Mile Marker 32: Garnet Ghost Town

In this episode, Drifter & Gypsie take you out to the historic ghost town of Garnet, located about 40 miles away from Missoula, Mt.  Once a mining town, now an abandoned town under restoration from the BLM.

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Transcript

Garnet Montana

Key: Drifter, Male voice. Gypsie, Female voice

Uplifting rock/western tune plays for 15 seconds, music begins to taper down then:

(Drifter) Welcome to the Rebel At Large Adventure Podcast. I’m Drifter

(Gypsie) And I’m  Gypsie

(Drifter) Talking about Ghost towns,

(Gypsie) Graveyards,

(Drifter) Outlaws, Heroes

(Gypsie) And Ladies of the night.

Music tapers to an end

(Drifter)Welcome to the Rebel At Large Adventure Podcast, I’m Drifter, (Gypsie)and I’m Gypsie, (Drifter)Talking about Ghosttowns, (Gypsie)Graveyards, (Drifter)Outlaws, Heroes(Gypsie)and Ladies of the night.

(Drifter)Howdy folks, Thanks for joining us for yet another adventure. Today we are taking you to a town, lost to the ages where men & women once thrived, earned fortunes and lost their loved ones. We’re taking you up into the mountains, an hour east of Missoula & exploring the abandoned ghost town of Garnet Montana.

(Gypsie)Over Labor Day weekend we went up to Missoula Montana and visited the ghost town of Garnet. Garnet is located about 39 miles from Missoula but it's almost an hour drive, due to the slow driving on the dirt roads. The town is located up what is now known as the Garnet Range. The last 11 miles of the drive are on a dirt road that is maintained but it is still very bumpy. We had 6 large bottles of champagne in the back bouncing around. Eventually we pulled over and wrapped a blanket around them because we were worried they would break. So, when you go make sure you don’t have a bunch of stuff inside your car that can bounce around.

(Drifter)Like many of the ghost towns we visit, Garnet started due to the discovery of gold, silver, and copper in the area. Though the mountain range it is in is called Garnet range it was not the first town established in the area. Gold was discovered in Beartown in October 1865 by Jack Reynolds. By spring the next year an estimated 5,000 people were camping in the area.

(Gypsie)It took them 14 years to build a passable road up to the town therefore getting supplies needed from Deer Lodge was a difficult task. Prior to the road being built they would use the Mullan Road until they reached Bearmouth, from there they took a ferry across the Clark Fork River. From that point their supplies were hauled 4 miles to Ten Mile Creek where a small camp was located. They then loaded everything on pack mules and finished off the rest of the trip. Here we are complaining about our short bumpy drive up to the town and these guys spent a whole day trying to get there.

(Drifter)Mining the area was difficult, not only did they not have a road to easily transport supplies to and from the town, but they also suffered from a lack of water. The only water available were from creeks that were created from the snow runoff. The town did everything they could to limit the use of water, things like only allowing the men to drink at the bars on the weekend to bathing only when it was absolutely necessary. By 1869 most of the population in the area left for easier mining.

(Gypsie)Two men who played a large role in establishing the town of Garnet were John Lehsou and Charles Kroger. In 1866 John Lehsou decided to start his own trading post located at the mouth of Bear Gulch. It was during this time that he met Charles Kroger. Both men came from Schleswig-Holstein, Germany and became fast friends. The bond between the two men became even stronger when they married two sisters that also came from their hometown. On November 17, 1870, Charles married Anna Rusch. A few years later on, January 18, 1873, John married Dora Rusch. They all lived in Beartown where Kroger along with his mining claims ran a brewery. Lehsou worked the mines claims with him as well as worked as the postmaster.

(Drifter)The two men purchased a claim together in 1873, located in what was originally called First Chance and is now known as Garnet. It is not known for certain how much gold the men were able to pull from the claim, but some estimates report as much as 240,000 dollars (Gypsie)(nearly 5.5M in today’s money). (Drifter)Keep in mind these men were just placer mining; they had no way of getting heavy machinery up there due to the impassable roads.

