Kendall - Lewistown

Harry T. Kendall had built a cyanide mill, a house, a stable, and a boardinghouse for his forty employees by 1900. The Kendall Gold Mining Company mined an average of $800 a day. Within the first five years of operation, $2,500,000 of bullion was produced. This camp poured out $18,000,000. Kendall was one of the first to use the cyanide process to separate gold from any unwanted material. The gold found by Kendall was very fine and almost unable to be seen by the naked eye. During 1902 and 1903 a 23 bedroom hotel was built with running hot water, hot-air heating, electricity, and considered fireproof. Kendall also had two churches, a blacksmith shop, Jones' Opera House, several saloons, Turner's Mercantile, the bank-lodge hall, a post office, and four stagecoach lines. Kendall's population at one time reached 1,500. In 1920 the Barnes-King Development Company closed and the town died. Today only three stone buildings remain. Most of the old buildings collapsed because of the mine shafts below them. Interpretive signs have been placed at the ruins of several buildings.