The story
Elkhorn's silver mine paid steadily from the 1870s, supporting 2,500 people at the 1890 peak — and a childhood diphtheria epidemic whose small graves crowd the hilltop cemetery, the camp's saddest chapter. The 1893 silver crash broke the economy; the railroad spur held on hauling ore and timber until about 1912.
The town today is a strange checkerboard: a handful of residents and summer cabins among leaning originals, with the state's smallest park — literally two buildings, the ornate Fraternity Hall and neighboring Gillian Hall — preserving Montana's finest frontier architecture pair.
What remains today
Fraternity Hall & Gillian Hall (state park), dozens of private historic structures, mine works above town, and the cemetery.
Questions from the field
- What is Elkhorn State Park?
- Montana's smallest state park: just Fraternity Hall and Gillian Hall, standing side by side in the middle of the privately owned ghost town.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
Stamp your passport
Check in at Elkhorn — GPS-verified visits earn an inked stamp.
File a field report
Road conditions, what's still standing, what's gone — your report joins the record.
Add photographs
Credited, dated, and preserved as part of Elkhorn's permanent record.
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Sources consulted
- — USGS GNIS feature 1762688
- — Montana FWP — Elkhorn State Park
- — Jefferson County mining records