Treasure At Little Bighorn

For many Americans in the late 1800s, traveling west and striking it rich by finding gold didn't seem like an absurd idea. Some didn't even make it all the way to the Pacific. A few men struck it rich when they found gold in Montana. When fewer and fewer men found gold in Middle America, more and more of them continued west. But they probably should have kept looking.

According to some experts, Captain Grant Marsh was in charge of the Far West, a steamboat making its way up the Bighorn River to resupply General George Custer in his fight against the Indians. When Captain Marsh heard of General Custer's defeat and found out he would have to take injured men away from the battlefield, the only thing he could do to keep the ship from sinking under the weight of so many injured men was to bury the $375,000 worth of gold bars on the shores of the Bighorn River. Some say that Marsh had collected the gold bars from worried gold miners who didn't want to be attacked by the Sioux.