Special Places To Visit: Virginia City & Nevada City Montana

   A short drive out of West Yellowstone Montana and through the very scenic Madison River valley will take you to Virginia City and Nevada City.  Virginia City is a very nice town that has embraced its history really well by keeping the historical buildings restored and providing a lot of opportunities to see some great museum items.  They have a town museum and a working train station.  The town gives guided tours enabling the tourists to hear about the town's past and some of the more violent incidences.  There are great places to eat and shop in Virginia City.  Just a mile down the road is one of the best ghost towns you will see, Nevada City.  You can take the train out of Virginia City, which I recommend, or you can just drive the mile or so and park in Nevada City.  The buildings in Nevada City are very well preserved and they have one of the best music boxes, player pianos and calliopes collection you will ever see.  Many of the buildings are original to Nevada City but others have been brought into the town to be preserved.  Some were used by movie studios and some even came from Yellowstone. One of the most interesting buildings is the two story hotel with a two story outhouse.  You have just got to see that.

A little history on Virginia City and Nevada City from their web site:

Virginia City and Nevada City lie along Alder Gulch, the site of the richest placer gold strike in the Rocky Mountains with an estimated total value of 100 million dollars throughout the 18th and 19th century. In the early 1860s, during the first three seasons, an estimated $30 million worth of gold was removed from the gulch. In the following years, gold was extracted from placer as well as lode mines.

 

From 1848 through the 1860s Alder Gulch was part of a broad expansion of mining from California into many parts of Western North America. The western gold rushes of the 1860s led Congress to create five new territories. Experienced miners traveled to the successive mining frontiers, bringing with them mining technology and social traditions.  Alder Gulch was in Idaho Territory until May 1864, when the Montana Territory was created. Bannack was the site of the first placer gold strike within the Montana territory in 1862 and shortly thereafter became the first territorial capital.

 

Today, Virginia City is considered the best preserved example of the many placer mining camps that flourished during the 1860s throughout the Rocky Mountain West. It provides an exceptional sample of commercial architecture of the mid-nineteenth century. The greatest concentration of historic buildings dates to the 1870s, but some of the buildings' later modifications also have historical significance. Virginia City today has approximately 150 year-round residents and about 300 summer residents. It sits at an elevation of 5,680 feet, in a bowl along the edge of Alder Gulch. Approximately 500,000 visitors come through Virginia City annually.

 

Today, Nevada City stands as an outdoor historical museum, with numerous historic buildings, artifacts, and furnishings. Owned by the State of Montana and operated by the Montana Heritage Commission, the old townsite provides more than 90 historic buildings from various places around Montana, original Nevada City structures and re-created buildings.