(Gypsie)Placer mining for those of you that do not know is mining a stream bed. They would put a bowl of sorts in the stream and bring up materials from the floor of the stream. They would then use the water to wash away any of the light materials and throw out the large rocks. After several times of slowly washing away the material in the bowl you will be left with gold in the bottom, because gold is heavier than the rest of the materials it will sink to the bottom of the bowl. What these men were doing was back breaking and laborious work.

(Drifter)John worked the First Chance claim for 20 years before he sold his property in Bearmouth in 1892. He then purchased 160 acres of land just North of the present-day Missoula County Cemetery paying 10,000 dollars (Gypsie)(just over $300k today). (Drifter)He also purchased half the water rights to Grant Creek. Then in 1894 he bought an additional 120 acres for 6,000 dollars (Gypsie)(nearly $200k) (Drifter)plus the other half of the Grant Creek water rights. Lehsou and Kroger held on to their claim until 1898 when they sold it to Mitchell and Peter Mussingbrod.

(Gypsie)In 1894 Armistead Mitchell and Dr. Charles F. Mussingbrod partnered together to construct a 10-stamp mill in the First Chance District. The stamp mill would allow them the ability to crush the material and extract any of the gold or silver inside the rocks. This made it so they could process more material faster and avoid having to placer mine in the area. The men would load the material into the mill and heavy weights would fall crushing the rocks. Charles made the financial investment into the mill, but his son Peter took over running it from the beginning. When Charles passed away in May 1896 after an operation, Peter was the new partner with Mitchell. Peter and Mitchell then got to work constructing a road that would connect the First Chance district to Bearmouth. By Autumn of 1895 they had completed the task. This area then became known as Mitchell.

(Drifter)In March of 1896, E.S. Woods applied to the U.S. Postal Authority for official recognition of Mitchell as a town. There was already a town near Helena named Mitchell, so they decided on the name Garnet. It is not known exactly where the town name came from, people today believe that it may have come from all the garnets that are found in the area.

(Gypsie)Work in the town took off when Samuel Ritchey, a 63-year-old bachelor, found a rich vein of iron-heavy quartz about 45 feet below ground in 1896. He named his mine the Nancy Hanks claim after Abraham Lincoln’s mother. John Lehsou’s son Henry had established an assay office in town and when he tested the ore samples from the Nancy Hanks, he found them to be exceptionally high grade. He estimated as much as 250 dollars in gold and twenty-five dollars in silver per ton (Drifter)(that's about $6500 and $800 per ton today). (Gypsie)Once the material was hauled down the road, loaded into the train, and processed at the Anaconda smelter, it averaged a profit of more than two hundred dollars for a carload of ore (Drifter)(6500 today).

(Drifter)News of the discovery spread quickly and the rush to the area was on. Claims were filed anywhere and everywhere the men could get to. The Shamrock mine yielded 200,000 dollars a year; the Lead King and Red Cloud mines paid out 300,000 dollars; the Mitchell-Mussigbrod mine developed tunnels of 350 feet and struck it rich in the Fourth of July mine making them 350,000 dollars. By 1917 an estimated 950,000 dollars had been extracted from the mines in Garnet. (GypsieGypsie)

As quickly as the miners fled into town the merchants followed behind. The main street in town, which was the flattest part, became the business area. Henry Lehsou was one of the first people to put up a building on the main street. Soon the town had thirteen saloons, four stores, four hotels, three livery stables, two barber shops, a miners union hall, a butcher shop, a candy shop, a doctor's office, and a school with as many as 41 students at one time.

(Drifter)Houses were built on the hill side above main street with no regard to placing streets in the future. A majority of the houses were placed on mining claims or even future mining claims. They were so quick to put up houses that they didn’t even put floors in them. The houses all tended to be small, about 10 feet by 12 feet so they could heat them easier in the winter. When you look at the hillside the only part of the town that makes sense is Main Street; everything else is just randomly placed. 

