The treasure of Virginia City - includes Virginia City travel planner - Virginia City, Montana

Sunset, July, 1999 by Dave G. Houser

Discover the authentic riches of Montana's best Gold Rush town

Lying in the scrubby foothills of southwest Montana like a nugget in a grit-filled pan, Virginia City is the best-preserved 19th-century Gold Rush town you're likely to find anywhere in the West.

It's not to be confused with Virginia City, Nevada, which staked its claim to fame on the enormous silver deposits of the Comstock Lode. This Virginia City burst on the scene in the spring of 1863, when, in a classic strike-it-rich scenario, a roving party of six itinerant prospectors just happened to stumble onto the world's richest deposit of placer gold (found in gravel creek beds). After the discovery, at Alder Gulch, the rush was on: within months, some 10,000 gold-seekers, merchants, road agents, card sharks; .and dance-hall ladies jammed the town.

After the rush ended a year later, the town still managed to eke out a living on mining until World War II. But by 1945 plans were brewing to tear the town down and sell it for firewood.

In rode Charles and Sue Bovey on white horses. Wealthy ranchers from Great Falls, Montana, with a fondness for history, they bought up much of the town and set about restoring the entire business district.

For more than 50 years, until their deaths, the Boveys continued to restore and maintain Virginia City. In addition, they bought and worked on a neighboring historic town, Nevada City, in the 1950s. It was a love affair with history that eventually took its toll on the family's fortune.

In 1997, unable to maintain the two historic complexes any longer, the Boveys' heirs deeded the sites to Montana for $6.5 million.

The Bovey legacy is remarkable. When you visit Virginia City, it doesn't take long to discover what sets it apart from other old mining towns. Wallace Street, the main drag, looks so authentic to the period as to seem. almost contrived, like Old Tucson Studios or even Knott's Berry Farm.

The town's business district includes more than 50 original buildings erected in the 1860s and '70s. You can see where the state's first newspaper, the Montana Post, was printed in 1864; across the street is the 1866 Wells, Fargo and Company Express Office.

Just down the street, Kiskadden Barn and Blacksmith, the "vigilante barn," has a solid place in Virginia City's long and colorful history. Every Gold Rush town had its crooks, but from the start Virginia City found itself at the mercy of the ruthless and highly organized Plummer Gang. Honest miners soon took matters into their own hands; legend has it they met in December 1863 in the loft of Kiskadden Barn to form a vigilante committee. During the next two months, the vigilantes captared and hanged most of the gang members. "That may well have been the advent of the Neighborhood Watch program," says longtime town curator John Ellingsen. "And you know, there's still a great sense of vigilance around here. Everyone looks out for everyone else, and woe be it to the poor soul who tries to pull off a crime in Virginia City."

Show up - on your best behavior - during the annual Victorian Weekend Festival (July 24-25 this year) and you'll find Wallace Street filled with visitors awaiting the parade, a ragtag affair that moves out more of less at noon. It floods the main thoroughfare with costumed entrants, some on foot of horse-back and others crowded into vintage wagons and stagecoaches.

Other festival events, including a Victorian Salon and Reading at Sanders-Vanderbeck Center, ate tame compared with the parade - of, for that matter, the regularly scheduled Brewery Follies, a cabaret show at the H.S. Gilbert Brewery that's wild enough for any old-time miner.

Virginia City travel planner

Virginia City is about 85 miles southeast of Butte off State 287. The Virginia City Area Chamber of Commerce produces a detailed walking tour brochure and can provide other general information; (800) 829-2969.

Most of southwest Montana's gold-mining towns are only faded memories today, but the two listed below, Bannack State Park and Garnet, have survived as ghost towns and are worth a visit while you're in the region.

Area code is 406 unless noted.

Dining

Lynch's Virginia City Cafe. Hearty homestyle cooking served inside or alfresco beneath a gazebo. 210 Wallace St.; 843-5511.

Lodging

Fairweather Inn. Historic Victorian hotel right in the middle of things. $50 with private bath, $45 with shared bath. Wallace St.; (800) 648-7588.

Stonehouse Inn Bed & Breakfast. Century-old native-stone B&B overlooking the town. $55. 306 E. Idaho St.; 843-5504.

Ghost towns

Bannack State Park. Off County 278 about 80 miles west of Virginia City, the park protects the remnants of more than 50 tumbledown buildings that once made up the gold-mining town of Bannack. Bannack Day Celebration is held annually during the third weekend in July. 8 A.M.-9 P.M. daily May-September. $4 parking; 834-3413.

Garnet. Hidden away in the Garnet Mountain Range about 30 miles east of Missoula (off I-90; about 120 miles north of Virginia City), it's said to be Montana's most intact ghost town. Dawn-dusk daily May-September. $2; 329-3884.