Virginia City, Montana - A Lively Ghost Town

MONTANA LEGENDS

Virginia City - A Lively Ghost Town

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Virginia City, Montana, 1866

Virginia City, Montana during its heydays, 1866, courtesy Library of Congress

By definition, Virginia City, Montana is a ghost town, yet it is very much alive. Frozen in time, this historic city provides one of the best-preserved examples of the many mining camps of the American West.

Perched high in the Rocky Mountains in a bowl along Alder Gulch, Virginia City got its start when gold was discovered on May 26, 1863. It all began when six prospectors were camped along a small stream shaded by alder trees. Thomas Cover, Henry Edgar, Barney Hughes, William Fairweather, Henry Rodgers and Bill Sweeney were randomly searching the hills when Fairweather and Edgar decided to prospect a rim rock. As the pair were working in the creek, Edgar began to find small amounts of gold in his pan. The others soon joined him and by evening, all of them had found enough of the precious metal to know they had made an important strike.

Planning on keeping their discovery a secret, the men traveled to Bannack, some sixty miles southwest, for supplies. However, several sharp-eyed prospectors noticed their gold-filled sacks and when the men returned to Alder Gulch, some 200 miners were following them. News spread quickly and before long the area was flooded with prospectors living in makeshift shacks, tents, caves, or simply sleeping beneath the trees.

In the meantime, the nation was in the midst of the Civil War and though the gold brought emigrants from all over the world, overwhelmingly the influx of miners were “rebels” from the South. Just weeks later, on June 16th, a town company began to plat the settlement. The intended on naming the town "Verona," a misspelling of “Varina,” the wife of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America. However, the newly elected miners' court judge, Dr. G. G. Bissell, was an equally stubborn Unionist who submitted the name Virginia instead.

The majority of avowed secessionists living in the camp, which was then part of Idaho Territory and therefore "belonging" to the Union, made it primarily a “southern” town, with its residents’ sympathies lying with the Confederates. Furthermore, the camp was producing enough gold to win the Civil War for whoever could capture it. Due to this strategic position, President Lincoln soon sent northern emigrants into the mining camp to help hold the gold for the North. This of course caused all kinds of tension in the new city, which quickly became one of the most lawless places in the American West.

Within a year, some 10,000 people were living in a number of mining camps lining the gulch and in 1864 Congress created the new territory of Montana, separating it from Idaho Territory. Bannack, the site of the first gold strike in the area, became the territory’s first capitol. However, just a year later, Virginia City had gained so much influence that the capitol was moved. Rapidly becoming the territory’s social center and transportation hub, the shanties and tents were replaced by permanent buildings and Virginia City became home to Montana's first public school, newspaper, and telegraph.

Virginia City and nearby Nevada City became known as the site of the richest placer gold strike in the Rocky Mountains. In the first three years alone, an estimated $30 million worth of gold was removed from the gulch.

Virginia City, Montana

Virginia City sprang into existence after prospectors discovered gold at Alder Gulch. Photo courtesy National Park Service.

Sheriff Henry Plummer Though a few of the miners made their fortunes in the gold fields, and even more businessmen became wealthy, there was yet another group who planned on gaining riches another way. These were the many road agents operating in the area Though historians dispute this today, the robbers and thieves were said to have been led by none other than the Sheriff, himself – Henry Plummer.

Time after time, miners, freight haulers, and stagecoaches lost anything of value to the bandits lurking about the trails to and from Virginia City. As a result, a secret society of vigilantes was formed to stop the outlaws. Lynchings became the common event of the day as the vigilantes hunted down the road agents, one by one, and stringing them up in the streets of Virginia City, Nevada City, and Bannack. Though history now questions whether the many crimes were committed by highwaymen or perhaps the vigilantes, themselves, their is no question that the settlement was extreme in its lawlessness and violence.

No sooner than Virginia City had began to boom, when the city began its gradual decline. When gold was discovered in Last Chance Gulch in what is today Helena, the fickle miners began to move. Though gold continued to be found in the area, by the early 1870’s Virginia City's population had been reduced to only a few hundred. In 1875, the territorial capitol was moved to Helena and Virginia City was on her way to becoming a ghost town.

Though lode mining continued for years, it was never as profitable as the placer mining. From 1898 through 1922, floating dredges destroyed several of the small mining camps along Alder Gulch, leaving in its wake, mounds of tailings and dredge ponds. The original settlement of nearby Nevada City was totally eradicated by the dredging operations. However, Virginia City was spared because it had not been established upon gold-bearing gravel. During the decades of dredge mining, the area produced approximately $7 million in gold.

As the amount of gold played out, so did the dredging operations. However, when the price of gold rose significantly in the 1930’s, dredge mining was revived once again, only to be ceased in the next decade with the advent of World War II.

Today, a few small mining operations continue in the Virginia City area, but primarily, any remaining gold is searched for by hobbyists.

Continued Next Page

The Virginia City Museum was built in 1918 by William Boyce Thompson specifically for the purpose of serving as a museum and library, which it continues to do today. September, 2005, photo by Road Notes.

Called the Buford Block, the first portion of this "fireproof" brick building was built in 1888 to house the successful S.R. Buford Grocery Store (to the left). As Buford's success grew, he expanded to the west on the former site of the Wells Fargo building. The Boveys made the former Wells Fargo site into the Wells Fargo Coffee House in 1947. September, 2005, photo by Road Notes.

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From the Rocky Mountain General Store

Ghost Towns of the Northwest, by Norman D. Weis

Travel through the ghost-town country of the Pacific Northwest, guided by the camera and pen of Norman D. Weis. Both well known and obscure towns, with intriguing names such as Comeback Mine Camp, Electric, Ruby, Greenback, Disautel, and Old Todora entice you to explore their secrets. The book explores 62 abandoned towns in the boonies of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana. The author has given you a head start in your quest, having explored new angles for information on some of the more familiar ghost-towns, or visiting with old-timers for an offbeat story or two. The enigmas of lesser known areas are unraveled as Weis tells how he located each place, and conducted his on-site study of remains to decipher the town's reason for existence and the cause of its demise.