Historical Marker

Jib Mill

Jefferson County · Montana

Basin's old mines found a second life that had nothing to do with gold. In 1951, the story goes, a woman lunching underground with her miner husband at the Free Enterprise mine near Boulder found her arthritis eased, and by 1952 abandoned workings between Boulder and Basin, the Merry Widow among them, were being fitted with benches for visitors who came to breathe radon gas. Montana's health department has never encouraged it; radon causes lung cancer, and researchers find no effect on arthritis. The health mines drew visitors for decades all the same.

What the plaque says

Jib Mill The Hope, Katy and White Elephant mines behind this sign were once part of the most productive mining enterprises in the history of the Basin. The Hope and Katy lodes produced $5,000,000 of ore between 1890 and 1910. On April 20, 1895, the BASIN TIMES told of a particularly good strike that was made that spring. The Hope mine has long been noted for the richness of it's ores, but now it is noted for the quantity of solid gold. Upon the discovery of (a drift of exceptionally rich ore) Foreman Buckley summoned Manager Fletcher to the scene at once and in the first piece that he picked up was contained over $500 of pure gold. The surroundings fairly dazzled his eyes. The Jib Mill was built in 1900 to efficiently process the ore. At one time more than 100 men were employed at the mill. The structure burned down in 1975.

Where it stands

46.26972, -112.27008 · Directions

Worth the stop nearby

Granite Mountain/Speculator Mine Memorial — 21 mi
An overlook above the shaft where the 1917 fire began, and the letters some of the trapped men wrote while they waited.
Mai Wah Museum — 22 mi
Two brick buildings left from Butte's Chinatown, and a store whose goods came home after seventy years away.
Montana State Capitol — 25 mi
A copper-domed capitol won in a copper kings' election, with a Russell painting that put the Salish at the center.

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