Photography And Half-Thoughts By Mitchell Hegman

...because some of it is pretty and some of it is not.

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Bannack Ghost Town


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

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