Talk looks at vanished Montana town that was once America's wickedest

Motorists heading up Interstate 90, west of St. Regis, will see no sign of Taft. But the former railroad boom town was once billed as America's wickedest. Taft had no churches, no schools and only three residential homes, yet 10,000 men and 500 prostitutes once called Taft home. Taft burned to the ground three times and was rebuilt twice.

John Shontz, Helena lawyer and author, will tell the story of the short-lived town in a presentation April 15 in Kalispell. Everything associated with the "Wild West" happened in Taft — gunfights, murders, robberies, fights and just plain debauchery, he notes.

The town housed the construction crews pushing the Milwaukee Road across the Bitterroot Mountains. The 1906-10 railroad project was an engineering marvel of its time and included a 1.8-mile-long tunnel and multiple trestles. Much of the technology invented for the project is still used across the globe, says Shontz.