Saltese

Travel Montana

A view from 1939:

SALTESE, (3,476 alt., 200 pop.), strung out along the highway and railroad tracks in a narrow canyon, is a supply point for small silver and gold mines in the nearby mountains. During the World War, copper mines to the southwest were very active. High above the town the electrified Milwaukee Road clings to a narrow, winding shelf carved from the rocky mountainside. With old-fashioned western hospitality, Saltese keeps the door of its small jail always open, a gesture of welcome to weary hoboes.

The town, first known as Silver City, was renamed in 1891 to honor a Nez Perce chieftain. Its site was earlier known to packers, trappers, and prospectors, who called it Packer's Meadow, as a good campground on the difficult trail; later it became a stop for west-bound travelers on the Mullan Road, for Lookout Pass, 12 miles W., could hardly be crossed before nightfall.

Boothill is a cemetery in which are buried 9 men and women who died with their boots on. The first was Chris Daggett, who froze to death on the trail while carrying the mail to Mullan, Idaho. The others met death in more turbulent ways in the days before Silver City had any other law than a quick draw and an easy trigger. Burials on Boothill were informal and not very solemn. Graves were usually dug after the coffins, rude boxes hastily made, had been carried to the plot. The gravediggers amused themselves by pitching pennies at the chinks between the rough pine boards. Once the sport was begun, the digging could not proceed until he who made the fewest hits walked back to town to fetch beer for the others.

Source: Montana: A State Guide Book; Compiled and Written by the Federal Writers' Project of the Work Projects Administration for the State of Montana; September, 1939.