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,Lil Eikhorn's Mining Camp Centennial Dream Didn't Prosperity Blooms in Entire content? copyrighted, Sept. 3, Come True Dwindles. Isolation. 19*0J»y the Dillon Tribune Exam iner. No portion of this Issue may be reproduced Story on D-3 Photo on D*4 Story on D-6 without the written permission of the ! editor. !

Gold! Bannock booms, then bursts - I Í

Editor’s note: The following article was prepared for a two of his deputies were arrested in Bannack and that 1978 publication of the Ghoet Town Association night were hanged just outside town on a gallows Plum­ S ociety. mer himself had erected in Ms capacity as sheriff. M any at foe members of foe gang in foe Bannack- By Bernice W. Dellass Virginia City area tried to flee to escape foe vengeance of The spring of 1882 found a thousand prospectors camped the VigUiantes, but foe Committee pursued them relen­ at Fort Lemhi on the Salmon River. Their destination was tlessly. Cyrus Skinner, who had operated a saloon -in the gold fields of Idaho but a combination of Ugh waters, Bannack that had been an unofficial headquarters for the the mountains and threats of attack by the Bannack In- Plummer gang, was arrested weeks later at a saloon be dans had the troupe stalled. When rumors of gold in had newly opened in Hell Gate, near present-day ;• fa Montana reached the camp several groups started north, Missoula. He was tried, convicted and hanged along with prospecting along the way ’and planning to travel the two others captured nearby. Within thirty days foe Multan Road into Idaho if they found no colors. Mortimer Vigilante Committee had wiped out foe entire band of H. Lott and his party from Colorado, experienced road agents. prospectors, first found gold in the Beaverhead area about But before, during, and after the activity by the road July 10,1862. They had .decided to try the east side of the agents and their eradication by the Vigilantes, the baste of mountains and found ptaeer gold on a tributary of the Big life in Bannack was mining. From the first pans swirled in ' Hole. They called their claim “Pioneer.” Grasshopper Creek through the building of rockers and Another group stalled at Fort Lemhi was headed by sluice boxes, the search for gold was the primary JofanWMte. They beaded into Montana looking for a pass preoccupation of the town. Many of the men drawn there that would lead them into Idaho. As they crossed by its lure became famous in the history of foe state. Grasshopper Creek they stopped to pan on July 28 and Among these were Samuel T. Hauser, later governor; made what became the first m ajor gold strike in Montana. N.P. Langford, postmaster, legislator and author; Conrad The group staked their claims and explored the area but Kohrs, stockman; James and Grenville Stuart, ranchers; . soon ran short of supplies. When they went to Deer Lodge and Wilbur F. Sanders, lawyer and Montana’s first U.S. to restock the word of their discovery spread. Other Senator. These men made their fortues and achieved minters from Fort Lemhi also passed nearby looking for fame in fields other than mining, however. routes to the Idaho strikes and stayed to prospect With Grasshopper Creek gold was very coarse and much of it weeks there were dozens at miners on foe Grasshopper consisted of nuggest worth from $ 1.00 to $10.00. Its mint and within months they numbered into the hundreds. value averaged .035 fine— more nearly pure than regular The miners organized the camp and named in Bannack U.S. coins with a standard of .000 fine. As the placer gold City for an Indian tribe that frequented foe region. Among was exhausted tunnel mining began; the hill behind ¿4 a mining town of foe same size that contained more power lifted the crude stamps weighing 300-400 pounds , desperadoes and lawless characters than did Bannack each so they could fall and crush tito racks. Later that \lhirtag foe wiirter rf laaM . WhOs s majority of fee. year qfocr quartrm ilfe were tawijgta isfrn m Ctolareffo. - citizens were of the sterling stock which has ever tar­ Thefirst steam-opera tod mill in Bannack began operation nished foe true American pioneers, there were great in the fall of 1064. Bannack was thus the scene of several ! num bers at foe most desperate class of roughs and road “firsts” in the mining . agents, who had been roving through the mountains, On May 36,1863, gold was discovered in Alder Gulch and exiles from their form er haunts in foe mining settlements, foe effect on Bannack was immediate. Heretofore un­ from which they had fled to avoid the penalties incurred successful prospectors joined the rush to the new field and by the commission of many a fearful crime. These men no many businesses of Bannack moved with them. The towns sooner heard of the rich mines of Bannack than they at of Virginia City, Nevada City and Bannack were close I once made for foe new settlement, where, among enough that there waa always a great deal of com­ strangers ignorant of their crimes, they would be secure munication and travel among them. from punishment, at least until their true character Meanwhile, events were occurring in Washington, D.C. should become known.” which would affect far-away Bannack. When gold was discovered Bannack waa a part Miawaula County in 4 ■ Although outlaws were plentiful in Bannack that first at winter, there were also many honest men and about thirty Washington Territory. On March 3,1163, Idaho Territory was carved out of portions, of Washington, Dakota and (Photo court«*/ of Btavortnid County Muiovm) of their wives, mothers and daughters who had settled in the camp. The families arranged their own en­ Nebraska Territories. Its capital was established in The Maggie A. Glbaon was the second electric gold two years in Bannack, the Gibson woo transferred to tertainments; the most popular function was foe supper- Lewiston, Idaho. President Lincoln appointed WilUam H. dredge constructed in Beaverhead Connty—the F. L. Alder Gulch. dance. Cabins were hastily thrown up and before winter Wallace to be governor of the new Territory and named Graves had been launched the year before in MM. After closed in all available teams were sent to Salt Lake City at Ohio as chief justice. Wallace in turn for food for the camp. Prices were high that winter for placed Edgerton in charge of the Third Judicial District, everything except beef. The Deer Lodge Valley had targe consisting of Missoula County and foe unorganized area herds of cattle and Conrad Kohrs brought them