Helena is the capital city of the U.S. state of Montana and the seat of Lewis and Clark County.
Madison County is a county in the U.S. state of Montana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 8,623. Its county seat is Virginia City. The county was founded in 1865; at the time it was part of the Montana Territory.
Beaverhead County is the largest county by area in the U.S. state of Montana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 9,371. Its county seat is Dillon. The county was founded in 1865.
Pierce is a city in the northwest United States, located in Clearwater County, Idaho. The population was 508 at the 2010 census, down from 617 in 2000.
Dillon is a city in and the county seat of Beaverhead County, Montana, United States. The population was 3,880 at the 2020 census. The city was named for Sidney Dillon (1812–1892), president of Union Pacific Railroad.
East Helena is a city in Lewis and Clark County, Montana, United States, approximately 5 miles (8 km) east of downtown Helena. The population was 1,944 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Helena Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Lewis and Clark and Jefferson counties; its population is 83,058 according to the 2020 Census.
Alder is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Madison County, Montana, United States. The population was 86 at the 2020 census, down from 103 in 2010. The community takes its name from Alder Creek, the site of the second major gold discovery in Montana.
Ennis is a town in Madison County, Montana, United States, in the southwestern part of the state. The population was 917 at the 2020 census, up from 838 in 2010.
Bannack is a ghost town in Beaverhead County, Montana, United States, located on Grasshopper Creek, approximately 11 miles (18 km) upstream from where Grasshopper Creek joins with the Beaverhead River south of Dillon. Founded in 1862, the town is a National Historic Landmark managed by the state of Montana as Bannack State Park.
Henry Plummer was a prospector, lawman, and outlaw in the American West in the 1850s and 1860s, who was known to have killed several men. He was elected sheriff of what was then Bannack, Idaho Territory, in 1863 and served until 1864, during which period he was accused of being the leader of a "road agent" gang of outlaws known as the "Innocents," who preyed on shipments from what was then Virginia City, Idaho Territory to other areas. In response some leaders in Virginia City formed the Vigilance Committee of Alder Gulch and began to take action against Plummer's gang, gaining confessions from a couple of men they arrested in early January 1864. On January 10, 1864, Plummer and two associates were arrested in Bannack by a company of the Vigilantes and summarily hanged. Plummer was given a posthumous trial in 1993 which led to a mistrial. The jury was split 6–6.
Alder Gulch is a place in the Ruby River valley, in the U.S. state of Montana, where gold was discovered on May 26, 1863, by William Fairweather and a group of men including Barney Hughes, Thomas Cover, Henry Rodgers, Henry Edgar and Bill Sweeney who were returning to the gold fields of Grasshopper Creek, Bannack, Montana. They were on their way to Yellowstone Country from Bannack but were waylaid by a band of Crow Indians. After being ordered out of Crow hunting grounds, they crossed the East Slope of the Tobacco Root Mountains and camped for the night in Elk Park, where William "Bill" Fairweather and Henry Edgar discovered gold, while the remaining party was out hunting for meat. Agreeing to keep the new discovery quiet the group of miners returned to the town of Bannack for supplies. However, word leaked out about the new strike, and miners followed the Fairweather party out of town. The party stopped at the Point of Rocks, part way between Bannack and Alder Gulch, and established the Fairweather Mining District in a miners meeting. It was agreed that the discoverers were entitled to two claims and first choice. The first stampede of miners reached Alder Gulch June 6, 1863, and the population swelled to over 10,000 in less than 3 months. The "Fourteen Mile City" ran the length of the gulch, and included the towns of Junction City, Adobe Town, Nevada City, Central City, Virginia City, Montana, Bear Town, Highland, Pine Grove French Town, Hungry Hollow, and Summit. Upon arrival the miners lived in brush wickiups, dugouts and under overhanging rocks until cabins could be built. The first structure built in Virginia City was the Mechanical Bakery. Virginia City, and Nevada City were the centers of commerce during the height of the Alder Gulch gold rush. In the first year the area had over 10,000 people living there. Montana Territory was established in May 1864, and the first territorial capital was Bannack. The capital then moved to Virginia City, where it remained until 1875. The Alder Gulch diggings were the richest gold placer deposits ever discovered, and in three years $30,000,000 was taken from them, with $10,000,000 taken out in the first year. Nowadays, except during summertime, the streets of Virginia City are usually quiet and relatively few visitors find their way to the 16 ton granite monument that marks the spot of that incredible discovery of May 26, 1863.
