Elkhorn - Montana's Most Iconic Ghost Town

The Foreign Mountains of central Montana, about an hour south of Helena and hidden behind the small

town

of Boulder, are one of the

most

visited

ghost

town

s in the state. In fact, the city is so popular that the population has started growing from scratch about 30 years ago. At about a dozen now it was one of the

most

cosmopolitan civil mining and refining boomtowns in the territory, although it had plenty of excitement, let's delve into the history of the

ghost

town of Elkhorn Montana. Silver was the lure that brought hundreds of thousands of people to the Rocky Mountains of the northern United States in the 19th century, the mountains were rich in silver and the price of silver was skyrocketing as the government of The United States purchased large quantities of silver per month to back its currency and subsidize the value of silver along the way a Swiss American named Peter Weiss was prospecting in the Elkhorn Mountains and found a rich vein in 1870.

He claimed his claim and got to work. However, Peter was old and lonely and did not have the resources or strength to truly expand his claim. and he died two years later, now Peter's death is something of a mystery, he appears to have been poisoned by a prospective associate of his, a man named Simmons. Peter died suddenly and without warning and when the Witnesses went to spread the word they discovered that Simmons somehow already knew. of his death and he had already claimed all of Peter's valuables. Peter was buried in a hasty grave dug by Simmons within the city limits.

After his death, the claim was purchased by a Norwegian man named Anton Holter, who immediately plotted a small town around his claim and named In Elkhorn, after from the mountain range that protected it, in 1875 the mine was finally developed and first called The Halter Mine by Holter and at the same time the town began to take shape. The real boom came in 1878, when the Bland Allison Act was passed, which increased the government's monthly demand for silver, Mind plunged hundreds of feet underground, producing thirty thousand dollars worth of silver per month in the 1970s. 1870, money that today is equivalent to almost nine hundred thousand dollars.

Elkhorn's first school was built on Main Street before the decade was out and is one of the oldest buildings still on the overseas site, the Elkhorn Hotel were built around the same time on the corner of South Street and Main, pretty much the exact spot I parked my rental car when I visited Elkhorn. This was torn down around 1895 during the city's heyday. make way for more modern buildings at the time when Elkhorn not only produced silver but also had a bustling gold, lead and lumber industry. However, what made Elkhorn unique among mining towns was the number of miners who brought their rather large families, which created an entire domestic community and raised the standards for how the town conducted itself, exporting silver, gold , wood and lead from the city and the demand for fines.

Imports for families and miners led the Northern Pacific Railroad to build its own branch line into the city as the railroad approached. The city in 1889 the population grew with railroad workers and their families, in addition to miners. Completing the railroad was no easy task, 22 miles of track were needed to connect Elkhorn to the rest of the railroad and the track had to climb a four percent grade. up to 6,670 feet in elevation, the highest on the entire Northern Pacific Railroad. When the railroad was completed, the town's population of twenty-five hundred reached its peak with the mine now approaching a thousand feet deep.

Mark that the quality of the silver being produced began to decline. and the mining rights were sold to British interests that year. Darkness fell on the city of Elkhorn. The town cemetery sits high in the hills above the town and tells the story of the tragedy of 1889. Diphtheria had persisted in the town since 1884, but it spread to children through school in the spring of 1889 and spread uncontrollably during the rest of the year. Schooling was temporarily suspended, but it did little to slow the spread of the disease. It was said that in one week seven people from the same family were buried first the six children and then their mother, which is why many tombstones in the city cemetery read the name of a child who died in 1889.

Another Lesser-known tragedy is marked in Elkhorn Cemetery. This is the grave of Harry Walton, eight years old, he was not a victim. from the diphtheria epidemic, but from a mishap that struck Elkhorn while the city was already mourning the outbreak. Harry and his older friend, Alden Nelson, were exploring the hills a mile south of Elkhorn when they found discarded explosives that we will never know exactly. what happened but the explosives exploded killing the two children instantly. Albin was 12 years old and shares a grave with his friend Harry. The 1880s in Elkhorn ended on a sad note and a decline in population from both diphtheria and the sale of the mine, but the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 increased federal demand for silver once again and They invested resources in Elkhorn.

