Old Missoula

Cedar Creek Gold Camp Saw Start of Early Newspaper

The Missoula and Cedar Creek Pioneer, forerunner of the Missoulian, was started in September of 1870 at the old gold camp 75 miles west of Missoula a year after gold was discovered. That area had a population estimated at 1,500, mostly miners.

Cedar Creek was described as the richest gold camp tributary to Missoula in the early days. A history of Montana issued in 1885 said it was estimated by competent judges that Cedar Creek and the surrounding gulches yielded $1 million in gold in a 15-year period after the first discovery of the yellow medal. Some estimate that over the years $50 million in gold has been taken from the area.

During the autumn of 1869 Louis A. Barrett and B. Lanthier discovered paying mines on Cedar Creek and the camp attracted many miners. In the spring its population had grown to 1,500.

A sketch by Judge Frank H. Woody, written for the Historical Society of Montana in 1896, reports that the census of Missoula County in 1870 was 2,554 persons. However, at that time Missoula County included all of western Montana. Judge Woody said most of the population was transient, drawn to the Cedar Creek District by the gold discovery. That would indicate the bulk of the county’s population of that day was in Cedar Creek and tributary districts.

The Missoula and Cedar Creek Pioneer remained in the bustling mining camp only two or three years, being moved to Missoula where it became the Missoulian in 1873.