The Bertrand was a steamboat which sank on April 1, 1865, while carrying cargo up the Missouri River to Virginia City, Montana Territory, after hitting a snag in the river north of Omaha, Nebraska. Half of its cargo was recovered during an excavation in 1968, more than 100 years later. Today, the artifacts are displayed in a museum at the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge near Missouri Valley, Iowa. The display makes up the largest intact collection of Civil War-era artifacts in the United States, and are an invaluable time capsule of everyday life during that period.
The Virginia City Historic District is a National Historic Landmark District encompassing Virginia City, Montana, United States. Designated in 1966, the district includes over two hundred nineteenth-century buildings, representing the site of a major gold strike and the capital of Montana for ten years.
Nevada City is an unincorporated community in Madison County, Montana, United States. In the 1860s, it was one of two centers of commerce in what was known as one of the richest gold strikes in the Rocky Mountain West, along with its sister city Virginia City. As the gold played out and prospectors moved away, Nevada City gradually became a ghost town. Since the late 1950s, Nevada City has become a tourist attraction for its collection of nineteenth-century buildings within or surrounding the Nevada City Museum and Music Hall.
George Lane, better known as Clubfoot George, was an alleged outlaw who was hanged on January 14, 1864, in Nevada City, Montana. Lane was later alleged to have been a member of a criminal gang known as the Gang of Innocents and sentenced to death. The execution was carried out by the Montana Vigilantes, a committee which functioned during Montana's gold rush in 1863 and 1864.
The Innocents were an alleged gang of outlaw road agents in Montana Territory who operated during the gold rush of the 1860s, preying on shipments and travelers carrying gold from Virginia City, Montana. According to the early chronicler Thomas Dimsdale, the gang attempted to steal gold while it was being transported; they killed many travelers who resisted. Sheriff Henry Plummer of Bannack, Montana was accused of leading the group, and was executed by a group of vigilantes from Virginia City in January 1864, along with several other alleged gang members.
The history of vigilante justice and the Montana Vigilantes began in 1863 in what was at the time a remote part of eastern Idaho Territory. Vigilante activities continued, although somewhat sporadically, through the Montana Territorial period until the territory became the state of Montana on November 8, 1889. Vigilantism arose because territorial law enforcement and the courts had very little power in the remote mining camps during the territorial period.
This is a timeline of pre-statehood Montana history comprising substantial events in the history of the area that would become the State of Montana prior to November 8, 1889. This area existed as Montana Territory from May 28, 1864, until November 8, 1889, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Montana.
Cyrus Skinner was an Old West outlaw and brother to criminal George Skinner. Skinner was called a "roadster, fence, and [a] spy" for Henry Plummer. He and his brother were members of Richard H. Barter's gang that robbed a mule train transporting $80,000 in gold bullion. Skinner and Barter were caught stealing mules to transport the gold. He was imprisoned at the Angel Island and San Quentin State Prisons, until he escaped by mid-1860. Skinner left California and established four saloons in Idaho and Montana.
Montana Highway 287 is a state highway in the U.S. state of Montana. The highway runs 42.822 miles (68.915 km) from MT 41 in Twin Bridges east to U.S. Route 287 in Ennis. MT 287 is the primary east–west highway of Madison County. The highway connects the county's four towns, including Sheridan and the county seat of Virginia City. The course of MT 287 follows the ultimate portions of two trails that met in Virginia City, the center of the Alder Gulch gold rush of the mid-1860s and the second territorial capital of Montana. Parts of the highway were improved from rudimentary roads around 1920 from Virginia City to Ennis. This connection became the first portion of Montana Highway 34 in the early 1930s; the highway was extended west to Twin Bridges in the late 1930s. MT 34 was reconstructed from Twin Bridges through Alder to Virginia City in the late 1930s and early 1940s and between Virginia City and Ennis in the late 1940s to mid-1950s. The MT 287 designation was first applied to a cross-state route from West Yellowstone to Canada in the late 1950s. The highway was rerouted in place of MT 34 in the early 1960s. MT 287 was replaced by US 287 along much of the cross-state corridor in the mid-1960s. The highway extended north of Twin Bridges to Whitehall until the late 1970s, when it achieved its current length.
