blackfoot-valley

forty structures restored and maintained as a state historical park. Lying just four miles due west of Meyer-leased land as the crow flies, it’s accessible from either of two side roads: one leading from State Highway 200 at a point halfway between Missoula and Ovando, the other from Interstate 90 west of Drummond. Silver mining followed gold in a number of places and overall became more lucrative, although it similarly declined as the accessible ore was ex- hausted. The two most notable silver-mining centers in the high period of the 1880s were Butte and Granite. In the Butte area, early gold probings started in 1864 and yielded some results, but eventually fizzled out. Silver was later found in the quartz outcrops of Butte Hill. After a stamp mill was built in the mid-1870s to process the hard-rock ore, Butte boomed as a silver camp. By 1890, Montana had become the nation’s largest silver producer, with the leading producer by then at Granite Mountain, near Philipsburg. But the hey- day of silver mining ended with the panic of 1893 when Congress mandated that the Federal government stop buying silver. Faced with the sudden end of artificially high prices that had been guaranteed by the government program, investors nationwide lost faith in the currency that was heavily silver-backed. The Granite Mountain mines and most others abruply shut down, with thou- sands thrown out of work. “ Your Name Creek”, Gold Mining, 1860s 76