Montana Historian

So after setting up camp in an alder-choked gulch, Fairweather famously
said,“Now go and wash that pan and see if you can get enough to buy
some tobacco when we get to town.” Down at the stream, the men
dipped their pans in, scooping out water and mud, expertly swirling it to
remove the gravel and dirt. They ended up finding more than enough for
tobacco—a lot more. Dozens of shiny specks of bright yellow gold looked
back at them. At Bannack prices, they had found nuggets worth about
$2.50—the equivalent of finding $100 today. As the sun began dipping
low into the mountains, they realized they had a massive strike on their
hands. After facing so much hardship over the last few weeks, the group
was ecstatic. By the time it was too dark to pan any longer, a grinning
Henry Edgar was quoted as saying,“… and a more joyous lot of men never
went more contentedly to bed than we.”
by Dave Reuss
Nestled just outside the rolling green plains of Madison Valley, Virginia
City looks just like any other small town in Montana—the highway rolls
right through Main Street, and you can be back to cruising speed in no
time. But if you slow down on the town’s main drag and look around, the
history and beauty of Virginia City instantly springs to life. You can see
battered storefronts weathered by countless Montana winters. Peek in the
windows, and you can see antique barbershops, dance halls, and hotels,
complete with plaques describing the rich history of each building. Just
walking around, you can almost feel the energy left from the thousands of
people drawn by the excitement of a new life and untold fortunes.
This year is the town’s 150th anniversary—exactly a century and a half
since six lucky miners first found gold at Alder Gulch, uncovering the
richest strike in the Rocky Mountains. At today’s gold prices, the amount
collected from around Alder Gulch translates to nearly one billion dollars.
Of all the mining towns that have sprouted on the Montana landscape over
the decades—Bagdad, Summit, Highland, Central City, Adobetown, and
Junction City to name a few—only Virginia City has stood the test of time.
Its rollercoaster existence is a proud chapter in Montana history—nearly
becoming Montana’s capital, then withering into a ghost town years later,
only to be saved from the brink by an enterprising handful of people. Today,
it stands preserved as a nearly perfect snapshot of life in the Wild West era,
and one of the most dynamic and historically rich towns in the West.
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Montana Historian
Finding Gold
Virginia City’s story begins with the booming expansion of Americans
into the West. Up until 1840, the stretch of land from the lower Missouri
to the Pacific Coast was just land to cross, not settle in—but the discovery
of gold changed all that. Though there had been scattered accounts of
finding gold throughout Montana, the first real strike that resulted in a
permanent mining settlement was in the town of Bannack during the
summer of 1862, very near a spot that Lewis and Clark had camped just
60 years before.
Late in May of 1863, a group of weary men rode into a gulch in the
Tobacco Root mountains: Thomas Cover from Ohio, Barney Hughes
from Ireland, Henry Edgar from Scotland, along with Bill Fairweather,
Harry Rodgers, and Bill Sweeney, all hailing from New Brunswick.
Hungry and exhausted, they’d braved a harrowing run-in with an
irate group of Crow Indians and just barely escaped with their lives.
The Indians had captured the men with intentions to kill them, but
after Fairweather had stuffed a rattlesnake in his shirt without harm to
convince the Crow that the prospectors had powers from the spirit world,
the six men were released. The possibility of attack from Indians itching
for white men’s scalps still fresh in their minds, the group was beating a
hasty retreat into the woods.
When the group made a supply trip to Bannack a few days later and
began making purchases with bright nuggets of new gold, the other
miners in the town followed them around and treated them like royalty—
they wanted to know where this new strike was hiding. As the group
headed back to their claims on June 2, over 200 other men followed them
out to claim a piece of their own fortune. After agreeing the six original
prospectors could get the best claims, the herd of other miners began
dividing up the area.
When signing a deed for water rights, Edgar looked upstream at a dense
growth of alders, and signed “Alder Gulch” at the top of the paper. The
race for gold was officially on, and within a week, development of the area
began at a rapid-fire pace. Hundreds of tents, brush huts, and log cabins
had been erected across the hillsides in no time. Some men just slept
under their wagons, far more concerned with finding gold than preparing
decent housing for the impending winter.
