Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Sights
The
Opera House Theatre
(140 S. Sansome St., 406/859-0013,
www.operahousetheatre.com
)
was built in 1896, complete with a sod basement, elaborate
dressing rooms, and indoor plumbing. Countless performers played the stage here for
throngs of culture-hungry miners. In 1919 the elegant boxes were removed to make way
for sound equipment, and the theater continued to attract a wide range of entertainers. It
is still undergoing an extensive restoration that started in the late 1990s. This is the oldest
continually operating theater in the state, with one of the youngest theater companies, the
Opera House Theatre Company,
performing live theater and vaudeville shows to much
fanfare every summer. Inside, look for five original backdrops painted by Charlie Russell
contemporary Edgar S. Paxson.
Just northeast of town, off Highway 1 near mile marker 36, is a marked but rough
dirt road that leads four miles up the mountain to
Granite Ghost Town State Park
(406/
287-3541,
www.stateparks.mt.gov
, dawn-dusk May-Sept., $5), once the site of one of the
world's richest silver-mining districts. Today it's a fascinating and entirely abandoned ghost
town.
