*Pictured: The construction crew replanting harvested willows.*

Much of Montana's early European settlement was spurred by mining; the towns of Bannack, Virginia City, and Butte quickly come to mind to anyone who knows a thing or two about Montana’s history. Bozeman, on the other hand, without precious metal reserves, took on an agrarian role, producing cattle and growing grains primarily to support their mining neighbors in the boom towns to the west. But what most don’t know is we also share a little mining history, although without the extravagance of the frontier mining towns.

The Thompson #2 Mine, located north of the Trail Creek Exit, lies in the Livingston/Bozeman coalfield, which runs from eastern Gallatin County to the western portion of Park County and was discovered in the late 1860s. Colonel James D. Chestnut (or Chesnut), whom the area is named after, first recognized the potential for coal development in the Bozeman area. In 1881, as the Northern Pacific Railway was being completed through Rocky Canyon east of Bozeman, coal demand surged. To help meet this demand, a narrow gauge railroad was built to the mines, and production increased. By February 1884, several mines produced approximately 200 tons of coal daily, with 200 men employed. The coal proved satisfactory for commercial uses and was shipped as far east as Moorhead, Minnesota. It was used to power locomotives between Glendive, Montana, and Sprague, Washington, and was sent to Butte and Wickes for use in coking for the Montana copper industry.

Like other mining booms across the state, the Thompson Mine brought jobs and prosperity to the area but left the land scarred. At the Thompson #2 Mine, waste was piled high in a narrow canyon, forcing a small perennial stream that feeds into Rocky Creek to flow through and around the tailings. Fortunately, laboratory testing found that the mine waste was non-toxic. Unfortunately, the mine waste was poor in nutrients and did not retain water well, so vegetation struggled to establish, even over a century after the mine was abandoned. Without vegetation to stabilize the steep sides of the tailings piles, rain and snowmelt slowly eroded coal waste into the stream and eventually Rocky Creek. Another unfortunate fact is that Rocky Creek has sediment levels that exceed state standards, harming fish and other aquatic life. Although this turn-of-the-century mine has contributed to modern-day water quality issues, the mine waste is isolated to a relatively small area, making it a manageable candidate for reclamation.

In 2020, the owner of the private land where the mine site now resides and the Department of Environmental Quality Abandoned Mine Lands (AML) Program agreed to work together to clean up the site. In 2021, Olympus Technical Services was hired as the Consulting Engineer for the project, while the Gallatin Watershed Council (GWC) was contracted to plan and implement the revegetation of the restored stream channel.

Coal waste removal began in the summer of 2024; eventually, over 3,000 dump trucks, or 34,000 cubic yards of mine waste, were excavated and relocated to a repository established on the property. In the void of the former piles of mine waste, a completely new stream channel was constructed. A few months after construction, the stream channel looks raw and exposed, and we can expect it to take a couple of years for the system to revegetate and look healthy. In technical projects like this, the planning, engineering, and earth-moving phases are expensive and time-consuming. But, the final step of reestablishing robust native plant communities, while perhaps not as sexy (to some), is arguably the most critical. Natural disturbances will be inevitable: wildlife, downpours, spring runoff, and the perpetual erosive force of the stream, which, despite its size, can be powerful. The deep roots of native shrubs, trees, forbs, and grasses bind the project together and secure the investment to restore the canyon.

To revegetate the site, GWC is using as many plants sourced on the property as possible. These plants are adapted to the local climate and soil, which makes them resilient to challenging conditions like freezing, drought, diseases, and herbivory. Before the tailings piles were moved, GWC enlisted the help of several volunteers to harvest plants from the impacted area, including riparian shrubs like Bebb’s willow, grey alder, and red osier dogwood, along with upland species like chokecherry, black hawthorn, and Douglas fir. This fall, after the stream work was done, the site was hydro-seeded with a riparian and upland seed mix, and we transplanted the trees and shrubs that had been saved. Next spring, we'll be adding commercially sourced containerized plants and hundreds of live willow stakes sourced from mature shrubs growing on the property to supplement the transplanted shrubs.

Live stakes are cuttings taken from certain tree and shrub species that easily sprout leaves and roots when planted in wet conditions and are especially useful at a site like this. Often, as is the case at the Thompson mine site, dense stands of dogwood, cottonwood, and willow that take well to live staking can be found at or near a project. This method can significantly reduce costs and increase revegetation survival rates because the plant stock is adapted to the local environment. Live stakes are also plentiful, renewable, and offer an excellent opportunity for us to involve the community when we harvest and plant hundreds or even thousands of cuttings at one project. In fact, planting live stakes is so easy you can do it in your backyard: check out our riparian planting guide here to learn more about planting live stakes and other stream revegetation techniques.

The Thompson #2 Mine highlights a lesser-known chapter of Bozeman's history, where coal mining left lasting environmental impacts. Today, the land is being restored thanks to collaborative efforts between a private land owner, AML, GWC, and the Bozeman community. As the stream and vegetation recover, the project symbolizes a hopeful future—where, working together, we can restore Bozeman’s impacted landscapes for future generations. Stay tuned for updates, and watch out for opportunities to volunteer at the Thompson Mine #2 site!

Jared Trilling, Project Manager & Ecologist