Yogo Gulch, Yogo District, Little Belt Mountains, Judith Basin County, Montana, USAi

Regional Level Types
Yogo Gulch	Gulch
Yogo District	Mining District
Little Belt Mountains	Mountain Range
Judith Basin County	County
Montana	State
USA	Country

At the end of the 19th century, gold prospector Jake Hoover discovered the deposit by chance while seeking refuge from a storm under a rocky overhang. While he waited for the storm to pass, he scraped together a small amount of gravel that had fallen from the rocks and later washed it in the nearby Yogo Creek. He noticed it contained gold and staked a claim. In the half-year that he searched for gold at the locality, Hoover only found a small amount of it, worth about 700 dollars (period value). The nice-looking blue pebbles, which apparently had fallen from the sides of the ravine, were only of meager comfort to him. He put them in a small vial together with a bit of gold and sent the vial to a former girlfriend who had since become a teacher in Maine. To his amazement, he later received a letter thanking him for the "sapphires." "What in heaven's name are sapphires?", he replied. He would soon find out. After a stone-cutter had assured him that the stones were "Oriental" sapphires, Hoover filled a cigar box with them and sent it to Tiffany's in New York. He was promptly rewarded with a cheque for $3,750 (period value) and a request for more stones.

During practically the whole of the next century, the extraction of sapphires at Yogo Gulch had to endure setbacks, such as the economic crisis of the 1930s and the high cost of extraction, so that the property changed hands countless times. Since 1980 however profit is being made with stones marketed as "Royal American Sapphires" (their previous marketing name had been "Montana's"). With their deep blue colour, the Yogo Gulch sapphires are in no way inferior to any others, although they are generally small and cut stones rarely weigh more than 1 carat.