Bannack Bound: Mabel the Matriarch of Bannack
- Ian
- 52 minutes ago
- 8 min read
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 born in Ohio in 1896, and by 1908, her family had relocated to South Dakota to establish a homestead. She later married Glen Dart, who died just a few years into their marriage, leaving her to raise a young daughter on her own. Eventually, she remarried a man named Floyd Ovitt, with whom she had five more children.
Despite the demands of raising a large family, Mabel always made time to improve her reading and writing skills. A firm believer in the value of education—despite not having much formal schooling herself—she remained committed to learning throughout her life.
For a time, Floyd and Mabel had a homestead of their own on the Powder River in Wyoming, but they eventually moved to Miles City, Montana. In 1949, Floyd died, leaving Mabel at home with their two youngest children still under her care. Struggling to make ends meet, Mabel decided to build an apartment building in Miles City, which would hopefully provide her enough income so she could write full-time.
Having picked up some carpentry knowledge from her father and brothers—who all made a living in the trade—Mabel soon got to work. It took several years, but remarkably, she completed most of the construction herself while still raising her children. Her son Neill pitched in too, proving especially helpful with the plumbing.
Before the apartment building was completed, disaster struck: the Ovitt family's small home burned to the ground. Using the insurance settlement and proceeds from selling the unfinished building, Mabel once again set her sights west. She had first seen Bannack a few years earlier while visiting her son Norman in nearby Dillon. She had been struck by how well-preserved the town's buildings were, despite their age.
Now, with enough funds to support her writing, Mabel devoted herself to learning all she could about Bannack. She traveled across the state, interviewed old-timers, and spent long hours poring over dusty records at the Historical Society in Helena.
By 1952, Mabel had compiled her research into a book titled Golden Treasure, which was published that same year. Around this time, she moved to Bannack and threw her full energy behind the growing movement to preserve the town. Less than a decade later, her efforts paid off: Bannack was designated a Montana State Park, and in 1961, it was recognized as a National Historic Landmark.
Mabel lived in the store pictured above, selling odds and ends to the occasional tourist in her later years. Remarkably, she also held a gold claim in the hills above town and could often be found working it—digging for gold well into her 70s.
Tragically, Mabel Ovitt’s life came to an end in a heartbreaking accident. While headed to her gold claim, she parked her car on a rough dirt road and walked around to the back to retrieve something from the trunk. In that moment, the vehicle slipped out of gear and rolled over her. A passerby discovered her hours later and rushed her to the hospital, but her injuries were too severe.
Though her passing was calamitous, there’s some comfort in knowing that her tireless efforts helped preserve Bannack for future generations. Without her, the town might have quietly crumbled back into the earth. Today, Mabel rests in the newer cemetery just outside of Bannack—its last resident to be buried there—forever a part of the place she loved most.
Behind Mabel’s store stands a small, one-room building with a curious feature set into the floor—a rough basin or firepit of some sort, cast directly into the earth. With no chimney or exhaust above it, the basin theory seems more likely. Still, even by the standards of the time, the stones lining it appear especially crude.
Perhaps a laundry once operated nearby, and this rudimentary “tub” was used to scrub the dirt and grease from miners’ shirts and trousers. Its rough sides may have helped wear away the grime of the gulch—another humble tool in the story of daily survival in Bannack.
One of the most intriguing homes in Bannack is the Graeter House, located near the town’s western entrance. It was built in 1863 by Augustus F. Graeter, an early settler and key figure in Bannack’s development. Born in Pennsylvania, Augustus moved through Ohio, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and the gold fields around Pikes Peak, Colorado, and Salmon, Idaho, before finally settling in Bannack in 1862. He arrived with his wife, Emily, whom he had married a few years earlier in Nebraska.
At first, Augustus worked the small-scale placer mines in the area. But by the following spring, he and a group of about half a dozen men had begun construction on the Bannack Ditch—a vital irrigation project that brought large volumes of water to the gulch and enabled placer mining operations to expand significantly.
Standing on the boardwalk in front of the house, I noticed several features that set the Graeter dwelling apart from the others in town. A wide side porch ran along the length of the home—likely a welcome spot to enjoy the late afternoon breezes drifting down the gulch in summertime. The front facade featured red-trimmed windows: two rectangular ones on the first story and a distinctive diamond-shaped window centered under the peak of the roof. Between the two lower windows were two vertical lines of mortar that matched those between the logs elsewhere on the structure. They hinted at a doorway that had once been there. I couldn’t help but wonder when the door had been removed—and for what purpose.
