Unionville

The mine's name carries its discoverer's war. James Whitlatch, a Union Army veteran, found the lode in the hills south of Helena in September 1864, and the claim joined his name to the side he had fought on; the camp in Oro Fino Gulch became Unionville. The panel ends the Whitlatch-Union in 1897, when the vein vanished under a fault, but the story did not stop there. The mine was reopened in 1905 and worked off and on until at least 1930, and the town never emptied, as so many camps did, because Helena was so close.

What the plaque says

Unionville Helena owes its existence to gold-bearing quartz lodes in the hills south of town. The gold washed out of the hills into Last Chance Gulch where the "Four Georgians" discovered it in 1864. The fabulously rich strike drew hundreds of men and women to this area, including James Whitlatch, the discoverer of Helena's "mother lode". His Whitlatch- Union Mine spawned Unionville. The camp included stores, saloons, a Chinese laundry, boarding houses, and school as well as an extensive complex of stamp mills and warehouses. The largest producer of gold bullion in the United States by the early 1870's, the Unionville district was well on its way to prominence when several events reversed its fortunes. In 1897, the gold-bearing lode in the Whitlatch-Union Mine disappeared under a fault. Efforts to relocate it failed and the company abandoned the mine. Other mines in the district survived for a time before they also closed down. By the early 20th century, fewer than one hundred people remained in the area. Unionville's proximity to Helena has saved it from obscurity. Today, it thrives as a bedroom community with its mining heritage still everywhere evident.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Montana State Capitol — 4.5 mi
  A copper-domed capitol won in a copper kings' election, with a Russell painting that put the Salish at the center.
• Mann Gulch — 26 mi
  Thirteen markers on a grass slope above the Missouri, where a fire outran a crew of smokejumpers in 1949.

More markers nearby

• Benton Avenue Cemetery — 4.9 mi
• The Prickly Pear Diggings — 6.8 mi
• Over a Billion Years of Montana's Geologic History — 9.4 mi
• Elkhorn Mountain Volcanoes — 10.0 mi