Philipsburg’s early fortunes rose and fell with mining, and its historic district preserves one of Montana’s best late-19th-century mining towns, with commercial, public, and private buildings dating from the silver boom. Silver was discovered south of here in 1864, and three years later Philipsburg, at an elevation of 5,270 feet, was growing at the reported rate of one house per day. That same year, the St. Louis and Montana Mining Company sent Philip Deideshimer, for whom the town was named, to help develop and manage its mines and stamp mills. Two years later, the nearby Hope Mill shut down and Philipsburg was largely deserted. A revival of mining from the mid-1880s to the mid-1890s brought the town its greatest growth, as tens of millions of dollars’ worth of silver bullion, ore, and slag were shipped to out-of-state markets and the wooden false-front buildings on Broadway were replaced with masonry structures. When silver mining was curtailed in 1893, recently discovered sapphire deposits helped stabilize the local economy. That year also brought the creation of Granite County, with Philipsburg as county seat. During World War I, Philipsburg became the largest supplier of domestic manganese, leading to another boom. After that, the town settled into a stable existence based on agriculture, government, logging, limited mining, and tourism.