Barely two years after settling in Bannack, Augustus Graeter was lured east by the gold strikes in Virginia City. He joined the rush to Alder Gulch, where he mined with limited success. During his time there, Graeter became a member of the Montana Vigilance Committee—a group of citizens who took justice into their own hands in a lawless and rapidly growing territory.
According to the Dillon Tribune, Augustus was present on January 14, 1864, when the Committee carried out the hanging of Boone Helm and four other outlaws in Virginia City—an event that marked a turning point in Montana’s frontier justice. In an eerie twist of fate, Augustus would pass away exactly 60 years later, on the anniversary of that day.
(Read more about the Vigilance Committee in my earlier post on Bannack’s rougher side: Bannack Bound.)
Despite Virginia City’s rapid growth, Augustus Graeter didn’t see much of a future there and returned to Bannack by 1865. Perhaps he was drawn back by the promise of a quieter life for his growing family, or maybe he suspected that others had been too quick to abandon Bannack—and that the gulch still held gold worth chasing.
Stepping through the side “front” door, I entered a large central room lined with old cupboards along one wall and a patchwork of wall treatments on all sides. The most remarkable was a vivid piece of wallpaper visible in a side room—its colors so fresh and vibrant, it looked as if it could’ve been applied just yesterday. Unlike the faded papers in most other homes I'd seen, this one had retained its brightness, perhaps thanks to the shade provided by the sprawling cottonwoods outside.
An old stovepipe still dangled from the ceiling, and a second horizontal vent suggested another stove had once shared the space. Paired with the layered flooring beneath my feet, these details hinted at multiple generations of occupants. Holes for electrical fixtures could still be seen above, proof that the house remained in use well into the 20th century. In another room, I found rustic cowboy-themed wallpaper—its reds and blues still surprisingly bold. It reminded me of a similar, though more subdued, pattern my mother still has in the bathroom of my childhood home.
The multiple layers of flooring and wallpaper in the Graeter House hint at untold stories waiting to be uncovered. While I managed to track down information about the original owner, little research has been done on the second, third, and even fourth occupants of many Bannack homes and businesses. I imagine if anyone had delved deeper before those residents faded into history, it would have been Mrs. Ovitt. Perhaps she documented some of this in her book Golden Treasure—one of these days, I’ll have to track down one of the few remaining copies online.
After returning to Bannack, Augustus Graeter moved back into the home he had built. He may have left his family there while he worked in the rough-and-tumble gold camps of Alder Gulch, living out of a tent like so many other miners. Upon his return, Augustus resumed mining and partnered with A. J. Smith to establish a mercantile store that operated for six years. He also launched a successful ranch on Horse Prairie, further cementing his place in the Bannack community.
The Graeters remained in Bannack well into the 1890s, with Augustus partnering alongside F. L. Graves in a groundbreaking dredge project that helped reshape local mining operations. Before the turn of the century, Augustus moved his family to Dillon, where he became involved in several businesses and was even elected to the city council. Many of his children stayed in Dillon, and Augustus lived to the ripe old age of 89, passing away in 1924.
Just a few yards down the street, there was one last notable spot to see. Nestled between two “newer” houses—likely built in the 1940s but now long abandoned—stood the site of Montana’s first governor’s “mansion.” Sidney Edgarton, a territorial judge, was appointed by Abraham Lincoln as the first governor of Montana Territory. Lincoln placed his trust in Edgarton due to his exemplary service as Chief Justice of the Idaho Territorial Supreme Court and his unwavering stance as a staunch abolitionist.
According to Distinctly Montana magazine, the man on the far right in the photo is holding a rifle once owned by former Bannack sheriff and road agent Henry Plummer, infamous leader of the Plummer Gang.
After visiting that final site, I turned back and looked down Main Street. The town was silent—completely empty, save for me. I felt lucky to explore Bannack in a way few do these days, with nothing but the wind and weathered wood for company. I listened carefully for any sign of ghosts, my eyes scanning each window, almost hoping to glimpse a fading face behind the wavy glass. I hope to return someday in summer, when the town stirs with life again—families and visitors wandering the boardwalks, pausing to honor the pioneers who once carved a place into this wild land we now call Montana.
Sources:
Augustus f. graeter. (1924, January 18). The Dillon Tribune . Retrieved from https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/147899727/augustus-f.-graeter.
Mabel Ovitt. (n.d.). Billings, MT . https://billingslibrary.org/DocumentCenter/View/5760/OvittMable
Residence of Montana’s First Governor, 1863, when Bannack was the Capital. (1908). photograph, Bannack, MT.
Walton, A. (n.d.). Bannack Montana. Western Mining History. https://westernmininghistory.com/towns/montana/bannack/
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