The Fish Creek Ghost of Montana

From 1913 to 1915, hunters and railroad men near Fish Creek, about 40 miles west of Missoula, Montana, reported eerie encounters with the spirit of a weeping woman. She became known as the Fish Creek Ghost and may be one of the earliest spirits ever captured on camera in the United States.

A Mysterious Woman in the Woods

The first reported sighting came from a railroad crew in August 1913. As their train passed through Fish Creek, they saw what they described as “a radiant maiden strolling majestically over the foothills in tearful meditation.” As they watched, she melted away before their eyes. They stood in stunned silence, unsure if they had imagined the whole thing.

A month later, these same men went hunting in the area. As they sat around the campfire, lost in conversation, they spotted the “melancholy maiden” walking slowly through the trees about 100 yards from their camp. They called out, but she ignored them and continued on her path.

The Haunted Cabin Investigation

By 1915, stories of the weeping woman and a haunted cabin near Rivulet, Montana, had spread through Missoula. Three men—Ed Rendleman, W.E. Fuge (or Fudge), and F.J. Alberts—set out for the deserted cabin on the old Gossage homestead to investigate the strange reports.

As they hiked toward the cabin, they noticed the fresh snow held no tracks. Near a stream, Alberts stopped to refill his canteen and saw “12 or 15 clots of fresh blood” on the snowbank. Thinking his nose had started bleeding, he wiped his face but found nothing. When he called for his friends, they didn’t respond. He ran to the cabin to tell them what he had seen. When they returned to the stream, the blood was gone.

A Face in the Darkness

The men settled into the cabin, started a fire, and cooked a meal. They positioned themselves so they could see both the front door and the doorway to another room. At some point, they drifted off to sleep. Everything remained quiet until Alberts woke to Rendleman pinching his knee. He didn’t say a word, only pointed across the dark room. In the doorway leading to the bedroom, a woman’s face stared back at them.

Alberts later described it as “a human face, with tearful, staring eyes.” He couldn’t tell if it had a body. The sorrowful expression, unmistakably that of a woman, appeared at the height of a short person’s head. Rendleman claimed he saw the full figure of a woman dressed in a light silk bridal gown. She stood in the doorway crying. After about thirty seconds, she crossed the room to a window and vanished.

The men waited, hoping she would return, but she did not. Around three in the morning, they woke Fuge, who had slept through everything, and left the cabin. Later, when they shared their experience, many dismissed their claims. In response to the ridicule, two of the men wrote to The Missoulian on January 26, 1915.

They insisted that anyone who mocked their experience might feel differently if confronted at midnight by a young woman in bridal white. They described her as weeping bitterly, wringing her hands in despair, and wandering the foothills under the silvery moonlight.

A Photographer Seeks the Truth

After the men’s story appeared in The Missoulian, Burt Duckworth decided to settle the matter once and for all. Described as a skilled photographer, he set off for the cabin with four others: Ray Hall, Harry Byrd, Ellis Rathburn, and Ralph Cuplin. Cuplin, considered an expert in photography, brought an “electronically-equipped” camera to capture any proof of the haunting.

The ghostly domain of the weeping woman stretched from Cyr to the Fish Creek bridge. The only way to reach the cabin was by horseback or on foot. It sat on a flat in Weeping Woman Gulch. A stairway led to the half-story sleeping loft, while the land outside held a collapsing hay barn and an abandoned chicken pen.

The Ghost on Film

The men arrived at the cabin around 3:30 p.m., exhausted from their journey through the hills. After dinner, they explored the cabin, taking pictures as they went. As night fell, they set up their camera near the door to cover as much of the room as possible. A rubber cord with a button stretched across the floor to where they would sleep.

At some point in the night, Ellis Rathburn bolted awake, leaped over two men, and ran out the door. At the same moment, Ralph Cuplin hit the button on the electric camera, capturing a photograph they claimed proved the presence of something unnatural. They later described seeing the spirit of a weeping woman, who vanished the instant the camera flashed. Duckworth summed up their emotions with a quote from Edgar Allan Poe. He said they had been “filled with a fantastic feeling ne’er dreamed of before.”

What Really Happened?

As a paranormal researcher, I find this story fascinating, especially because of how well it was documented. Old ghost stories often lack details, with names missing and dates uncertain. In this case, newspapers recorded the names of multiple witnesses, all of whom were verifiable.

Each of these men lived in Missoula at the time, and records confirmed that the land once belonged to a man named Robert C. Gossage. The legend claimed a woman had been murdered there, though no historical records confirmed her identity. The Gossage family did not remain at the location long, which only deepens the mystery.

Was the Weeping Woman of Fish Creek a hoax, or did something truly strange haunt this remote corner of Montana? No matter the answer, her story lingers.

Have You Heard of the Fish Creek Ghost?

Stories like this remind us how much of history remains in the shadows, waiting to be uncovered. If you’ve heard other versions of the Fish Creek Ghost or have your own eerie encounter to share, I’d love to hear about it. Drop a comment below or send me a message. I