From a 1964 Townsend Star article written by Elsie Ralls:
This particular bit of Montana history concerns one small southwestern town named for its founder, Rader, and located thirteen miles west of Townsend, county seat of Broadwater County. Radersburg is situated on Crow Creek, former hunting grounds of the Crow Indians. Teepee rings, buffalo jumps and Indian artifacts can still be found in the vicinity.
As with so many others of Montana, Radersburg is a "Ghost Town". A population of 1,000 or more in the early 1860s, 600 in 1868, had dwindled to 250 in 1879, 200 in 1880, and in this year, 1964, there are about 75 people living in Radersburg. Instead of a farsighted citizenry retaining it, to be as famous as Virginia City, many of its buildings have been torn down, many others left to fall down.
The valley of Crow Creek at this point possesses all the qualities to render once a rich agricultural and stock county. The mining booms were responsible of the shifting of the county seat from its original location at Jefferson City to Radersburg in 1869, precipitating a controversy which lasted until 1884. Here a courthouse, at a cost of $18,000 and a jail at a cost of $6,000 were erected. The two were built on top of a small hill just west of Main Street, about the center of the town.
Radersburg is classed among the early settlements of Montana. In 1866 Radersburg, Jefferson City, Boulder City, Wickes and Clancy were the principal towns of Jefferson county, which was organized in 1865. Radersburg developed out of a number of needs. The agricultural resources of Crow Creek valley, and its location midway between Helena and Bozeman made it a logical place for a stage stop.
After Broadwater county was created and Radersburg became a part of it, the courthouse was used as a schoolhouse until the brick school was built at the western edge of town and ready for occupancy in 1912. After this, the old building was used as a community center where programs and dances were held until 1926 when it was sold to Thomas Williams, who razed it and built a barn of the material. The foundation of the building it still there and, olcally, the site is still referred to as "Schoolhouse Hill".
The small town is known only as "home" to its few remaining citizens. It has no large shopping centers, no theaters, no cafes to offer. It does have clean, cold air, marvelous mountain views on every side, fishing, hunting, and, as one man put it "those wide, open spaces sure are the place to slow down and enjoy each day".
As with so many other boom towns, Radersburg history was rip-roaring, rough, and brief. The century-old story of Radersburg is a story of its people, their lives and parts in the past as well as the present. It is a story of the gold that brought people here, and, who knows?, someday will bring them back.
The first account of gold in Montana was made when Major John Owen, proprietor of Fort Owen in the Bitterroot Valley made this note in his diary of 1852: "Gold hunting. Found some'. In 1856 a lone mountaineer named Silverthorne brought gold dust to the American Fur Post at Fort Benton and traded it for $1,000 worth of supplies. The discovery of gold in the Salmon River district in 1861 started the gold rush through the territory. Gold was discovered in Bannack in July of 1862, Alder Gulch in 1863, and from there to Last Chance Gulch in 1864.