Archive » July 30, 2009

 

Sometimes the best places to visit are those you find when you get lost.

That’s how I found Pony, a veritable living ghost town in southern Montana, about an hour west of Bozeman.

Bozeman is one of Montana’s most popular cities; Pony might be one of its most unknown.

Once upon a time, Pony was a gold rush town where little gold was found. The miners turned to cyanide instead, but when mining fell off altogether in the early part of the 20th century, the town shrank.

Today, it is half rural residential community (with most of the residents living in the Victorian-style homes built by some of the wealthier early residents), and half ghost town.

Population? About 100, between 40 to 50 families.

Ghost towns of the American West are typically similar to Northern California’s Bodie — boarded up wooden buildings, many in decrepit states, with no hope for revival in the future.

Pony is a little different.

Many of the unused structures here, such as the bank and the magnificent two-story brick schoolhouse, are still weatherproof and could be renovated and used again.

I was so curious about this lost town with its old buildings that I went digging for some history of Pony, with its great western name.

The town was actually named for a person, Tecumsah “Pony” Smith, a prospector who found gold in local Willow Creek in 1866, according to the Montana State Historical Society.

Today, the entire downtown of Pony is considered a state historic district.

Smith’s discovery, like many California and Alaska finds of the gold rush age, created a town where there had only been a beautiful canyon before.

People flooded to Pony to try to find their fortunes, but the gold in the creek was not as plentiful as hoped.

It wasn’t a failure, though. One estimate puts the ore taken from the area at about $5 million in value.

The population topped out around 5,000 people.

Nevertheless, 20 years of growth followed, and by 1895, the church, which still stands today, had been constructed. The school was built for $10,000 in 1902. A lonely swing set and seesaw still stand in the playground.

Cyanide processing followed the gold rush, and the town continued to prosper until about 1910. After that, the focus shifted to agriculture, and most of the population drifted away to find luck elsewhere.

Today, only a bar is open for business in Pony. All of the other businesses have closed, the general store having shut its doors in 1981.

A few locals sell antiques, log furniture and other crafts from their homes.

According to a local newspaper article that appeared at the time, the final contents of the general store’s inventory were sold at auction.

The owners said they closed because so few people frequented the premises, with most locals doing their shopping in nearby Bozeman.

“For the first time since early in the 1860s, Pony will be without a general store,” wrote columnist Fran Denning.

Denning goes on to bemoan the many other losses Pony had witnessed over the years, among them the closure of the grade school and high school in the early 1940s.

Today, the buildings are used for community gatherings and appear to be in relatively good shape.

From the former school’s windows, there is an impressive view of the nearby Tobacco Root Mountains and Mt. Hollowtop, surely the source of many grade school day dreams for kids 100 years ago.

In Pony Park, a memorial to the numerous local residents who served in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II is dedicated.

There are at least five sets of brothers listed on the plaque, with one family sending four sons to fight.

The town once had a newspaper called (what else?) The Pony Express, but it has gone the way of that famous delivery service.

And once upon a time, there was a railroad, baseball team, community band and 12 saloons.

“The railroad is gone, but there are still some who can remember the trains backing into the Pony Depot from Harrison (the next town down the line) as there was no place to turn around,” wrote an unknown author of an unofficial local history, which is posted at a trailhead in the nearby National Forest.

“In 1943, trains were discontinued. Pony is a town with a golden past ... and a beautiful future!”

The Willow Creek trailhead into the Tobacco Root Mountains and Deerlodge National Forest is popular today with hikers, runners, all-terrain-vehicle drivers and horseback enthusiasts, rather than gold prospectors. Bears still frequent the area. and campers are warned to be careful.

In the window of the Morris State Bank, an imposing brick structure — also abandoned — a last sign for those interested in “mining and real estate” is still in the window. Will it still be there in another 100 years?

 

Leah Etling is on an extended road trip around the American West. Reach Leah at etling@hotmail.com Follow her daily adventures at letling.wordpress.com.