Masonic Lodge and School House
The first schools in Bannack were subscription schools – essentially private schools with parents paying tuition for their children to attend.
In 1874, Bannack Masonic Lodge No. 16 built a combination lodge and school building. The school was a public school serving students in K through 8th grade. It finally closed in the 1950s. The school was on the bottom floor and the lodge on the second.
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Bannack, Montana was founded in 1862 after a major gold discovery. It served as the capital of Montana Territory briefly during the civil war. The last residents left in the 1970s.
“Images from Bannack” are from July 30, 2010, our third visit to Bannack.
Graeter House – (above) Augustus Graeter and his wife, Emily Drury were married in Nebraska in 1860 and arrived in Bannack in 1862. In partnership with A. J. Smith, they constructed the Smith – Graeter Ditch in 1863 to provide water for mining. The ditch, along with others, helped sustain and contributed to the expansion of mining operations in Bannack. In 1897, his company built the gold dredge, which operated along Grasshopper Creek until 1902.
Turner House – Like most buildings in Bannack, this cabin saw many different uses over the years. This house was last owned by the Turner family before being acquired by the State of Montana. Arthur Contway purchased the building in the early 1900s and it served as his residence, Post Office, barbershop and had the only telephone in town for some time.
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Bannack, Montana was founded in 1862 after a major gold discovery. It served as the capital of Montana Territory briefly during the civil war. The last residents left in the 1970s.
“Images from Bannack” are from July 30, 2010, our third visit to Bannack.
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Bannack, Montana was founded in 1862 after a major gold discovery. It served as the capital of Montana Territory briefly during the civil war. The last residents left in the 1970s.
“Images from Bannack” are from July 30, 2010, our third visit to Bannack.
A view through a Bannack window.
Wallpaper inside the Bannack State Park visitor center.
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Bannack, Montana was founded in 1862 after a major gold discovery. It served as the capital of Montana Territory briefly during the civil war. The last residents left in the 1970s.
“Images from Bannack” are from July 30, 2010, our third visit to Bannack.
A Sundancer Class C motorhome at Bannack State Park, Montana.
A view from the Bannack State Park visitor parking lot.
The State Park visitor center building, below, was once owned and occupied by carpenter George French.
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Bannack, Montana was founded in 1862 after a major gold discovery. It served as the capital of Montana Territory briefly during the civil war. The last residents left in the 1970s.
“Images from Bannack” are from July 30, 2010, our third visit to Bannack.
One of the two loops at the campground along Grasshopper Creek in Montana’s Bannack State Park.
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Bannack, Montana was founded in 1862 after a major gold discovery. It served as the capital of Montana Territory briefly during the civil war. The last residents left in the 1970s.
“Images from Bannack” are from July 30, 2010, our third visit to Bannack.
Searching a hillside across the Yankee Fork, three prospectors stumbled upon what would become the most famous mine on the Yankee Fork. Named after the popular military general, George Armstrong Custer, the General Custer Mine was a rich vein of ore, exposed by a snowslide. The discovery of the Custer Mine in 1876 transformed this small mining camp into a lively community and the site of the region’s most significant mining activity.
Founded in 1879, Custer flourished and what began as a tent community rapidly became a town of over 100 building lining both sides of it’s narrow main street. For 30 years, Custer experienced frenzied activity and growth as well as periods of uncertainty and decline until its final bust in 1911.
Charles Alexander Pfeiffer purchased this family home after his marriage to Ellen Louise Olson in 1890. Charles managed the Pfeiffer Store for his uncle and later worked as a gold and cleanup man at the General Custer Mill. As the family increased in size, a kitchen and bedroom were added to the family home. The roof shingles are made of flattened cans. Families in Custer were not an oddity, but certainly weren’t the norm either, as most miners and the supporting merchants were single men.
I am returning to “working” through the images from our summer trip.
The Yankee Fork gold dredge is one of the mining attractions along Idaho’s Yankee Fork River, between Bonanza City and Custer. When we first visited the area in the 1970s, it was a closed relic. Today, it has been restored to the point that tours are available for those who are interested.
Beginning in 1872, the valley floor of the Yankee Fork River was hand placered in the search for gold. Years later, tests showed that gold still remained in the deep gravels of the stream bed. In 1939, a gold dredge was purchased by the Snake River Mining Company and hauled to the Yankee Fork for assembly. Before it was shutdown in 1952, the dredge recovered more than $1,200,000 in gold from about 6,000,000 cubic yards of gravel.
Today, the dredge still sits where it stopped operation after all of the claims owned by the company had been dredged. The path taken by the dredge up the stream bed left large piles of gravel on which little grows. In a satellite image showing the dredge, the piles form rows where the dredge’s stacker belt deposited the gravel after processing.
In operation, small particles of gold and silver from naturally disintegrated ore were scooped up by the bucketline (see image on left for scale).
The dredge has a chain of 71 buckets, each wighing just over a ton. Each pin holding the chain together weighs 195 lbs. The bucket mechanism can be raised and lowered and moved left and right. It can dig 37 feet deep.
Yankee Fork Historic District, Idaho, July 28, 2010.
Bonanza City, laid out in 1877, was the Yankee Fork’s first mining camp, with pack trails converging from Ketchum, Stanley, Loon Creek and Challis. At its peak, Bonanza had over 600 residents, a rectangular grid of streets, and provided city services such as community wells.
An underground water system piped water for drinking and fire protection throughout the town. Despite this foresight, fires in 1889 and 1897 devastated portions of Bonanza. The loss of business due to the fires and the increased activity at Custer encouraged many to relocate. Today little is left of Bonanza with the exception of a few buildings and the Forest Service Guard Station constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1934.
