Weeksville

Weeksville was founded during the early 1880s as crews worked on the Northern Pacific Railroad along the Clark Fork River. The town was a lawless place, and in only one day local vigilantes hung ten suspected criminals. Specifically, the town was a temporary home to hundreds of Chinese railroad workers that were laying rail and blasting rock. By completion of the railroad in 1883, Weeksville vanished from the landscape, and today there are no standing buildings left from this once bustling town of hundreds. Excavations by the University of Montana during the late 1970s uncovered a few artifacts of Chinese origin, including a wok. Today, the archaeological deposits of Weeksville are part of private, state, and railroad properties. Unfortunately, due to railroad and highway expansion and private building episodes, there is probably very little left of intact deposits.