D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A • FA L L 2 0 1 6
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I
HAD COME TO ELKHORN AS PART OF A
TRIP TO SEE A FEW ONCE THRIVING GHOST
TOWNS —ELKHORN, BANNACK, AND VIR-
GINIA CITY. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised
since it is a ghost town but I was nevertheless
surprised to see two ghosts.
Panorama at Virginia City
Tombstone for Boone Helm at Boot Hill in Virginia City
e specters in question were an adolescent
brother and sister. ey piled out of the backseat of
a hatchback and into Elkhorn's Fraternity Hall with
all the vigor of the still-quick, but their ghastly vis-
ages betrayed them. eir eyes were ringed in black
paint, their hair dyed grey. eir parents followed
after them, cameras around their necks raised to take
what I suspect were to be the pictures on this year's
Christmas cards. Or maybe Halloween.
So it followed that like the ghosts, the towns
I visited were also decidedly alive.
For instance, there are still those in Elkhorn who
make the town their home, though not nearly as
many as did in the late 1880s when local silver mines
produced an estimated $14 million in ore. It was in
those glory days that the town had regular baseball
games, a candy shop, a brass band, three hotels, four-
teen saloons and a two-lane bowling alley.
en, in 1889 a diphtheria epidemic caused the
death of many of the town's small children and their
mothers, a story told by the infant's tombstones in
the town's graveyard. e passing of the Silver Pur-
chase Act led to layoffs at the mine, and the popula-
tion dwindled. e Fraternity Hall, which had once
been paid for by a town-wide talent show, is now
open to the public, along with the Grand Hotel.
