Garnet may be one of the few boom towns that attract people even after their proverbial death. Most of them come into oblivion, get demolished by nature and disappear completely.
However, when a town is conserved in a good condition long enough, people become interested in it as a museum. What better way is there to look into the past than to see the habitation of people that is frozen in time for more over a century? That is why Garnet is so notable and attracts people even though nobody actually lives there.
The Founding and Growth of Garnet
California and Yukon were not the only places where people looked for and had found gold. The Garnet Mountains in Montana had lots of rivers rich with placer deposits. In 1865 a town was founded to work the gold deposits hidden in the nearby mountains.
People started using Garnet as a base for their placer operation, but within a few years the easily mined gravels were either depleted or claimed up. Miners had to start looking for the source, the rich veins of gold hidden in the mountain.
Back and Forth and Back Again
I should mention that placer deposits were not the only places that contained gold in Garnet. There were also rich gold veins in the hard rocks of the Garnet Mountains. But those veins were underneath a lot of overburden and not easily locatable.
Some people began to leave Garnet in the 1870s when placer deposits were depleted. Silver mining was much more successful in the neighboring areas. So, the town of Garnet was almost completely abandoned.
However, in 1893, 20 years later, the government destroyed silver mining industry by repealing Sherman Silver Purchase Act that prohibited people from free and unlimited purchase and coinage of silver. The repeal made prices for silver plummet, so people stopped mining silver and started to look for profits somewhere else. Many returned to Garnet.
A discovery of a very rich vein by Sam Ritchey in 1895 brought about a small Gold Rush in Garnet once again. Even a stamp mill was constructed there to process the ores. In only 3 years, Garnet held more than 1,000 citizens, a school, lots of stores, saloons and a doctor. It had over 20 mines.
This time in history may be considered the golden age of Garnet. Unfortunately, it lasted only 5 years. In 1905, gold became scarcer so some people began to lease their mines for others to dig, mining by oneself became unprofitable and so by 1905, most mines were closed down and Garnet population shrank to a mere 200 people.
In 1912 the coming of World War I and a great fire that destroyed more than half of the buildings drained Garnet of the population completely. It became a ghost town once again. However, it wasn’t done yet! In 1934 Gold prices doubled, the Great Depression made work scarce, so some people remembered the little town of Garnet once again. They moved back into the old cabins and restored some mines.
Small amounts of mining continues for a few more years, but the start of World War II came shortly after and people left once again, this time for good.
Visiting Garnet Today
There is only a small portion of Garnet left. Mostly buildings that were restored by people who had come after the end of the World War I. There are only about ten cabins left but they are really well preserved. People had abandoned even the furniture. You could say that right now Garnet is at its most popular time.
It can boast as much as 16,000 tourists annually, which is a lot for a town that Is abandoned and far away in the mountains. It is located east of Missoula, and a decent 4×4 pickup will get you there.
The cabins are preserved and managed as museum showpieces by the Bureau of Land Management and the Garnet Preservation Association and they do a very good job of it considering that all the cabins are wooden and centuries old. It is also notable that Miners Union Day, the main miners holiday, is celebrated in Garnet Town Hall.
Next: Miners are Finding Gold Nuggets in Montana… Big Ones!