Montana’s most eerie state park is a gold rush town stuck in the 1800s

Bannack’s gold rush streets haven’t changed

Bannack sits 25 miles southwest of Dillon in Beaverhead County, Montana, at 5,837 feet.

More than 50 log, brick, and frame buildings still line Main Street, and most of them stand open for you to walk right inside.

The whole place covers 1,529 acres and holds National Historic Landmark status as a Montana state park. It runs year-round, too.

What pulls you in first is the quiet, but what keeps you there is everything those buildings still hold.

Gold in Grasshopper Creek started it all

Prospectors struck gold in Grasshopper Creek on July 28, 1862, and kicked off Montana’s first major gold rush. By 1863, more than 3,000 people packed the town.

Bannack even served as Montana’s first territorial capital in 1864 before Virginia City took over.

The name itself came from the local Bannock Indians, but Washington misspelled it on the post office paperwork and it stuck. When the gold ran thin, people drifted away.

Montana took over the town in 1954 and turned it into a state park, and it earned National Historic Landmark status in 1961.

Walk into Cyrus Skinner’s old saloon

You can stroll down Main Street in total silence now, but at its peak, this stretch held three hotels, three bakeries, three blacksmith shops, two stables, two meat markets, a grocery store and four saloons.

Cyrus Skinner’s Saloon, a known hangout for road agents, still stands. It later became a general store.

None of these buildings got restored to look pretty. They sit the way time left them.

Grab a self-guided photo tour booklet at the visitor center for two dollars.

The Hotel Meade started as a courthouse

The two-story brick Hotel Meade is the building you notice first.

Workers put it up in 1875 as the Beaverhead County Courthouse, the first brick courthouse in Montana. When the county seat moved to Dillon in 1881, the building sat empty for about nine years.

Around 1890, someone turned it into a hotel. It opened and closed over the decades, riding the rhythm of mining booms and busts, until it shut down for good in the 1940s.

During Bannack Days, they serve breakfast inside.

Classes ran for 70 years on the first floor

The Bannack Masonic Lodge No. 16 is a tall white frame building and one of the most photographed spots in town. The Masons met upstairs, where you can still see original furnishings and carpet on the floor.

Downstairs served as a schoolhouse starting in the 1870s, and classes ran there for about 70 years. The lodge remains active today.

A Methodist church built in 1877 stands nearby, another piece of Bannack that never left.

Headstones on the hill above town

The old cemetery sits on a hillside above Bannack, and you can walk right through it. Headstones and wooden markers name the miners, families and children who lived and died here during the frontier years.

North of town, Hangman’s Gulch holds a replica of the gallows where vigilantes hanged Sheriff Henry Plummer in 1864. You can see the original jail he built nearby, the first one in what became Montana.

Chrisman’s Store and a second jail sit close by.

Pan for gold where Montana’s rush began

On summer weekends, the park sets up supervised gold panning with all the equipment provided. Large tubs hold water and sediment from Grasshopper Creek, and you sift through it for whatever turns up.

Some panners pull out tiny sapphires and garnets along with gold dust.

This is one of the few spots in Montana where you can pan at the actual site of the state’s first major gold strike. General prospecting inside the park is off-limits outside these sessions.

Cutthroat trout run through the park

Grasshopper Creek winds right through Bannack, and it holds both cutthroat trout and brown trout.

Several access points sit along the ghost town area and near the campsites, so you can pick a stretch and cast without much walking. The creek runs through green banks with easy wading for fly fishing at any level.

If you came for the history but brought a rod, you already have a good afternoon planned along the water.

Ride a Model AA Ford to the old mill

The Hendricks Mill tour runs 50 minutes and takes you into a restricted section of the park. You arrive at the mill site aboard a Model AA Ford Truck, which sets the tone before you even get there.

The tour walks you through how large-scale mining worked in Bannack, including the dredges that ran for years along Grasshopper Creek. Tours are available during summer months, but you need to book ahead.

Spots fill up.

Bannack Days hits 50 years in 2026

Bannack Days falls on the third weekend in July and stands as the signature event of Montana’s state parks system. In 2026, it celebrates its 50th anniversary.

The weekend packs in blacksmithing, candle making, wagon rides, live music and mock gunfights right on Main Street.

You can try gold panning, pose for old-time photos and eat breakfast inside the Hotel Meade both mornings. Admission runs five dollars per person, and children five and under get in free.

Actors haunt the streets by lantern light

The Ghost Walk turns Bannack into something different.

Live actors portray characters from the town’s past along a lantern-lit nighttime tour held in late October. Ghost Walk 2026 is set for Oct. 23 and 24, and reservations open in September.

Come winter, the frozen dredge pond becomes an ice rink, usually from January through early March.

Free loaner skates are available, and a warming house sells hot drinks and snacks on weekends and holidays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., weather permitting.

Sleep in a tipi along Grasshopper Creek

Twenty-eight campsites line Grasshopper Creek, and the campground stays open year-round. You can pick from standard sites, tent-only walk-in pads, a hike-in/bike-in site, or a rental tipi.

Every site comes with vault toilets, grills, fire rings, picnic tables and drinking water, but no hookups.

The campground sits a short walk from the ghost town, so you can wander Main Street at dawn or dusk when nobody else is around. Hiking, bird watching, biking and photography fill the hours between.

Explore Bannack State Park in Montana

You can reach Bannack State Park by heading 25 miles southwest of Dillon off Highway 278.

From I-15, take exit 59 toward Jackson/Wisdom, drive 17 miles west on Highway 278, then follow the signs to Bannack Bench Road.

The visitor center runs from Memorial Day through Labor Day, but the park stays open all year. Montana residents who pay the nine-dollar state parks fee with their vehicle registration get in free.

Non-resident day use fees apply. Dillon, about 30 minutes east, is your closest stop for fuel, food and lodging.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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