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Ghost Towns of Montana
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There are numerous ghost towns through out Montana and the Rocky Mountain West and several books about them. In Montana the ghost towns fall into two categories: mining ghost towns of mountainous western Montana and prairie ghost towns of flatland eastern Montana. The reasons the towns failed and died are connected to the area economy and the local history and make for a very interesting and informative study. http://www.visitmt.com/tripplanner/wheretogo/ghosttown.htm
The main reasons why towns died include the failure of railroads and of homesteading, declines in community populations and growth, harsh winters and drought. The history of railroads in Montana began when the Utah Northern Railroad connected Silver Bow, Montana with Salt Lake City in 1882. Three trans-continental railroads were built in Montana between 1883 and 1909. The first east-west railroad was the Northern Pacific, a land grant railroad. The land grant of a 50 mile right-of-way through North Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Washington coupled with the Homestead Act was to encourage settlement of these western states. President Abraham Lincoln had started the homesteading legislation as a reward for military service in the Civil War. http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/homestead-act/
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The plan worked for a time because between 1910 and 1920 the population of Montana increased by 175,000. As late as the 1950s there were 9 railroads operating in Montana like the tiny Butte, Anaconda and Pacific RR but the failure of many of the railroads brought the downfall of the towns that grew up along the tracks. The Minnesota, St. Paul and Sioux Sainte Marie Railroad (The Soo Line) extended its tracks westward from Westby, North Dakota to Whitetail, Montana but that is where the tracks stopped forever. The Milwaukee Road expanded into South Dakota and eastern Montana with construction beginning in 1907 and the Golden Spike driven at Garrison, Montana in 1909. The railroad workers were Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and eastern Europeans. The Milwaukee Road (The Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific RR) was reputable and profitable until World War One and the Agricultural Depression. In the 120 miles between Miles City and the Musselshell River there were 12 towns that existed because of the tracks and all 12 have disappeared. The Milwaukee Road bankrupted in 1925, 1938 and finally in 1980. http://www.uprr.com/customers/shortline/lines/rrc.shtml http://www.mrha.com/
Some of the other major factors in ghost town formation were the winter of 1886-1887 when the cattle losses were as high as 90%, the Flu Epidemic of 1918 and the drought of 1919 (some children born in towns on the plains did not see rain until they were 4 or 5 years of age). Many men returning from World War One did not want to return to farming and then the economy got even worse in the 1930s. http://virus.stanford.edu/uda/
There were many other reasons as well. The town of Wheeler, Montana was a thriving, hell-raising town during the era of the Fort Peck Dam construction and McCone City was once the biggest town in McCone County during the dam building heyday. Towns that began as ethnic enclaves such as St. Philip (Polish) and Dagmar (Danish) did not survive as younger people chose to enter the American mainstream rather than stay and continue the community of their grandparents. Many prairie towns were populated by ethic groups such as Ukrainians, Germans, Scandinavians, Irish, English, Italians and Swiss.