(Gypsie)Garnet is now part of the Garnet Preservation Association and in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management, their hope is to promote public awareness and appreciation of Montana’s history. We are going to share with you our time in Garnet and some of the history and stories we’ve found.   

(Drifter)After driving up the windy dirt road you will reach the parking lot for Garnet. They charge 3.00 dollars per person  to tour the town (Gypsie)(that's $3 in today’s money) (Drifter)but they don’t have a pay station where you stop and talk to someone. They just have a pole there with envelopes, you just fill out the envelope and place the cash inside (Gypsie)(you’ll need your license plate number for this as well as cash money). (Drifter)The envelope has a parking pass attached to it that you place in your vehicle on the dash. The parking lot area is small and we were lucky to find a spot. When we left the park, it was getting busy and people were parking along the dirt road. The area also has picnic tables and fire pits, but they are for day use only, they do not allow you to camp in the area. From here it is a short walk along a dirt trail, but the trail is shaded, which was nice in the sweltering summer sun. They have a section on the trail that looks over the town and gives you a broad view of everything, it is worth stopping and taking a look. After the lookout is the steepest part of the trail with a few switchbacks, once you get to the bottom of the hill you’ve arrived at Garnet! If you use a walking stick, don't forget it for this tour.

(Gypsie)The first building you will come up on is the Bill Hubner cabin that was built in 1949. Today it is used for the wildlife staff, it is not open for you to tour inside it, but out front they have some pamphlets, make sure you grab one. I also saw they have a pamphlet for the kids that has a game for them to play while walking around. It’s set up like a treasure hunt where they have to find specific items. The town is a self-guided tour and the pamphlet will tell you a little bit of history about each of the buildings that are still standing. So as you walk around you can read the history of the building and the people involved associated with it. The information we are going to share was gathered from the pamphlet as well as a book we purchased in the visitor’s center called “The Road to Garnets Gold a Brief History of Montana’s Gold Rush Featuring One of the Last Ghost Towns.” This was put out by the BLM.

(Drifter)They began construction on the Wells hotel in 1897 and completed it early 1898. The hotel was 40 feet by 50 feet and was a two-and-one-half story building located on the end of Main Street. The building still stands today, and you can walk through it on your visit. When the hotel was originally constructed Winifred had elaborately detailed trim installed inside and out. It included ornate moldings, stained glass in the front door inserts and a circular window located high under the front gable. It has a solid oak staircase that originally had a turned spindle handrail. It was at one point removed or destroyed by vandals but has since been rebuilt. They had skylights built on the top floor for the miners that slept up there to look at the stars. The hotel has a grand dining room where they would host the Grande Masquerade, the Hard Times Ball, and the St. Patrick’s Day Calico Ball. The kitchen had state of the art appliances with two stoves that were used to cook on as well as heat the building. The second floor was where the guests would stay. Each room had a bed, and nightstand. Access to the outhouse was on the second floor where guests would step out onto the balcony and walk down a few stairs. The balcony is no longer there but the outhouse is still there. It is a very unique outhouse in that it has two rooms, in each room is a toilet but for some reason they have two toilets side by side in each room. (Gypsie)I jokingly asked if it was because they had to use the buddy system!

(Gypsie)Other hotels in town that no longer exist today were the Woods Hotel owned by E.S. Woods, where it was advertised as having (Drifter)“all modern accommodations.”(Gypsie) He even offered a “Sample Room'' to his guests where it was stocked with fine wines, liquors and cigars. The Garnet Hotel was just up the street from the Woods Hotel and they too offered samples but they also had card rooms that were available at any hour. The Ritchey hotel owned by Henry Schoenfeld boasted that they were (Drifter)“the leading hotel in Garnet.” (Gypsie)They offered a sample room like the other two as well as a stable connected to the hotel. It's like having a parking garage today at a hotel. His building was an impressive two stories. In 1898 the leading hotel, The Ritchey, caught on fire. Men were called out of the mines to help put it out and guests staying there grabbed whatever furniture they could to try and save it. They were too late and the building was destroyed. Though Mr. Schoenfeld had insurance on the building he was not going to rebuild, he was emotionally drained. He left town and checked himself into the Missoula hospital, not like a mental hospital; the book just says he was very sick and needed an operation.

