Striking Gold

Striking Gold

By Jeanne Anderson

Looking up the street, Virginia City, Montana

I love taking road trips, and we're often lucky at these unplanned mini-vacations. Last weekend, after spending Saturday at the American Dog Derby in Ashton and overnighting in Bozeman, we drove to Virginia City, Montana. My husband Peter fondly remembered driving through there with his family decades ago and wanted to show it to me.

What a find! Virginia City, a mining town to rival “No Name City” of Paint Your Wagon fame, must have been quite the place when it served as territorial capital of Montana. Now, it’s a National Historic Landmark. A couple dozen original structures remain on the main street (now State Highway 87), with the history of nearly every building outlined on a bronze plaque.

We learned a lot in a short time walking around. More than $130 million of gold was placer mined in the 14 miles of Alder Gulch. In 1864, the population of Virginia City was 10,000, making it the biggest town in the Inland Northwest. Factions of Confederate-backers and Union men argued along its board-walked streets. Liquor was available for purchase at some 75 establishments. It was THE birthplace of “Vigilantes,” a “community justice committee” that hung two dozen men in the space of just a couple years!

Sunday, in the sunshine and frigid temperatures, one could only imagine those hell-raising days. They’re hinted at by what’s recorded (“Mrs. Jack Slade married one of the Vigilantes following the hanging of her husband”) and by what is NOT recorded…. what happened to the children who grew up within the muslin-covered walls of these tiny homes? What were the stories of the women who worked in the many houses of ill repute? I’m curious to know more.

We headed home armed with the names of the couple who “rescued” the area in the 1940s, and some of its more illustrious citizens, outlaws, and madams. I’m determined to not only read more about this interesting place but also to come back in a few months. I want to see Virginia City in the summer, when it’s gussied up for tourists, and the shops and theater and cafe are open for the season. For me, visiting Virginia City was my very own find of a gold mine.

Perhaps that’s the best result of a road trip—discovering a destination one wants to revisit.

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About This Blog

Michael McCoy

Editor Michael McCoy is a native Wyomingite who, through no choice of his own, moved to Iowa (“the third greatest state in the nation,” he says) when he was only a few weeks old. After high school graduation, he beelined it back to the University of Wyoming, where he earned a degree in Anthropology and the nickname of “Mac.” In addition to his Teton-area editorial duties, Mac works for the Missoula, Montana-based Adventure Cycling Association and writes freelance articles and books about the outdoors. “But that’s enough about me,” he says. “This blog is about you. I will prime the pump with an entry now and then--but ultimately, we hope it will be our readers, both locals and out-of-staters, who keep the streams of conversation flowing.”

Contributing blogger Susan Traylor Lykes was born and raised in the Denver area, a third-generation Coloradan. She spent much of her childhood in the mountains, and took up fly fishing at the tender age of ten, wielding her grandfather’s old bamboo rod and Pflueger reel. After graduating from the University of Vermont, Susan earned a master's degree in Town Planning from the University of Montana. For the past decade, she has focused on nonprofit land conservation and land use, serving on the boards of the Land Trust Alliance, the Teton Regional Land Trust, and the Orton Family Foundation.
Susan and her husband, Mayo, call both sides of the Tetons home. They are enthusiastic travelers and outdoorsmen — hiking, skiing, fly fishing, and bird hunting.

Contributing blogger Jeanne Anderson is a Cheyenne native and graduate of the University of Wyoming who has spent the last 25 years as a writer, PR consultant, columnist, and editor. Her passions include hiking, cooking reading, traveling, community, and creativity (she’s in her third term on the Idaho Commission on the Arts). She credits her broad practical streak to her parents, who started the first travel agency in the Cowboy State—from them she learned “every bathroom in the world is down the hall and to the left.” Jeanne and her husband Peter started Dark Horse Books in Driggs in 1995; their two-year experiment lasted 14 years. Now out from behind the bookstore counter, she’s looking forward to many new adventures.