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Old Meade Hotel in the ghost town of Bannack (reportedly haunted)
Two years after gold was discovered at nearby Grasshopper Creek in 1862 Bannock, Montana became the state's first territorial capital. Gold was found elsewhere though and the prospectors that arrived by droves began to leave town in a steady trickle completely emptying the town by the 1930s and completely empty by World War II. Today Bannock is a true ghost town with more than 50 well preserved buildings and may be one of the best preserved ghost towns in the USA. Bannock is a Montana State Park as are also the mining ghost towns of Elkhorn and Granite. http://www.bannack.org/ http://fwp.mt.gov/lands/site_281892.aspx http://fwp.mt.gov/lands/site_280883.aspx
Ghost town seekers in the Billings area can explore a ghost town like Wagner, Montana on the rail line south of U.S. Highway 2 and 10 miles west of Malta, Montana. On 3 July 1901, Kid Curry and Butch Cassidy robbed the Great Northern Railroad Flyer at Exeter Creek, 5 miles west of Malta. Kid Curry boarded the train when it stopped for water in Malta and put a gun in the engineer's back, ordering him to stop the train outside of town. The robbers took over $40,000 in cash and waded across a ford of the Milk River to their horses, rode south and escaped. Wagner was the first town to hear the news of the robbery. Harvey Logan (Kid Curry) was never seen in that part of Montana again. He is believed to have died a very old man in Oregon many years later. http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-10832-Billings-Sightseeing-Examiner~y2009m5d12-The-Outlaw-Trail
Mondak, Montana is another true ghost town with only one building remaining, a falling down brick jailhouse. The same jailhouse that a mob took J.C. Collins from and lynched him for killing the newly elected sheriff and a deputy. Mondak is on the Montana/North Dakota border and at one time was the county seat of Sheridan County and then Roosevelt County and boasted 12 bars at its peak. Mondak is best reached by the backroad from Bainville, Montana (County Road 327) and sits across the road from the entrance road to Fort Union. http://www.nps.gov/fous/index.htm
Vandalia, Montana came into existence in 1904 when a post office and store were built there. Dan McKay had a brickyard in Vandalia that supplied the bricks for the Valley County Courthouse and other buildings in Glasgow. The remains of Vandalia and Tampico, Montana are just two ghosts towns 12 miles northwest of Glasgow on the tracks. Saugus is a ghost town 12 miles west of Terry, Montana where Custer Creek meets the Yellowstone River. In June 1938 The Olympian, the Milwaukee Road's elite passenger service train, crashed into Custer Creek when the bridge washed out during a flash flood. 47 people died and 65 were injured. http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-10832-Billings-Sightseeing-Examiner~y2009m8d10-Fairview http://www.travelmt.com/mt-cities-Bainville.html
Some towns that are included in books about ghost towns are in appearance actually thriving places but one that is included, Four Buttes, may qualify at least as a borderline ghost town. James A. Shipstead, son of Ole and Minnie Shipstead, still farmed six miles southwest of Four Buttes in 1977. James A. and Barbee (Robinson) Shipstead had a son, Steven Kirk Shipstead, who married Mary Ann Bruhn and they had two daughters, Jennifer and Brandee. In 1977, Steven Kirk still farmed with his father in Four Buttes and later the family moved into town so the children could attend school in Scobey. Driving through the town of Four Buttes today one sees a boarded up saloon and store building and a few farms so it may qualify as a ghost town. http://www.examiner.com/x-10832-Billings-Sightseeing-Examiner~y2009m5d14-Driving-to-Glasgow-Part-2 http://www.midrivers.com/~fairview/history.html
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Abandoned USAF radar station in northern Montana
The new type of ghost towns now are the closed military installations. 3 miles west of Opheim, Montana a USAF radar station built in 1954 was abandoned in 1979. Another radar base north of Havre was abandoned in 1994. There is a ghost radar station between Maiden and Fort Maginnis and another west of Miles City of which no trace remains. http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/mt/mt.html http://www.ultimatemontana.com/sectionpages/Section9/history/fortmaginnis.html http://www.mtlinks.com/Regions/Russell_Country/Fergus_County/Fort%20Maginnis/fortmaginnis.html
Gregan Wortmann
If you are looking for haunted houses or places to visit this Halloween there have been a few mentioned in my blogs: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-10832-Billings-Sightseeing-Examiner~y2009m5d22-Ghosts-of-Billings http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-10832-Billings-Sightseeing-Examiner~y2009m6d10-Ghosts-of-Montana http://www.examiner.com/x-10832-Billings-Sightseeing-Examiner~y2009m6d15-More-Ghosts-of-Montana http://www.examiner.com/x-10832-Billings-Sightseeing-Examiner~y2009m6d15-Still-More-Ghosts-of-Montana
Montana Mining Ghost Towns by Barbara Fifer; Farcountry Press, Helena (2002); ISBN: 1-56037-195-1.
Ghost Towns of the Montana Prairie by Don Baker; Fred Pruett Books, Boulder, CO (1997); ISBN: 0-87108-050-8.
Daniels County History by the Daniels County Bicentennial Committee; Scobey, Montana (1977).
American Cowboy magazine; October/November 2009, page 64.
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