Last month I shared a bit about Virginia City, Montana and
its meteoric rise and fall as a great city nestled in the Montana
mountains. However, before there was
Virginia City another city was the jewel of Montana built set in a gold rush.
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| One side of the street in Bannock, MT (photo from Kirsten Lynn) |
Despite all the years I lived in Montana, I never made it to
Bannack until last summer, and what a wonder. The town is actually bustling for
a ghost town, only now it only bustles from morning until sundown during the
summer months. Walking down the streets
and into the many buildings visitors can go back in time to when Bannack
was one of biggest and baddest towns in the West.
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| More Bannack, MT (photo by Kirsten Lynn) |
Bannack was founded in 1862 when John White discovered gold
on Grasshopper Creek. As with most gold
strikes, prospectors and businessmen flooded into the area. By 1864, Bannack was named as the Territorial
Capital of Montana. Bannack didn’t
remain the capital for long as it was soon transferred to Virginia City.
Only a year after gold was discovered in Bannack, the prized
nuggets were found near Virginia City and many prospectors moved on to the renewed
hope of fortune. However, some stayed on
in Bannack trying new mining techniques.
From 1862 to the 1930s, Bannack continued as a mining town
its population fluctuating. By the 1950s
most people had moved on and the mining dwindled to nothing. With the last of
the town’s citizens gone, the State of Montana declared Bannack a State Park.
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| Bannack, MT school and Masonic Lodge (photo by Kirsten Lynn) |
When Bannack and Virginia City were at their zenith, the
road between the two towns was the scene of more holdups, robberies, and
murders than almost any other comparable stagecoach route. The worst of the
outlaw gangs in the area had none other than Bannack’s own sheriff as its
leader.
Henry Plummer was born and raised in Maine. He headed West in 1852 and settled in Nevada
City, California. There he opened a
bakery. Well-liked and ambitious, Plummer was elected sheriff in 1856. However,
in 1857, Plummer was convicted of second-degree murder for killing an unarmed
man. Though he claimed it was in self-defense, he was convicted after witnesses
testified he was having an affair with the murdered man’s wife.
After six months in San Quentin prison, Plummer was
released. He made good again in Nevada until a shootout in a whorehouse sent
him on the run. He hooked up with outlaws traveling through Idaho. Plummer named his crew, “The Innocents.” Go
figure.
When Plummer arrived
in Bannack, Montana in 1862, the people knew nothing of his record. A likable
sort of fellow he was able to convince the residents to elect him sheriff in
May of 1863. He built his jail to have rings put in the floor so prisoners
could not escape by punching holes in the sod roof. Little did the people of Bannack know Plummer
should have been the first resident in his jail, but they did notice he wasn’t
able to stop the string of murders and robberies conducted by road agents
terrorizing the town.
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| Bannack Jail (yes that's me behind bars, Kirsten Lynn) |
A vigilance committee of nearly 2000 members was created. It
didn’t take them long to destroy Plummer’s gang. Erastus “Red” Yeager revealed Plummer’s
complicity right before they hanged him. On a bitter cold January morning in 1864, the
Vigilantes arrested Plummer. Despite his
pleas for his life Plummer was hanged on the very gallows he had prepared for
another. By that spring all of “The
Innocents” were dead or departed.
While certainly one of the more colorful characters, Plummer
was just one of many who added to the fascinating history of Bannack. Today you can visit the old hotel, school,
mayor’s house, saloon, and even bachelor’s row among other businesses and homes
and truly step back into Montana’s past in its first Capital.
Kirsten Lynn is a Western and Military Historian. She worked six
years with a Navy non-profit and continues to contract with the Marine
Corps History Division for certain projects. Making her home where her
roots were sewn in Wyoming, Kirsten also works as a local historian. She
loves to use the history she has learned and add it to a great love
story. She writes stories about men of uncommon valor…women with
undaunted courage…love of unwavering devotion …and romance with unending
sizzle. When she’s not writing, she finds inspiration in day trips
through the Bighorn Mountains, binge reading and watching sappy old
movies, or sappy new movies. Housework can always wait.
