Saturday, June 23, the NW Archeological Society stopped for a visit to CMMM after a day of visiting various sites in the area.
Among the stops were a possible site of one of the last buffalo kills in the area and the diggings of a 1909 Gold Rush that saw about 250 men come to try and make their fortune.
The story goes that Mrs. Julia Ford, a widow pioneer, was having a well dug and picked up the rock from the diggings. She thought it was gold and sent it to an assayer in the U.S. It was determined to be worth $32/ton and this sparked the "Gold Rush" to the Formby-Wembly area. No one else found any gold. Gold companies who came out to check out the area decided that the rock was part of glacial till and a fluke.
Those who profited were Mrs. Ford, with her initial rock, the Paynton livery stable and the women who washed the clothes and cooked for the gold seekers. And at 1909 prices for doing such work, no one became rich!
Check out the story in, Time Marches On (1975), a history book of the area.