down, east of the Continental Divide. Edgerton renchedBannsck eventually opening his own butcher shop. Beef was in September, 1863, and because of an early snowfall that Stampeded horses, lost mule twenty-one cents a pound but flour was $1.00, coffee $1.24, closed the road to Lewiston stayed through the winter but sugar $1.50 and tobacco $4.00. did not conduct court. Justice was carried out by the In May, 1863, was elected sheriff and miners’ courts and the Vigilante Committee. appointed several fellow road agents as his deputies. The discovery of gold in Alder Gukh brought additional responsible for lead discovery Posing as a law officer but actually leading a band of thousands of people into what la now southwest Montana. outlaws, Plummer and his men robbed, murdered and The miners, in the absence of organised government, terrorized the area. By the end of the year foe outlawry established Beaverhead and Madison Counties, outlined Editor’s note: Lion Mountain and the Hecla district ground which to him appeared to be good silver ore. had become so flagrant that the law-abiding citizens mining districts, elected various officials and set up of­ w est o f M elrose em erged In 1873 a s the “ treasurehouse o f Further investigation revealed that the rock upon which began to organize against it. The law had been established fices for recording claims. Eight hundred miles of dif­ Beaverhead County. The Hecla Consolidated Mining Co. he was sitting was the outcropping of the ledge from which by and was enforced by Miners’ courts but these were ficult trail separated Virginia City and Lewiston. The I drove 20 miles of underground workings into Lion the ore fragments had come. He stopped hunting horses clumsy and slow. Residents of Bannack and Virginia City Mullan Road was blocked by snow all Winter. The settlers, Mountain and installed a 40-ton led amelter at Glendale, right there and hastened back to camp to tell Ms partners organized the Vigilante Committee in December, 1863, for finding that they could expect little taw from the west side of his find. It was a long way to the nearest assayer and it said to have 2,800 residents at its peak at the turn of the the purpose of capturing, trying and executing the thieves of the mountains, established a fund to send n man to century. was weeks before they got their sample to one and ob­ ! and murderers. On January 10,1864, Sheriff Plummer and (Continued on next page) ■ I And how did it all begin? A bunch of horses were tained a repent on it. When they did get it, the specimen stampeded by flies—anyway that’o the story recounted in showed high values, in lead, not silver. this 1937 Bozeman Courier report on the rise and fall of The men in the meantime had staked claim s and started that district. development work. They were mining in rough country in A bunch of horses that were stampeded by flies during which there were no wagon roads. The ore had to be the hot weather of 1872 was responsible for the discovery packed out. The four gave a contract for packing to Bill of the rich and famous lead mines which long operated in Hamilton who had a mule pack train. The ore was packed Beaverhead county, and a lost white mule was the cause from the mountain down the creek to a point where a of the mountain upon which some of the richest of the wagon road had been constructed. From there it was veins were located, being called Lion mountain. freighted to Corinne, Utah, the nearest railroad station, Hie mines' on Lion mountain, 11,000 feet Ugh, were and shipped to Denver, where it was smelted. They took eventually all operated by the Hecla Mining Co. of which out $10,000 worth o f ore in a short time. Henry Knippenberg was manager and one of the principal The news of the strike spread and immediately there owners. The camps which grew up at the foot of the hill was a rush of miners from Bannack and other sections were Glendale, Lion City and Trapper, now ghost towns, if and numerous other profitable properties were located. not entirely obliterated. The Hecla was for a long time the Among the first men cm the ground was Noah Armstrong, prominent as a mining man in the mountain region at that tS only exclusive lead mining company in Montana.. t; .It was in the summer of 1872 that Jerry Grotovant, Joe time, and later at Seattle. H6 had been engaged in mining McCreary, Charles DeLorimer and James Bryant left the development work about the old camp of Diamond, and Vipond mining district, where they were mining and had a complete sampling outfit. From a superficial prospecting, to make a hunting and prospecting trip into survey, he became .convinced that he was in a great lead the Beaverhead country and in the vicinity of Lion producing region. He obtained options on a number of mountain, then unnamed. The year before they had properties and went to Indianapolis, where he organized visited the head of Trapper creek and knew that the the Hecla company with Knippenberg as tbs head. country abounded in game for they had been most suc­ Thomas A. Hendricks as vice president and a couple of cessful in killing sheep, deer and mountain lions and in other capitalists named Alien and Atkins substantially trapping beaver. interested. Charles L. Dahler of Montana also par- . ticipated in the forming of the company. - A few miles from where the town of G. mdale was later located they were camped when they la ♦. their horses, In the fall of that year the Cleve mine just below the stampeded by flies, which were unusually bad. There was Hecla and a tali mile from Trapper, was discovered by only one of them in camp when the horses, grazing Hen Harvey and Doc Day. It was about that time that the nearby, tormented beyond endurance by the flies, broke incident oecured which resulted in the naming of Lion into a run, kicking and snorting, and headed for the brush m ountain. where they could at least rid themselves momentarily Jerry Grotovant, one of the party which made the first from the insects. discovery of ore on Lion Mountain, owned a white mule, When the others of the party returned, all started and it strayed away from their camp at Trapper. Joe banting the animals, E ^ g in different directions. Bryant Mc'Crearv went toward the mountain in search of it. When headed up the creek toward the mountain. He walked for a ho reached a cliff just above where the Hecla bunk house time, then eat down on a red: to rest. While sitting there later stood, he caw the mule near the edge of tire his attention was attracted to fragments of rod: on She