Lost Keyes Diggings — Missouri River

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Lost Keyes Diggings — Missouri River

Lost Treasure MT • Phillips County County
Description
Upper Missouri legend of Charlie Keyes's lost placer — after banking $5,000 in nuggets at Fort Benton, his 1870s flatboat party was wiped out by Sioux within "two sleeps" of the diggings near the Musselshell junction.
Historical Notes
Keyes spotted gold signs from a steamboat near the Musselshell mouth, later returned with Lepley and a Blackfeet crew, and vanished downriver toward Fort Copelin country. A sole survivor girl reported Keyes saying the mine lay two camps from Fort Copelin; searchers including the Alexander City boom failed to find color. Granville Stuart's journals and Peter Netzel's Keyes Lost Diggings compile the central Missouri River lost-mine saga.
Status / Verification legend — Legendary or approximate

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