Digging Bannack

By Story and photos by Nick Gevock - 09/13/2008

Twerp Dingley fills a bucket with dirt from a pile that was dug out from around the Meade Hotel in Bannack. Dingley and other volunteers from the Bannack Association recently helped with a salvage archaeology project during work on the hotel building.

BANNACK — Dan Hall had a surprise when he arrived here to start an archaeology project, but it wasn't something to be happy about.

The archaeologist from Missoula expected to show up at Bannack State Park and dig around the historic Meade Hotel before a stabilization project was started. Instead, Hall, his crew of workers and volunteers discovered that the construction work had already been started, with all the dirt around the hotel dug out by an excavator.

The mix-up was caused by miscommunication within the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the agency that manages the historic landmark.

"We are in damage control mode now," Hall told volunteers who came to help out on a recent morning. "It's a little more challenging." But the crew, after several telephone calls, went ahead with the project anyway. And what they found, Hall said several days after the work was completed, gives a glimpse into life in a Western gold mining town.

There were decorative beads, pieces of bone and shards of ceramics. It all came out of the hotel's back addition, which was added to the original building that was built as a courthouse in 1875.

The archaeology project came about as a mitigation measure to salvage artifacts during a stabilization of the Meade. The plan called for installing steel I-beams underneath the rear of the building, which over time has sagged in toward the middle.

Information lost Unfortunately, it's impossible to tell precisely which room the artifacts came out of because the dirt had been dug up by heavy equipment, instead of the careful excavation done by archaeologists working with shovels, said Sara Scott, FWP's heritage resources coordinator. She said the project illustrates the need for improvement within FWP.

"This is one that did not go well," she said. "We were supposed to be out there before the backhoe, not greeting the backhoe after they're already finished." However, Scott and Hall later learned by looking at old photographs that the dirt around the hotel had been dug up in 1980 during a previous construction project.

"It was a huge relief to both Dan and I to look at those photos, neither of which either of us had seen," she said. "They should not have started doing that before we had time to do our work, but at least it's not the damage we thought it was when we started." Still, Hall said a lot of information was lost. That's because even with an earlier ground disturbance, archaeologists can often reconstruct where artifacts came from and therefore get more information about the past.

"We've got lots of cool stuff, but unfortunately we've lost the provenience, and we've lost it twice," he said. Archaeology comes into the picture because anytime public money or land is involved in a project, state and federal laws require "cultural resources" be considered. That doesn't always mean a dig, although sometimes it's unavoidable when construction requires the ground to be dug up.

In the case of the Meade Hotel, FWP officials with the design and construction bureau decided against digging up the dirt around the hotel after seeing the photographs showing it had already been disturbed, Scott said.

Wade Cureton, an engineer with FWP's design and construction bureau, said mistakes were made in the project. But the agency, which recently created Scott's position to do a better job at archaeology during projects, is using the mistake as a learning tool.

He said the key historic records showing what had and hadn't been disturbed around Bannack are located at the historic site and not in Helena.

"We had a glitch in the project, and we've since met here at FWP," he said. "It was the records at the site that we need to pay more attention to next time." VOLUNTEER HELP The mix-up didn't dampen the enthusiasm of half a dozen volunteers with the nonprofit Bannack Association who came out to help work on the project. The association raises money and provides help in keeping Bannack up.

Several volunteers said they simply love history and always wanted to get out and do some hands-on archaeological work.

"History has become a big part of my life," said Cathy Speich-Ferguson of Dillon, who is president of the association. "I like to see it preserved as much in its original state as it can be." Once a plan was made to salvage what information they could, volunteers started screening dirt from the piles outside the trenches along the hotel. Hall said by talking to the excavator operator, they were able to figure out which pit — and hopefully which room in the hotel — the artifacts came from.

Other volunteers said they were still excited about the project.

"When I was an undergraduate, I thought I might like to be an archaeologist but did something else," said Terri Dood, a volunteer from Bozeman. "This was my chance to see what it's really like." She and other volunteers spent the day looking through screens after sifting dirt. Mostly the screens filled up with rocks, broken glass and pieces of brick.

But there were plenty of artifacts as well. And many added a great deal to what's already known about life in Bannack.

TREASURES FOUND The artifacts that were recovered showed how diverse the population living in Bannack was. Hall said there were a lot of clues to what life was like there that add to the historic record.

"The sheer number of artifacts we got was pretty high, and they were in pretty good shape," he said. "We found jewelry, beads, bone and a lot of ceramics, among other things." Specifically, toys illustrate that there were children in the town, which is not always the case in mining towns, Hall said. That shows that some miners might have intended to stick around, rather than strike it rich and leave as quickly as possible.

"The only time that children appear in the historical record is with a school, and the arrival of a school in a frontier community is a big deal because it indicates stability," he said.

Hall said there were also indicators of gambling in Bannack in the form of poker chips. And they found buttons and pieces of women's intimate clothing.

It's an indication that Bannack was typical of mining towns, with gambling, drinking and other activities.

"There's alcohol consumption, there's food consumption, there's gambling — you've got the whole gamut," he said.

Other finds are signs of the Victorian era, as well as indicators that some people were doing well financially in Bannack. There were imported ceramics from St. Louis, Chicago and other faraway places.

And the items that made it to tiny Bannack didn't just come from the United States. Archaeologists found a Soya pot, which were used by the Chinese. Hall said it shows not only that Bannack had a Chinese population, like many mining towns, but also the range of the trade network there.

"We like to talk about the global economy that we're in today, and the reality is these people in Bannack in the day were living in a global economy," he said.

Reporter Nick Gevock may be reached at nick.gevock@mtstandard.com.