There are quite a few Ghost Towns in Montana.
While I have been to a few ghost towns in other places, none of them compare to Bannack Ghost Town. Tucked away in the hills of Montana with the closest town being Dillon. 
Once you get off the interstate, and make a right turn, you go, and go and go. You find yourself wondering how the heck did anyone even think of coming to this particular area and finding gold. Especially without a truck!
Bannack is the site of Montana’s first major gold discovery in 1862. Bannack was also Montana’s first territorial capital.
http://stateparks.mt.gov/bannack/
If you do a google search on this wonderful town, you can find all kinds of amazing things out about it.
My suggestion to you of course, is to hop in your trusty vehicle and head to Montana and visit it yourself!
Bannack has history, Bannack has ghosts, Bannack is just a neat place to photograph.
I managed to fill up a 32gig camera chip in July. Good thing the Mr. had the other camera to capture what I didn’t. I was more worried about my battery running out (because ghosts need energy) I never thought that I would fill up a chip.
However, I did shoot a lot of HDR photos, so for every 1 HDR shot, my camera was actually creating 7 pictures. I had no idea that this camera would shoot RAW while I was shooting HDR. If you don’t understand, that’s okay. RAW is the raw data, its like having a negative to develop once you get home! So lessons learned. Take more than one chip!
While we were exploring this wonderful town, I was finding different and unique things to photograph, besides the buildings themselves.
One of the odd things I decided to shoot was door knobs. Yes, really. Why? I have no idea. But think about it. You need them to open doors into the past.
I also found doors and doorways interesting on this trip. And let’s not forget the views out the windows. How many people in the late 1800’s stood exactly where we stood and looked out as the world was passing by.
One thing I think of as we walk through these buildings, is what was life like back then. Yes, the town was booming, but it couldn’t have been easy at all.
One story they tell about the Hotel Meade, is about a little girl who was playing outside by the sludge pond, she fell in and drown. They say that her spirit is in the hotel and she is very noticeable to children. How sad, and how interesting!
The stairway in the Hotel is also claimed to be haunted. Many people have been pushed down the stairs by bad spirits. I for one, find these stairs to be interesting. Imagining women dressed in the finest dresses they own cascading down the stairs. Knowing me, I would trip down the stairs by stepping on that fine dress.
The Hotel Meade is a beautiful old building. The windows, the doors, the rooms. It’s all so unique to the times.
At the end of the hallway in the front of the building are two locked doors. Rumor has it that the reason they are locked is because of the negative paranormal activity. I’m not a fan of bad spirits.
So I shot down the hallway and shot close to the doors but I refused to go down to the other doorway in the darkened hall. Yes, call me a chicken.
Why mess with the bad guys if you don’t have too. I always made sure I knew where the Mr. was!!! I knew he could protect me if needed!
I will not post all of the buildings for you on this particular blog because there is just so much to see!
So our first adventure will be the Hotel Meade.
Enjoy the step back in time.
The view out the window in the middle of the stairs.
The view of the Hotel Meade from across the street.
There is just so much to see. We didn’t capture it all as we had to be in Boise later that day. But being so close to such an amazing Ghost Town, we had to stop. It literally was a three hour tour!
Stay tuned for more of Bannack Ghost Town.
Happy Shooting
T Lynn
Mt McLoughlin with a fresh blanket of snow!
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