PONY, MONTANA
Mar 24, 2020
3 minutes
BY TERRY HALDEN
n the fall of 1867 “Pony” McCumpsey—whose real name remains in dispute but whose small stature earned him his equine nickname—went prospecting on the remote upper reaches of North Willow Creek in the Tobacco Root Mountains of southwest Montana Territory. He finally hit pay dirt on a small tributary he named Pony Creek. Winter forced him out of the mountains, but he returned the following spring with a partner. When word broke he’d registered his claim, a stampede noted on June 19, 1868, “is paying an ounce per day to the hand. A new gulch was discovered week before last on South Willow Creek, which, it is supposed, will give good results.”
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