First peoples Archeologists think it likely that the first people to live in Montana crossed from Asia to North America over the
Bering Land Bridge that existed during the last major
Ice Age about 12,000 years ago. Because the middle of the continent was covered with sheets of ice, people who migrated south did so on trails along the edges of
glaciers melted by seasonal warming. One such trail, called the Great North Trail, is thought to have followed the
Rocky Mountain Front into Montana, passing close to Helena, north of Basin, and continuing into the east-central part of the state. Evidence of these early Paleo-Indians or
Clovis people has been found at three sites, one of them the McHaffie site near
Clancy about north of Basin. The age of the Clancy artifacts is estimated to be 10,000 years. The Clovis people are thought to have disappeared in about 4,000 to 5,000 BCE when the Montana climate became more dry and would not support the animal populations the Clovis needed to survive. About 2,000 years ago, a new prehistoric people known as the Late Hunters appeared in Montana, thriving on a
bison (buffalo) population living in open grassy areas on the plains and in river valleys. The earliest tribes are thought to have been the
Kootenai, who stayed west of the Continental Divide, and the
Flathead (Salish), and
Pend d'Oreilles, who ventured east of the mountains into and east of the
Three Forks country, southeast of Basin. In the 17th century, the
Crow entered Montana from the east and the
Shoshone from the south. Pressed by other tribes retreating west from white European settlers, the
Blackfeet moved into Montana around 1730. Acquiring horses and firearms, and numbering about 15,000, they formed alliances with other incoming tribes, the
Assiniboine and the
Gros Ventres, and by the mid-18th century dominated the state. When the white explorers
Lewis and Clark traveled up the
Missouri River to Three Forks, they found only Blackfeet and Blackfeet allies. Heavily dependent on bison, the nomadic life of the Blackfeet "came to an abrupt end in the early 1880s when the buffalo became almost extinct." Prospectors staked claims and built cabins, and within a few years
placer mining extended the full lengths of Cataract and Basin Creeks. When a settlement was established in Basin, the buildings at the mouth of Cataract Creek were gradually moved to Basin, and the Cataract camp was abandoned. Searches for the
lode veins on both creeks succeeded by the 1870s and eventually led to significant lode mining at the Eva May, Uncle Sam, Grey Eagle, Hattie Ferguson, and Comet mines in the Cataract Creek district and the Bullion, Hope, and Katy mines in the Basin Creek district. By 1880, the settlement at Basin became the local source of supplies for mines and miners. Despite the ups and downs of the local mines and despite several disastrous fires in town, Basin prospered. While the smelter sat idle, mining activity continued on the south side of the river in the Hope-Katy mine complex, at the Hope Mill, which crushed and separated ore, and at the Basin Reduction Works.
Flumes carried water from upstream on Cataract Creek and Basin Creek to a storage reservoir in town and supplied water to the mills as well as the town's fire hydrants. A separate flume carried water to the mills from upstream on the Boulder River. At the Basin Reduction Works,
Corliss steam engines, driven by the coal-fired boilers, provided power to run the
mine hoists and the mill machinery, and an electric generator powered by a
water wheel made electricity for factory lights and the
arc lights at Basin's street intersections. Surplus
tailings were discharged into the river and into a dam built for the purpose downstream of Basin. The most extensive and successful mining of the Hope-Katy vein began in 1919, when the Jib Consolidated Mining Company began work on the property. When this company acquired the mines, they comprised of workings. Over the next five years, Jib expanded these to more than , and in 1924 the company became the largest gold producer in Montana. In that year, the combined Jib mines produced about of gold, of silver, of copper, and of lead. In 1925, however, the Jib properties passed from the mining company to trustees for creditors, and production declined. In 1975, the Basin community formed water and sewer districts and, using federal grants to cover about 60 percent of the costs, built a water delivery, sewage, and waste-handling system. By 1990, Interstate 15 had replaced the entire length of
U.S. Route 91 in the state. The centerline of the Interstate followed the track of the former
Great Northern Railway through town.
Individual mines Almost opposite the Hope-Katy complex on the south side of the Boulder River in Basin was the Katy Extension Mine on the north side. It produced ore from part of the Hope-Katy lode that had been displaced about to the north by
faulting. Other mines within of Basin included the Lotta, west of town along the route of Interstate 15; the Basin Bell (Latsch), about north of town along Basin Creek; the Boulder, northeast of Basin on the south slope of Pole Mountain; the Mantle and South Mantle, about north of town along Cataract Creek; and the Obelisk, east of town near the road that later became Interstate 15. ==Climate==