Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Granite County Historical Society’s Second Annual Seminar

Twenty cheery faces met at 8:30 a.m. on the east end of Broadway at the old James Stuart millsite, the staging area of the Granite County Historical Society’s field trip on July 5th. The group then car-pooled to Arrow Point (also known as the Devil’s Eyebrow), a major Native American chalcedony or “flint” quarry north of Henderson gulch and west of Highway 1.  Flint Creek’s name is based on this quarry. During the short walk up the hill to the site, Katie McDonald, a Philipsburg native and geologist for the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, provided a map of her field work at the Eyebrow, and with Ted Antonioli described the area’s geological history and history of Native American usage and the arrow points and tools made from the flint quarried there for thousands of years.  The location provided a good view of the routes formerly used to travel from the Clark’s Fork (called the Arrowstone River by the early fur trappers and the Hellgate River by the first surveyors) , to the Rock Creek and Bitterroot Valley. Many thanks to the Skinner ranch for permission to visit the area on their land.