Virginia City National Historic Landmark District

89 Locations | Curated by Historic Montana

The spectacular gold deposit discovered in Alder Gulch on May 26, 1863, led to the rapid growth of this colorful and legendary gold camp town. Thousands of fortune‑seekers rushed to the area, and by 1864 the Virginia City area boasted 30,000 residents. Rough characters attracted by the gold rush gave Virginia City an unsavory reputation, but these were tempered by pioneers and their families who settled here and helped to shape the new frontier. After the creation of the Territory of Montana, Virginia City became the territorial capital, 1865‑1875, and the Madison County seat. As the gold played out, Virginia City's population dwindled. False-fronted commercial structures, simple log cabins, and frame Victorian residences remained as testimony to the transitory gold rush. Among the first to recognize the historical and architectural significance of Virginia City were Charlie and Sue Bovey of Great Falls. They began to purchase and stabilize some of the fragile buildings in the early 1940s. The Boveys' personal efforts and those of their son, Ford, resulted in the town's designation as a National Historic Landmark and its remarkable preservation as one of the most intact gold rush era towns in the West.

George Gohn, a butcher by trade, came to Alder Gulch with the first rush in June of 1863. A member of the vigilance committee and later elected to several county offices, Gohn ran a local meat market. The Gohn family lived in the house next door prior to 1867 until the completion of this fine…
View Place | Show on Map

Fire swept through this block in 1915 destroying all the wood-frame buildings between Stonewall Hall on the west and the F. R. Merk building on the east. Originally this site was home to a small, wood-frame, false-front building. Hellman & Co. clothing store located here in 1865-66, Poznansky…
View Place | Show on Map

Mining is filthy work, a fact that spelled opportunity for African American barber George Turley, who opened a “Fashionable Hair Dressing and Shaving Saloon” in a narrow building on this site. In 1864, Turley advertised bathrooms for miners interested in sprucing up before a night out. He also…
View Place | Show on Map

Virginia City grew up almost overnight after William Fairweather found color in Alder Creek. Miners rushed to the rich diggings, leaving Bannack, Montana’s first major gold camp, practically a ghost town. Among the Bannack merchants to follow their customers to Virginia City was J. E. McClurg, who…
View Place | Show on Map

When Charles and Sue Bovey decided to turn Virginia City into a premiere tourist destination in the 1940s, the building that originally stood here was in ruins. The Boveys hired mason Chris Christensen to rebuild the structure’s front wall from the original stone. Christensen did not, however,…
View Place | Show on Map

John Henderson’s painting business occupied this humble log building beginning in 1864. In addition to painting buildings, Henderson also offered decorative painting and sign writing. In Virginia City’s boom days, when new buildings on Wallace Street emerged and changed owners often, Henderson’s…
View Place | Show on Map

Square hewn log walls combined with drop siding recall the important transition from a gold camp to a settled town and the accompanying desire for attractive, less rustic, permanent housing. The interior of this mid-1870s two-story residence survives with its original floorplan and finishing…
View Place | Show on Map

Small one- and two-room log houses like the western portion of this cabin lined the side streets of Virginia City in the mid-1860s. Assistant U.S. Assessor John R. Gilbert was the first resident in 1864, followed by telegraph operator Hiram Brundage in 1869. Teamster Henry Harriman and his family…
View Place | Show on Map

Though simple by today’s standards, the Daems house exemplifies an upper-middle-class, early-1860s Virginia City dwelling. Dr. Levinus Daems and his wife Marie Daems, a nurse, may have been the first residents of the house. Born in Belgium and trained in Paris, Dr. Daems arrived in Virginia City in…
View Place | Show on Map

A steeply pitched roof and windows with pointed arches reveal Gothic Revival style influence in this finely-crafted 1884 residence, built by George Thexton. The style, often adapted to the frontier in wood, is here expressed in stone as was the norm back east. Fancy brackets between porch supports…
View Place | Show on Map

The cozy placement of the Corbett and Daems houses has long been a mystery in Virginia City. The log Corbett house was likely built in summer 1863, and the Daems house by early 1864. No records exist explaining why these two middle-class homes sit so close together but remained separate homes with…
View Place | Show on Map

In the mid-1860s, the east end of Idaho Street, where this cabin once stood, was “suburban,” a place that families could settle away from the dust and noise of downtown. At first, most lived in small cabins like this one, but by the mid-1880s, grander upper-class homes and the new public school…
View Place | Show on Map

Virginia City’s first stone buildings emerged in mid-1864. Joseph Griffith and William Thompson opened a stone quarry in summer 1864 to build the Creighton Stone Block of rubblestone covered with stucco scored to look like dressed granite. Contents Corner and Stonewall Hall on Wallace Street…
View Place | Show on Map

During Virginia City’s mid-1860s boom, residences and businesses crowded along Cover Street. Most commercial buildings were gone by the mid-1880s and the neighborhood became primarily residential. Irish immigrant Phillip Conrey, a rancher and two-term city treasurer, worked extensive Alder Gulch…
View Place | Show on Map

Virginia City’s alleys, just like its main streets, hold many fine examples of territorial-era buildings. This barn, built for surgeon Dr. Ira Smith in 1874, represents a classic Montana horse barn. Virginia City’s earliest barns were built from hand-hewn logs, notched together at the corners. Dr.…
View Place | Show on Map

Seven hundred souls lie beneath the sod here in Virginia City’s community cemetery. Boot Hill across the ridge to the west was the first burial ground, but after interment of five road agents there in January 1864, citizens preferred to bury relatives elsewhere. Some even moved loved ones’ remains…
View Place | Show on Map

An 1868 lithograph drawn by artist Alfred Mathews shows a large commercial structure on this lot, but panoramic mapmaker E. L. Sheldon depicted the entire block occupied by single-family dwellings in 1875. Carpenter Gothic style trim originally decorated the porch supports of this one-story…
View Place | Show on Map

The small-scale simplicity of Susie Marr’s house belies the owner’s rich life. Marr emigrated from Scotland in 1870. In Virginia City, she managed household affairs for banker, William Morris, his wife, and their six children. In turn, Morris took care of Susie and gave her this house, which she…
View Place | Show on Map