The Montreal Star is a great find and is noted as a producer of gold and silver ores. The mines are located a few miles off the highway from Butte to Helena. The roads are excellent to the base of the mines. The old roads up to the shaft and adit entrance are a bit rougher and would require 4WD.

Near Butte, Montana, USA.

At the base of the mines is an old concrete footing. This was likely for machinery used to pull ores out of the shaft and to move cars in and out of the adit. There is little else in the way of buildings or foundations. The previous claimant attempted to secure this mine in 1982, but by 1985-6, the mineshaft cover had been pried open and the workings exposed. A claim on the site in 1994 precluded any reclamation work being done, but in 1998 there was a haphazard bit of reclamation work done. The result is a few feet of dirt over a concrete slab over the shaft and an adit entrance that has already started to re-open.

The claim is stretched out in a general east-west orientation. This covers all of the workings of the Montreal Star and a series of small adits and prospects that are cut in on what is noted as the general lode trend. There are a series of open roads and trails on and around the claim which provide excellent access to the entire area. The claim is also at one of the higher points in Montana, along the Continental Divide, likely where the uplifts exposed the ores that encouraged the first development work.

The ores in the tailings are very rich and showed native gold and silver. This in a quartz and chalcopyrite host. There is substantial iron and even the ugly ores are inordinately heavy indicating the presence of metals. The site has not been “worked over” more accurately it has been started and surveyed, producing some high value gold and silver, but has always remained a small operation.

An industrious claimant could clean up with just a crusher and separator, utilizing just the discarded tailings on the claim. These tailings amount to over 500,000 tons easily. This would build up the funds to fully re-open the existing underground operations and push the mine into full production mode.

There is substantial room for setting up camp and staging equipment on the claim. There is decent tree cover provided from Aspens and Pines. There are also a lot of fallen trees that would be great for your evening fires, or even for roasting your ores.

The claim is less than 20 miles from downtown Butte, one of the greatest mining towns in the West and a great place to re-supply with anything you might need.

1986 Information Regarding the Montreal Star Mine
Situated on the west side of Lowland Creek, the Montreal Star and Golden Gate claims, were located in 1906 by Fred, Henry and Louis Gagnier and Victor Jauron. Production records are available only for 1940 to 1942 when the mine produced gold, silver, copper and lead ore. The mine was opened by a 112 foot shaft with 120 feet of drifting. On the surface, the mine has been developed with cabins, a hoist shack and a rotary kiln and blower (Beck 1986).

In 1991, the site was identified by the Department of the Interior with the USGS as #970 and the following was noted: “A 100-ft shaft, 500-ft adit, drifts, and open cuts along veins and breccia zone in monzogranite (Kmg) and aplite (Ka). Local information reports over 2000?, unverified. Producer of gold, silver, lead and copper.”
Reference:
Beck, Barb Springer, 1986 “Cultural Resource Inventory of the Montreal Star Claims #1 and #2 (86-DL-4-1). Deerlodge National Forest, Butte Ranger District. Maps showing locations of mines and prospects in the Butte 1 °X2° quadrangle, Western Montana, James E. Elliott, JeffreyS. Loen, Kristine K. Wise, and Michael J. Blaskowski