Caverns Friday Summer Speakers Series: ‘Spirit Tailings’

WHITEHALL – Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park will host a free talk entitled “Spirit Tailings” on Friday, Aug. 27, at 8 p.m. in the park’s campground amphitheater.

This talk will weave a ghostly web through a thought-provoking journey to Montana’s most spirited places. Like the tailings left by Montana's early placer miners, the "tailings" presented by speaker Ellen Baumler explore the leftover traces of Montana's haunted heritage. A herd of ghost horses, a restless artist, spirits of Virginia City's vigilante past, a ghostly legacy of Lewis and Clark, and other true tales will leave you looking over your shoulder all the way home. 

This is the final presentation in Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park’s annual Friday Summer Speakers Series, which has introduced a new speaker each Friday throughout the summer.

Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park is about 15 miles southeast of Whitehall, along Montana Highway 2. For more information about the park, please visit stateparks.mt.gov/lewis-and-clark-caverns or call 406-287-3541.

About the speaker

Ellen Baumler received a doctorate from the University of Kansas in history, classics, and English. From 1992 until her retirement in 2018, she was the Montana Historical Society's interpretive historian in Helena. The author of 13 books and dozens of articles on various Montana topics, Ellen is best known for her well-researched stories about Montana's special haunted places. Her passion for the true supernatural began in her own historic home where she learned firsthand about the eerie intertwining of the past and the present.