(Drifter)The town folk had several options for shopping but the busiest one was built by Henry M. Stringham and is now called The Frank A. Davey store. It still stands today for you to tour through and gives you a bit of an idea of what shopping in a mining town was like back then. The store sold dry goods, shoes, canned goods, jewelry, mining tools, penny candy and cuts of meat. The cuts of meat were stored in the icehouse that was located at the back of the building. They claim that there are three secret compartments built into the back wall, but we weren't able to find them when we were in the icehouse. Frank owned this building and ran the store out of it until he passed away in 1947 making it the longest running mercantile in Garnet.

(Gypsie)The first one we are going to talk about is called Kelley’s Saloon. It is a wooden two-story frame building. Robert Moore built it sometime before 1898. On October 21, 1898, Robert sold it to Louis P Kelley for 1,500 (Drifter)(just shy of $50k). (Gypsie)The saloon offered drinks, male oriented entertainment, and gambling in the back room. The back room of the Saloon is where the men would place their bets, it also has a set of stairs in the room. The stairs would lead up to the apartment that Mr. and Mrs. Kelley lived in. When guests would come to visit her, they would have to yell into the bar room to let the men know they were there, then they would go up the stairs to visit Mrs. Kelly. You can no longer go upstairs and see what it was like for them living there, it is described as a two-room apartment. The room on the south side was used as a kitchen & living room area. They had a cooking range, cupboards, a table and chairs, a couch, and several rocking chairs. The other room was used as the bedroom.

(Drifter)The other saloon in town still standing is now the Visitor Center. They do still have a bar in the building but nothing more inside gives off the feeling that it once was a bar. The Dahl Saloon, also known by the locals as “The Joint,” was built by Ole Dahl in 1938. He ran the saloon until the mid-1960’s. The location he chose for the building is on the exact same location that the saloon and restaurant Mel Stairs built in the late 1800s was. When Mel left town Charlie Davis took over running the saloon. He used fancy gas lamps to light up the saloon and though they were very dangerous they were not the cause of the fire that destroyed the building. Ole Dahl was not going to take the chance when he built his new saloon and he used electricity that was generated at his light plant.

(Gypsie)Nellie Phelps was the only woman in town to own and operate a saloon. This was a very controversial thing for her to do at this time. Women would seldom be seen in a bar, unless they were working girls, she not only owned the bar, but she ran it herself.(Drifter) Her building no longer stands today but her advertisements in the Garnet Mining news can still be seen. She would advertise saying (Gypsie)“When in Garnet, call and toast your shins in the warmest, cleanest, and most home-like place in town, The best of Wines, Liquors, and Cigars. Nellie Phelps.”

(Drifter)One of the stops on the map shows where Links Cigar Store once stood. The building was built sometime between 1896 and 1900 by Samuel Adams who used it as a carpenter’s shop. He sold it in 1927 when it was turned into the Cigar Store, where they made the cigars on site. (Gypsie)I am betting that the cigars sold at Nellie’s came from Links. (Drifter)Unfortunately, the building collapsed in the 1970’s so all you can see today is a pile of dirt. (Gypsie)I remember when we were in Deadwood, and we stopped at the cigar shop there. I purchased some Sweet Jane cigars, for two reasons, one because they have the coolest label, a skeleton head with flowers on it, and an advertisement like that works for me but I also found out that they make them in Deadwood, and I thought that was super cool. How fun would that be to have someone there in the cigar shop of Garnet making cigars, it wouldn’t need a fancy skeleton with flowers on it to buy it, I would just buy it to say it comes from Garnet!

(Drifter)Garnet was not known to be a rough mining town like many other towns, but they did have a jail. It was built in 1897 and is still standing. from the outside it just looks like a log cabin. Once you step inside you will notice that this building was built all the way to the ground making it a little more difficult for prisoners to try and dig out and escape. The town had a minor’s union that would hold court to handle any disputes therefore they did not have to arrest a lot of men and hold them for trial. Anyone that was a serious offender would be taken to Deer Lodge or Missoula for prosecution. The jail was mainly used as a drunk tank, though Frank Kearn earned him a booking and a one night stay in the jail when he got drunk and shot someone’s dog.

