Soon after a prospector’s pick struck pay dirt in some remote, rocky crag, a town was sure to spring up nearby. A host of new arrivals would be on hand to help separate some poor sucker from his poke sack. A gamut of frontier society was well-represented.

During the late 1850s prospectors discovered the first significant Montana gold strike at Benatsee Creek, north of the Deer Lodge Valley; by the turn of the century thriving boomtowns were scattered throughout the state. When the gold disappeared, so did the people. What remains of the once wild and roaring mining camps are a number of historic Ghost Towns.