On July 28, 1862, gold was discovered along Grasshopper Creek, a tributary of the Beaverhead River, in a remote part of eastern Idaho Territory, leading to the establishment of the town of Bannack. Bannack was a gold rush boomtown that was the first territorial capital of Montana Territory for a brief period after the territory was established in 1864. Less than a year after the Grasshopper Creek find, on May 26, 1863, gold was discovered along Alder Gulch, a tributary creek northeast of the Ruby River that lies between the Tobacco Root Mountains and the Gravelly Range and east of Bannack. The Alder Gulch find became one of the largest placer mining gold fields in the western U.S. The mining settlements of Virginia City and Nevada City, Montana, which sprang up in Alder Gulch, boasted thousands of prospectors and fortune seekers by the end of 1863. These new settlements generally lacked justice systems found in populated portions of the territory, such as in the territorial capital in Lewiston, Idaho. In 1863, gold was the preferred form of currency in western frontier communities and had a value, fixed and guaranteed by the U.S. Government, of $20.67 per ounce. Almost all economic transactions in western mining communities were accomplished with gold nuggets, flakes or dust as currency and not surprisingly, the more gold one had, the more wealth one possessed. During the early years of the territory, there was no secure way to transport wealth out of the region. The only means of transporting wealth out of the Alder Gulch gold fields was via horseback or slow moving wagons and stagecoaches on a limited number of trails and primitive roads leading south and west to Salt Lake City and San Francisco or east to Minnesota. Roads and trails leading to Alder Gulch included the Bozeman and Bridger Trails connecting to the Oregon Trail from the east, the Mullan Road from points west and from Fort Benton, Montana the head of navigation on the Missouri River and the Corinne Road from Corinne, Utah and points south. Additionally, there was a single track, stage road that connected Alder Gulch with Bannack. Several commercial freight and two passenger stage companies—Peabody and Caldwell's and A.J. Oliver's—operated on this route. Stagecoaches had to stop at several different ranches during the trip to water and change horses, feed passengers and provide overnight lodging. One of these ranches, the Rattlesnake Ranch, was owned by Bill Bunton and Frank Parish, who were later hanged by the vigilantes as road agents and members of the Plummer gang.