Show single inhabitant now lives in once rip roaring town HELENA MONT once a roaring rearing boom town boasting 10 population and the center ot a gold field dubbed the richest acre on earth diamond city mont would qualify as a ghost town it if it for a solitary house and a single individual the Jin individual Is E B robison who tor 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 Ro log house once a drug store and later a stage coach office Is the only building remaining other buildings that once lined confederate gulch have been moved away or buried root 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 here young trees have started to heal scars gouged by early prospectors when robison first went there in 1918 from idaho about 15 of the towns original miner inhabitants still were conducting small scale operations the community started about the time of the civil war four southern soldiers made a strike hence the name confederate gulch the rush that followed brought the cites population to some seven thousand voted in one election there were 32 saloons early day miners declared confederate gulch yielded to the pan but that record was forgotten when german or montana bar yielded more than 1000 per pan robison declares was removed from montana bar |