Historic Hangman's Gold #4

Bannack holds a number of firsts in Montana history. It was the site of the first major gold discovery in the Montana Territory; it was the first territorial capital; it was the first county seat of Beaverhead County; it saw the first lode mining in Montana Territory and it was the location of the first successful dredging operation in the United States. Mining began in 1862 and continues sporadically on a minor scale today. The main periods of mining in the Bannack area were the early placer, hydraulic and lode activity (1862 to 1875) and the dredging of Grasshopper Creek (1895 to 1902).

The mining district is located at the southern end of the Pioneer Mountain Range. The placer workings and adjacent lode claims run for about five miles on both sides of Grasshopper Creek in an area that includes the town of Bannack (Figure 1). Most of the lode mines were concentrated in the area just a mile below Bannack. The creek runs through a narrow canyon with hills rising steeply on both sides of the creek. The hills are, for the most part, barren of trees although the upper ridges have forested areas. The general terrain throughout the area is rugged and mountainous with numerous eroded gulches and drainages. The elevation of the area ranges from 5800 ft along the creek bottom to over 7000 ft on the mountain peaks.

The geology of the Bannack district is described by Winchell (1914) as consisting of Paleozoic limestone intruded by a small stock of granodiorite. Immediately above this limestone layer are a few remnants of the Quadrant quartzite. The principal granodiorite intrusion is nearly circular and is on the south side of Grasshopper Creek south of the town of Bannack. A minor granodiorite intrusion is found on the north side of the creek just west of Bannack. Tertiary deposits, west of Bannack, extend over the surface for a number of miles both to the north and south. The ores found in the Bannack mining district are usually found in contact deposits but some minor ore bodies are in fissures. The ores have been valuable almost solely for their gold content, but they also contain some silver, lead and copper. The ore bodies are generally found along the contact between limestone and granodiorite, or in stringers or small fissures. Large amounts of garnet, with some epidote, are also found along the contact.

Fifty-six years before the Bannack gold rush, Grasshopper Creek was traversed by members of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Lewis and Clark had split up near the mouth of Lolo Creek and Lewis headed north while Clark descended the east fork of the Bitterroot River, crossed the divide at Gibbon Pass on July 6, 1806 and headed south along a route currently followed by the road from Wisdom to Jackson. The party then traveled down Grasshopper Creek (which they named "Willard's Creek"). They skirted just west of the future Bannack townsite until they reached Horse Prairie Creek. Clark and his men turned east down Horse Prairie Creek to Two Forks [now under the waters of the Clark Canyon Reservoir] where they retrieved a cache and canoes they had left there the year before. From Two Forks they floated down the Beaverhead and Jefferson rivers and out of the region leaving no tangible evidence of their passage except for the account in their journals (Coues 1965).

In the summer of 1862 a party of Colorado men, led by Judge Mortimer H. Lott, made a small strike around July 10th near the head of the Big Hole River. There was a short-lived rush to the area but the strike did not amount to much and one party of Colorado men decided to head back to Deer Lodge. While on their way they stopped to pan the small creek Lewis and Clark had named Willard Creek. On July 28, 1862, John White and William Eades found colors and within a short time they realized they had made a major strike. Since they were unaware that Lewis and Clark had already named the creek, they called it Grasshopper Creek because of the profusion of the insects along the banks. A mining camp quickly sprang up and was named Bannack after the local Indian tribe. By the time winter set in, the rough sprawling camp of Bannack had grown to some 400 persons (Cushman 1973).

Bannack's placer mining period was brief, violent, rich in gold and the source of an equally rich lode of historical legends. More than a ton of gold was taken from the Grasshopper diggings during the first season. Not only were the placer bars easily worked and incredibly rich, they produced some of the purest gold found anywhere in the world. On the average, Bannack gold assayed at 990 fine (99% pure) and in a few cases it went as high as 999 fine - essentially a chemically pure state (Cushman 1973).

By the summer of 1863 the camp had a population of from 3000 to 5000 miners, merchants, gamblers, saloon keepers, prostitutes and outlaws. When the Territory of Montana was established on May 26, 1864, Bannack became the first territorial capital [in 1869 it became the first county seat of Beaverhead County]. During most of 1863, however, there was little in the way of government authority or law enforcement. The sheriff was the notorious Henry Plummer who used his office to cover his leadership of an outlaw gang that systematically robbed and murdered miners and travelers for their gold. His career as an outlaw was cut short by vigilantes on Sunday morning, January 10, 1864, when he was hung from the same gallows he had ordered built to hang a horse thief. Soon after, the remainder of the gang met a similar fate or else were banished and at least a semblance of law and order settled on Bannack (Wolle 1963; Cushman 1973).

