Helena and Last Chance Gulch
Heritage District · Helena, Montana
Montana's capital, and the only state capital whose main street is a gold creek — Last Chance Gulch is not a street name borrowed from history, it is the actual gulch where four prospectors down to their last try found gold in 1864, and the road still bends the way the creek did. Around fifty millionaires lived here by the 1880s, which is why a town of thirty-five thousand has a Gothic Revival cathedral with 230-foot spires, a copper-domed capitol with a Charles Russell mural inside it, and a walkable downtown of stone buildings that no city this size has any business owning.
Last Chance Gulch, Helena, Montana, 59601, United States
A working city and state capital, open at all hours. The Last Chance Gulch pedestrian mall, the Cathedral of Saint Helena, the Montana State Capitol and the Holter Museum of Art are all free; the Capitol runs free guided tours on a schedule that thins at weekends. Shops keep daytime hours and downtown is busiest on weekday lunchtimes rather than weekends. The Gates of the Mountains boat tour, 20 minutes north, is seasonal.
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