8/1 & 8/2
We stayed at Lewis and Clark Cavern State Park near Three Rivers, MT. with plans to take a side trip to Virginia City. One of United States’ richest placer mining camps once lured people to Virginia City. From 1863 to 1865, at the height of the Civil War, more than $30 million in gold was washed out of the rich gravel of Alder Gulch. When the placer mining slowed down they began to use a dredge to remove the gold. Charles and Sue Bovey found the town in the dark days of the 1940’s, after President Franklin Roosevelt declared mining to be a non-essential industry during wartime. The last scoop of the ore had been removed from Alder Gulch. Only 400 people were left in town. The Bovey’s struggled to preserve what was left of the town. They used their own money to buy and restore property after property. They rebuilt the town with a combination of past and present with the past being 100 % authentic. In the days of decline of the town, the business owners skipped town leaving their merchandise on the shelves. This merchandise is now on display in some of the old buildings that are set up like individual museums. There are displays of groceries and medicines, patented, and guaranteed to cure blacksmith shops, dry goods and general merchandise. The buildings still look like 1800’s but now, besides the museums, are gift shops, restaurants and even a bank and post office. They have an ice cream shop which makes their own ice cream in a unique way. At the Opera House they have live shows 2 times a day. In 1997 the Bovey’s son convinced the State of Montana to buy the properties and to set aside moneys to further restoration. We enjoyed the campground and the cool weather we had while at the State Park.