Helena is the capital city of the U.S. state of Montana and the seat of Lewis and Clark County.
Virginia City is a town in and the county seat of Madison County, Montana, United States. In 1961 the town and the surrounding area were designated a National Historic Landmark District, the Virginia City Historic District. The population was 219 at the 2020 census.
Alder Gulch is a place in the Ruby River valley, in the U.S. state of Montana, where gold was discovered on May 26, 1863, by William Fairweather and a group of men including Barney Hughes, Thomas Cover, Henry Rodgers, Henry Edgar and Bill Sweeney who were returning to the gold fields of Grasshopper Creek, Bannack, Montana. They were on their way to Yellowstone Country from Bannack but were waylaid by a band of Crow Indians. After being ordered out of Crow hunting grounds, they crossed the East Slope of the Tobacco Root Mountains and camped for the night in Elk Park, where William "Bill" Fairweather and Henry Edgar discovered gold, while the remaining party was out hunting for meat. Agreeing to keep the new discovery quiet the group of miners returned to the town of Bannack for supplies. However, word leaked out about the new strike, and miners followed the Fairweather party out of town. The party stopped at the Point of Rocks, part way between Bannack and Alder Gulch, and established the Fairweather Mining District in a miners meeting. It was agreed that the discoverers were entitled to two claims and first choice. The first stampede of miners reached Alder Gulch June 6, 1863, and the population swelled to over 10,000 in less than 3 months. The "Fourteen Mile City" ran the length of the gulch, and included the towns of Junction City, Adobe Town, Nevada City, Central City, Virginia City, Montana, Bear Town, Highland, Pine Grove French Town, Hungry Hollow, and Summit. Upon arrival the miners lived in brush wickiups, dugouts and under overhanging rocks until cabins could be built. The first structure built in Virginia City was the Mechanical Bakery. Virginia City, and Nevada City were the centers of commerce during the height of the Alder Gulch gold rush. In the first year the area had over 10,000 people living there. Montana Territory was established in May 1864, and the first territorial capital was Bannack. The capital then moved to Virginia City, where it remained until 1875. The Alder Gulch diggings were the richest gold placer deposits ever discovered, and in three years $30,000,000 was taken from them, with $10,000,000 taken out in the first year. Nowadays, except during summertime, the streets of Virginia City are usually quiet and relatively few visitors find their way to the 16 ton granite monument that marks the spot of that incredible discovery of May 26, 1863.
Garnet is a ghost town in Granite County, Montana, United States. A thriving mining town in the 1890s, Garnet's population declined when local hard rock mines closed. The remaining buildings have been preserved and are open to visitors. The site is managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
Pony is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in northeastern Madison County, Montana, United States, on the eastern edge of the Tobacco Root Mountains. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 127. It includes the 192-acre (78 ha) Pony Historic District, a historic district with 95 contributing buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Central City/Black Hawk Historic District is a National Historic Landmark District that encompasses the developed areas of Central City and Black Hawk, Colorado, United States. They are adjacent former gold mining camps in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains in Gilpin County, Colorado. For a time, the area was known as the Richest Square Mile on Earth, and was the largest urban area of the Colorado Territory in the 1870s.
Cripple Creek Historic District is a historic district including Cripple Creek, Colorado, United States and is significant for its gold mining era history. It developed as a gold mining center beginning in 1890, with a number of buildings from that period surviving to this day. A majority of the business district as it exists today was rebuilt after two devastating fires in April 1896. The mines in the area were among the most successful, producing millions of dollars of gold in the 1890s and supporting a population of 25,000 at its peak. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961.
The Telluride Historic District encompasses a significant portion of the developed area of the former mining boom town of Telluride, Colorado. Telluride was founded in 1878, and was a major metals mining center until 1913. The historic district covers 80 acres (32 ha) of downtown Telluride and surrounding residential areas, as well as Lone Tree Cemetery, the town's first cemetery. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961 for its well-preserved late boom-town architecture.
The Jacksonville Historic District encompasses the historic core of the 19th-century mining town of Jacksonville, Oregon. The city was a major mining, civic, and commercial center from 1852 to 1884, and declined thereafter, leaving a little-altered assemblage of architecture from that period. The district was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1966.