The mine flourished again, but Elkhorn's population had grown into a warm, close-knit community of only about 600 residents compared to 2,500. A few years earlier, for those who stayed, the quality of life would improve significantly in the town, the town had its own marching band, there were horse races and baseball games, traveling shows and boxing matches, if you can think about it, Elkhorn had it if you walked around. On Main Street in 1893 there were every signs that Elkhorn was a prosperous family community and that the town's residents could afford the occasional luxury. On the first bends of the southwest, there were women's boarding houses that still stand today, in part, passing one of the town's three functional schools and two of the blacksmiths, we first came to the Elkhorn Trading Company, a popular blacksmith shop. equipment and general supplies next to the two-lane bowling alley that no longer exists, then came Hoffman's Barber Shop, the only place in town someone could take a bath during the entire 1880s, and of course this cabin is built on site and it is not the actual barbershop.

In fact, we can see exactly what this building looked like because in 1941 the furniture and everything was moved to Nevada City. Montana, where it is still preserved today next to Ford's candy and confectionery store, no doubt popular with children and then a jewelry store popular with ladies and finally Henry J Schreiner's general store. Crossing a small alley we arrive at the Metropolitan Hotel. Elegant accommodation for visitors to Alcorn was made up of two buildings, one was the hotel office and restaurants and the other building was the hotel rooms. A good number of door frames that collapsed falling on their side but still holding their shape behind me is the Metropolitan.

Hotel Now there were many hotels in Elkhorn, but this was the last one standing. It could accommodate 30 to 40 people at a time in its various rooms and there is a historical map there, a small information board that talks about the different sites and lists it as Still Standing, which means that unfortunately this is a very collapse. Recent down the road from the Metropolitan Hotel. There's a collapsed building there with very little information about it, but then there's another here and another there. This would have been a lounge right here. The right shoulder and the doctor's office over my left shoulder were also listed where they are still standing, meaning these are also very recent collapses.

I don't know how old that information board is, it could be as old as the 90's so they could have collapsed. At any point in the last 20 years, the foreignness was slowly diminishing, the sense of community was growing directly across the street from the candy store. Jeweler and barber Gillian Hall Still standing today, this is the lower floor of Gillian Hall, one of the two most

iconic

. buildings here in Elkhorn, this first floor would have been a hall or store, but more likely it was a parlor and the second floor above us was a dance hall.

Thanks, they redecorated a lot, so that's the oldest style here to the newest and it's not particularly new, it's just the newest, it probably would have been a trap door leading to the basement. Now, interestingly, you will notice that there are no stairs inside the building to climb the stairs, it would have been a separate business, possibly from the same owner, but completely Access to the facilities other than the second floor was on a staircase on the outside, so What can you imagine if this were a lounge, being here late at night having a drink, eating with music and hearing it muffled through the ceiling and feet dancing. the floor I'm sure would have been wonderful, unfortunately there is no way we can get up to the second floor, the outside staircase is completely gone but you can see the remains of where it once stood.

Gillian Hall fulfilled the needs of the city for a time. until it was decided that a larger hall would be required as a general meeting room immediately adjacent to Gillian Hall to the west. It was a private home that was purchased in 1893 and a new two-story town meeting building was built in its place. It would be called the Fellowship Hall, as the city's many lodges and fraternities would share the Meeting Room on the second floor, within these wooden walls. No doubt local logging groups such as the Freemasons, Knights of Pythius and Odd Fellows met secretly at the front of the Upper Hall.

The floor was a maze of closets and room alcoves and both floors featured what looks like a small window for a ticket agent, a door to the terrace, the first floor had a stage used for theater concerts and all the rest. presentation purposes, including city school. graduation ceremonies there would have been a door here with a glass window above the outside there would have been doors in all of these door frames these were not open hallways and we would have had two large doors next to each other on that interesting shelf that opens there above I can clearly see the burn marks everywhere where there was a light on the ceiling.

The Fellowship Hall was dedicated on July 4, 1893 with the Elkhorn brass band playing the ceremony. The Fellowship Hall became the heart of the community and the Gillian Hall next door was left empty. Life was good in Elkhorn. but later that same year, the price of silver plummeted with the repeal of the Silver Purchase Act and the mines began to shrink with the closing of the Elkhorn Mine in 1900, by then 8,902,000 ounces of silver , eight thousand five hundred ounces of gold and 4 million pounds of lead had been mined, other smaller mines were active and kept some townspeople employed, but in 1912 a devastating fire occurred that devastated much of the Main Street business district. , the jewelry store, the candy store and several other buildings were destroyed, including the only one in the city. church, the town did not have the strength to recover from this fire, so the mines closed for a few years and most of the remaining population was evacuated.

