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 hey chose to call it Grasshopper Creek because of its dense insect population. As was customary, the party panned the gravel along the creek banks. They found gold in sizable quantities.
The prospectors filed one of the first gold claims in what was then Idaho (Dakotah) Territory, which would later become Montana. News of the strike traveled fast. By October, over four hundred miners were panning for gold along Grasshopper. By the next spring, three thousand hardy souls had found their way there to seek their fortunes. The town they formed was named for the Bannock Indians, relatives of the Shoshones who were given that name because they enjoyed camas-root cakes cooked over an open fire: The Scottish word for a similar delicacy is bannock. When a post office was applied for in 1863, someone in Washington misspelled the town's name, changing it to Bannack. The original town consisted of tents and shanties; the roads in and out of town were home to highway robbers. To keep the peace, a sheriff, Henry Plummer, was chosen. What was not known until later was that Plummer was a criminal and leader of the largest gang of Bannack desperadoes! His contacts as sheriff gave him knowledge of when people were transporting their gold, which he would pass on to his gang. Violent holdups were commonplace; about a hundred men were murdered during 1863. Finally tiring of the robberies and killings, a group of vigilantes hunted down the suspected highwaymen and hung them, one by one. One of the crooks betrayed the fact that Plummer was the leader of the most notorious gang, a group ironically called the Innocents! In January 1864, Plummer was seized in the middle of the night, put in the jailhouse he had built, and hung the next evening. In all, twenty-four robbers were hung, and the crime wave of murders and robberies halted. Keeping a ghost town alive  n 1864 Montana became a territory, with Bannack as its first capital. By then, gold was getting harder to find. In May 1863 a group of miners discovered gold in Alder Gulch, about eighty miles to the east. When they took their gold to Bannack to buy supplies word soon leaked out, though they swore their find to secrecy. The rush was on to Alder Gulch. By the fall of 1864, nearly ten thousand people crowded along its hillsides, living in tents, shacks, lean-tos, and eventually sturdier housing. Settlements were so numerous and scattered that people called the area the "fourteen-mile city."
By 1866, Virginia City in Alder Gulch was large enough to snatch the title of territorial capital from Bannack. It remained there until 1877,
The term ghost town is somewhat of a misnomer. A ghost town is simply a place that has been abandoned. Such sites can be found throughout the Rocky Mountain West. They are the remains of villages and towns where pioneers discovered gold, silver, copper, or other precious metal. Unless they were on a main wagon trail or railroad line, most have long crumbled into ruins; maybe only a wall or a foundation in the ground remains. Bannack survives due to the good graces of the Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks Commission and the Bannack Association. A park ranger named Tom Lowe lives here year round and keeps the town in a state of arrested disrepair. "During the winter, there are three of us here," Lowe says, "with one person specifically assigned to maintain the property. During the summer, there are seven of us here. Others come, often in period costumes, to help out. The busiest time of the year are Bannack Days, which occur on the third weekend in July. They were established in 1976 and have grown over the years. Last year we had over three thousand visitors, many in western apparel." Lowe explains that about sixty-five buildings are presently open to the public. Most are made of logs, but a few are brick. In its heyday in 1863, Bannack boasted of two to three hundred buildings. Most of those on the outskirts of town were destroyed in dredging operations in the late 1800s. "You have to understand," Lowe says, "that miners just didn't come here in 1862 and 1863 and then disappear when gold was discovered--in May 1863--in Alder Gulch, the present-day Virginia City. There were periods of boom and bust. But you must also remember that miners would get up and go to a new site on the first notice of a new gold strike. The first to arrive usually became the wealthiest." Most of the buildings are left unlocked, Lowe comments. Visitors can take self-guided tours--there is a booklet available with tour information. "But I greatly enjoy taking visitors around and explaining things about each building," he says. "Those buildings that were not originally wired for electricity we keep that way, except each building does have a fire alarm. We use original materials as much as possible. The main things that need repair and replacement are the roofs and windows. The roofs will last about twenty years. We also check the floors, stairs, and doors to make sure our visitors are safe when they visit. And even today people can pan for gold in the horse troughs in town." Relics of a gold town he history of Bannack is as wild and wooly as any Old West movie. Looking down the deserted street, one half-expects to see a John Wayne or Gary Cooper moseying through town, not looking for trouble but possibly finding it. Off Main Street is probably the most curious building in town; the local jail. It is a simple structure, with barred windows and a sod roof. Because prisoners could punch through the roof and escape, metal rings were fixed in the floor and prisoners were chained to them. Incarceration was no joke. Farther up the gulch was the gallows, the final destination for many of the jail's temporary residents.
