The Ancient Industry of Grizzly Gulch

Peeling my eyes open that morning just outside the city limits of Helena, I was ready to do some exploring. The previous evening, I had glimpsed looming dark outlines of crumbling masonry and irregular structural shadows against the moonlight beside the road. I knew there had been plenty of mining activity in the Helena area in decades past, but I didn't know just how much infrastructure relied on the mineral processing facilities smattered across the outskirts back in the day. Grizzly Gulch is a small canyon among the foothills of Mount Helena, and it had been beneath the broken, jagged walls of that earthen gorge that I had stopped for the night.

Emerging from the camper, I began to stroll down the side of the road, headed for town. Within a matter of moments, I spotted the rocky ruins entrenched on the hillside. Getting a closer look, I walked up and immediately noticed how thick the stonework was. Initially, this led me to the conclusion that I was looking at an ore smelter, but I would soon learn that they had been used not for precious metals but for limestone.

Workers would toil and sweat on the hills above to free chunks of limestone from the mountainsides and then with either ore carts or the sheer force of gravity, the limestone would tumble its way down to the kilns. Once there, workers would complete any necessary size reduction of the rock, and then load the limestone into the top of the kilns with a constant red-hot fire burning below. This heat converted the calcium carbonate in the limestone into calcium oxide at around 1650 degrees Fahrenheit, creating the material known as quick-lime. While the process may sound fairly simple, there was plenty of room for mistakes. If the fire burned too hot, the lime would become "dead burned" making it too dense and causing low reactivity. If the fire was too cold, the conversion process would not occur and the limestone would be soft and too volatile to be safely used.

These kilns in the gulch are known as continuous kilns and are pretty much a massive reinforced chimney. They would operate on a cycle, being fired for 48-72 hours, then given a day or more to cool, and then another day would be spent unloading the fresh quicklime from the bottom. After that, the process would begin again with the kiln being loaded with stacks of pine and big smooth cobbles. Once the fire was lit, limestone and additional pine fuel would be loaded in the top constantly over that 2-3 day period.

I began to hike my way up the scattered mass of loose rock and tailings leftover from over a century ago. I had to get a look down into the kilns themselves to see how far down to the bottom it really was. Upon making it near the top of one, my hand grasped the ashy stone on a corner that still appeared solidly mortared to the rest. I heaved myself up onto the wide brim of rock and settled my feet onto the flat top of the kiln, happy to be on a more solid, level footing now that I had reached its upward limits. Peering towards the hole in its center, I was careful not to get too close to the inner edge, in case the masonry was weaker there from years of heat and then weather. Immediately, my gaze ended nearly before it began, since the kiln had been filled in until just below the top. Disappointed but not totally surprised, since the kilns had been sitting so long, I guess they could've been filled in by any number of people.

From the looks of it, unloading the quicklime from the bottom of the kilns must've taken some time, on account of the size of the opening. It looked barely large enough for a person to crawl through, yet tons and tons of quicklime had to pass through it every week in order to prep the kiln for the next batch. At some point, someone must've had to crawl into the kiln itself to help free jammed quicklime and ash, and that had to be one of the more hazardous jobs in town. Climbing into a furnace, with charred wood and cobbles everywhere ready to fall and crush you, or a hidden bed of coals beneath all the debris, which could function as a landing pad at the bottom for the one unfortunate enough to fall through to the very bottom when entering the top.

Quicklime has been around for millennia, with scientists finding evidence of its use as far back as ancient Mesopotamia over 4000 years ago. This makes quicklime one of the oldest chemicals still in use today. The Romans also used it to make mortar, and improved upon the mixtures and ratios over time, giving rise to hydraulic concrete, which could set underwater. This was a huge leap forward, as it meant that the Romans could now build water systems, canals, and underwater infrastructure for harbors such as the grand city of Caesarea. Quicklime was also used for tanning leather and later as a form of fertilizer in acidic soils with a low pH in order to help balance the scale.

Properly produced quicklime is stable, but when combined with water it undergoes a process known as Slaking, which is a heat producing chemical reaction. Slaked lime is then combined with sand, which creates mortar for buildings. This became crucial in Helena during the last quarter of the 19th century because they suffered a series of devastating fires in the 1870s that understandably resulted in a strong aversion to rebuilding with wood when brick, mortar, and stones would suffice. The first kilns around had conveniently been constructed only a few years before by an Irishman named Joseph O'Neill. O'Neill sold these kilns to Jame Kervin, who then sold them to James McKelvey, a former employee of the original proprietor. The McKelvey family still owns the kilns today, and kept them operating into the early years of the 20th century.

