Historical
Jefferson County was organized in 1865, with the county seat, at the time being Radersburg. However, being located near the very edge of the county, Radersburg was considered inaccessible to those people who had to travel the length of the county to transact their business and a more suitable locality was sought.
In the spring of 1883, an election determined that the county seat should be moved to Boulder, a more centrally located town, and that Radersburg be annexed to Broadwater County. The official records were transferred from Radersburg to Boulder in the fall of 1883 and a temporary courthouse was set up in the Masonic Hall. The present day courthouse was completed in 1888 and all records were moved to the new building. Elkhorn is about 18 miles by road from Boulder, MT. Go through town, south from Boulder, on State Highway 69, about 4.5 miles, to a well-marked turn off. Turn left on to a dirt road, and then just after crossing the Boulder River, turn right. At all other junctions keep left and travel about 12 miles. You have now embarked on a short trip into the past.
Peter Wye, a native of Switzerland, discovered the Elkhorn Mine in 1870. Peter Weiss, Wm. Hahn and Herman Koch had located the first mine in this area only two years before.
A.M. Holter, an Alder Gulch pioneer, developed the Elkhorn Mine in 1875. A mill was built in 1884 and a smelter the following year. By February of 1888, the mine had been worked down to about the 800-foot level and its monthly production was valued at more than $30,000.
The Northern Pacific provided daily rail service on a branch line to Boulder in 1887. As mining began to taper off, service was cut and in 1931 the tracks were removed.
Timbered areas near Elkhorn were clear-cut before 1887 to provide fuel for power in the mines and heat for homes. More than 500 woodsman and 1500 mules worked in the woods. Elkhorn's population reached 2500 in the 1880's. Additional hundreds lived in the surrounding gulches.
An English syndicate purchased the mine for $500,000 in 1889. By 1900 the Elkhorn Mine had produced a total of 8,902,00 ounces of Silver, 8,500 ounces of gold and more than 4 million pounds of lead. The boom ended with the 1897 drop in the price of silver. Elkhorn enjoyed short-lived rivals in 1901 (by John, Henry, and Frank Longmaid of Helena), in 1905, and a few times since. With the new processing methods the higher ore value, the mine and the town may just live again.
If you visit the cemetery, notice all of the graves of the children that died of September 1888 through August 1889. It has been said that their death was the result of a very hard winter and a diphtheria epidemic.
