It was back in 1872 that a prospector by the name of Eli Holland came across a small vein of silver. Holland dug a small shaft but never got very far and he later abandoned the claim. Then in 1879, a miner by the name of Charles McLure came across this shaft. Charles started to dig in this shaft and it was at this time that he came across some real high grade silver ore. This silver ore would later assay at 2,000 ounces of silver per ton. It was these kind of ore grades that Granite became known as the Silver Queen.
Charles then teamed up with another miner and formed the Granite Mountain Mining Company. Because the ore was so rich these two men were able to secure funding from investors and by the time they were ready to start developing a mine they had almost 10 million dollars in the kiddy. After spending a a couple hundred thousand bucks getting things like some infastructure in place, they were ready to start mining and in 1882 some of the first ore was coming out of the ground. This ore was grading out at 1700 ounce pre ton of silver. That would have been a pile of money back then. This first vein of silver was named the Bonanza Chute and it returned almost 300 thousand dollars in silver in it's first year.
In 1885 the mine installed a 20 stamp mill and paid a dividend to it's investors and over the next three years the mine produced an estiamted 2.5 million dollars worth of high grade ore. Then in 1888 the company built a new 100-stamp mill named the Rumsey Mill. This mill had a 9000 foot tramway connected to it as well as a short line rail road to Philipsburg.
Of course word about this deposit had already gotten out and there were hundreds of miners, merchants and prospectors pouring into the area all trying to get into the action so the company started to get a town built. Because the mine owned pretty much all the land they rented out town lots to the miners for two dollars and 50 cents month. The town had almost everything that was needed to live a quality life back then. There was a public school, a hospital, fire station, the Miners Union Hall, a bank, 18 saloons, a three story hotel, which was considered to be one of the best hotels in the area and of course a thriving red-light district. There were however a couple of things that were missing in this town and one was a cemetary and the other was a reliable source of water and water had to be hauled in with horse and wagon. The reason this town had no cemetary was because the ground was mostly rock and so the dead had to buried in neighboring Philipsburg.
Then in 1893 like so many other mining camps back then, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act was repealed and this drastically slashed the price of silver. Within a year, the town’s population dropped from over 3000 to just around 150. Some mining did continue but it was just on a very small scale and then in 1898 the mines began operating again. From this time up to 1901, the mines produced about one million dollars of bullion a year. Some of the mines continued working intermittently until the 1930's and then in 1958 new exploration was being done but during that time a fire broke out and destroyed many of the mine structures so work was halted pretty much for good at that time.
You can still go to the old town of Granite today. It's preserved as a Montana State Park and is just a short drive from Philipsburg. Once there you will see some of the old buildings and foundations along with some of the old tailing dumps. The old miners union hall is still there along with a remenants of old cabins and other buildings.
