Bannack Montana — Gold, Outlaws, and the First Territorial Capital

John White's discovery at Grasshopper Creek in July 1862 was modest — enough to draw prospectors, not enough to trigger a stampede. But within months it was clear Bannack sat on substantial placer gold, and by winter 3,000 miners had built a rough town on the banks of Grasshopper Creek. Montana Territory was created specifically to govern the mining camps that sprung up around Bannack and its neighbors.

Unlike California's warm-weather placer creeks, Bannack's ground froze solid by November. Miners who couldn't work in winter had nothing to do but drink, gamble — and become targets of Henry Plummer's network of road agents, who knew exactly when gold shipments would leave for Salt Lake City.

Henry Plummer: Sheriff and Outlaw

Plummer was charming, educated, and politically connected — exactly the wrong man to be elected sheriff. He ran the "Innocents," a gang of thieves and killers who used Plummer's inside knowledge of gold movements to time their robberies. Over 18 months they killed at least 102 people. When the Vigilantes identified the network and moved in January 1864, Plummer was caught off guard. He was hanged from the gallows he had built, reportedly begging for mercy until the end.

Bannack as a Ghost Town

After the richer strikes at Alder Gulch and Last Chance Gulch drew miners away, Bannack slowly emptied. By 1900 it was a ghost town. Montana State Parks acquired it in 1954. Today Bannack State Park preserves over 60 original structures — one of the best-preserved ghost towns in the American West — and the grasshopper placer fields along the creek are still visible.