Basin, MT

Basin is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Jefferson County, Montana, set in a high, narrow canyon along Interstate 15 between Butte and Helena. Basin Creek runs roughly north to south through the settlement before entering the Boulder River, while the Boulder Batholith beneath the area helped make the district a center of gold and silver mining. Basin began as a nineteenth-century mining camp, was formally platted in 1889, and grew as rail lines connected the mines with the smelter at Wickes. The population reached about 1,500 in 1905, then declined as the richest mining years passed.

The later Basin is smaller, but the old mining map remains visible in abandoned equipment, mine portals, and smelter ruins. Basin Grade School serves local children, with older students attending school in Boulder. From 1993 through 2011, the Montana Artists Refuge occupied two historic Main Street buildings and brought painters, musicians, writers, potters, and other artists into the former mining town. Basin Creek, the interstate, the old mines, the school, and the Main Street studios all point to the same layered place. Basin is a small Montana community where mining history and an unexpected arts chapter meet in one canyon.