Lynn and I had not been out for a “day trip” for a long time and decided that we needed to go
visit Phillipsburg MT the next time our days off matched. Loading the dogs in the
car and heading out early on the morning of August 4th we headed
south. With a brief stop at Harbor Freight in Missoula, we were at Phillipsburg
in time for an early lunch before doing a walk around town.
There are a
lot of interesting shops selling rocks of many types, candy, and just touristy
stuff. The museum was a fun side trip and had a lot of historic items related
to the local mines and a bit of logging history. A few of the displays were a
bit off, but still interesting. And the cost was only the admittance fee and
one book… has to be a record for us, only one book. J
The problem
is, that one book was on ghost towns in Montana. It seems that one of those was
only a few miles from Phillipsburg… Granite Mountain was just up from there on
the mountain. Not a problem, other than we were in Lynn’s car, not the pickup.
Oh well, never let that stop us before, and it didn’t this time either!
Nearing the
top we started seeing a lot of granite boulders along the road… almost like
HOME… Around the next corner was this head rig for the old mine site. At least
I think it was a head rig, I didn’t get close enough to be sure and besides, there
were no trespassing signs on the gate to this area.
At the top
is a small parking area and a part of an old building was showing through the
trees. Since there were a couple other cars nearby and people walking around,
we parked in the shade and left the dogs in the car before going exploring. The
bank vault was the first thing we spotted.
After that
was this old building, or what’s left of it anyway. Since we were above and
behind it we didn’t know at the time that it was the Union Hall for the miners
in the area. It was just a cool building and had a lot of different textures,
patterns and design elements in it that made for good photos.
Above and
behind the Union Hall were a lot of stone foundations that used to be the locations
for various houses and other buildings that I have not taken the time to
research. They varied from one layer of rock to many layers and all were
overgrown with trees that would give me an estimate of when the mine was
abandoned. (I know, it’s easier to just read the info someone else has already
researched, but I didn’t have that option at the time…).
The one
cabin that is mostly intact was the home of the last resident of the mine, Mae
Werning. She last lived in the cabin in 1969, or that is what is implied on the
sign that states it was her cabin and she died in 1969 at the age of 75.
There were
a Lot of other foundations around but most of those were just that, foundations
with nothing else left of them. Interesting, but not very much to someone that
is not into historic archaeology and they can only tell you a tiny bit about
the people that built there.
Moving on
to where the main milling site was we decided to take the dogs with us this
time but on leash. Anyone that has ever owned a Springer Spaniel will
understand how they are NOT helpful to doing photography or slow snooping
around at historic places.
Rather than
bore everyone with more details I will post a few more photos and send you to
my Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rockrabbit/
if you still have more questions, reply below and I’ll answer them as soon as I
can. (It will also tell me that Someone is reading this blog!) (Note, the building is screaming too!)
