Helena was born of the gold rush, nurtured by the wealth of its financiers and raised on its political struggles. The lawless gold camp and its vigilante hangings left an indelible imprint on the modern community. Restless spirits from Helena's turbulent past still linger around town. Historian and award-winning author Ellen Baumler blends history with the supernatural as she expertly weaves the past with the present in a ghostly web. Firsthand accounts and historical records add credibility to these spooky but true tales. Explore the legacy of the hangman's tree and meet the ghosts of historic Last Chance Gulch. These stories and more bring to light the shadowy places in Helena where the past sometimes comes to life. Ellen Baumler has been the interpretive historian at the Montana Historical Society since 1992. She earned her PhD in English, classics and history from the University of Kansas. Ellen is a longtime member of the Humanities Montana Speakers Bureau, a 2011 recipient of the Governor's Award for the Humanities and an award-winning author. She is a popular storyteller, best known for weaving the past with the present in a ghostly twist. Haunted Helena Montana's Queen City Ghosts By Ellen Baumler The History Press Copyright © 2014 Ellen Baumler All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-60949-934-1 Contents Acknowledgements, Introduction: It Begins at Home, 1. Shadows of the Gold Camp, 2. Ghosts on the Gulch, 3. Lily's Legacy, 4. The Haunting of Reeder's Alley, 5. A Spirited Neighborhood, 6. For Fern, 7. Dead Men Walking, 8. Something Extra, 9. Haunted Landscapes, 10. Captured Moments, About the Author, CHAPTER 1 SHADOWS OF THE GOLD CAMP The gold in the gravel of Last Chance Gulch fueled financial empires and built Montana's capital city. The legacy of the gold rush lives on in Helena's flamboyant architecture and luxurious West Side homes that dazzle visitors today. But Helena is also a place of secrets, nestled in its crooked bed along the famous gulch. Besides a colorful history, Helena has a clandestine past of layered energy, where shadows lurk in darkened doorways, intense emotions linger and roaming spirits leave no footprints. Tribal histories and archaeology tell us that generations of Native Americans trekked through the game-rich Helena valley, planting the first layer of energy. Early people knew the valley as a place where earthquakes made the ground tremble. They left their handprints and mysterious paintings on nearby cliff walls and their stone tools and projectile points scattered across the valley. Members of the Lewis and Clark expedition also traveled through, noting in their journals the Gates of the Rocky Mountains. Antelope, rattlesnakes and grizzly bears were plentiful when four prospectors happened upon the gulch on July 14, 1864. Known to posterity as the Four Georgians for the placer mining method they practiced, the down-on-their-luck foursome was en route to Virginia City for supplies. They decided to give it one more try, dug holes and crouched along the banks of the clear stream with their gold pans, swishing and swirling water and gravel. Their discovery touched off changes to the valley. Miners churned up the wilderness and stripped the forests. By 1869, Last Chance Gulch had given up nearly $18 million worth of the golden treasure, and the gulch looked nothing like it had a few years previous. But log cabins built close together were vulnerable to the fires that haunted early residents. Their survival depended on goods freighted far distances. If fire claimed their food supply, there was no immediate replacement. And this anxiety provided a third kind of energy. Early businessmen were in such a hurry to build fireproof stores and offices that brick and stone buildings covered the diggings before the gold had entirely played out. Legend has it that as late as 1913, excavation for the Placer Hotel yielded enough gold to pay for the building and then some. Helena is literally built on gold. In the earliest days of the gold camp, miners worked at a feverish pitch. At the south end of Last Chance Gulch, where it divides into Grizzly and Oro Fino Gulches, a prospector from California built a cabin. The log dwelling served as the entrance to his claim, and he worked it, digging (or "drifting") into the hillside. He was an older man who kept to himself, and perhaps that is why there was talk about him. Some believed that he was a murderer and a fugitive. There was something else about this miner. He had the Midas touch. Every bucket of rock he dug yielded gold. Everyone knew he had amassed a huge hoard that he stored in his drift, and some were jealous. Then one night the miner disappeared. He wasn't exactly missed, as no one cared where he had gone, but it was strange that he wasn't around anymore. What he had in his drift was common knowledge, and many a miner cast his gaze longingly toward the old man's cabin. Late one night, two men t