Southwest Montana Blog
Ghosts & Paranormal

The Old Lewis and Clark County Jail in Helena, Montana is located at 15 N Ewing St is a stunning granite structure. Today, the stunning Romanesque style building serves as a vibrant arts center in Helena known as “The Myrna Loy.”  This building was designed by Helena firm, Paulson and McConnell under contract...

Butte may have been the “Richest Hill on Earth” for the privileged few – Marcus Daly, William A. Clark, Augustus Hienze, among them – but for most of the men and women who called the place home, life in the city of Butte was difficult, dirty, and dangerous. In the first episode of Ghosts of …

Garnet ghost town is one of the best preserved ghost towns in Montana. Like much of the western United States, Montana was born on the dream of striking it rich in the gold rush of the 1860s. While Garnet’s story is similar in many ways to that of Bannack, Virginia City, Granite and the like, …

Ghosts of Devil’s Perch Paranormal activity is far from rare in the historic mining town of Butte, Montana. After what seems like never ending paranormal interference throughout town, city officials call in a paranormal investigation team with hopes of uncovering an evil presence that seems to be...

The Historic & Haunted Dumas Brothel of Butte When the subject of Southwest Montana hauntings comes up, the Dumas Hotel is almost certain to follow. Little wonder, too. The notoriously spooky building was once in the heart of Butte’s red-light district, “a one-block area where most of the vices of...

Paranormal encounters seem to be common throughout Southwest Montana. The region’s colorful history, one of immense fortune and infamous characters has lent itself to becoming a hot spot of activity. Southwest Montana boasts a rich mining history. Hundreds of thousands came to the area as gold was discovered....

With news of gold in Grasshopper Creek, the gold rush officially began in Montana in the summer of 1862. It was gold that drew thousands to Montana and established some of the region’s most prominent towns. On July 14, 1864, four men (known today as the Four Georgians) set up camp along Last Chance Gulch &#...

Virginia City is one of the biggest draws in Southwest Montana. And little wonder. The town played a central role in Montana’s development as a state, and it has a raucous and alluring history, full of exactly the kind of characters you hope to hear about in an old west goldrush town. But it’s not...

When it comes to ghosts and a belief in the paranormal, I would describe myself as an open-minded skeptic. While I’ve never had a paranormal experience myself, I’ve known plenty of people to describe their own encounters that verged on unexplainable. I enjoy the occasional ghost tour and love the history that...

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy (Hamlet, I.5) Here on the blog, there are a variety of opinions about ghosts and the like. More opinions than there are writers, in fact, because my skepticism/belief in ghosts has a good deal to do with how dark the &#...

The Butte Silver-Bow Public Archives sit at 17 W. Quartz Street in a building that once served as “Fire Station Number One.” This building remained the Quartz Street Fire Station until 1976 when the Montana and Mercury Streets Station was opened.  As you may know, the mining town of Butte, America saw its...

For over 100 years the (Old) Montana Prison at the south end of Deer Lodge housed the state’s worst offenders. Perpetually over-crowded and frequently mismanaged, the Prison was finally replaced by a new facility outside of town. Today, the Old Montana Prison, which still dominates Deer Lodge’s...