Gold! Bannock Booms, Then Bursts - I Í
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SECTION il/i, L 3j O] LJj ,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 Montana 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 <r t foe hardworking miners who were attracted to the Grasshopper Creek was honeycombed. Quartz gold was f t . Grasshopper were liberal numbers of gamblers, outlaws found in the Dakota load and to refine it the first stamp and saloon-keepers. The names of some soon became mill in Montana was constructed. It was begun in the notorious. Thomas Dimsdato, author of Vigilante Days w inter o f 1862 and finished the follow in g sp rin g. T o build tt ' and Ways, states that, ‘Ttisprobablethatfocreneverwaa wagon wires were beat into shape around poles; watgr> 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 history of Montana. 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 Sidney Edgerton 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, Henry Plummer 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.