Visiting Bannack
Most of Montana is made up of rural plains with houses sporadically spread across them. Here and there you’ll also find a few ghost towns in the state. I visited one of the largest in Montana almost exactly 150 years after it was founded; the remains of the old town of Bannack. This town was once complete with a hotel, bar, several houses, a schoolhouse, and everything else to support a good sized population in the 19th century.
The discovery of gold changed this uninhabited area pretty quickly. The area went from a small town to grow to over a thousand people, all within a year! The town’s name was chosen as “Bannock”, but because someone with handwriting similar to mine registered the town by mail, Washington DC recognized the last “A” as an “O”. This photo above shows the town church, but that did little to help the outlaws, deserters of the civil war, and even a vigilante group that sought to keep things in order by killing those who broke the law. Some of it’s wild past is what left to its demise.
Today Bannack is a ghost town with the last residents having left over 60 year ago. The photo above is one of the most famous building Hotel Meade. Although Bannack is abandoned, it still has some unique history to the state. Hotel Meade was originally the county court house as well as the first brick building in all of Montana. After the court house was moved to another city, it became a vacant building for a decade until a family purchased it. It then became the social center of Bannack, famous for its dining and social activities. The photos below shows the first room the inside of Hotel Meade.
These two photos above and below are more interior shots of Hotel Meade. I would have never guessed what this thing was above, but it’s actually a large 19th century commercial oven. The hotel would host large dinner parties and was a rather luxurious place to stay. Staff on site told me about expensive china being imported as well as other items from around the world. For those back in the 19th century, it probably felt like an all inclusive resort. The photo below is the remains of a barber’s chair.
You’re free to explore Bannack as you like. There are at least a dozen buildings you can go inside, and many have information posted for details. Hotel Meade is certainly the main attraction today as it was 100 years ago. The outside grounds around Bannack however are still filled with the remains of argirculture equipement. I believe this to be a wheel barrel above, while the wagon and shed below looked to have fared reasonably over time.
This building was once the town schoolhouse. When I visited this woman below was the only one on site to help teach me about Bannack and answer any questions. She had a lot of great information, but the inside of the schoolhouse had what I found most interesting in all of Bannack!
Written on the chalkboard were real rules from Bannack’s early 1900’s that applied to teachers. While Bannack tolerated “female companions” the schoolteachers had some very strict laws to follow which might be more common in Saudi Arabia. Some of the rules were not being allowed to be accompanied with men unless they are a relative. Another requirement was having to be home between the hours of 8pm and 6am. One of the most extreme was not being allowed to leave the town limits without permission!
