Zortman is a

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

and

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

Phillips County, Montana Phillips County is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Montana. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 4,217. Its county seat is Malta, Montana, Malta. Before February 5, 1915, Phillips County was ...

, United States. Its population was 69 as of the 2010 census. Zortman has a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

with ZIP code 59546. The community includes the Zortman Motel and the Buckhorn Store and Cabins. The Buckhorn Store is the only store in the community. Zortman is a popular place for hunters to have dinner and stay while on their trip.

Demographics

History

Prospectors Prospecting is the first stage of the geological analysis (followed by exploration) of a territory. It is the search for minerals, fossils, precious metals, or mineral specimens. It is also known as fossicking. Traditionally prospecting rel ...

arrived in the Zortman area in 1868. About 2,000 men came to Zortman in 1884, when Pike Landusky and Dutch Louie discovered

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

. By 1893, Pete Zortman and a partner owned the Alabama Mine. Other mines in the area were the Ruby Mine and the Little Ben Mine. It is estimated that local mines had produced $125 million in gold by 1949.

Climate

According to the

Köppen Climate Classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

system, Zortman has a

semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of se ...

, abbreviated "BSk" on climate maps. Zortman has a long history of

wildfires A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a ...

. Many of the original buildings in Zortman were lost in fires during 1929 and 1944. A forest fire in 1936 reached the edges of Zortman, killing four people and burning 23,000 acres. In July 2017, a wildfire in the Zortman area threatened the small town, and burned over 10,000 acres of forest in the Little Rocky Mountains.

Pegasus and Landusky mines

Zortman was home to a mine operated by Pegasus Gold Corp., which was shut down in 1997. The company went bankrupt the following year, in 1998. The Zortman mine is about a mile and a half from the Landusky mine. Both are

cyanide In chemistry, cyanide () is an inorganic chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Ionic cyanides contain the cyanide anion . This a ...

heap-leach

gold mines Gold mining is the extraction of gold by mining. Historically, mining gold from alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. The expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface has led to more complex ...

. According to the

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...

, * "Precipitation runoff from Zortman and Landusky mines has deposited dangerous substances into nearby tributaries and rivers. * A $13.8 million trust fund was set up to construct and operate three water capture and treatment systems."

Water treatment plants Water treatment is any process that improves the quality of water to make it appropriate for a specific end-use. The end use may be drinking, industrial water supply, irrigation, river flow maintenance, water recreation or many other uses, inc ...

for Zortman and Landusky are operated on behalf of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality in order to preserve the water quality of the

Milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of lactating mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfeeding, breastfed human infants) before they are able to digestion, digest solid food. ...

and

Missouri River The Missouri River is a river in the Central United States, Central and Mountain states, Mountain West regions of the United States. The nation's longest, it rises in the eastern Centennial Mountains of the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Moun ...

s, and of the

Fort Belknap Indian Reservation The Fort Belknap Indian Reservation ( or ) is shared by two Native American tribes, the A'aninin (Gros Ventre) and the Nakota, Nakoda (Assiniboine). The reservation covers , and is located in north-central Montana. The total area includes the ma ...

References

{{Authority control Census-designated places in Phillips County, Montana Census-designated places in Montana Unincorporated communities in Montana Unincorporated communities in Phillips County, Montana