P a g e 4 M i n e s & M i n i n g G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y The River Press– March 1893 JOHNNY CAKE Take one quart of buttermilk, one teacup of flour, twothirds of a cupful of molasses, a little salt, one tablespoonful of saleratus, one egg (beaten of course). Then stir in Indian meal, but be sure and not put in too much. Leave it thin--so thin that it will almost run. Bake in a tin in any oven, and tolerably quick. If it is not first-rate and light, it will be because you make it too thick with Indian meal. Some people prepare it without the molasses. Reports of Rich Strikes, New Prospects and Mining News Machinery for the Cumberland Smelter at Castle. The Green Copper Company this week hauled out the machinery for a steam hoist. The boiler weighed 12,000 pounds. Two large pumps are among the outfit. The machinery for the Cumberland Smelter, at Castle, reached Livingston last week. It weighs 100,000 pounds. A Gallatin county man named Shepherd has contracted to move all the ore, bullion, machinery and other freight for the Cumberland Company, both ways, between Castle and the railroad. The Company permitted him to receive and deliver freight at any point on the N. P. railroad from Big Timber to Townsend. He chose Livingston. His contract is for one year. It is estimated that it will require twenty-five ten -horse teams to do the work. Wm. Humphrey has shipped all his mule teams to Toston, where he has a contract for hauling ore. He has kept his horses here and is still hauling from the Barker and May & Edna. —Barker Miner. The Townsend Messenger, March 27, 1891 Belt, Montana- Belt Jail. Lewis and Clark or early trappers named nearby Belt Butte for its girdle of rocks. In 1877, John Castner founded the town that would finally be called Belt. Coal brought Castner here, and Fort Benton was the first market for his Castner Coal Company. In 1894, Castner merged his company with the Anaconda Mining Company , whose Great Falls reduction works had already been using Castner's coal. Their mine soon employed a thousand men. The town experienced a boom time and in 1900 was Cascade County's second largest community, with a population above 2,800 including French, Finnish, Slav, German and Swedish immigrants. The sandstone jail was constructed for $1,500 during the boom, when 32 saloons flourished in town. Fire destroyed the Anaconda Mine in 1915, and in 1930 the smelters stopped using coal. While small wagon mines operated and the town served as an agricultural center, Belt's population fell off. The jail itself survived major floods in 1909 and 1953, and a 1976 fire caused by a train derailment. -National Register of Historic Places. The jail now serves as a museum.
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