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Show Single Inhabitan t Now Lives in Once Rip-Roaring Town HELENA, MONT. Once a roaring roar-ing boom town boasting 10,000 population popu-lation and the center of a gold Held dubbed "the richest acre on earth," Diamond City, Mont, would qualify as a ghost town if it weren't for a solitary house and a single individual. indi-vidual. The individual is E. B. Robison, who for nearly 30 years has lived in the former rip-roaring town a few miles southeast of Helena. For most of the time he has been the only inhabitant. in-habitant. Robison's log house, once a drug store and later a stage coach office, is the only building remaining. Other buildings that once lined Confederate Confeder-ate gulch have been moved away or buried. Roof-trees can be found 30 or 40 feet beneath the earth, washed down by hydraulic operations. Memories still haunt the silent slopes of the gulch, where young trees have started to heal scars gouged by early prospectors. When Robison first went there in 1918 from Idaho, about 15 of the town's original miner-inhabitants still were conducting small-scale operations. The community started about the time of the Civil War. Four southern south-ern soldiers made a strike hence the name Confederate gulch. The rush that "followed brought the city's population to some 10,000. Seven thousand voted in one election. elec-tion. There were 32 saloons. Early-day miners declared Confederate Con-federate gulch yielded $180 to the pan. But that record was forgotten forgot-ten when German, or Montana, bar yielded more than $1,000 per pan. Robison declares $7,000,000 was removed from Montana bar. |