Zortman
ZORTMAN, MT, 59546 US / MT
Location Description
Zortman is a historic mining town, nestled in the Little Rocky Mountains, offering a good base for camping, hiking, gold panning, hunting and trail rides. Gold mining arrived in 1884. Historic log cabins and miners' shacks lean between modern buildings and trailers in a mishmash of architecture. Visitors enjoy the nearby Little Rocky Mountains and the UL Bend National Wildlife Refuge. History: Zortman takes its name from Oliver Peter Zortman, who discovered gold in the Little Rocky Mountains in the late 1880s. Over time, Zortman extracted $600,000 worth of gold from his Alabama Mine, which he had named for his home state. In 1898, Charles Whitcomb developed the Ruby Gulch Mine (2.5 miles from Zortman), one of the richest mines in the area. Five years later, Whitcomb built the second-largest cyanide mill in the world, with a capacity of 100 tons. Fires in 1912 and 1936 crippled the mine, but the death blow came with the federal government’s passage of Order L208, which halted gold mining at the beginning of World War II. The mine was unable to reopen after the war because of the depressed price for gold and high operating costs. With the mine’s closure, the town’s population dispersed, and by the early 1970s only 21 people lived in Zortman. In 1979, the international Pegasus Gold Corporation, headquartered in Spokane, Washington, bought the Zortman-Landusky gold mines and began mining operations that proved to be environmentally destructive. In 1996, Pegasus Gold agreed to begin a $37 million remediation of the massive cyanide contamination that resulted from their operations. The company’s bankruptcy in 1998, however, left the State of Montana to clean up the pollution. In 2002, the Fort Belknap tribes sued the state for damages to the watershed.
Location Category
- ACCOMMODATIONS - [general]
- ACCOMMODATIONS - Bed & Breakfasts / Inns
- ACCOMMODATIONS - Cabins / Lodges
- ACCOMMODATIONS - Motels
- BARS - Dives / Honkey Tonks
- BARS - Sports Bars
- BARS - Taverns / Pubs
- CITIES / TOWNS - [general]
- CITIES / TOWNS - Small Towns
- INDUSTRIAL - Quarries / Mines
- LANDSCAPES - [general]
- LANDSCAPES - Mountains / Valleys
- LANDSCAPES - Mountains / Valleys
- RELIGIOUS - [general]
- RELIGIOUS - Churches / Cathedrals
- ROADS / HIGHWAYS - [general]
- ROADS / HIGHWAYS - State Highways
