
Canyon, and when he reached the ridge line he looked northward
and saw a beautiful valley two miles distant. The party back
at Starvation Flats later named this Holcomb's Valley.
The
following day Bill and Ben Choteau, his Cherokee companion,
wounded a "monster grizzly." They followed
the blood trail across a quartz ledge which caught Bill's
attention. Three days later they returned to take hunks
of the quartz down to Caribou Creek where they intended
to test the samples. While washing the rock in the creek,
they were delighted to find the stream bed shimmering with
gold washed down from the ridges above them! The news spread
rapidly and by July of 1860 the valley was swarming with
prospectors.
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Click to enlarge
more
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