An old mill lurking in the hills above Virginia City, Montana, has almost completely fallen into ruin. Years of harsh winters and neglect have left hardly anything left standing to explore.

The mine, now collapsed, was active intermittently from 1918 to 1940 and once had a 900-foot-long adit. Besides the mill building, the camp consisted of a sawmill, blacksmith shop, assay office, cookhouse, bunkhouse, and cabins. The mill was once equipped with a jaw crusher, Marcy ball mill, classifier, flotation, and cyanide tanks. Almost all are gone now.

Despite being only a few miles from town, this site is lonely and isolated. We visited at twilight, and the faint chill of autumn was in the air.


GPS