Though now a tumbleweed ghost town, Bannack at one
time supported a population of thousands.
Established in the early 1860s during the unruly days of the Montana gold
rush, Bannack served briefly as the capital of Montana Territory. The town’s most notorious resident was Henry
Plummer. Plummer managed to convince the
townspeople to elect him as their sheriff in 1863. Plummer, at the same time, was purportedly
the leader of a gang of “road agents.”
Plummer’s gang was accused of robbing and murdering dozens of people in
and around the Grasshopper Creek and Alder Gulch gold fields. Some claim that Plummer and his gang murdered
over 100 people. The famous vigilante movement
in Virginia City, Montana arose as a way to protect the public from the road agents.
Posted are two photographs from a brief visit to
Bannack last weekend as we left the Big Hole Valley.
--Mitchell
Hegman
Cool blog!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Ariel Murphy!
ReplyDelete