Helena, Butte & Southwest Montana

The state capital Helena, the copper city of Butte, the ghost towns of Virginia City and Bannack, and the fly-fishing rivers of the Madison and Beaverhead valleys.

South-west Montana is where the territory's gold and copper booms happened, and much of that history still stands. Helena, the state capital, was founded after four prospectors struck gold at Last Chance Gulch on 14 July 1864; by 1888 it was said to have about 50 millionaires. Its main street still follows the gulch, Reeder's Alley preserves miners' lodgings from the 1870s and 1880s, and the copper-domed State Capitol was built between 1896 and 1902. Butte, an hour south, was the copper city. Its uptown, with mine headframes standing over brick blocks, is part of the Butte–Anaconda Historic District, which has more contributing buildings than any other National Historic Landmark district in the United States. The Berkeley Pit, an open-pit copper mine worked from 1955 to 1982, is now filled with acidic water and can be seen from a viewing stand. The city has a strong Irish heritage, celebrated every St. Patrick's Day. In nearby Anaconda, the 585-foot smelter stack built in 1919 survives as a state park landmark. The gold-rush towns are further south. Bannack, founded in 1862 and Montana's first territorial capital, is a ghost town preserved as a state park near Dillon. Virginia City, the territorial capital from 1865 to 1875, and neighbouring Nevada City are kept as open-air museums along Alder Gulch, linked in summer by a small railway. The region's rivers, the Madison, the Beaverhead and the Big Hole, are among the best known trout streams in the West, and Ennis on the Madison is a fly-fishing town. Philipsburg, a restored mining town near Georgetown Lake, and the Discovery ski area complete the region. Summer is the best season; many historic sites open only from late May to September.