Virginia City, Montana

Artisans & Growers Guild cabin

With a farmer’s market, gift shop and used book shop, the Virginia City Artisans & Growers Guild offers a variety of handcrafted items, baked goods and other locally made items.

Dance & Stuart General Merchandise

An 1864 advertisement in the Montana Post for Dance & Stuart General Merchandise lists their offerings as “saddles, bridles, boots, shoes, hardware, shoe findings, groceries, provisions, notions and general merchandise.”

Goldberg/McGovern Store and Strasburger's Colorado Store (Tobacco & Cigars) (exteriors)

Like most of the buildings along Wallace Street (Virginia City’s main street), the Dry Goods and Notions Shop and Strasburger's Colorado Store are authentic. Originally built of logs in 1863, siding and false fronts were soon added to make the frontier town feel more like a “real” town.

Grocery - S.R. Buford Store (interior)

Many of the furnishings and product labels in S.R. Buford’s grocery store are original. Buford supplied groceries to the region until the railroad bypassed Virginia City in 1881, going instead to Butte.

Grocery - S.R. Buford Store (detail)

Many of the furnishings and product labels in S.R. Buford’s grocery store are original. Buford supplied groceries to the region until the railroad bypassed Virginia City in 1881, going instead to Butte.

Boots in store window

Museum-style shops filled with antique goods and furnishings are intermixed with the eateries, souvenir and specialty shops along the boardwalk on Wallace Street.

Coffee grinder in store window (empty boardwalk)

Museum-style shops filled with antique goods and furnishings are intermixed with the eateries, souvenir and specialty shops along the boardwalk on Wallace Street.

Coffee grinder in store window (with passerby)

Museum-style shops filled with antique goods and furnishings are intermixed with the eateries, souvenir and specialty shops along the boardwalk on Wallace Street.

Storefronts with “Photographic Emporium”

As one of the best-preserved Gold Rush era boom towns in the Rocky Mountains, Virginia City attracts nearly 500,000 visitors to its boardwalks each year.

Storefronts/street scene with Bob’s Place

Part museum and part small town mainstreet, the boardwalk on Wallace Street offers visitors a glimpse into the past — as well as modern restaurants, specialty and souvenir shops.

Newspaper front office

Recognizing the need for a newspaper to serve the estimated 10,000 people living along Alder Gulch, J. Buchanan began publishing The Montana Post, the Montana Territory’s first newspaper, from these offices in 1864.

The print shop’s boxes of moveable type

The Montana Post’s print shop published more than just the newspaper. Editor Thomas J. Dimsdale wrote a series of articles about the Vigilantes, a group of men who exercised frontier justice on the “road agents” who robbed miners of their gold. In 1866 the collected articles became the basis for the first book published in the Montana Territory, “The Vigilantes of Montana.”

Wells Fargo building

Virginia City soon became the transportation and communication hub of the region. The Wells Fargo, Holladay and Overland Mail stagecoach lines connected the boom town with Salt Lake City, Utah, and other destinations. In 1866 the stage lines consolidated under the Wells Fargo name. A horse-drawn stagecoach still rolls through town, giving visitors a 25-minute narrated tour of Alder Gulch that includes the site of William Fairweather’s gold strike.

Vigilante Headquarters

Gold brought riches to Virginia City -- and highway robbers, or “road agents.” The townspeople formed a “vigilance committee” to capture and punish members of Henry Plummer’s infamous gang of road agents. In 1864 the vigilantes hanged 24 men in the space of two months, including Plummer.