Eight Mile House

[Tiredman]

Well in the past Terry had this in his treasure atlas, buried treasure somewhere around the old stage stop. Location near Nevada City. That's Madison County for you folks that don't know. Henry Plummer Country. Well all the searching I never could determine it's actual location. Now I got that Treasure State Treasure Tales book by Moore 1970, first story. Haunted Eight Mile House-Never Gave Up It's Treasure. Well the story she did didn't help pin it down either. But provided a name of a fellow, Big Bill Mullins. He claimed he would spend 5 days and night in the place to prove it wasn't haunted, but didn't last the first night, due to all the damn noise coming from the walls and foot steps. Well since our Gold West books are not out yet we still have some time to research Big Bill. If anyone has anything on the story feel free to share it.

 

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[Tiredman]

Now the newest development on finding this place. Moore had another story called The Pilfered Treasure Box. Location between Virginia City and Ennis, reading it is sounded familiar. It was Eight-Mile House! Moore had two stories in their book and didn't realize it was the same place. Terry had a big error in direction again. SW of Ennis, south of the Old Virginia City Highway is Eight Mile Creek.

 

[Tiredman]

From "Treasure State Treasure Tales" Jean Moore 1950:
HAUNTED EIGHT MILE HOUSE NEVER GAVE UP ITS TREASURE
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Like Robbers Roost in the Ruby Valley, the so-called Eight Mile House out of Nevada City in Madison County was a hangout for road agents and cutthroats of the early gold rush days in Montana Territory.

Eight Mile House, too, reportedly was the location of hidden treasure, supposedly cached by road agents in the house itself or in the ground near it. And Eight Mile House also was considered “haunted.” Several one-night guests complained of having their rest disturbed by unearthly moans and sounds of footsteps apparently came from within the heavy log walls on the waystation.
A story was told of an old stagecoach driver called big Bill Mullins who had no patience with such foolishness as hauntings or “the dad-blamed idiots” who believed in such stuff. It was pure and unadulterated nonsense, he claimed, “to think that any self-respecting ghost would hunt a crude old log waystation out on the edge of nowhere when there were so many fine townhouses elsewhere that they could haunt in style.”
Mullins offered to spend five days and nights in the upstairs room best known for its ghostly noises to prove to superstitious people that there just weren’t any such thing as ghosts; and while he was there, he figured to do a little treasure hunting as well.

True to his word, Big Bill moved into Eight Mile House all prepared to spend five lonely days and nights to prove his point. Several of his friends were stationed outside the building to see that he didn’t fudge on the deal.
In the middle of the night, Big Bill tore out of the house with his bedding which he calmly spread out on the ground for a bed. Before he dozed off, he told his friends that he still didn’t believe in ghosts, but “whatever was making that all-fired racket in there should have principles enough to shut up a while and let “a body get a little sleep.”
He declined to elaborate further on this statement, but he never offered to prove his point about ghosts again, either.
Whether or not the ghost of Eight Mile House finally put in the required shifts and retired from haunting it is hard to say, but it was reported that after holding open house for ghosts for several years, the building suddenly settled down and became an ordinary old house with only the natural and explainable creakings old houses are entitled to.

 

[Tiredman]

From "Treasure State Treasure Tales" by Jean Moore 1950:
THE PILFERED TREASURE BOX
Between Ennis and Virginia City there once stood a house where road agents were wont to gather after a hard day of plying their trade. Although there seems to be no history of murderous crimes connected with this house, it was an accepted fact among the old-timers that there was considerable treasure buried inside or nearby.
Years passed and overnight guests became fewer, with competitive hostelries bidding for them until the house was occupied only off-and-on by various tenants looking for temporary shelter until their own homes could be built.
There were many half-hearted attempts to locate the supposed treasure, but with no results. After some time, the story of the buried treasure was placed in a category of pioneer yarns and mining camp lore and practically forgotten.
The house had stood vacant for many years when a cowboy hired by a rancher to care for his horses, and his companion decided to make the old building their headquarters.
One evening, after returning to the house, they were more than surprised to see a location notice on the front door reserving not only the building site itself but also about a mile and a half of surrounding ground for placer mining purposes.
The cowboys had themselves a good laugh over it, as they knew that the ground for miles had been well prospected for placer mining, but the gold was too scarce to make working it worthwhile. The strange miners kept to themselves and the cowboys returned the favor, although they were anxious to see how long the green miners would sweat over a pick and shovel with little or no chance of reward.
The strangers had been digging near the house for about 10 days when, as suddenly as they had come, they disappeared. The morning after their disappearance, the stagecoach driver met one of the cowboys and told him the strangers that had been digging so diligently around the old house had stopped him on the road and boarded the stagecoach with a heavy iron box or chest which was covered with old rusty bands and appeared to have been buried in the earth for a long time.
The cowboy hurried back to the old house and got his companion; together they walked a short distance to where they had seen the strangers digging. They found a hole in the ground about 4 feet deep. At the bottom, there remained an imprint of a square object which had apparently been held together with wide iron bands.

The cowboys likened the imprint to the description of the box loaded onto the stage coach by the strangers and recalled the story of the treasure supposedly buried in the area.
The strangers with the mysterious box were last seen boarding a train at Phillipsburg. No one doubted that the box contained a long buried treasure. As for the cowboys, it was quite a blow to their egos to realize that they had walked back and forth over the buried treasure each day as they came and went from the old halfway house. They were refuted to be allergic to stories concerning buried treasure thereafter!

 

[Tiredman]

It appears both of the above stories are of the same place.