Dunkleberg

“Names on the face of Montana” states there was a post office established at Dunkleberg, Deer Lodge county near Warm Springs in 1890-1891. Reuben Conn was Postmaster. I have been unable to find the town on any maps but found a couple of incidents published in the newspapers related to the area. I believe the area was west of Pioneer and in what later became Granite county. “The Montana Atlas” has Dunkleberg Creek beginning in the northern part of Granite county east of a ranger station and running north then east across the Powell county line and draining into the Clark Fork, west of Perkins Creek just south of exit 162 on Interstate 90/Highway 12, near Jens. 

 David Dunkleberg was one of the early pioneers in the Flint Creek Valley and I assume that the Dunkleberg Ridge, Creek and Post Office were named after his family. The Montana Post, November 25, 1865 lists an unclaimed letter for David at Virginia City, Montana. The New Northwest, January 8, 1875 stated Mrs. David Dunkleberg was one of the happy recipients of a prize at the New Chicago Christmas Festival. David was on the Grand Jury in 1885 and 1886. 

I have been unable to find any obituaries for the Dunkleberg family but find David having surgery in Helena July 16, 1896 and his health being “very low” and friends not sure he would survive in the November 13, 1896 New Northwest. The headstones in the Valley Cemetery provide this information: Baby Dunkleberg was 21 days old at the time of death on October 15, 1880; an unknown Dunkleberg died at the age of 57 on November 12, 1896 ( probably David mentioned above); Mrs. Dunkleberg does not have a death date or age; Frank Dunkleberg was born in 1877 and died at the age of 52 on October 28, 1929; Paul Dunkleberg was 6 months old when he died on August 11, 1889; Cora Dunkleberg’s baby does not have an age or date of death. They are all buried in section I, but do not have grave numbers. 

The partial returns of the vote of Deer Lodge county on Friday November 16, 1888 published in the Philipsburg Mail lists Dunkleberg as a precinct but there were no votes cast for any of the offices from that precinct. In The New Northwest, February 26, 1897: ”Sterling Price has obtained a lease on the Irene claim in the Dunkleberg district which is owned by Dr. A.H. Mitchell of Deer Lodge and George Smith of Royal. Mr. Price will begin working on the property at once and judging from reports regarding the claim it is expected he will find it a profitable lease. (and) The Philipsburg Mail says Samuel Gates and James Weaver have recently bought a complete sawmill plant of 20,000 feet capacity per day and have erected it at Mitchellville, in the Dunkleberg mining district, and already have it running full blast.” 

December, 1898 the Mail stated” “Allard and Cranesville are representing their claims in Dunkleberg.” “Weaver and Thom have a full crew of men at work ...Wm. Debuhr, who is working the L.F. Periman’s mine—the Bryan—under lease, will ship a carload of ore by the first of the year, which will net $40 per ton. 

The January 13, 1899 Philipsburg Mail stated in a column titled “Musings from Dunkleberg” that:”This camp, which, along in the ‘80’s contributed not a little of the stock of white metal [Silver], cuts but very little ice in the mining reports of today. The hills which erstwhile resounded to the musical rhythm of the tool-sharpeners hammer, or the thunderous diapason of the frequent blasts, are now silent, save for the merry warble of the wood-hauler as he flits from tree to tree, or the long drawn howl of the prowling tie chopper as he answers to the shrill scream of his mate. Occasionally you will meet with a prospector who has hung up on his claims, hoping against hope that something will be done for silver, who, as he draws his tattered overcoat around his cadaverous form to hide the vacant places in his last year’s overalls, anxiously asks: ‘What’s silver worth.’ or ‘Is there any talking of opening the Injun mints?’ Some of them seem to have an idea that the Indian Mints are a kind of jackpot and that Uncle Sam has openers in his hands—if the goldbugs would only let him use them. Time was when on New Year’s Eve the hills were full of claim-jumpers, but this year not a solitary instance of relocating has come to our notice. L.F. Perriman’s mine, the Bryan, is the only shipper in the camp, and Frank ain’t losing any sleep over the Indian mints.”