Bannack is a ghost town in Montana. In 1862, gold was discovered in the creek waters where Bannack stands today.
In addition to its reputation for gold, Bannack also quickly gained a reputation for lawlessness. The roads in and out of town were home to dozens of outlaws, and killings were frequent. Indians also attacked the town and the townspeople, to keep their children safe, hid them in secret passageways in the Hotel Meade.
By 1940, everyone had left Bannack after the mines dried up and all that remained were vacant buildings and ghosts. There are numerous stories of ghostly activity in the Hotel Meade.
Cold spots, the apparition of a teenage girl, and sounds of crying children are often reported by those who visit this old building. The first sighting of a ghostly young girl was well over a hundred years ago. The ghost is said to be that of a girl named Dorothy Dunn who drowned in a dredge pond along the creek in 1916. Dorothy and her cousin Fern waded into a dredge pond and stepped off a shelf into deep water. Fern was saved but Dorothy drowned. Shortly after her death, she made her first appearance to her best friend Fern, who was with her at the time of her death.
Since then there have been multiple sightings of the teenage girl wearing a long blue dress on the second story of the old hotel. These reports often come from children, who say that the ghost of Dorothy Dunn tries to talk to them. They could see the ghost’s mouth moving but no sound came out. The ghostly young girl has also been sighted standing in an upstairs window by passersby on the street below.
Crying children can be heard throughout the hotel, which some believe are the cries of the children that were hidden away in the hotel safes during the Indian attacks.
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