Virginia City is Born
So just three weeks after Fairweather’s group discovered gold in Alder
Gulch, Virginia City was created, incorporated by a miners’ court. After
making sure the ground was completely devoid of gold, 320 acres a mile
south of the gold fields were claimed as a townsite. On June 16, 1863,
the township was initially formed under the name of "Varina”—meant to
honor Varina Howell Davis, the first and only first lady of the Confederate
States of America formed during the Civil War. The men responsible for
naming the town were Confederate sympathizers, and they wanted to
honor Jefferson Davis, who was essentially the Abraham Lincoln of the
South.
On the other hand, Dr. Giles Bissell, the man elected as the town’s judge,
was a loyal supporter of the North’s cause and was aghast that his new
town might be named after individuals who supported slavery. According
to legend, when handed the deed to establish the townsite of “Varina,” he
slammed his fist on his desk and exclaimed, “I’ll be damned if I’ll sign it
that way.” He quickly substituted in the name “Virginia,” then signed and
filed the documents.
By the time the leaves began to show their fall colors in 1863, the city
was home to over 10,000 people. The entire district—including Summit,
Highland, Pine Grove, Central City, Nevada City, Adobetown, and
Junction—had a population of nearly 35,000 hardy souls that stretched
out for some 14 miles.
Glory Days
The amount a man could make mining gold in one season was equal to
working back home for over a decade, and people flooded in from every
direction. The streets were crowded with people and buzzed with excited
voices speaking Russian, German, and Chinese—the air was heavy with
dust from horses and wagons racing down the streets. Booze peddlers
sold cheap bottles of rotgut on the street, and gambling halls and tent
stores popped up to cater to the newly rich. When Lincoln’s treasury office
came through, they estimated that between $300,000 and $400,000
worth of gold was being extracted every single week. The town was in full
swing, and all roads led to Virginia City.
The town quickly rose to become the territory’s social, commercial, and
transportation hub. In 1865, the territorial capital of the newly formed
Montana Territory was moved from Bannack to Virginia City, and she
became known as “The Queen City of the Territory.” Regular stagecoaches
transported goods and passengers to Salt Lake City, the recently formed
newspaper The Montana Post kept the population informed, and
one dollar of gold dust could buy you a dance with a pretty girl. While
some stories about gold towns across the West were exaggerated, all
the extravagant rumors about Virginia City were true. “Truth and the
marvelous go hand in hand,” Missouri miner James Morley wrote, “when
Young America finds a good gold gulch.”
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Vigilante Justice
But as always, a huge influx of easy money brought with it violence and
crime. All across the West, swindlers, gamblers, convicts, and other men
of ill repute seemed drawn to whatever western town was producing the
most gold—and that was now easily Virginia City. The wild conditions
were captured succinctly in the Reminiscences of Alexander Toponce:
“The discovery of Alder Gulch attracted the greatest aggregation of
toughs and criminals that ever got together in the west. They came up the
Missouri River on steamboats by the scores, deserters from the Union and
Rebel armies, river pirates and professional gamblers and sharpers.”
Before the lawful could organize in Virginia City, the lawless thugs beat
them to it. Headed by Bannack’s corrupt sheriff Henry Plummer, the
Innocents banded together nearly the same time that Virginia City itself
was officially organized. The outlaws used the password,“I am innocent,”
and shaved their beards down to a mustache and goatee to identify each
other. Under the direction of Plummer, the group hijacked wagons of
men trying to bring their hard-earned riches back home to their families.
As time went on, the Innocents became bolder and more violent, and it’s
estimated that they were responsible for over 102 murders and the theft of
over $250,000 in gold.
Outraged by one string of violent murders after another, the lawful in
the town organized under the name “The Vigilantes” to combat the
relentless terrorism. To notify suspects that they were under the watch
of the Vigilantes, they marked the criminals’ tent or front door with the
secret motto “3-7-77.” No one is quite sure what it meant—some think it
indicated that the criminal had 3 hours 7 minutes and 77 seconds to leave
town. Another popular interpretation is that the numbers represent the
dimensions of a grave: 3 feet by 7 feet by 77 inches. Regardless of what the
motto actually stood for, you can still find “3-7-77” on the shoulder patches
of Montana Highway Patrollers to this day—a nod to the law’s beginnings
in the Big Sky state.
Over four short months, the self-proclaimed lawmen hanged some 24
men (including the Innocents’ ringleader Plummer), flogged criminals
in the streets, and banished many more from Virginia City. Historians
may argue over whether the Vigilantes’ justice was necessary or cruel,
but the creation of the Territory of Montana, on May 26, 1864—the
first anniversary of the Alder Gulch discovery—brought in a federal
presence and ended most of the Vigilantes’ hangings. It wasn’t until the
townspeople of Virginia City posted a warning threatening to hang five
Vigilantes for every man slain that the killings finally stopped.
