Platted in 1905 by George Lamport and Robert Leavens, Bearcreek was the center of an extensive underground coal mining district. At its height during World War I, the town had nearly 2,000 people and an ethnically diverse community that included Serbians, Scotsmen, Montenegrans, Germans, Italians, and Americans. Residents were served by seven mercantile, a bank, two hotels, two bollard halls, a brickyard, and numerous saloons, and the town also had concrete sidewalks and an extensive water system, though no church was ever built there. Foundations of many buildings, and some structures themselves, were made of sandstone quarried in the nearby hill. The local railway, the Montana Wyoming and Southern, carried coal from the mines through Bearcreek for shipment to communities across Montana. The Lamport Hotel, built in 1907, once stood on the foundation to the right and was praised as well furnished, with especially soft beds and meals served with a desire to please guests; it was razed about 1945. In 1943, Montana's worst coal mining disaster at the nearby Smith mine killed 74 men, many of whom lived in Bearcreek, and the tragedy hastened the town's decline. Many buildings were moved to other communities or demolished, the railroad tracks were removed in 1953, and the last mine closed in the 1970s.