Clancy Church
Photo courtesy: Bill Kuney
Clancy Homestead
Jefferson County Museum
Photo courtesy: Jefferson County Museum
Clancy boomed in the 1870s as a silver placer mining camp and quickly absorbed nearby towns like the once prosperous Prickly Pear City. When the silver diggings dwindled in the 1890s, Clancy would have died too, were it not for the efforts of Henry Hill, a Clancy resident. Hill had helped to establish Montana's first woolen mill in Clancy in 1879, and in 1896 he built a railroad yard on his ranch, which he sold to the Montana Central. Today you can experience the history of the region at the Jefferson County Museum in Clancy, or visit the abandoned silver camps around Clancy in the Lump Gulch area, most of which are in the nearby Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. Camping, especially on the beautiful Park Lake, is also available in the National Forest.
