Many Americans returned to the United States at the opening of the Civil War. Others went on to the Fort Colvile Gold Rush, Idaho Gold Rush, and Colorado Gold Rush. Some went elsewhere in the Intermontane West, including other parts of British Columbia, in addition to those who had come and gone during the advent and wane of the Cariboo rush. To preserve British authority and retain control over the traffic of gold out of the region, the Governor commissioned the building of the Cariboo Road, a.k.a. the Queen's Highway, and a route from Lillooet and also established the Gold Escort, although that government agency never proved viable and private expressmen dominated the shipment of goods and mail into the gold fields, and gold out of it (see Francis Jones Barnard and B.X. Express). Among other events associated with the Cariboo Gold Rush was the Chilcotin War of 1864, provoked by an attempt to build a wagon road from Bute Inlet to Cariboo via the Homathko River. In addition to the gold rush's capital and destination of the Cariboo Road Barkerville, dozens of small towns and mining camps sprang up across the rainy, swampy hills of the Cariboo, some such as Bullion and Antler Creek attaining mining fame in their own right. The Cariboo gold fields have remained active to this day, and have also yielded other boomtowns, such as Wells, a one-time company town of 3,000 in the 1920s just a few kilometres west of Barkerville, which today is a museum town, and one of the larger deep-rock mines in the Cariboo mining district. The city of Quesnel, remained important after the wane of the rush as the jumping-off point for other goldfields discovered yet farther and farther north in the Omineca and Peace River Country to the north of Fort George (today's city of Prince George), then only a small fur post and Indian reserve. Minor Gold Rushes 1859-1869 Blackfoot Gold Rush, 1859 Similkameen Gold Rush, 1861 Rock Creek Gold Rush Peace River Gold Rush, 1861 (a.k.a. Finlay Gold Rush) Stikine Gold Rush, 1861 The Finlay and Peace-Finlay Gold Rushes prompted the declaration of the Stickeen Territories, which lay north of the colony's boundary, the line of the Nass and Finlay Rivers, extending to the 62nd parallel, west of the Rockies. Shuswap Gold Rush (Spallumcheen River) Cherry Creek Gold Rush (Cherryville) Big Bend Gold Rush, 1865 Omineca Gold