Elkhorn Ghost Town
Elkhorn Rd
Boulder, MT
Two graceful frontier halls standing amid a real silver ghost town, Montana's smallest state park.
Elkhorn is the real thing, a silver ghost town where two elegant frontier halls still stand against the mountains. The camp boomed in the 1870s and 1880s on rich silver ore, and at its height it was a proper town of perhaps a couple thousand people, with a school, hotel, church, stores, and saloons, and it counted among Montana's most productive silver districts.
When silver crashed and the ore played out, Elkhorn emptied out, and a diphtheria epidemic that took many of the town's children hastened its decline. Today its most famous survivors, Fraternity Hall and the neighboring Gillian Hall, are preserved as Montana's smallest state park, two graceful wooden buildings keeping watch over a scatter of cabins and mine remains up a quiet gulch.
What Guests Love
- Two beautifully preserved 1890s halls standing alone in a genuine ghost town
- Wandering among weathered cabins and mine remnants scattered up the gulch
- The quiet, uncrowded feel of a place time simply left behind
- The drive up through the mountains and the small pioneer cemetery
Worth Knowing
- Only the two halls are state property; most other buildings are private, so look but do not enter or trespass
- The access road is gravel and can be rough or muddy; it is best in dry weather and not maintained in winter
- There are no services at the site, so bring water and everything you need
- It is a small, quiet stop, an hour of quiet exploring rather than a full day
Details
Boulder, MT
Learn about Elkhorn Ghost Town
A silver boom in the hills
Elkhorn grew up in the 1870s around rich silver-lead ore in the mountains above Boulder, and a productive mine was operating by the late 1870s. Through the 1880s the camp swelled to a family town of around two thousand people, unusual for a mining camp of the era, with a school, church, hotel, and the usual run of saloons and stores. Over its life the district is estimated to have produced well over ten million dollars in silver.
Two forces ended it. The collapse of silver prices in the 1890s pulled the economic floor out from under the town, and a diphtheria epidemic swept through and killed many of Elkhorn's children, a grief that hangs over the little cemetery to this day. Mining sputtered on in fits and starts until the works finally closed for good in the 1930s, and the town faded to a handful of residents.
Fraternity Hall and Gillian Hall
The two buildings that make Elkhorn famous are Fraternity Hall and Gillian Hall, standing side by side near the top of the old main street. Fraternity Hall, built in 1893, was the town's social heart, a place for dances, plays, and gatherings, and it is admired for its refined design: a Greek Revival lower story topped by an unusual overhanging, neoclassical second story that gives it real architectural grace for a remote mining camp.
These two halls are the only structures owned by the state, preserved as Montana's smallest state park. Everything else in Elkhorn, the leaning cabins, the false-fronted stores, the mine buildings, is private property. Visitors are welcome to look and photograph, but not to enter or disturb the other buildings.
It is that mix that makes Elkhorn special: a couple of carefully kept landmarks anchoring a townscape otherwise left to weather and time, so you get both preservation and the authentic melancholy of a real ghost town.
Visiting Elkhorn
Elkhorn lies up a gravel road in the mountains above Boulder, off the interstate between Helena and Butte. The road is passable for most vehicles in dry weather but can turn rough or muddy and is not maintained in winter, so plan for good conditions and check before a long detour. There are no services at the site.
Beyond the two halls, wander the gulch to find scattered cabins, mine dumps, and the small pioneer cemetery, whose children's graves tell the quiet story of the epidemic. It is a place to walk softly and look closely, an hour among the bones of a town that once thought it would last, set in the kind of empty, beautiful Montana country that makes ghost towns worth chasing.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near Boulder
Boulder
About 11 miles
The small county-seat town below, gateway to Elkhorn and to the area's old radon health mines.
Boulder Hot Springs
About 15 miles
A historic hot-springs hotel and soak in the valley, a restful counterpoint to the ghost town.
Helena
About 40 miles
Montana's capital, a gold-rush city with the Last Chance Gulch walking street and the Cathedral of St. Helena.
Cataract Falls
About 20 miles
A pretty backcountry waterfall in the Elkhorn Mountains, reached by a short forest hike.