The act of travel was in a state of constant change on the American frontier, and Montana was no different. This change applied to both man and material, and if someone could solve a problem that moved those two things quicker, it could make all the difference. In the early 1900s the Elliston Mining Company began operations no more than 25 miles west of Helena, and from the very start they had one massive advantage, the Northern Pacific Rail Line was a few feet from their door. This allowed ore to be loaded quickly and with less labor compared to the McKelvey kilns outside Helena. While the kilns were near town, the rail line that served Helena was on the opposite end of town, necessitating a whole additional team of wagons, men, and mules just to get the ore to the rail head. Since the Elliston Company was able to eliminate these costs, they were able to offer their customers a better price, and the McKelvey kilns just couldn't compete anymore. This brought an end to the limestone mining industry in Helena. The Elliston Company operated until 1965 when a fire burned down the factory

Shuffling my way down on the slide of tailings at the top of the kiln, I made it back to the roadside after a turbulent moment or two, picking my footing carefully as gravity helped carry me downwards. Walking back to the camper, and climbed in the cab to head back into town, towards my next ghost town destination of Comet, MT. When I got rolling, less than a mile down the road, I spotted a stretch of homes along the side of the gulch with historical plaques affixed to their front porches and fences. With a bit of morning curiosity left in the tank, I found a spot to park the camper up ahead and began to work my way back on foot, eager to learn about those historical homes built into the sides of the gulch years ago.

Glancing back, I noticed that I was near the point where the gulch sort of melded into the more expansive neighborhoods in town. It struck me how quick the scene went from primal rock to green grassy lawns of suburbia. The first house I went past was the Dempster House, which was sitting on an old mining claim itself, one known as "Block Number 1" according to the original plat of the town site of Helena from 1868. While it may not have actually been the very first mine in Helena, it likely wasn't far off.

According to the Montana Historical Society, the Dempster house was occupied by Samuel Dempster and his wife by 1885 and the property was purchased only a few years earlier, meaning it had likely been mined out by around 1880. Like most other homes on that part of West Main Street, the backside of the house was built into the hillside, and along that back wall was a door into the rock. This led into a cellar that maintained its cool temperatures more or less constantly year round. In this cellar is also an entrance to the original mine shaft, a direct connection to the ways of Helena, 150 years ago.

Further down the street lay another interesting home, the Kluge House. The dwelling is a seldom seen example of European half-timber construction. Perched in a narrower part of the gulch, the home was a simple structure and began its life as a frontier cabin, evidenced by its rough-hewn first story. German-born Emil Kluge came to the US in 1871 after serving in two Prussian wars over on the continent. Originally settling in Detroit, Kluge and his young family of three moved West to follow the gold a couple of years later, likely wanting to see a piece of the true American frontier before it was gone. Upon arriving in Helena and purchasing the single story cabin, it soon became clear to Kluge that mining was much more likely to make a man broke than wealthy. He then went on to work as Justice of the Peace, a constable, and also ran contracting and quarry businesses.

There are plenty of structures around the US that imitate half-timber construction, but few buildings are true half-timber structures relying solely on the wood beams for support beyond select areas such as the French Quarter in New Orleans. The upper story was added once the Kluge family had been living there for years. Salvaging timbers from a mining flume demolished up in Last Chance Gulch, Emil started to craft the second story in the style of his homeland, giving Helena a unique home on the Montana landscape, one that has weathered it all. By the latter half of the 20th century, locals had dubbed the structure The Maverick, as it stood out there all on its own, among the rock of the gulch.

Driving on from the edge of Helena, I pointed the rig southward and started rollin' down I-15. The next stop would be the ghost town of Comet, and the road to the town would present some more signs of older Montana industry all its own. I felt good and refreshed with the morning exploration, and was excited to move onto Comet and see what other facts of the past the treasure state had to offer.

Sources:

“Industrial Helena Limekilns .” Forest Service National Website, USDA, www.fs.usda.gov/detail/hlcnf/learning/history-culture/?cid=stelprdb5373558. Accessed 12 July 2024.

“Kluge House Aka The Maverick 540 West Main St. .” Helena As She Was, Helena History, helenahistory.org/kluge-house.html. Accessed 19 July 2024.