Last Chance or Bust, 1900. Charles M. Russell.
Watercolor and gouache on paper, 20 3/4 x 29 inches. Charles M. Russell Museum, Gift of the John D. Stephenson Family.
Helena, Montana, got its start as a mining center initially named Last Chance Gulch. It was billed as "the new Eldorado," and during the 1860s prospective miners flocked to it with dreams of striking it rich. Those traveling overland to the gold camps came either via the Minnesota-Montana road through the Dakotas or over one of the northward spurs from the Oregon Trial. Oxen were recommended to overland immigrants because they traveled about as fast as horses or mules and were best suited to withstand the rigors of travel, subsisting on whatever vegetation was available. They were also safer, more reliable, and less likely to be stolen by Indians. This watercolor originally hung in the Silver Dollar Saloon in downtown Great Falls and then was acquired for the First National Bank by bank president Sam Stephenson when Prohibition closed the Silver Dollar's doors in late 1918. (Text courtesy of Rick Stewart, Ph.D., and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art)
