White Sulphur Springs, Montana

White Sulphur Springs sits in the Smith River Valley, a county seat that built itself around hot mineral springs that drew settlers to this remote stretch of central Montana well before the railroads arrived. James Scott Brewer laid claim to the thermal springs in eighteen sixty-six, and the town that grew up around them served as a stage stop and supply hub for ranchers, sheepherders, and miners fanning out across Meagher County. The nearby Castle Mountains boomed with silver mining through the eighteen eighties before the ore tapered off.

John Ringling, of circus fame, later financed the rail spur from Ringling, Montana to White Sulphur Springs and invested in the local hot springs himself, a measure of how isolated and self-contained the community remained even in the early twentieth century. The springs that gave the town its name still draw visitors today, and ranching remains the economic backbone of the county.