Children in the Mining Camps

Children who spent time in the mining camps of Montana faced numerous dangers. Typhoid and cholera plagued mining camps because miners quickly polluted the water source. But measles, whooping cough and diphtheria also invaded the communities. In 1889, diphtheria in the great silver camp of Elkhorn, for example, claimed almost all the children, including the Roberts sisters whose poignant tombstone tells the tragic tale.


During that same year, Harry Walton, 9, and Albin Nelson, 10, somehow esca...