Ghost Town Hunting

We set off for the day hoping to see many of the small ghost towns just south of our camping site at Antelope Creek. After a long drive on gravel, we found what we believe to be the remnants of the Town of Valentine, Montana. Our first ghost town of the day. It was out in the ranch lands, and seemed like an odd place for a town. But there, near a creek, were a few abandoned houses, a shed, and a larger building that has collapsed onto itself. The area looked littered and overgrown. As an added bonus for us, we finally saw our first pronghorn in a field along the side of the road. We seen him both driving to and coming back from the town, but unfortunately, he didn’t stand still long enough to get his photo either time.

We continued on our way, searching for the Town of Kendall. I initially had the wrong coordinates in the navigation and after driving down some dusty roads, to the wrong place, we corrected our route, backtracked, and found the ruins of the old town tucked into the slopes of the North Moccasin Mountains. This was a prosperous town in its short-lived life, and they mined millions of dollars of gold here. In its heyday, it had 1,500 residents and many businesses, but after a couple fires destroyed parts of town and the gold started to run out, most everyone left. The town barely lasted 21 years. Kendall also has the distinction of being the only ghost town in the world belonging to the Boy Scouts of America. The Boy Scouts have a camp here and have pledged to preserve the town.

An old wooden farmhouse was the first of the deserted structures we encountered and we saw a deer munching on the grasses nearby. Many of the buildings that were once part of this thriving community are completely gone, but we explored the ruins that remain, like the general store, the two-story bank, the church and the cemetery. There are a few other stone foundations that can be seen peeking out from their resting place in the ground, especially near the bandstand. This bandstand was built into the hillside in the early 1900’s and almost every summer night the Kendall town band would gather there and fill the entire gulch and town with music. The Boy Scouts restored the bandstand in the 1960’s after it had been used as a granary for many years. Curiously sitting near the bandstand is a large rock with many holes in it. This rock was saved from one of the town celebrations, where amongst other things, they would hold competitions between the miners. In this particular one the competitors had to drill the deepest hole in the rock using just the manual jack driller and a hammer in a specified amount of time.

While the ruins were interesting, we ventured beyond them as the road continued up the mountain past the old mines. We were glad did, because the unexpected treasure for us was up there. We wound our way up the old roads, hugging the edge of the hillside, while views of the surrounding mountains, ranches, and prairies would come into sight. Millions of summer wildflowers were covering the roadsides with blooms. I lost track of how many times we stopped to get a closer look and take pictures. There were many butterflies and bees bouncing around the blossoms, gathering as much nectar as they could. We took our time to stop and enjoy the blossoms, bees, and butterflies, while also giving the puppies a chance to stretch their legs. The flowers we saw included Indian Paintbrush, Flat-top Goldenrod, Spreading Dogbane, Bee Balm, Aster, Harebell (Campanula), and Daisies. We kept asking ourselves, do we go further, should we take that path, and the answer was yes, until we realized we had other towns to try to visit this day.

Leaving Kendall behind, we headed over to the Judith Mountains, which was another large mining area. However, we found that some of the ghost towns we had wanted to see, like New Year and Alpine Gulch, are on private land and now inaccessible. While others like Maiden and Gilt Edge still have people living there, so some of those areas are off limits, too. In Maiden we were able to see the remains of the old general store, some wooden building ruins, and some old mining equipment. As you turn into Gilt Edge, the church ruins rise up on a small hill next to the two wheel pathway, with a cross placed strategically in a missing section of wall. Around the corner of the road an old brick building stands mostly intact, but all the other buildings you see are more modern and in use today.

The surprise of the wildflowers was certainly the highlight of the day, along with driving the narrow roads on the sides of the mountain. Even though we did not see everything we had set out to see, it was a good day of exploring. We even learned a few things about the old towns along the way. Towns may come and go, but there are many memories there.

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