Show single inhabitant now lives in once R rip ap roaring 0 town HELENA MONT once a roar ing boom town boasting 10 lation and the center of a gold field dubbed the richest acre on earth diamond city mont would qualify as a ghost town if it t tor for a solitary house and a single 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 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 confider Con feder 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 you young ng trees have started to heal scars gouged by early prospectors when robison first went there in 1918 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 south ern soldiers made a strike hence the name confederate gulch the rush that foll followed owea brought the city s population to some 10 seven thousand voted in one elec tion there were 32 saloons early day miners declared con federate gulch yielded to the pan but that record was forgot ten when german or montana bar yielded more than 1000 1 per pan robison declares 7 was removed from montana bar |