Rankin Ranch

A National Historic Landmark. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

From the record

“The Rankin Ranch is a historic ranch off Montana Highway 284, north of Townsend in rural Broadwater County, Montana. A National Historic Landmark, it was a longtime summer residence of Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973), whose 1916 election to the United States House of Representatives made her the first woman elected to the House.”
Wikipedia article Rankin Ranch, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 11 National Register listings published here for Broadwater County · listed in 1976 · category: Building · a National Historic Landmark.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. 2 1/2 mi. NE of the Helena-Diamond City Rd., Avalanche Gulch, 59644
When was it listed? May 1976
Category. building
Census division. Townsend East
National Register reference number. 76001119 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

36 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 36 fires within 5 miles of Rankin Ranch between 1994 and 2020, burning about 228 acres in total. 18 started naturally. 2 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Natural	18
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	8
Recreation and ceremony	4
Misuse of fire by a minor	2
Arson/incendiarism	2
Equipment and vehicle use	1
Debris and open burning	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
6 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Central Land Office	TWIN PEAK
24 September 1997	Natural	under an acre	Helena - Lewis and Clark National Forest	DO LITTLE
2 September 2006	Natural	under an acre	Helena - Lewis and Clark National Forest	SPRING GULCH
9 August 1999	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Helena - Lewis and Clark National Forest	TIMBER GULCH
6 August 2005	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	14 acres	Helena - Lewis and Clark National Forest	LITTLE HELLGATE
31 August 1998	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Central Land Office	MICKEY MOUSE
3 August 2013	Natural	under an acre	Helena - Lewis and Clark National Forest	AVALANCHE CREEK
3 August 1999	Arson/incendiarism	200 acres	Butte Field Office	LITTLEHELG

Every fire recorded in Broadwater County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 20 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 20 workings within 5 miles of Rankin Ranch: 7 past producers, 5 unknowns, 4 prospects, 3 occurrences. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Copper, Gold, Titanium, Silver, Gold. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Argo Mine	Silver, Gold, Copper	Past Producer	1900, 1902
Eagle Dump	Copper, Zinc, Gold, Lead, Silver	Occurrence
Fred Bloom Mine	Copper, Silver, Barium-Barite	Past Producer
White Gulch	Phosphorus-Phosphates	Unknown
Avalanche Creek	Titanium	Unknown
Hellgate Placer	Titanium	Unknown
Heitmann Placer Claim	Gold	Unknown
Magpie Gulch	Gold	Past Producer
White Creek	Gold	Past Producer	1865, 1959
White Creek District	Gold	Past Producer	1865

Every working recorded in Broadwater County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 76001119 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Broadwater County	All 11 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.