After the Gold Rush

In 1931, fifty years after a gold rush brought over 10,000 fortune seekers to the Cedar Creek area of Superior, Gus and Fern Gildersleeve began building their mine on land near the original claims. What began as Depression-era subsistence mining has blossomed into one family's legacy of mining for four generations in Superior.

There is a legacy of mining running through Kevin Smith’s veins.

Every summer growing up in Superior, Smith would be dropped off 17 miles up Cedar Creek Road with his bicycle and spend his days exploring the area around the Gildersleeve Mine – a mine his great-grandfather built in 1930 at the tail end of the county’s gold rush.

“It was a great way to grow up,” Smith said. “Definitely better than just sitting around playing Playstation all day.”

Four generations of Gildersleeves have utilized the land for gold mining - beginning with Smith’s great grandfather Gus, who along with other relatives cut and prepared lumber for a series of buildings including a bunkhouse, blacksmith shop, office and “dry” (used as a changing room and area to dry clothing after mining).

The Gildersleeve Mine was built following a gold rush in 1869, just above an area where at one point over 10,000 people lived and worked trying to strike it big on their claims.

“I would love to be able to walk the streets of downtown Louisville,” Smith said.

“Just to see what it was like – at one point there was a two story hotel up here.”

Louisville was the largest of the mining towns set-up in the hills in Superior – over 3,000 people lived there and amenities included a Wells Fargo bank, saloons, brothels, a post office and a hotel.

All that remains of the settlement is a smokehouse and what Smith believes is either the jail or the post office – the only reason it remains is because it is built out of stone.

“Wood buildings didn’t last long here,” Smith said. “When an area had been completely mined people would look and see a home or something on land and say ‘well that hasn’t been mined yet’ and take down the house.”

As quickly as the settlements in the Cedar Creek area began they were gone – the thousands of miners who had worked over their claims simply picked up what they could carry and moved on to another area where it was said gold had been discovered.

Fifty years after the rush ended, the Gildersleeves began building their mine – using ingenuity and outside the box thinking to set up camp. A series of pipes was constructed to provide running water directly from a spring to the settlement and those same pipes still provide the camp with water today.

A car motor was used to power a compressor used to supply air pressure for the pneumatic tools used in the tunnel.

The rush to leave the settlements below the Gildersleeve Mine also proved advantageous in the early days of operations – things like bed frames were scavenged before the rickety wood homes of miners collapsed to be used in the bunkhouses at the mine.

Four generations later and the same outside of the box thinking has continued at the mine – Smith’s step-dad created a hot shower using a propane barbecue, chicken coop and car radiator.

“It’s definitely a luxury up here since we don’t even have electricity,” Smith said. “It works great – instant hot water.”

Other than the addition of propane-run refrigerators and the presence of ATVs , the site looks and is run the same way it was in the 1930s and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

“It is one of the best remaining examples of Depression-era subsistence mining in western Montana,” a plaque at the mine reads.

At the peak of the gold boom in Superior the area produced $2 to 3 million in gold however in an instant the boom was over – leaving small groups like the Gildersleeves to rework tailing piles left over from the rush as subsistence miners.

Smith learned how to mine using similar tools and techniques his great grandfather did and although he currently works at a gold mine in White Hall as a mechanic – he still finds himself at the mine as much as he can.

“It’s really good to just get away from power and get up here,” Smith said. “Mining is a great activity because there is always that chance that you make a big find.”

Smith compared finding an ounce of gold in the tailings and even his secret mining location deep in the brush to winning the lotto but regardless of the chances he will strike it rich it is safe to say summers for Smith will always be synonymous with mining gold at his family’s mine.

“Recently my sister’s kids were up here – so the fourth generation of us to mine and explore – they were running around and one of them went through four pairs of clothes over the course of the day just like I did,” Smith said. “If I ever have kids they will be spending a lot of time here.”