Blacktail Deer Creek is a tributary of the Beaverhead River, approximately long, in southwest

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It rises in the Beaverhead National Forest in the Snowcrest Range in southern

Beaverhead County Beaverhead County is the largest county by area in the U.S. state of Montana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 9,371. Its county seat is Dillon. The county was founded in 1865. Much of the perimeter of the county is the Continental Di ...

. It flows northwest, joining the Beaverhead River near

Dillon, Montana Dillon is a city in and the county seat of Beaverhead County, Montana, United States. The population was 3,880 at the 2020 census. The city was named for Sidney Dillon (1812–1892), president of Union Pacific Railroad. History Dillon was fo ...

. The creek contains rainbow,

brook A brook is a small river or natural stream of fresh water. It may also refer to: Computing *Brook, a programming language for GPU programming based on C *Brook+, an explicit data-parallel C compiler *BrookGPU, a framework for GPGPU programming ...

and

brown trout The brown trout (''Salmo trutta'') is a European species of salmonid fish that has been widely introduced into suitable environments globally. It includes purely freshwater populations, referred to as the riverine ecotype, ''Salmo trutta'' morph ...

as well as mountain whitefish,

longnose sucker The longnose sucker (''Catostomus catostomus'') is a species of cypriniform freshwater fish in the family Catostomidae. It is native to North America from the northern United States to the top of the continent. It is also found in Russia in rive ...

longnose dace The longnose dace (''Rhinichthys cataractae'') is a freshwater minnow native to North America. ''Rhinicthys'' means snout fish (reference to the long snout) and ''cataractae'' means of the cataract (first taken from Niagara Falls). Longnose dace ...

and

mottled sculpin The mottled sculpin (''Cottus bairdii'') is a species of freshawater ray-finned fish belonging to the family Cottidae, the typical sculpins. This species has a wide but scattered North American distribution. As the name suggests, its coloration ...

. On August 7–8, 1863, a group of 28 prospectors embarked from the mouth of Blacktail Deer Creek to prospect for gold in the upper

Snake River The Snake River is a major river of the greater Pacific Northwest region in the United States. At long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, in turn, the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean. The Snake ...

Idaho Territory The Territory of Idaho was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 3, 1863, until July 3, 1890, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as Idaho. History 1860s The territory w ...

. The elected captain of the group was Walter W. de Lacy who later produced the first map (1865) of Montana Territory based in part from observations during this expedition.

Variant names

Blacktail Deer Creek has also been known as: Dry Blacktail Creek.

Notes

Rivers of Montana Rivers of Beaverhead County, Montana Tributaries of the Beaverhead River {{Montana-river-stub

Variant names

See also

Notes