A short way down the street, across from the visitors center, is a small hut. This is all that remains of the original "governor's mansion," where the first governor of the Montana Territory, Sidney Edgerton, lived with his wife and four children. Down the street is the combination Masonic Lodge and schoolhouse, complete with desks and blackboards. Almost directly across the street is the most impressive structure in Bannack, the Hotel Meade. One of the few brick buildings, it was put up in 1875 as the
The courthouse played a role in the most exciting event in Bannack's history. In August 1877 the town had a major Indian scare. Chief Joseph and the Nez PercÄ Indians had just defeated an army detachment under General Gibbon at Big Hole, about one hundred miles to the west. Word reached Bannack that the Indians were on a rampage and headed straight for town. Lookouts were posted in the hills. Women and children gathered in the courthouse for safety's sake. There are stories of children even being hidden in safes. The scare passed, with only four settlers killed far outside of town. At that time there was no church in Bannack. A circuit rider, a Methodist preacher named William Van Ordsdel, used the opportunity of the Nez PercÄ scare to convince the townspeople to build a church as thanks for God's deliverance. The church is still standing and is used for weddings with a pioneer touch. Next to Hotel Meade is Skinner's Saloon, which was constructed across the creek in Yankee Flats in 1862 but moved to its present position in 1863. Although the only item remaining in the saloon is the bar, there are stories of wild drunken brawls when Bannack was young. The saloon's original owner, Cyrus Skinner, was eventually hanged by vigilantes because it was the favorite watering hole for Plummer's gang. The empty lot next to Skinner's Saloon was once the Goodrich Hotel, thought to be the first commercial hotel in Montana. In the 1940s the front of the building was moved to Virginia City, where it was rebuilt as the Fairweather Inn. Ghost-town ghosts  owe first came to Bannack in 1997 as a summer intern studying geology, mining, and history in the School of Forestry at the University of Montana. He returned to work full time in 2000 and lives with his wife in a newer property at the far end of
"Have you ever had any unusual experiences in the town?" I ask. "I haven't experienced anything myself," the ranger laughs, "but I've been told a few stories. Especially about the Hotel Meade. People say they've encountered cold spots, and the apparition of a young girl has been seen there. Every year we hear reports from folks who claim to have seen or heard something in the upstairs of the hotel that they couldn't explain. And some folk claim to have heard children crying in what was once the town hospital. Frequently, these reports come from children with no prior knowledge of any ghost stories." Lowe then recounts a story that he says was first told by Lee Graves, a former Bannack resident and the son of early pioneers. "Bertie Mathews grew up in Bannack. Her best friend was a girl named Dorothy Dunn. One summer day, Bertie and Dorothy were swimming in a dredge pond along the creek, and somehow Dorothy drowned. "When Bertie was in her midteens, she was in the second story of the Hotel Meade, where her mother worked as the manager. She saw an apparition of her dear departed friend Dorothy, wearing a long blue dress. This happened about a hundred years ago. "In August 1993, the Bryson family arrived at Bannack on a hot midafternoon. The family had never been to Bannack before and took their time to look around. They got to the Hotel Meade and went inside. They looked around the first floor and then headed upstairs. "The mother, Cookie, and oldest daughter Emma went back downstairs and left her husband, Steve, and youngest daughter Abbey, who was three at the time, upstairs in the farthest room back. There was no one else in the hotel except them. "Suddenly, there was a loud bang. Steve and Abbey turned around to see that a sawhorse that had been standing in the middle of the room had fallen down. Neither of them could have knocked it over. Steve even asked Abbey if she had knocked it over. She just made an odd gesture that Steve says she had never made and has never made again. "In June 1997, the family came back to Bannack. Only Abbey and Steve went into the hotel this time. They were in one of the larger inside rooms upstairs. It was cold and dark, just the opposite of the previous experience. They stood there for a while looking around, then Abbey started moving toward one wall. She stood there for a long time just staring. Steve started to leave and thought that Abbey was following. But when he got halfway down the stairs, he noticed that she wasn't there. He went back to the room and saw her, standing in the dark, staring at nothing. Steve also says that he practically had to drag her out because she said that she was talking, or listening (he can't recall which), to a little girl and she didn't want to leave. "Later Abbey recalled that she saw Dorothy and that Dorothy had an expression on her face that looked like she was worried and angry. Abbey also said that Dorothy tried to talk to her, that she could see her mouth moving but no sound came out. Abbey didn't seem upset, although Steve was a bit unnerved." Walk softly through history  ontana's Beaverhead County is about the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. It has a total population of just eight thousand. About half live in
I visited Bannack in the fall. Snow was already on the ground, and it was bitterly cold. It seemed appropriate. Bannack is, as its guidebook says, "a fragile piece of our heritage ... like a moment frozen in time." The town is preserved, not restored; protected, not exploited. Its buildings stand empty and windswept. The people who do live here love their work, and want visitors to love and respect the town. They seek to keep an atmosphere of the past with a sense of remote isolation and abandonment. Sadly, vandalism does sometimes occur, and the ravages of bad weather take their toll. The Bannack Association tries to limit the number of visitors and activities to a nonthreatening, sustainable level and directs all the funds it can raise into restoration efforts and upkeep. "You can be anyone you want to be in Bannack," I'm told, "but do it with care. We are all guests here. Hopefully, we will pass it on undisturbed to the next generation." 
For More Information Montana Tourism: www.visitmt.com www.montanacyberzine.com Montana's Gold West Country (Southwestern Montana): www.goldwest.visitmt.com Montana Ghost Town Preservation Society P.O. Box 1861, Bozeman, MT 59771 Bannack State Park: www.bannack.org Ghost towns: www.ghosttowngallery.com Nevada City and Virginia City: www.virginiacitychamber.com William S. Connery is an editor with the Current Issues section of The World & I. |
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