Montana Ghost Towns

By definition, a ghost town is a once thriving town with few living inhabitants. Montana has many towns that fit this description, most of them old mining towns who died out when the gold and silver played out or other diggings promised richer returns. There are people, usually those who have little interest in history, think that if you have seen one ghost town you’ve them all, but Montana’s ghost towns are diverse and each has it’s unique story to tell.

Bannack and Virginia City are the best known of Montana’s ghost towns, probably because they are well preserved, protected and easily accessible to everyone. Their histories are also entwined, making them almost sister ghost towns. Bannack is a true ghost town, with no inhabitants except the caretakers who work for the state of Montana. Virginia City is very much alive, being the county seat of Madison County, but it too, is a real ghost town, with buildings that have been there since before Montana became a territory, and with a population of about 130, one could still say there are few inhabitants.

Scattered across the state are other fine examples of ghost towns, not all as accessible as Bannack and Virginia City but worth the effort to visit.
Elkhorn, (the turnoff is between Boulder and Whitehall) flourished during the 1880’s and 1890’s with nearly 2500 citizens.
Pony, near Harrison, is another example of a ghost town that is still living but with remnants of an earlier time.
Marysville, about 30 miles north of Helena, was also a thriving cold camp during the last two decades of the nineteenth century.
Jardine sits in the Mountains above Gardiner, has seen more than one gold rush, but it lies quiet again.There are many other ghost towns, lesser known or not as easily accessible; Castle, Kendall, Landusky, Zortman, Giltedge, Glendale, Comet, Radarsburg, to name a few, that have a tie to the mining history of Montana.

Marysville Meat Market 1886

To explore the histories of these and other Montana ghost towns I recommend these books: Montana Ghost Towns by Donald C. Miller or Montana Mining Ghost Towns, by Barbara Fifer
　
　
To do a little ghost town surfing on the web you can visit:
http://ghosttown.montana.com/
http://www.visitmt.com/experiences/history/ghost_towns/