The Bertrand was a steamboat which sank on April 1, 1865, while carrying cargo up the Missouri River to Virginia City, Montana Territory, after hitting a snag in the river north of Omaha, Nebraska. Half of its cargo was recovered during an excavation in 1968, more than 100 years later. Today, the artifacts are displayed in a museum at the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge near Missouri Valley, Iowa. The display makes up the largest intact collection of Civil War-era artifacts in the United States, and are an invaluable time capsule of everyday life during that period.
Nevada City is an unincorporated community in Madison County, Montana, United States. In the 1860s, it was one of two centers of commerce in what was known as one of the richest gold strikes in the Rocky Mountain West, along with its sister city Virginia City. As the gold played out and prospectors moved away, Nevada City gradually became a ghost town. Since the late 1950s, Nevada City has become a tourist attraction for its collection of nineteenth-century buildings within or surrounding the Nevada City Museum and Music Hall.
Confederate Gulch is a steeply incised gulch or valley on the west-facing slopes of the Big Belt Mountains in the U.S. state of Montana. Its small stream drains westward into Canyon Ferry Lake, on the upper Missouri River near present-day Townsend, Montana. In 1864, Confederate soldiers on parole during the American Civil War made a minor gold discovery in the gulch, but the discovery of the sensationally rich Montana Bar the following year—one of the richest placer strikes per acre ever made—led to other rich gold strikes up and down the gulch, and touched off a frantic boom period of placer gold mining in the area that extended through 1869. From 1866 to 1869, the gulch equaled or outstripped all other mining camps in the Montana Territory in gold production, producing an estimated $19–30 million worth of gold. For a time, Confederate Gulch was the largest community in Montana. In 1866, Montana had a total population of 28,000, and of these, about 10,000 (35%) were working in Confederate Gulch.
The history of vigilante justice and the Montana Vigilantes began in 1863 in what was at the time a remote part of eastern Idaho Territory. Vigilante activities continued, although somewhat sporadically, through the Montana Territorial period until the territory became the state of Montana on November 8, 1889. Vigilantism arose because territorial law enforcement and the courts had very little power in the remote mining camps during the territorial period.
The Helena Historic District (HHD) is a federally designated historic district in Helena, Montana, United States. Since its establishment in 1972, the HHD has had boundary adjustments in 1990 and 1993. The original 1972 designation was composed of two unconnected sections known as "Downtown" and "West Residential".
The Thexton Ranch, also known as Thextondale, was established by George Thexton in 1872 on the Madison River about 7 miles (11 km) south of Ennis, Montana. The ranch is a significant example of an operating Montana ranch, and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its prominence in local history and its character as a ranching operation.
Shockoe Valley is an area in Richmond, Virginia, just east of downtown, along the James River, and is the entertainment center of the city. Located between Shockoe Hill and Church Hill, Shockoe Valley contains much of the land included in Colonel William Mayo's 1737 plan of Richmond, making it one of the city's oldest neighborhoods. Shockoe Valley encompasses the smaller neighborhoods of Shockoe Slip, Shockoe Bottom and Tobacco Row along Cary Street.
Montana Highway 287 is a state highway in the U.S. state of Montana. The highway runs 42.822 miles (68.915 km) from MT 41 in Twin Bridges east to U.S. Route 287 in Ennis. MT 287 is the primary east–west highway of Madison County. The highway connects the county's four towns, including Sheridan and the county seat of Virginia City. The course of MT 287 follows the ultimate portions of two trails that met in Virginia City, the center of the Alder Gulch gold rush of the mid-1860s and the second territorial capital of Montana. Parts of the highway were improved from rudimentary roads around 1920 from Virginia City to Ennis. This connection became the first portion of Montana Highway 34 in the early 1930s; the highway was extended west to Twin Bridges in the late 1930s. MT 34 was reconstructed from Twin Bridges through Alder to Virginia City in the late 1930s and early 1940s and between Virginia City and Ennis in the late 1940s to mid-1950s. The MT 287 designation was first applied to a cross-state route from West Yellowstone to Canada in the late 1950s. The highway was rerouted in place of MT 34 in the early 1960s. MT 287 was replaced by US 287 along much of the cross-state corridor in the mid-1960s. The highway extended north of Twin Bridges to Whitehall until the late 1970s, when it achieved its current length.
St. Mary of the Assumption Church is a parish of the Roman Catholic Church located at Laurin, Madison County, Montana, United States, in the Diocese of Helena. It is noted for its historic parish church.
The Malmborg School in Bozeman, Montana is a one-room schoolhouse and the only octagonal school in Montana. