Montana City, Colorado

It was established during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush on the east bank of the South Platte River, just north of the confluence with Little Dry Creek, in 1858.

However, the gold diggings at Montana City proved disappointing, and the site was soon abandoned in favor of the settlement of Auraria, a few miles downstream.

The Montana City site is now Grant-Frontier Park and includes mining equipment and a log cabin replica.

John Easter, a butcher living in Lawrence, Kansas, heard of gold found "two days sleep" from Pikes Peak from Fall Leaf in 1857.

Fall Leaf was a member of the Delaware tribe living on a reservation near Lawrence, Kansas who met with Easter to negotiate the sale of a steer.

John Easter shared Fall Leaf’s account and determined that there was sufficient interest for the expedition to Colorado in search of gold, opportunities and adventure.

They followed the Fountain River in a northwesterly direction to Gardens of the Gods (present Colorado Springs) at the foot of Pikes Peak where they camped the remained of July and early August, 1858.

In her written accounts of the journey for her mother and an eastern feminist newspaper, The Sibyl, she described her unsuccessful attempt to share guard duty, the “large, finely formed, and noble looking” Cheyenne and Arapaho men, and her delight at reaching the 14,000 foot summit of Pikes Peak.

Julia wrote for the New York Herald[nb 5] and James was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to the position of Secretary of the New Mexico territory.

The couple divorced and Julia worked in Washington, D.C. where she became the chief of the Bureau of Education, Division of Spanish Correspondence.