July 2018: Bannock, Montana

Bannock, Montana from Boot Hill

Historic Bannock
Bannock, Montana was founded in 1862 after gold was discovered in the streams and rivers nearby.  The town was named after a native tribe called the Bannocks.

Also in 1862, the United States Civil War was being fought.  The Battles of Shiloh and Antietam were fought in 1862, and later in the year, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

The population of Bannock grew and the town, as remote as it was became the capital of the Montana Territory for a brief time in 1864.  The capital shifted shortly after to Virginia City, Montana after gold was discovered there.  Virginia City was easier to get to than Bannock and there was likely more gold.  At it's peak, Bannock, Montana boasted 10,000 residents.

In 1863, Henry Plummer was in a tavern in Bannock and was challenged to a duel over a woman.  He fought the duel in the crowded tavern and his one time friend, Jack Cleveland lay dead.  Everyone there agreed he had acted in self defense, and he became so popular that the citizenry elected him sheriff five months later.  You can't make this stuff up.  Plummer had been a lawman and an outlaw in the west as many other notable lawmen had been.  In the old west, in one town you might be an outlaw and in the next town you might be the law.

When Plummer arrived in Bannock and then in Virginia City, the rate of robberies, murders and hijacked gold shipments increased in the area.  The crime was so bad that the citizenry acted on their own and captured a couple of the highwaymen.  One of them outed Plummer as the leader of the gang.  The Vigilance Committee as they began calling themselves rounded up all the outlaws including Henry Plummer and hanged them.  Henry Plummer was hanged without a trial, but a couple of years after the trial he was tried posthumously and the trial resulted in a hung jury.  History has not convicted Henry Plummer, nor has it acquitted him.  Historians are still undecided as to his guilt or innocence.  That doesn't help Henry Plummer much.  After Plummer's demise however, the rate of robberies, murders and hijackings dwindled to almost nothing.

Bannock, Montana officially became a ghost town in the 1970's when the last residents finally had had enough and left.  Bannock, it seems is only good for one thing and that is mining.  It is the coldest town in Montana in the winter and the last one to thaw out in the summer.  Not much grows there and farming wasn't much of an option.

Vigilantes in Montana
I got this from a history teacher many years ago, but it's too good to not pass on.  I'm not going to fact check it because I like the story the way it is.

After the success of vigilantism in Bannock and Virginia City, the practice began to spread over the territory.  I imagine mainly in the mining communities, but I am not certain.  Of course, the United States Government couldn't have vigilantism going on in the territory and they told the citizenry to cease and desist.  The citizens of the territory told the government that they had asked for a federal court and a federal marshal to keep the peace in Montana but none had shown up.  They told the government they would cease to use the vigilance committee once there was a federal bench in the territory.

The government sent a U.S. Marshal and a Federal Court to the territory.  Problem solved.  But it wasn't.  Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  The power of a vigilance committee is that no one knows who is on the committee except committee members.  Even the committee members don't know everybody who is on the committee.  The first rule of the vigilance committee is:  You don't talk about the vigilance committee.  There is great strength in anonymity.  They kept hanging people.  The people of Helena and other cities in Montana grew tired of finding dead bodies hanging on the hangin' trees.

One morning, a young, well liked, immigrant pickpocket was found hanging on the hangin' tree.  The citizens had had enough.  The next day there was a piece of paper nailed to the tree.  It basically said,

"Dear Vigilantes,
We know who you are."

Then it listed the vigilantes by name.  The note continued something like this.

"Let it be known that from this day forth, any time a lynching occurs in this town or any other, we, the citizens of Helena will hang five men from this list.

Sincerely, the Citizens of Helena."

And that is how vigilantism ended in the Montana Territory.

Bannock Days
In 1961, the mining district of Bannock, Montana was designated a National Historic Landmark.  By the mid 1970's, the last of the residents of Bannock, Montana left which made Bannock officially a ghost town.

Sixty buildings or so from the historic period still survive.  Many of them are still in good enough shape that people can go inside of them.  Bannock has also been made a Montana State Park.  Surprisingly it is not a popular destination for tourists, but locals love it.

