Northeast Route 2001

            Imagine what it would be like to live in the first territorial capital, Bannack, back during the mining era.  Today we got to feel the experience of a real ghost town.  Bannack is almost 140 years old.  It started developing in 1862 when Pikes Peeker’s found gold there.  It already had 400 people living there that first fall.  Some gold miners slept under wagons or even on the ground that first winter even in the freezing cold temperatures of 40 or 50 below.

            Bannack is very well preserved.  We got to enjoy the sights just as they were when miners were living there.  We explored the whole town with a scavenger hunt that the tour guides gave us.  We saw the original school which only had about 27 students in it.  Another thing we enjoyed was panning for gold.  Most of us just found some stones called garnets, but some found a few flakes of gold.  Those were all fun sights to see, but the more exciting parts were the ones that gave us a little scare.

            We visited one of the two cemeteries that are in Bannack.  Most of the people buried there died at a very young age, most from diseases like cholera and diphtheria.  What scared us the most were the unmarked graves and the sunken holes where some were buried. 

            On the tour there were rumors of a ghost named Dorothy that lives in Bannack.  She was swimming one summer day in Grasshopper creek with her friend Birdie when she drowned.  She was only about 10 years old when she died and has been sighted haunting the Meade Hotel.  One of our classmate’s sister has actually seen Dorothy.

            Another building that is haunted is the “Crying Baby House.”  Many babies were sick with diseases when Bannack was still a town.  They took these babies to this house to be nursed back to health, but many of them still died.  To this day, people can hear babies crying in that house.

            Overall, Bannack was one of the coolest places we visited.  It was interesting with all the historical facts.  It was fun to see real haunted buildings, and it was neat to look at the old tombstones of past Bannack residents.  We know that we will definitely go back to unlock the real secrets of the ghost town.