Tues Oct 4, 2005

Woke up this morning no snow but cold with flurries.
Today we headed west across Montana.
Now most people would take a major highway, but what fun would that be.
We decided to take the old stagecoach road that they used to take people to
Yellow Stone. Fifty miles of dirt road through the wilderness. We get ten miles
in and we start getting a wet snow, at that point we almost gave up. We then decided
to truedge on. We thought we would see alot of wildlife, but it did not happen.

The ride did yield its reward.

A great look into the past.

This hawk looks cold.

This was open range so we had to push a couple of these off the road to get by.

Incoming storm.

After fifty miles of mud, who is going to clean this car ?

We're now heading up Rt 15 looking for a ghost town.

Bannack Montana was born in 1862 when gold was found along Grasshopper Creek. Like other gold rushes, miners rushed to the settlement in search of their fortunes and before long the hills around Bannack were filled with as many as 3,000 miners.

Not long after the settlement was formed, in walked a man named Henry Plummer. Handsome, well dressed and charismatic, he gained the trust of the area miners and was soon elected sheriff of the burgeoning community.

However, little did the unsuspecting citizens of Bannack know, but their new sheriff led a secret band of road agents called the "Innocents", who began to terrorize the travelers between Bannack and Virginia City, robbing and killing more than 100 men over the next several months.

In December 1863 the miners formed the Montana Vigilantes and during the next forty two days, the Vigilantes hanged 24 of the gang members, including Henry Plummer on the same gallows that he had built.

Today, many say that the ghost of Henry Plummer haunts this old settlement, which has long since become a ghost town.

Of coarse the miners needed female companionship.

Back then you couldn't talk back to the teacher.

It must have been 1920 before this guy got to town.

I'll bet Henry Plummer even went to church.

When mining played out, Bannack became a ghost town in the 1940s. However, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks saved the town from the elements and vandalism by making it a state park on August 15, 1954.

Prilly on her way to the gallows.

Sorry to report no ghost sighting today.

Not unless they were reincarnated into deer.

And here we thought we were the only ones there.

As we drove away we looked back and this cloud had come down over the whole city.
I told Prilly ghost or no ghost I'm not going back there.

We then drove up to Butte Montana for the night.

Tomorrow we head to Polson Montana.
See you then,
Ralph & Prilly