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 Copper Village Museum - Anaconda, MT Posted by:  T0SHEA
N 46° 07.768 W 112° 56.888
12T E 349504 N 5110277
In the hope that Anaconda would soon become Montana's capital, the powers that be at the time furnished the city with a rather ambitious City Hall. Completed in 1896, though it no longer serves as Anaconda's City Hall, it remains a city landmark.
Waymark Code: WMZD4M
Location: Montana, United States
Date Posted: 10/23/2018
Views: 2
Of substantial brick and stone construction, the city hall originally housed the city government, the police and a jail, and the city fire department. The fire department has since departed and the city government has moved to newer premises, but the jail cells in the basement remain, now housing the historical society.
The basement and a smaller portion of the main floor are now the site of Anaconda's Copper Village Museum, which houses a multitude of artefacts from Anaconda's heyday, when the smelter belched smoke 24/7 and the town was a boisterous frontier village of miners and smelter workers. The museum also hosts various travelling exhibits and annual quilting exhibits and student art displays.
While Haunted Places believes the old town hall and fire hall to be haunted, possibly by the ghosts of a prisoner and a heroic fireman. Meanwhile, the Anaconda Standard, a newspaper published in the city for well over a century, was, in 1901, quite convinced of the "hauntedness" of the building. On page five of their April 11, 1901 issue the newspaper ran the story of firemen's experiences in the building at night. The story is quite convincing, as the firemen seemed to have been both quite sincere in the telling of their story and quite shaken by it - one having passed out during the experience.
CITY HALL GHOST MOVES
Seeks New Quarters in Vicinity of the Fire House.
IT GETS EXCEEDINGLY GAY
More People Frightened by the Spook.
One Man Declares He Sees It Beckoning and Promptly Falls in Faint.
Anaconda Standard | April 11, 1901
The mysterious sounds that have made eight hideous in the city hall for several months have left the corridor part of the building and taken up temporary quarters in the vicinity of the fire house. Three nights in succession the fireman who has been on duty in the truck and ladder headquarters has been startled by the slow and measured tread of an invisible person. Sometimes the footsteps would be heard just outside the fire house and sometimes right inside, walking from the bedside of the night man as far as the telephone, which is at the other end of the house.
Fireman Jake Falk, who is said to be, one of the most fearless men on the staff of Chief Mentrum, was aroused from his slumber a few nights ago by uncanny sounds coming from the basement of the fire house. The next night he decided to watch for "jobbers." but instead of catching the ghost he was startled almost out of his wits by the same strange sounds heard the night before, this time coming from underneath the bed. Tuesday night four firemen volunteered to sit up with Jake and a fifth man happened in on the watchers and was induced to remain. The men were seated in the firemen's room chatting, when all or a sudden the stranger grasped the arm of one of the men and pointed to the window, declaring that he saw a strange apparition. The men laughed his fears away, and to convince hint that he was laboring under a delusion, offered to accompany him through the yard and down into the basement that leads into the old county jail. This they did, and when they reached the basement steps one of the men uttered a cry and fell to the ground in a faint. The boys who were with him carried him upstairs and applied restoratives. When he came to he declared that he had seen the same apparition that had been seen peeping in at the window. He said that it beckoned to him as if commanding him to follow. sinking into the floor as It did so. Falk says that on Wednesday night he heard somebody playing a mournful tune on the piano in the sleeping quarters of the fire department, but this is believed to be purely imaginary on his part.
There have been a number of schemes suggested for trapping the jester, if jester it be, but experiences of the past few days have been such as to dampen the ardor of the most skeptical.
From the Anaconda Standard 
Public access?:
Mow a museum, it is quite public.
Visting hours:
Tuesday to Friday - 10 AM to 4 PM
Website about the location and/or story: [Web Link]
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