In its heyday, the Northern Pacific Railroad had three trains a week arriving in Elkhorn, but as the city rejected rail service ended around 1914. One resident said that when the train whistle finally died down, the end of an era was near. . The tracks and most of the depot buildings were destroyed in 1931 and the Northern Pacific left behind its 48,000 gallons. Water Tower – This would have been demolished as well, but the city was actually using it as its main water source, as a result the tower would eventually become the oldest surviving North Pacific water tower in the region in the 2010s at a cost of thirty thousand dollars.

The tower was restored by preservationists and railroad historians. Another railroad-related site west of town, farther from the canyon, is this Mill site. The railway bed is still visible and would run along the top of this Mill ore dump and will be processed. here it even seems that this section of wood is widened to make a switch, so that a locomotive coming here can exit through there or enter the mill to dump the foreign ore. The post office closed in 1924 and the town was not even counted in the 1930s. By then, the Elkhorn census was virtually abandoned.

Elkhorn Cemetery not only marks the tragedies of 1899, but is also the resting place of people who experienced their happiest memories and spent most of their lives in this city. Fred Bell was born in Muscadab in Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1856 and moved to Elkhorn in 1886, in the earlydays of the town, he met a lady called Francis here and they married in 1896, they had children, grew up here and even as the town declined Mr. and Mrs. Bell refused to leave, Francis died in 1911 taking their place at Elkhorn Cemetery Fred was one of the last full-time residents of Elkhorn and died in 1938 at his son's home in nearby Boulder.

His services were held at the fellowship hall in Elkhorn before the procession took him through the South Hills to the cemetery. Fred is buried with Francis overlooking the once prosperous town where they once raised a family. There is a stone in the cemetery for Peter Weiss, the founder of the city, but this is not where his body is; In reality, the body is likely buried under the floorboards of one of the houses along Elkhorn's main street buried there by his partner, Mr. Simmons, the mine is filled with piles of tailings mixed with Broken timbers and bent metal, the post office site has been dismantled but remains an imposing view towards the mine at the rear. foreign city corner quite a few buildings collapsed here so many buildings all collapsed Evans and Howe something foreign from St Louis this building was once a private residence probably owned by one of the city butchers as it is built in the back part of the lot that once housed a butcher shop, was built sometime before 1892.

No, I'm moving my butt across Second Street and Alleyway, behind the two main halls and behind the butcher's house, too There is this interesting collapsed log cabin, it was built before 1892 and was intended to have an unapproachable foreign seller. As the years went by, the fraternity and Gillian Halls fell into disrepair, as these photos from the 1960s show, but Somehow they remain firm against the harsh elements. They were preserved as Montana's smallest state park in 1980 and are still protected. The state has been working to restore these buildings and preserve them and they were opened to visitors in 2001.

The grandson of one of the first Elkhorns. Residents returned to Elkhorn full time restoring their family's cabin and protecting the place from any ill-intentioned visitors since other residents also moved in full time, some seasons, this dog was happy to see us and welcomed us to his neighborhood hello, I know, hello, yeah, okay, it was nice meeting you today. Elkhorn has a population of about a dozen. You'll notice that many of the old buildings are lived in as private residences, but there are signs hanging on them so you know what their first uses were. It's not a difficult ghost town to visit, it's about a half-hour drive on maintained roads from the nearby town of Boulder, mostly following the old Northern Pacific Railroad to Elkhorn.

If you visit Alcorn, please be respectful of the history of the site, the remains that still stand, and the current residents of the town. Special thanks to my Patreon supporters, especially Marlo Perez Kelly black Kaiser Wilhelm II Trent Gregor Zach Richards Donald Anderson Cody Henricks Joan Haynes Sean Kimball Rob M Amos Mayhew Corey Andrews Nicholas masella zolt Wagner Colt tanik Sophie baber exotic exploring yaakov Martin Henson Stephen schwankert Rob Oliver chin Chen jahala and John miloski