Ten miles east of Red Lodge, in the small near-ghost-town of Bearcreek, is the surface complex of the Smith Mine. On 27 February 1943 a methane explosion deep underground killed 74 of the 77 men working the morning shift — the worst coal mine disaster in Montana history. The mine never reopened.
The buildings that survive — the timber-frame tipple, the boiler house, the bath house with miners' steel lockers still in place — stand on private land but can be seen from a small pull-out on Highway 308. A historical marker tells the basic story. The Smith Mine cemetery in Bearcreek holds many of the victims; most of the families were Slovenian, Italian, or Finnish immigrants. The drive out, ten miles down a creek valley that was once thick with mining settlements, is itself the point.