Ghost Towns and History November 9, 2018 Ghost Towns and History of Montana Newsletter F a r l i n , M o n t a n a Rich ores were found in this area in 1864 by J.A. Kline when he staked the O.K. lode. It wouldn’t be until years later that the lodes were worked. The Farlin brothers recorded their Indian Queen mine on Christmas Eve in 1875 but their Greenwich lode had been discovered by O.D. Farlin several years earlier and left untouched. By the 1880s, the brothers started working their claims, new and old, which produced silver and copper. When the Utah and Northern Railroad laid track into nearby Dillon a few years later, miners began to arrive in the Birch Creek District. Iron ore was mined at the Magnetic Iron mine to be used for fluxing at the Hecla Consolidated Mining Company’s Smelter in Glendale and smelters in Butte. Soon, more accessible ore was found in Soap Gulch near Melrose and the Birch Creek mine was abandoned. Dillon Tribune– 1892
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