Montana Mine

Trying to find mines in Montana is an overwhelming experience to say the least.  We found literally thousands of former mines in our initial research prior to the trip.  Trying to narrow it down to a few viable options was far from easy.  We hunted down a few mines where nothing was left or they were active sites.

 

After several locations that didn’t offer anything to us we stumbled across this mine.  It was approaching sunset so photography was a little more difficult.  Located high up on a mountain road it consisted of several buildings.  The actual mine appeared to be higher up on the mountain side but we ran out of daylight fast.  As we approached the mining area there was a large ore bin on the left where trucks would be loaded from the mine and the further down the road there was the mill on the right side of the road and the town on the left side of the road.

 

We quickly checked out the mill and the bunkhouse and offices before we ran out of light.  We didn’t have time to see the town.  It was almost a full moon so we came back a few hours later and took a few photos before we called it a day.  The next day we had a tough choice do we come back and see the mine in more detail or do we keep moving on to see what else we could find.  In hind site we should have gone back, but we were hopeful we would find some more locations so we moved on.

The mill on the mountain side to the right.  It was already rather dark when we got there.

A couple buildings on the town site

Looking down the side of the mill with offices and bunkhouse.

Inside the bunkhouse

I could not figure out how this large boulder ended up in the hallway.  It was too large for someone to carry in there and if it rolled in off the mountainside there would be an obvious hole in the wall.

Look up the various levels inside the mill.  Almost all machinery has been stripped.

Staircase about 1/2 way up the mill

Some of the only remaining machinery located at the top of the mill building