When you go to Bannock, you are allowed to go in any building that is not locked.  You are also allowed to go anywhere in any building that is not blocked.  You can learn a great deal about the layout for western gold towns from visiting Bannock, Montana.  Up on the hill, overlooking the city, is their version of Boot Hill.  Western towns often had a boot hill, which is to say an outlaw cemetery.  I am not sure any of the graves I saw up on boot hill were from any of the outlaws, I believe most of the Plummer Gang are buried on Boot Hill in Virginia City, Montana.  That will be a blog post for another day.

Every third week in July, Beaverhead County, Montana hosts an outdoor fair called Bannock Days on the town-site of Bannock, Montana.  Old west reenactors set up a living history, outdoor museum and instruct the people in the ways of the wild west.  There are candle makers, the cavalry, gunfighters, barbers, tatters, and all kinds of other crafters demonstrating and selling their wares.

The Hot Chick and I went to Bannock during Bannock Days.  The line of cars getting into the town was at least a mile long.  When I saw that I began to second guess my desire to go there on that day, but since we had already committed to a two hour drive from home to get there, we decided to go in anyway.  Surprisingly, the line of cars moved into the parking area quite rapidly.  Even though the line was long, it moved quickly.  It's almost as if the locals know what they are doing.

This was my first time visiting Bannock.  The Hot Chick had been several times before.  I am from this area and she is from Seattle, so it is a rare occurrence for her to know a place that I don't know.  She really enjoyed that change of fortune.  She was a good tourguide.  I am glad I went and I would like to go back.  I didn't mind the crowd for Bannock Days, but The Hot Chick says it is pretty cool when you have the whole town to yourself.  I will have to try it the other way to test it.

Bannock State Park is about twenty-five miles west of the city of Dillon, Montana.  If you go to Bannock when it isn't Bannock Days, make sure you bring your own water.  The high desert can get hot in the summer.  Dillon is a quaint but modern city so there are all the service options available.  It's also a great little western town.

For the rest of this blog post, I will mainly show pictures of Bannock Days and maybe post a snarky caption or two.  I hope you enjoy.

The Photos

First thing you see in Bannock is a root cellar

Wild west joinery

This was building 14.  I don't remember what building 14 was all about

Most of the structures were log

But even they liked amenities.  Peeling wallpaper in many of the domiciles 

Robber's Roost?  Nah

Layers of peeling wallpaper

All different kinds

Everywhere

The Hot Chick

1950's linoleum.  Part of the more recent history of Bannock, Montana

The First Methodist Church of Bannock

This is how they do church in Montana

I like weird textures

This is a timber building on the outside, but the family wanted it to be more
like the East on the insided

Lath and plaster

One of the reenactors had surveying equipment

and a pine beetle

Surveying chains.  This is how they did it back in the day before lasers

Iron stove with modern linoleum

The climate is harsh here

Faded carpet

Mining equipment

More of the same

The cavalry was there

I stopped in for a shave and a haircut

Took a little too much off

Barbers moonlighted as dentists sometimes

An impressive carved bar, imported from the east

The Hotel Meade.  This was the happening place in Bannock

I love grand staircases.  This was pioneer tech.  They still loved beauty even on the frontier

Handrail

Plaster over brick

Slightly wavy glass, or a shaky photographer.  Your choice

Down the up staircase

Of course I would take a picture of this

And this

Old timey tatting

Cool and pretty and painstaking.  I wouldn't have the patience for this

Always ready

The Masonic lodge and school

We gonna have us a hangin'

Looking down on the riverbottom from town.  Probably still some gold in there

Siesta

Not square

The Hot Chick and wavy glass

More wavy glass

The backstreets.  This is where gunfighters go when they need to get away

I got in trouble for disturbing the peace during Bannock Days

Even if I got those bars loose, there's no way I'd fit though that hole

Heavy door with a bolt every three inches

The Hot Chick ratted me out

Home of one of the rich people in Bannock

No trip to a ghost town is complete without a trip to boot hill

Pretty sure this wasn't the grave of an outlaw

Nor this

Probably an upstanding citizen here

and here

Graves all over the place

This is a reproduction of the gallows the vigilantes used in Bannock.
I believe it is on the original location.

We'll try Bannock again on a normal weekend so I can compare.  I did not mind the crowd.  They were never in my way and I didn't have to wait for anything.  If anything they made the place a little more festive.  When I go back on a non-Bannock Days day, I am pretty sure I won't get to buy the fresh squeezed lemonade.  That, all by itself might be the deciding factor for me.

Bannock Days:  Third weekend in July.  See you there.