Decline
As quickly as the whirlwind of excitement, people, and gold had arrived,
it was destined to leave. In the summer of 1864, four desperate men from
Georgia decided to take one last chance in mining a nearby creek they
were traveling past on their way back to the East Coast. They struck gold,
“A Step Back In Time”
and dubbed the area Last Chance Gulch, which would eventually become
the town of Helena (only after bouncing between several other less-thaninspiring names, such as Crabtown, Pumpkinville, and Squashtown).
When word of the massive strike got out, over half of Virginia City’s
residents packed up and headed 120 miles due north to try their luck
at Last Chance. Within weeks, Virginia City became known as “Old
Virginia,” and every other building in the neighboring town of Nevada
City had a “For Rent” sign in the window.
Over the next few years, Virginia City’s population deflated steadily, never
to recover. The town’s first census in 1870 numbered the inhabitants at
just under 900, and an observer was noted saying,“Virginia looks like a
large town minus the people.”
Renovation
Interest in preserving and memorializing the history of Virginia City was
solidified in 1899 at an annual meeting of the Montana Historical Society.
The town began to operate as a tourist destination, and as the popularity
of automobiles grew in the 1920s, more tourists began to make their
way to Virginia City—but this slight influx of visitors wasn’t enough to
sustain the small town. A few decades later, World War II took its toll,
and many residents left to join the armed forces to help the Allied cause.
When precious metal mining was deemed “non-essential” to the war effort
and Congress passed the Gold Mine Closing Order, the population of
Virginia City fell to only 380. Things looked grim—the buildings of the
town had fallen deep into disrepair, and many faced demolition.
The fate of Virginia City didn't turn around until the fall of 1944 when
newly elected Great Falls legislator Charlie Bovey and his wife Sue visited
the area. As wealthy ranchers from Great Falls, they immediately fell in
love with the town’s storied history and classic Old West charm. When
Bovey bought his first Virginia City house in 1945, he initiated the first
major privately funded preservation program in the nation. Over the
next three decades, he began the meticulous restoration of his properties.
While he loved the work, he eventually determined that Virginia City’s
renovation was like “chewing a tough steak”—the more that got done, the
bigger the job became. Regardless, without Bovey’s time, passion, and
expertise, it’s safe to say that the history of Virginia City might have been
only in stories and textbooks—not preserved in its buildings and streets.
Sadly, Charles Bovey died in 1978, and his wife passed in 1988. Bovey’s
children, unwilling to continue his massive project, placed a multi-million
dollar price tag on the properties. After years of deliberation, the state of
Montana was authorized to buy Bovey’s restorations thanks to House
Bill 14. The state purchased more than 250 buildings in 1997 and created
the Montana Heritage Commission to manage them. The majority of the
city is now owned by the state of Montana and is designated a National
Historic Landmark operated as an open-air museum.
Virginia City Now
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Today, Virginia City thrives as a tourist destination, seeing approximately
70,000 visitors every year. And while the town’s current population may
be a far cry from the prodigious numbers of the glory days, Virginia
City has approximately 150 year-round residents and about 300 in the
summer—they run the bars, the candy shop, the museum, and otherwise
keep the town humming along nicely from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
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And no visit would be complete without a trip down Jackson Street to
see the massive granite monument commemorating the birth of this
spectacular chapter of Montana history. If you walk down to the water
trickling through Alder Gulch, you can still see sparkling flecks of color in
the streambed—the twinkle is probably only fool’s gold, but it’s impossible
not to feel that same buzz of excitement and possibility those six lucky
miners felt some 150 years ago at this very spot.
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Virginia City: References
Dick, Pace. Golden Gulch. Virginia City Trading Company, 1970.
Sievert, Ken and Ellen. Virginia City & Alder Gulch. Farcountry Press, 1993.
Grant, Marilyn. Montana Mainstreets, Vol. 1: A Guide to Historic Virginia City.
Montana Historical Society Press, 1998.
Barsness, Larry. Gold camp: Alder Gulch and Virginia City, Montana. Hastings
House, 1962.
Baumler, Ellen. “Virginia City: Where the Footprints of the Past Meet the
Present...” Distinctly Montana, June 2006. distinctlymontana.com/montanatown/virginia-city-history (accessed May 15, 2013).
Rediscover
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