![]() ![]() It joined the roster of Montana state parks in 1954. The site, now the Bannack Historic District, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961. Sixty historic log, brick, and frame structures remain standing in Bannack, many quite well preserved most can be explored. White's Bar, located possibly 10 miles (16 km) downstream, was where John White and Company made the initial discovery of gold in. Bon Accord, about 5 miles (8.0 km) downstream, was a larger camp that saw a revival in the 1890s, and had a post office and school district. Jerusalem (also New Jerusalem or Jerusalem Bar) was located 2 miles (3.2 km) downstream of Bannack. It was named for the numerous stray dogs, and had a blacksmith shop, saloon, and grocery store. Dogtown was south of and "near" Bannack in 1866. ![]() However, Marysville, named for early arrival Mary Wadam, gained more people and so contemporary maps alternately used the name on record, Centerville, or the name used by locals, Marysville. By the following March, a townsite company had laid out and platted Centerville. Centerville and Marysville, about 1 mile (1.6 km) downstream, were both laid out as little camps in the winter on 1862. Yankee Flats adjoined Bannack and was referred to as an "addition" to Bannack. While many were short lived and considered just extensions of Bannack, others were designated towns of their own. Ī number of mining camps dotted the banks of Grasshopper Creek during the gold booms, starting at Bannack downstream almost to where the stream joins Beaverhead River. ![]() Nathaniel Pitt Langford, the first superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, was a member of that vigilance committee. Twenty-two individuals were accused, informally tried, and hanged by the Vigilance Committee (the Montana Vigilantes) of Bannack and Virginia City. A number of Plummer's associates were lynched and others banished on pain of death if they ever returned. In any case, Plummer and two compatriots, both deputies, were hanged, without trial, at Bannack on January 10, 1864. However, because only eight deaths are historically documented, some modern historians have called into question the exact nature of Plummer's gang, while others deny the existence of the gang altogether. Leavitt moved on to Butte, Montana, where he devoted the rest of his life to his medical practice īannack's sheriff, Henry Plummer, was accused by some of secretly leading a ruthless band of road agents, with early accounts claiming that this gang was responsible for over a hundred murders in the Virginia City and Bannack gold fields and trails to Salt Lake City. "Though some success crowned his labors," according to a history of Montana by Joaquin Miller, "he soon found that he had more reputation as a physician than as a miner, and that there was greater profit in allowing someone else to wield his pick and shovel while he attended to his profession." Subsequently, Dr. Leavitt arrived in Bannack in 1862, and alternately practiced medicine and mined for gold with pick and shovel. Erasmus Darwin Leavitt, a physician born in Cornish, New Hampshire, who gave up medicine for a time to become a gold miner. Though all of the businesses were built of logs, some had decorative false fronts.Īmong the town's founders was Dr. ![]() There were three hotels, three bakeries, three blacksmith shops, two stables, two meat markets, a grocery store, a restaurant, a brewery, a billiard hall, and four saloons. Extremely remote, it was connected to the rest of the world only by the Montana Trail. The last residents left in the 1970s.Īt its peak, Bannack had a population of about ten thousand. Bannack continued as a mining town, though with a dwindling population. JSTOR ( January 2023) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)įounded in 1862 and named after the local Bannock natives, Bannack was the site of a major gold discovery in 1862, and served as the capital of Montana Territory briefly in 1864, until the capital was moved to Virginia City.Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. This section needs additional citations for verification. ![]()
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