Day 14 - Virginia City & Nevada City, MT

After a wonderful breakfast of dry scones, it was time to check out Virginia City. The city is about 5 blocks long and barely two blocks deep. The population is about 140 people in the summer and 90 in the winter. Pay phones out number cell phones. We haven’t had service in days. The town never prospered since the railroad didn’t come through. Gold was found in the early 1860’s and within a couple of years 35,000 prospectors and their families were in the area.





Much of the downtown remains the way it was 150 years ago. Most of the buildings are original. When the gold dried up so did the town. We took a tour of the town on a 1941 fire truck. Our guide talked about the high crime rate and lack of law enforcement. This lead to the formation of a group called the Vigilantes. At one point, the Vigilantes hung five men in one day. The beam is still visible today. Many of the bodies were taken to the cemetery looking over the town. They called it Boot Hill because many of its occupants were buried with their boots on. Of course, if your boots were better than the person burying you a switch would probably be made.





We also heard the story about a wife that refused to have her husband buried at Boot Hill. She didn’t have the $225 in gold to send his body to Utah so she threw him into a tub filled with beer all winter. In the spring, she sent him on his way! Jon now believes this is the way to go, and wants to start stockpiling more beer in the basement.

Clubfoot George, another convicted robber and victim of the Vigilantes, was buried at Boot Hill. Years later, there was some question as to whether his body was really there or not. The body was exhumed and identified by his clubfoot. Which by the way, we were able to see in the town museum.

We went to Nevada City, a ghost town two miles outside of Virginia City. The last person in town left in 1950. The town is remarkably preserved for being over 100 years old. There were so many artifacts crammed into each building, it was hard to see how they fit in the scene. There was even an old junkyard in the back filled with model T’s and a steam tractor. It even had a China Town, however, it wasn’t quite as nice as China Town in San Francisco.













When we got back from supper, there was a big thunder and lightning storm. We tried to take a few pictures, but they didn’t look like the show we saw. We decided to sit back and drink a beer and watch the show.