Historic Bannack, which is now a Montana state park and is close to our RV campground, is the only true, fully-abandoned ghost town in Montana. Unfortunately, a recent flood closed the park to visitors and we weren't able to see Bannack. Oh well, another time. For now, we made do with these other two, which are very well known, but still have some residents today.
VIRGINIA CITY
Virginia City is the more touristy of the two, but it also has a wider variety of commercial services and tourist attractions. It also serves in real life as the county seat of Madison County, so modern activities and building intermingle with the historic buildings. This creates kind of a cognitive dissonance and lends an unreal feeling to the town.
Nevertheless, the historic buildings are very interesting. At the height of the gold mining era for Virginia City in 1865, it was the capital of the new Montana Territory and claimed 10,000 citizens, whereas today it only has 190 residents.
Here is a photo of the interior of a general store in town:
A new-timey old-timey stagecoach offers rides through the city and up to Boot Hill Cemetery on the ridge overlooking town:
A printing house was the only source for printing Montana's several newspapers in the 1860's:
They didn't have gasoline pumps in the 1800's, but an old time gas station, with the old pumps, survives, and Dave drove Great White up hoping they dispensed diesel. Unfortunately, they didn't.
NEVADA CITY
Nevada City was settled in 1863, approximately the same time as Virginia City, and is only separated from Virginia City by two miles. The present day town was purchased by Charles Bovey, an heir to the General Mills fortune and donated to the State of Montana. It is presently controlled by the Montana State Heritage Commission, and is much more purely historic in character than present day Virginia City.
Nevada City has the distinction of having featured in several well-known movies, including "Return to Lonesome Dove," "Little Big Man," and "Missouri Breaks." It also featured in a less well known movie titled, "Thousand Pieces of Gold," about a young Chinese immigrant woman who was brought to an Idaho gold mining town with the intention of forcing her to be a prostitute in one of the bars or dance halls, and the life the woman led after refusing to lead that life. While we haven't seen the movie, its subject reflects an interesting facet of gold mining history of the Rocky Mountains - that many Chinese immigrants were brought to labor in the mines and associated service industries. After the gold mining rush days, fully one-third of the populations of Montana and Idaho were Chinese.
Here is Kathy channeling the feeling of an 1800's resident, sunning herself in front of one of the residences on the boardwalk along the road:
The town now houses 108 historic buildings from various places around Montana, including 14 original Nevada City structures. There are numerous cabins that have been preserved and furnished as they might have originally been furnished in the 1800's:
One stately house --
-- was refurbished for use in "Return to Lonesome Dove." You might recognize this study from the movie:
The wagon shop pictured below also featured in "Return to Lonesome Dove":
The inside is a fascinating recreation of a working wagon shop, with historically accurate wagons, tools and parts organized and laid around the shop as if it were caught in the middle of a typical workday:
The building housing the wagon shop has quite a unique history. It has originally been constructed around 1911 as a dining hall at Canyon Village in Yellowstone National Park. When the National Park Service abandoned it to build new, replacement facilities, Charles Bovey had it dissassembled and shipped to Nevada City for reassembly.
Bovey loved trains and reconstructed this train depot with genuine period trains. Looking down the platform, one could almost expect to hear that long, lonesome train whistle:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.