(Gypsie)As the town turned more and more into a family town rather than a tent city, there came a need for more modern amenities. The post office was built between 1896 and 1900 it was originally used as a miners cabin until 1910 when Jennie Adams could no longer run the post office out of her house. The Adams house built by Samuel Adams is right next to the post office, and both of the buildings are still standing. The Adams family finished building their home in 1900. At that time, it was considered one of the nicest houses in town. It had three rooms with a white picket fence around it. They had a covered passageway built that led to the woodshed and outhouse. The house was beautifully decorated with plants in the parlor room and an organ that Mrs. Adams loved to play.

(Drifter)Up the hill from the main part of town was the only school Garnet had. It was originally built in 1897 and at some point, it was destroyed. The new school was rebuilt in the 1930’s. The schoolhouse was a large one room building where all the kids would sit in the room together. By 1926 there were only three students going to school and they ended up closing it after the Thanksgiving break. The building today is now privately owned so you can’t go inside and look around. We figured since we couldn’t see inside it, it wasn’t worth the hike up the hill.

(Gypsie)Because of all the families in town, they would hold all kinds of parties and celebrations. They had dances, picnics, hayrides, quilting bees, and sewing circles. Edward Warren even built a park on his property for the children, he equipped it with handmade swings and picnic tables. He lived one mile up the hill from the center of town and it was a steep hill, in order for the elderly residents to make it up the hill Warren built benches along the trail for them to sit and rest.  The town had a huge fourth of July celebration in 1899 where they played games like, double handed drilling, throwing a 12 pound hammer, tug of war between the married and single men, sack races, and three legged races.

(Drifter)Garnet did have two doctors that worked there, but most of the people would travel to Deer Lodge or Missoula if they needed to have surgery or deliver a baby. They didn't have a dentist that lived there, but every once in a while a traveling dentist would pass through, but a majority of the time they would have to travel to town. (Gypsie)When I read, they had a traveling dentist, I immediately thought about the dentist in Django that had the big tooth on his wagon, and it bobbed back and forth in the spring! (Drifter)The town did have a druggist who offered pills to improve the liver by purifying the blood. He had pills called relief for women and it must have been a great pill because it was French and came in a metal box with the French flag on top. He even had pills for men who attracted a sexually transmitted disease. All of this could be purchased for 3.00 dollars a bottle. (Gypsie)(that's about $100 today)

(Gypsie)They did have some soiled doves that worked up in Garnet, but they don’t talk much about them. When the newspaper editor John Cole did talk about them, he didn’t have anything nice to say. One article written in 1900 talks about two soiled doves coming into town only to be run out. He wrote about it saying (Drifter)“Two colored fallen doves visited the city one evening last week, but not finding the place suited to their health quietly flitted next morning. It is said that they were two grafters who have been run out of Missoula and several other places in the state… Town scavengers are a good thing but when they take up their headquarters on Main Street, the perfume is not very inviting, especially to strangers coming to the city, and it is apt to give them a poor idea of our health officers.”

(Gypsie)Garnet was a busy up and coming town with everything anyone could ask for. Beautiful houses, a school, stores, saloons, and gambling. It was a peaceful town where everyone got along. At its peak it was estimated that 750 people were living in Garnet in 1898. In 1912 the town was hit with a large fire that destroyed most of Main Street; they never rebuilt any of the buildings because people had either moved on or were in the process of moving out. By 1916 Garnet only had 150 people living in the town and the number of residents continued to drop, by 1920 only 90 people were living there.  Then in 1928 the post office closed its door which is usually a sign that the town is quickly turning into a ghost town.

