Bertrand (steamboat)  The Bertrand was a steamboat which sank on April 1, 1865, while carrying cargo up the Missouri River to Virginia City, Montana Territory, after hitting a snag in the river north of Omaha, Nebraska. Half of its cargo was recovered during an excavation in 1968, more than 100 years later. Today, the artifacts are displayed in a museum at the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge near Missouri Valley, Iowa. The display makes up the largest intact collection of Civil War-era artifacts in the United States, and are an invaluable time capsule of everyday life during that period. The "Bertrand" was launched in Wheeling, West Virginia in 1864. It measured long, with a beam of ; its total burden was reported as 251 tons. A shallow-draft vessel, it drew only when light, and perhaps no more than twice that when loaded. Sources differ regarding the ownership of the "Bertrand", but it probably belonged to the Montana and Idaho Transportation Line, which was based in St. Louis, Missouri. The firm was owned in part by John J. Roe of St. Louis. The "Bertrand" was part of an extensive water-based regional trading system that developed during the mid to late 19th century. Only since 1859 had steamboats been traveling up the Missouri River to Fort Benton, Montana Territory. When gold was found at the Alder Gulch claim in Montana in 1863, streams of hopeful prospectors migrated to the area from other states, creating one of the most prosperous frontier cities, Virginia City. Within a year of the find, more than 35,000 people were living within a 10-mile radius of the discovery site. J.J. Roe and his partners entered the shipping business in 1864, creating a line to ship goods up the Missouri River to the frontier of the Montana Territory. J.J. Roe & Co. also invested in the Diamond R Transportation Co., which established a system of ox trains to bring goods to more remote locations some hundreds of miles from the river. Prospectors and settlers created the demand for the goods that the steamboats were able to bring up the Missouri. By 1867, there were 113 different businesses registered in Virginia City to provide goods and services. Soon, the Alder Gulch Gold Camp grew into one of the largest frontier gold mining towns. It would prove one of the largest gold payoffs from the Rocky Mountains. The Missouri River was a major transportation route that sustained these Montana gold mines and the budding cities.