A “Valley of 1,000 Hills” image from Flickr – click on the name of the photographer below to see more Durban goodness and to thank the photographer.
Our memory trip, 2009
Photo by Cheryl Bowman
Campsite of General Custer’s Expedition
August 1-6, 1874
This picturesque valley was the site of the permanent camp of the Black Hills Expedition of 1874 under the command of General George A. Custer of the 7th Cavalry. Their 5 day stay was the longest stop made during the entire expedition and General Custer used this campsite as a base for reconnaissance trips to other points in the Black Hills.
The expedition party rotated about 1000 men, 1900 horses and mules, 300 beef cattle and 110 wagons. In addition to the cavalry, the personnel included nearly 100 Indian scouts, guides, interpreters, engineers, newspaper correspondents, two practical miners, and a photographer. This is said to have been the largest and best equipped expedition ever assembled, up to that time, for military exploration duty in the Northwest. The entire valley was scattered with their tents and wagons during their stay.
Gold was first discovered in French Creek, which runs through the valley, by Horatio N. Ross. This discovery of gold led to the first Miners’ Organization in the Black Hills which was formed around a campfire on August 5, 1874. Because of the discovery of gold here, General Custer gave to this place the name of "Golden Valley."
General Custer sent a scout messenger out from this camp to carry the word in FT. Laramie that gold had been discovered on French Creek. This caused a stampede over the country to force entrance into these forbidden Black Hills. Late in December 1874, the first settlers, the Collins-Russell party, under the guidance of John Gordon, reached this site. Thousands of gold seekers soon followed.
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Quick Durban KwaZulu-Natal Fact: Cato Manor in Durban once attracted attention from around the world because it was where rioting broke out in 1959 in protest against the city’s beerhalls and the looming prospect of mass forced removals in which the residents would be uprooted from their homes in terms of the notorious Group Areas Act, and resettled in townships. The area was granted to George Christopher Cato in 1865, perhaps as a reward for his years of community service and for the fact that, in 1854, he had become Durban’s first Mayor. The land was sub-divided in the early 1900s and leased to Indian market gardeners, many of whom were either former indentured labourers, who had come to South Africa to work on the sugar plantations, or their descendents.
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