BARKER AND HUGHESVILLE, MONTANA
he Barker Mining District was the only such district in Montana to have been discovered in one county, come to fruition in another and left two ghost towns in a third. It dates from 1879, when partners Patrick H. Hughes and Elias A. “Buck” Barker ventured north from the mining town of Yogo in search of gold. That October 20 the partners camped along Galena Creek on the upper reaches of Dry Fork Belt Creek in the Little Belt Mountains. The next day, on finding silver-bearing rocks, Hughes traced the source to a rich outcrop of
