Old Trail to the Gold Diggins, Lima, Montana
N 44° 51.131 W 112° 47.798
12T E 358034 N 4968100
I have read a LOT of signs placed by State highway departments in my travels to all 50 state, but this one is uniquely sarcastic.
Waymark Code: WMA020
Location: Montana, United States
Date Posted: 10/24/2010
Views: 13
The text on this weathered sign reads:
"Old Trail to the Gold Diggins
Along in the early 1840s the Americans were like they are now-seething to go somewhere. It got around that Oregon was quite a place. The Iowa people hadn't located California yet. A wagon train pulled out across the plains and made it to Oregon. Then everyone broke out into a rash to be going west.
They packed their prairie schooners with their household goods, gods, and garden tools. Outside of Indians, prairie fires, cholera, famine, cyclones, cloud bursts, quick sand, snow slides, and blizzards they had a tolerably blithe and gay trip.
When gold was found in Montana some of them forked off from the main highway and surged along this trail aiming to reach the rainbows end. It was mostly one way traffic, but if they did meet a backtracking outfit there was plenty of room to turn out."
The sign is located on Hwy 15 (also known as the Barstow Freeway, or the Mojave Freeway) between Lima and Dillon, Montana.
Describe the area and history:
This is not far from the route that Lewis and Clark's "Corps of Discovery" Expedition took in 1805; a harsh, rugged environment, full of wildlife and opportunity. Currently agricultural.
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