Bannack continued as a mining town, though with a dwindling population. The last residents left in the 1970s.
Bannack's sheriff, Henry Plummer, was said to be the head of a gang that was responsible for nearly a hundred deaths; twenty-two men were eventually hanged by a mob for their presumed crimes.
The last man hanged may have done nothing more than express an opinion that several of those previously hanged had been innocent.
