Helena, Montana
Helena (About this soundlisten; /ˈhɛlɪnə/) is the state capital of the U.S. state of Montana and the county seat of Lewis and Clark County.[4]
Helena was founded as a gold camp during the Montana gold rush, and established on October 30, 1864.[5] Due to the gold rush, Helena would become a wealthy city, with approximately 50 millionaires inhabiting the area by 1888. The concentration of wealth contributed to the city’s prominent, elaborate Victorian architecture.[6][7]
At the 2010 census Helena’s population was 28,190, making it the fifth least populous state capital in the United States and the sixth most populous city in Montana.[8][9][10] It is the principal city of the Helena Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Lewis and Clark and Jefferson counties; its population is 81,653 according to the 2019 Census Estimate.[11]
The local daily newspaper is the Independent Record.[12] The city is served by Helena Regional Airport (HLN).
The Helena area was long inhabited by various indigenous peoples.[14] Evidence from the McHaffie and Indian Creek sites on opposite sides of the Elkhorn Mountains southeast of the Helena Valley show that people of the Folsom culture lived in the area more than 10,000 years ago.
Before the introduction of the horse 300 years ago, and since, other native peoples, including the Salish and the Blackfeet, visited the area seasonally on their nomadic rounds.[16]
By the early 1800s, people of European descent from the United States and British Canada began arriving to work the streams of the Missouri River watershed looking for fur-bearing animals such as the beaver, undoubtedly bringing them through the area now known as the Helena Valley.
Gold strikes in Idaho Territory in the early 1860s attracted many migrants who initiated major gold rushes at Grasshopper Creek (Bannack) and Alder Gulch (Virginia City) in 1862 and 1863 respectively. So many people came that the federal government created a new territory called Montana in May 1864.
The miners prospected far and wide for new placer gold discoveries. On July 14, 1864, the discovery of gold by a prospecting party known as the “Four Georgians” in a gulch off the Prickly Pear Creek led to the founding of a mining camp along a small creek in the area they called “Last Chance Gulch”.
