Mondak is a ghost town in Roosevelt County,

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

, United States, which flourished c. 1903–1919, in large measure by selling alcohol to residents of

North Dakota North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minnesota to the east, So ...

, then a dry state. Mondak—a portmanteau derived from

and adjacent

—was created in 1903, mostly by local investors who realized that profit could be made by selling beer and liquor to North Dakotans. Because of its strategic location on the Missouri River and the Great Northern Railway, Mondak quickly became a thriving village. The first building was constructed in 1904, and Mondak soon boasted a bank, two hotels, three general stores, and several grain elevators. It also eventually had a church, a newspaper, a two-story brick school, and a part-time electric generating plant. Locally raised grain and cattle were shipped to

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

on the Great Northern, but the town's most profitable business remained alcohol sales. During its heyday, Mondak had at least seven saloons and a number of warehouses to store alcohol. Gambling and prostitution were never legal but always winked at. There were many accidents involving inebriated men, and the crime rate was high for the size of the community. On April 4, 1913, a black construction worker, J. C. Collins, shot and killed Sheridan County Sheriff Thomas Courtney and a deputized citizen, Richard Bermeister, when they tried to arrest him at the company's office. Hours after Collins was jailed in Mondak, a mob of local residents stormed the building and

lynched Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...

him, hanging him from a telephone pole and then making "a futile attempt to burn his body." Mondak's prosperity was short-lived. The area entered a drought cycle in 1916; and the Snowden Bridge, completed in 1913, reduced ferry traffic across the Missouri. In 1916, a fire destroyed several saloons and a warehouse and badly damaged a hotel and a general store. In 1919 Montana instituted

prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol ...

. Although Mondak was never entirely dry, prohibition "cramped Mondak's style." When the county seat, provisionally located in Mondak, moved to Poplar in 1920, Mondak's decline accelerated. In early 1924, the railroad station closed, and the bank, the town's last viable business, closed in 1925. In 1928 another fire destroyed many remaining buildings. The remains of the ghost town are on private property and include several foundations, depressions from removed foundations, and a large open well. The townsite is within a mile of

Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site is a partial reconstruction of the most important fur trading post on the upper Missouri, 1829-1867. The fort site is about two miles from the confluence of the Missouri River and its tributary, the ...

and within two miles of Fort Buford State Historic Site, North Dakota.

Notes

{{Roosevelt County, Montana Ghost towns in Montana Geography of Roosevelt County, Montana Geography of Williams County, North Dakota Lynching deaths in Montana Populated places established in 1903 1903 establishments in Montana Borders of Montana Prohibition in the United States