By this point Bannack was already starting to decline. New strikes at Alder Gulch in 1863 and Last Chance Gulch in 1864 drained off a large part of Bannack's population. Miners were having problems getting enough water to work the placer deposits while others felt the main placer bars had been worked out -- although it has been estimated that by this point only about seven percent of the area's gold had been taken (Cushman 1973). Bannack's period as a territorial capital was also brief. By the time the first legislature convened in December of 1864, the population center had shifted to the Alder Gulch area and the lawmakers voted to move the capital to Virginia City. However, Bannack continued to produce gold through a variety of mining technologies.

The chronic water shortage for the Grasshopper Creek diggings was partially met by a series of water ditches which were constructed by various companies formed for that purpose. Henry Morley and Jule Pitcher completed the first ditch in May of 1863 while, later that year, the Bannack Mining and Ditch Company built a 15-mile long ditch on the south side of Grasshopper Creek at a cost of $15,000. The north side diggings were supplied with water two years later by a ditch built by M. J. Mandeville, M. J. McDonald and James Doty. The water problem, however, was never adequately solved. Although the ditches did bring a sufficient supply of water to the diggings, the cost of 75 cents a day per miner's inch was too expensive for many of the miners to afford (Wolle 1963).

When hydraulic mining methods were introduced in the late 1860s, even more water was needed. The Bannack Mining and Ditch Company built a 30-mile long ditch in 1867 from Coyote and Painter creeks which carried 1000 inches of water to the bars south and west of Bannack. Later this water would be used to operate six "Little Giants" in hydraulic operations in Buffalo and Humbug gulches. By 1870 three other ditches were constructed which enabled miners to profitably rework much of the abandoned placer ground. By the mid-1870s most of the placer mining operations along the Grasshopper had ended and the population of Bannack had dwindled to just a few hundred persons. Sporadic mining continued around Bannack through either lode or hydraulic operations. One of the more successful efforts during this period was undertaken by the Bon Accord Placer Mining Company in the summer of 1885 with a hydraulic operation a couple of miles down stream from Bannack (Wolle 1963).

Gold was the key to success or failure of many of Montana's mining camps in the 19th century. Roads were almost as important because they made possible the movement of supplies, people, and precious metals between the remote territory and the States. In Montana, many of the old roads are as fabled as the gold camps they served, including the notorious Road Agent Trail. The trail, like many other roads in Montana, grew out of paths established generations ago by the Indians that were later adapted and used by miners and freighters. It was not engineered in the sense of modern roads, but developed over time to best serve the traffic that used it. Private capitalists established stage stations and ranches along the route to provide food and resting places for passengers and animals - and were hangouts for desperadoes.

Established in 1863,the Road Agent Trail connected Bannack and Virginia City and was an extension of the Montana Road that provided a link between the mining camps and the settlements in Utah. The road wound its way through a region "destitute of vegetation" with "frequent streams, canyons, mountain passes, rocky ledges, willow thickets, and deep embosomed valleys." The lush grasses of the Beaverhead and Ruby River valleys provided food for the oxen, horses and mules that pulled the wagons. The 70 mile trip between Bannack and Virginia City could "ordinarily [be] completed between the rising and setting of the sun."

The Trail is indelibly associated with Sheriff Henry Plummer and his infamous outlaw gang. For eight months beginning in the spring of 1863, the gang systematically terrorized travelers on the trail through intimidation, robbery, and murder. The area through which the trail passed was "admirably adapted to their purposes" with "ample means of concealment and advantages for attack upon passing trains with very few chances for defense or escape." Montana legend states that spies placed at the ranches covertly placed marks on horses, wagons and stagecoaches where gold was ripe for the picking. Through that system the Road Agents routinely plundered passengers of their hard-earned gold and other valuables. In December 1863 and January 1864 the reign of terror ended violently as vigilantes from Bannack and Alder Gulch apprehended and hanged over two dozen road agents including the gangs leader, Henry Plummer.

Today, Montana highways 41 and 287 closely parallel the old Road Agent Trail. Indeed when Madison county looked for ways to promote tourism in the area in the 1920's, it designated Montana 287 The Vigilante Trail and blazed it with the old vigilante sign 3-7-77 as a tribute to the early pioneers' attempt to bring order to Montana.