In 1852, a French mixed-blood prospector named Francois “Benetsee,” Finlay searched a creek flowing into the Clark Fork River from the west for placer gold and, although he found some color, he lacked the equipment to develop the discovery. Several years later, in 1858, James and Granville Stuart, Reece Anderson, and Thomas Adams prospected the same creek after hearing of Finlay’s find, and they uncovered enough gold to convince them that rich placer mines existed in Montana. The stream was first called Benetsee Creek and later became known as Gold Creek. News of the strike spread to disappointed Pikes Peakers and to prospectors drifting from California, helping launch an era of prospecting that revealed Montana’s famous placer deposits. Near this place in September, 1883, Northern Pacific Railway president Henry Villard drove the last spike on the nation’s second trans-continental railroad before hundreds of spectators, company officials, President Ulysses S. Grant, and Captain John Mullan, who had built a road along the river in 1860.