The Black Hills Gold Rush occurred from 1874 to 1877 when the discovery of gold in the Black Hills region of South Dakota by a US Army expedition led by George Armstrong Custer led to an influx of white miners into Sioux sacred lands. In 1876, thousands of gold-seekers flocked to the boomtown of Deadwood, and "Treasure Coaches" were hired to transport high quantities of precious metals worth as much as $300,000 to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Outlaw "road agents" preyed on these coaches, holding them up in attempts to steal the gold, and occasionally leading to bloodshed. The influx of white settlers resulted in the Black Hills War with the Sioux tribes in 1876-1877, and, after the Gold Rush petered out in 1877, most of the miners travelled back down the Missouri River, most of them to their home state of Kansas.