The Montana Trail was a wagon road that served gold rush towns such as Bannack, Virginia City and later Helena during the Montana gold rush era of the 1860s and 1870s. Miners and settlers all traveled the trail to try to find better lives in Montana. The trail was also utilized for freighting and shipping supplies and food goods to Montana from Utah. American Indians, as well as the weather, were major risks to traveling on the Montana Trail. Immigrants Montana was a very isolated area and the trail helped to keep Montanans connected to the rest of the United States. Salt Lake City was the only major city between Denver and the Pacific Coast and was a valuable supply and trading center for Montanans. The Montana trail was a much shorter version of the Oregon-California trail. It was one of the only trails to travel north to south, taking supplies from Salt Lake and driving them by pack train to Montana in the north. The trail went across eastern Idaho and passed through the Continental Divide at Monida Pass. The Montana Trail continued north and east through Montana to Fort Benton. It went through Utah, Idaho, and Montana and passed over mountains and crossed streams and valleys. Travel peaked during the mid-summer months when low water levels grounded steamships on the Missouri River. Mountain men and traders explored the Montana Trail area in the 1840s and developed it in the 1850s and 1860s. In the 1870s miners, traders and settlers utilized the road until its decline in the 1880s. The Montana trail started in Salt Lake City and was an important supply point for the early years of the Montana gold rush. In July 1862, gold was discovered in Montana on Grasshopper Creek in Banack City, in southwest Montana. Grasshopper Creek produced $5 million in gold and some outrageous rumors. People said that they could pull out a sagebrush plant, shake out the roots, and collect a pan's worth of gold. Immigrants came to Montana in wagons, on horseback, and by foot. They were also able to take steamboats up the Missouri River to Fort Benton during high water months. From there, however, travelers had to take stagecoaches or wagons to the mining camps. Fort Benton boomed as a transportation hub during the high-water months. Many people traveled over overland trails because they were much cheaper than traveling by