The Bitterroot Range that forms the western boundary of the Bitterroot Valley is a wall of granite and metamorphic rock that rises abruptly from the valley floor and extends south into Idaho. The mountains are beautiful in the way that inaccessible places are beautiful, and they discouraged systematic exploration for most of the territorial period. The prospectors who worked the Bitterroot Valley in the 1860s and 1870s were focused on the placer deposits in the creek drainages, and the hard-rock deposits in the higher elevations of the range received less attention than the geology warranted.

The silver and lead deposits that gave rise to the camp of Combination were discovered in the Bitterroot Range during the mining activity that characterized the 1880s and 1890s across western Montana. The camp took its name from the Combination Mine, a property that brought together several claims under a single operation in the manner that was common in the consolidation phase of mining district development. The mine's operators believed that the combination of claims gave them access to a more extensive ore body than any single claim would have provided, and the name reflected that belief.

The Combination Mine was located in the western mountains of Ravalli County, in the drainage systems that flow from the Bitterroot Range toward the Bitterroot River. The silver-lead ore that the mine produced was typical of the deposits found throughout the Bitterroot Range, and the camp that grew up around the operation had the character of a high-elevation mining settlement dependent on pack trails for its connection to the valley below. The distance from the Bitterroot Valley floor and the difficulty of the terrain made transportation expensive and limited the scale of operations that could be sustained economically.

The camp's population was never large. The Combination Mine was a working mine rather than a boomtown, and the men who lived at the camp were miners and their immediate support staff rather than the merchants and speculators who populated the larger mining centers. The camp had a post office for a period, which gave it official recognition in the territorial and later state records, but it lacked the commercial infrastructure of the more substantial mining communities.

The silver price collapse of 1893 affected the Combination Mine as it affected silver operations across Montana. The mine's production was reduced sharply when the price of silver fell, and the camp contracted as miners moved to other locations or left the mining industry entirely. Some operations continued at reduced scale in the years following the collapse, as the lead content of the ore provided some economic justification for continued extraction even when silver prices were low, but the camp never recovered the population or the activity level of its peak years.

The early twentieth century brought intermittent revival to the Combination district, as rising metal prices and improvements in processing technology made it economical to work ore grades that had been unprofitable in the 1890s. These revivals were brief and did not restore the camp to its former scale, and by the time of the First World War the Combination Mine had been abandoned for the last time. The camp's buildings were left to the mountain climate, and the site reverted to the forest and the silence that had characterized it before the miners arrived.

The history of Combination is part of the broader story of silver-lead mining in the Bitterroot Range, a story that includes a number of small camps that operated briefly and left little trace. The range's geology was favorable for the formation of silver-lead deposits, and the men who worked those deposits in the 1880s and 1890s were responding rationally to the economic incentives of the era. That most of the camps failed to achieve sustained production was a function of the economics of transportation and the volatility of metal prices rather than a failure of the geology or the miners' skill.

The Bitterroot Valley that surrounds the site of Combination is one of the most beautiful landscapes in Montana, and the mountains that contain the old mine workings are part of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, one of the largest wilderness areas in the lower forty-eight states. The contrast between the industrial history of the mine and the wilderness character of the surrounding landscape is one of the more striking features of the Combination site.

The geology of the Bitterroot Range explains both the presence of the silver-lead deposits and the difficulty of working them. The range is composed primarily of the Bitterroot batholith, a massive intrusion of granite that was emplaced deep in the earth during the Cretaceous period and later exposed by erosion. The contact zones between the batholith and the older metamorphic rocks that it intruded are the locations where hydrothermal fluids deposited the silver-lead-zinc ores that attracted miners to the range. These contact zones are irregular and discontinuous, which meant that the ore bodies were often smaller and more scattered than the initial discoveries suggested. The miners who worked the Combination Mine were dealing with a geology that rewarded persistence but punished overconfidence.

The Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness that now encompasses much of the range where the Combination Mine operated is one of the largest roadless areas in the contiguous United States, and the landscape has recovered from the mining activity of the 1880s and 1890s with the thoroughness that wilderness areas achieve when human pressure is removed. The forest has reclaimed the clearings that the miners made, and the streams that were disturbed by the mine workings have largely returned to their natural channels. The wilderness designation has ensured that the recovery will continue, and the landscape that visitors encounter today is closer to the pre-mining condition than it has been at any point since the first prospectors arrived in the range.

What Remains Today

The Combination Mine site is located in the Bitterroot Range of Ravalli County, within or adjacent to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. The physical evidence of the mining operations includes the mine workings, waste rock piles, and whatever structural remnants may survive in the forest. The site is not developed for public interpretation, and access requires travel on forest roads and trails.

The surrounding landscape is managed by the Bitterroot National Forest, and the area provides exceptional opportunities for wilderness hiking and backcountry travel. The combination of the mining history and the wilderness landscape makes the Combination area a destination for visitors interested in both the historical and natural character of the Bitterroot Range.

Visiting

Combination is located in the Bitterroot Range of Ravalli County, accessible via forest roads from the Bitterroot Valley. The Bitterroot National Forest's Stevensville or Darby Ranger Districts can provide current road and access information. Hamilton, the Ravalli County seat, is the nearest city with visitor services, located in the Bitterroot Valley on US Highway 93.

Missoula is approximately 45 miles north of Hamilton on US Highway 93 and Interstate 90 and provides a full range of visitor services for those exploring the Bitterroot country.