Now a ghost town, Granite, Montana, was once a thriving mining town after the discovery of silver in the 1870s. The Bi-Metallic Mining Company operated there from 1887 until 1893, when the Sherman Silver Purchase Act made the price of silver so low that the mines were abandoned.
This album contains numerous photographs including cyanotypes, Kodak prints, and albumen prints suggesting that many of the photos were taken by those working for the mining company. Included are group portraits of miners, views of the equipment, buildings and downtown, women and children, and some modern snapshots from the 1990s showing the abandoned town.
~ Christine Morris, Associate Curator of Graphic Arts and Registrar