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Paradox is a place that seemed to invite those estranged from society. The West is wide open, and many who crossed it in the 19th century were leaving society behind, at least temporarily. But to be estranged from it is altogether different. Some of the people who came to the Paradox Valley had no place among civilized men and no use for their laws either. One of those men was Axel Peterson. In 1910 he arrived in Paradox, a hard-drinking drifter in his mid-thirties. He looked

In the final installment of the series, we follow the life of a woman whose unwavering dedication helped preserve the historic town of Bannack, ensuring its stories and its spirit would endure for generations. Across the street from the Methodist church near the middle of town lies the Ovitt Store. Once home to a saloon, a bustling boarding house, and even a bakery, the building found new life in the 1950s when Mrs. Mabel Ovitt took over and turned it into a shop. Mabel was b

The heart of Bannack holds its share of stories, but it’s in the forgotten edges of town where the ghosts whisper loudest. While most ghost towns offer only a few scattered cabins, Bannack tells a fuller story. Some came to strike it rich, digging deep into the earth. Others saw opportunity above ground, opening businesses to serve the miners. And then there were the drifters, drawn by the chaos and chance of a town on the edge of nowhere, chasing drink, cards, and fleeting f

As I rolled down the highway, I was pointed towards "the door through which the world rushed into Montana," according to Lora Anderson-Gale. I'm talking about Bannack, the Montana ghost town that started it all. After resupplying in Dillon for the better part of the day, I booked it over Badger Pass through the white-dusted sagebrush that smattered the rolling hills surrounding me in early November. Bannack is one of the best-preserved ghost towns in the state of Montana. Eac

Tucked away in one of the furthest reaches of the Yankee Fork, miles up an isolated gorge, lies the ghost town of Custer, Idaho. As I roll into town, the dense evergreens on either side give way to wide, open swaths of snow, dotted with aspen and willow trees. The town is quiet, with numerous structures boarded up for winter, their roofs blanketed in a thick layer of snow. Not another soul is in sight as I park the truck and step out to walk through this slice of history. At

With clear weather forecast for the next few days, I ventured deeper into the mountains toward the ghost towns of Custer and Bonanza. Following the Yankee Fork of the Salmon River north, I passed a tall cottonwood tree standing by the roadside. Its trunk, gnawed halfway through, must have been no match for the local beaver population. The notch was on the roadside and a few inches wide, suggesting that the tree would soon fall at some random moment. It almost felt as though t

Barreling out of Helena that morning, I was bound for a piece of history unlike others; it was for sale to the highest bidder. The ghost...

Standing up on that hill beneath the shadow of Mount Belmont was the crown of the town, an old cabin with only its walls still vertical....

Standing above the haggard former mining outpost of Garnet, I felt like I was in the foreground of an old Charles Russell painting as the...

I was just below the remote summit of Cooper Pass on the very western border of Montana, surrounded by dark emerald pines, rolling ahead...