Ghost town - our visit to Virginia City, MT

Today we braved the adverse weather to visit Virginia City, MT - about an hour's drive east of Dillon, where we are currently parked. We learned a lot about the historical makings of the area along the way too.

The weather looks a bit daunting, but we persevere and continue, stopping along the way to read the historic placards that mark the highway, some of which is the Lewis & Clark Expedition route.

Along the way we drove through Laurin, a town about 2 blocks long and which has a beautiful Catholic Church dating 1901 and on the National Historic Registry...but not much else, well they do have a steakhouse that serves dinner Friday through Sunday tho. Then Alder  and  what was once a creek/gulch, but is now a road-side filled with the remains of gold dredging -  row after row of the tailings. (Alder Gulch was known for the 10,000 souls in the mining camps...with a string of camps along the Road Agent Trail that connected Bannack and Virginia City along the Montana Road)

Mount Vernon Dredge

Tailings (basically the creek bed) left behind

Mike is never happy when he sees this evidence of corporate greed, no matter when it occurs. This particular
area financed the building of  Harvard University with the gold that was dredged here.

Virginia City:

Main Street

Virginia City is a National Historic Landmark District, one of the nations' largest. Store fronts have been preserved where possible, with some of the original goods, furnishings and tools, with tours by stagecoach each day, with commentary on the history provided, weekend re-enactments taking place during daylight hours. Trail rides are also available for hire, and there is a nightly "Ghost Walk" tour to enjoy as well.

Local villain and bandit-hung for murder

Mercantile store goods

Mercantile Tea and Herb bins

Clothing/shoe store

Buggy in blacksmith shop

Parts of town - off Main Street

Deals in Virginia City, MT 2010

After a long afternoon we returned to our RV, dinner, bonding times with Lola and Lucy and arrived just in time to beat the downpour of rain .... are we really that close to home?

Mike and Lucy decided to spend some quality time together.