Among Other Things: Bannack will be back

Time and age dealt more kindly with the historic Montana ghost town of Bannack than did weather a couple weeks ago. Devastating downpours of rain and hail sent a flash flood into and through Montana’s only state park ghost town, destroying one old building, damaging other restored structures and depositing mud and debris throughout the area.

As I viewed news pictures of the effects of the flood, I recalled a story I had written some six years ago and thought you might like to visualize the site as it will be again relatively soon. Cleanup, restoration and repairs already are underway.

Here’s the condensed version of the story: History rides the wind in Bannack, Montana’s first territorial capital. It whispers through trees, moans in and around empty buildings. You can taste it in the dust devils swirling up from the dirt street that once teemed with miners, merchants, freighters, dance hall dollies, Chinese cooks and launderers, territorial politicians, road agents and drifters.

Never an ordinary territorial capital or mining camp, Bannack always was different. It still is. Today, it’s the only ghost town in Montana’s state parks system.

Amazingly, Bannack appears much as it did in pioneer days – no telephone or power wires and poles, no modern homes, offices or commercial establishments, no paved streets. Of more than 200 original buildings, nearly 90 are still standing.

From the dusty main street and creek bottoms to the tip of nearby hills, what you see is about what the miners saw – with the exception, of course, of what aging, erosion and foliage growth have contributed. Visitors should allow at least two or three hours to appreciate the Bannack experience. That gives them time to shift the imagination into gear and absorb the atmosphere.

Although there were fewer than 1,000 inhabitants when it was named territorial capital, the population swelled to some 5,000 when gold mining in nearby Grasshopper Creek was at its peak. The boom brought in all types of human beings – good and bad, dedicated and misguided, ambitious and ne’er-do-wells.

Helping recapture some of that atmosphere is a self-guided walking tour that permits interior inspection of many structures. With a minimum of effort visitors can visualize some of the mining camp’s colorful incidents.

Educated, handsome, conniving Henry Plummer came to town on Christmas Day, 1862. A short time later, he mortally wounded Jack Cleveland, an old outlaw friend, and then went hunting for Sheriff Hank Crawford, just in case Cleveland had made a deathbed statement.

Forewarned, Crawford made a preemptive strike with a rifle shot and broke Plummer’s arm. Before Plummer could regain his shooting prowess, Crawford left for Wisconsin and Plummer was elected sheriff of both Bannack and Virginia City.

Plummer had two jails built in Bannack. They still stand with their barred windows, thick log walls and sod roofs. But terror still reigned along the 90-mile stretch of road from Bannack to Virginia City. Headed surreptitiously by Sheriff Plummer, ruthless road agents allegedly murdered some 102 travelers, robbed countless others and waylaid stages at will.

Vigilantes finally ferreted out Plummer and his gang, “The Innocents” – Boone Helm, Cyrus Skinner, George Shears, Whiskey Bill Graves, George Ives, Red Yeager, Buck Stinson, and Ned Ray. Captured in his Bannack home, Plummer groveled and pleaded with the Vigilantes to cut off his ears, turn him out naked in the snow – anything but hanging. Finally, facing the inevitable, Plummer told his captors, “Give me a clean drop.”

Another tragic Bannack chapter involved an Illinois girl, Helen Patterson. At 16 years of age she promised Howard Humphrey she’d marry him. But first she wanted to go out west with her sister and brother-in-law.

Once she got to Bannack, she forgot about poor Howard. She assumed the name of Nellie Paget, became a dance hall hostess and was caught up in the wild life of the mining camp – until at the age of 22 she was shot dead by an enraged suitor in a saloon.

But that wasn’t the end of the story. Howard Humphrey, learning of the tragedy, refused to believe it. After waiting 55 years for her return to Illinois, he went to Montana to find her. He located her – in the sagebrush-dotted Bannack cemetery.

A more joyous occasion occurred when colorful Methodist frontier circuit rider, W.W. (Brother Van) Van Orsdel came to town. He preached, taught and sang to the people of Bannack as he personally directed construction of a Methodist church. He had plenty of extra helpers because townspeople feared an imminent Indian attack on the community.

After the Battle of the Big Hole on Aug. 8, 1877, members of Chief Joseph’s band of Nez Perce camped on Horse Prairie Creek near Bannack. Hillsides were fortified and women and children were housed in the county courthouse, but an attack never came.

Bannack was named by George Washington Stapleton in 1862 and was spelled Bannack to differentiate it from Bannock, a settlement near Boise City. Another theory is that the spelling originated from a typographical error. Actually, both Bannack and Bannock were in Idaho Territory at the time. Montana didn’t achieve territorial status until 1864.

Territorial Governor Sidney Edgerton proclaimed Bannack as the capital and the first legislature met there in 1864-1865.

Bannack’s political tenure was brief, however. In 1865, with its gold reserves dwindling and population decreasing, the legislature voted to move the capital to the more prosperous Virginia City. Yet Bannack didn’t dry up and blow away. A combination Masonic Hall and school building was constructed in 1874; a year later a county courthouse was completed, and the Methodist church was built in 1877.

The county seat was moved to Dillon in 1881 after the arrival of the railroad. Around 1890 Dr. Christian Meade converted the red brick county courthouse into the Meade Hotel and community social center. In the large dining room were several tables, each topped with spotless white tablecloths. It operated until 1940.