The first story holds that in 1869, a man named William Jones, while chasing his cows about a pasture, stumbled across some quartz with gold flecks dotting it. The site was so remote and so far above town, that he erroneously assumed no one else would ever find it. Contented, he continued on his way, gathering his stray cattle. When he returned later to the site of the gold lode, however, he found others working the claim. He tried to relate his tale of the discovery to the other miners, but they would have none of it, and ran him off.