After breakfast on our own, we set out for another day of exploring. On our way to visit a couple of ghost towns, we stopped in the town of Ennis. At the entrance to the town is a large metal statue of a fly fisherman with a metal fish on the line. Obviously a fishing town, there were several large fish statues around town, all with the same form but each painted differently. We stopped and browsed for awhile walking the length of the typical western town with false fronted stores. There were other interesting metal statues as well by the bank and in front of stores.
On our way again, we stopped in Virginia City, a once booming gold mining town. Gold was discovered here in 1863 and thousands flocked here from all over to try to find some of the treasure. A brief but turbulent period of lawlessness and vigilante justice ended with the creation on the Montana Territory in 1864. There are tomb markers up on the hill behind town of men who were hanged by just such a vigilante group. For ten years Virginia City was the territorial capital but once the placer gold ran out, the town began to struggle. Gold dredging operations from the 1890s to the 1940s kept the town from being abandoned.
Over time the town has fallen into disrepair. In the 1940s Charles and Sue Bovey began buying up the dilapidated gold rush era buildings and started one of the first preservation projects of the west. In 1961 it was designated a National Historic Landmark. A lot of it is now owned by the State of Montana but there is much to be done to preserve the town as it was. With its wooden sidewalks, many of the buildings are open only at the front for people to step in to see what the various establishments would have looked like while others are actual stores open for business. For example, you could look in the general store which was fully stocked with what might have been stocked years ago but the candy store with its "penny candy", taffy and fudge was open for business.
We wandered the length of the town looking in most of the establishments. We walked out back of some of the stores and saw more old buildings with their rough logs and boards including a two story out house. We aren't sure just how that worked but there it was. The old hotel is open for business and we went in to the public rooms and looked into a couple of rooms that were open to view. The old wallpaper and floor coverings in the hotel as well as other businesses we peaked in at were fun to see. Coming up the other side of the street we stopped for lunch. Beside the little cafe where we ate outside was an old western saloon with its old scarred bar that was also open for business.
When we were done with the town, we drove up on the hill to see the burial ground of the outlaws and look down on the town and then drove the mile or so to Nevada City which is more of a museum and living history ghost town. Besides the buildings that were there originally, there are many other buildings that have been brought there from all over Montana. Peaches paid our admission and we entered the area through a room that had a dozen or more old Wurlizer player pianos and other musical instruments that would have been used in circuses and amusement parks. Some still took quarters and we played a few tunes. It was worth it to see the faces of the small children who couldn't figure out how the piano was playing by itself.
There are probably a couple dozen buildings on the property and we lucked out that there were people in period costumes at many of the places demonstrating various tasks of the day. One woman was dyeing yarn over an outdoor wood fire with hollyhock blossoms. We heard a guy talking about how wheels were made, watched a blacksmith making a knife and listened to an assayer talk about how they determine if there is gold or silver in ore and how they extract it. The whole place was very interesting and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
We stopped to take a picture of the valley on the way back to town and read about the Bozeman Trail. The smoke seems to thicken later in the day so the visibility is poor but here are the photos I took.
Pizza and salad on the deck at the end of a busy day of sightseeing and an early evening with a pretty sunset was the perfect ending to another great day.
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