(Drifter)In 1934 the price of gold rose to 35 dollars per ounce and Garnet came back to life, we’re over $1700 an ounce today. People began coming back to the area to try their hand at mining once again, they also knew that several of the houses and cabins were still standing so they would have a place to live while working there. Production of materials in the area increased by 266%, the town was coming back to life once again. The post office reopened in 1938 breathing new life into Garnet. World War 2 brought changes to the town when in 1942 The Office of Production Management issued an order to stop all gold and silver mining. Garnet was once again facing becoming a ghost town when the post office closed its doors for the last time. Though miners continued to work in the area even after the post office closed it became more and more difficult to find men willing to work in the mines while the war was going on. From 1945 to 1950 less than 18,000 dollars in gold was mined (Gypsie)(around $200k). (Drifter)The town of Garnet tried its best to stay in operation but by this time very few people were living there and it was no longer feasible to mine there. Garnet is Montana’s longest running mining town, though Bannock had people living there up into the 70’s the mining in Bannock had long stopped before mining in Garnet ever did.

(Gypsie)The town is magical to walk around and experience what it was like to live in the 1880’s. It's crazy to think it was a town that started without an easily traveled road, and at its decline people were living there with cars. When I was walking around I kept thinking about the terrible conditions they were living in compared to what we are living like today. They didn’t have running water and electricity like we do, they had to walk almost everywhere they went, they had no modern medicines like we do, and yet they persevered, they survived, and they made that town into something amazing. They made the best of anything and found joy and happiness in a situation that if most of us were put into today we would crumble and fail. They came together as a community to take care of each other and survive the harsh winters and droughts in the summer. Garnet is most definitely a place that if you haven’t been you ought to go. The views alone are worth it, but to be able to walk down the same boardwalk they did over 100 years ago makes you really appreciate what you have in life.

(Drifter)On our way down the mountain we stopped at the only cemetery we could find in the area. Legend has it that most of the people that passed away in the area were taken to either Deer Lodge or Missoula to be buried. There are 5 headstones in this small cemetery off the side of the road, just down the street from Garnet. Each headstone is made of wood with their names and dates of passing carved into them. (Gypsie)The first one reads Tom Williams 1898, (Drifter)next is William Ross 1898, (Gypsie)beside him is WM we are guessing it stands for William Hamilton 1905, (Drifter)after that is WM Again his last name is Scheehan 1906, (Gypsie)and last is Frank Holmes 1914. (Drifter)Across the street from the cemetery is a sign. (Gypsie)The Sign gives some information about one of the men buried in the cemetery. It reads (Drifter)“Frank Hamilton died last Tuesday and was buried in the Coloma Cemetery on Thursday, under the auspices of the Garnet Miners Union. Deceased was about 55 years of age, but nothing is known of his antecedents, further than that. He was born in Colorado, presumably in Canon City.”

(Gypsie)Frank did not have a headstone, if he did it is long gone now, which leads us to believe there may be more people buried there. The lack of information that they had on Frank could be for several reasons, he may have just showed up in town and didn’t get the chance to really get to know anyone, (Drifter)or he kept to himself and worked his life away trying to strike it rich in gold and not worried about friends. 

(Gypsie)Again guys Garnet is a special place to visit and really needs to get put on your list of places to stop. It took us about 3 hours to slowly walk through town and we barely saw everything. There are several hiking trails around the town and some of them look like they connect to the other ghost towns in the area. 

(Drifter)Alrighty, i think that sums up our visit to Garnet. Is it time for the dad joke?

(Gypsie)What do you call a piece of gold who is afraid of spiders?

 (Drifter)Well, there you have it folks. Thanks again for joining us and exploring the ghost town of Garnet, we hope you enjoyed it. (Gypsie)If you are enjoying us, share us with a friend. (Drifter)Be sure to check out our Instagram for updates (Gypsie)@rebelatlarge (Drifter)and if you want to see the pictures of our travels visit our website at (Gypsie)rebelatlarge.com. (Drifter)We’ll talk to ya here in a couple of weeks. (Gypsie)safe travels, (Drifter)we’ll see ya’ll down the road. 

Begin 30 seconds of the same uplifting Rock/Western tune as the introduction.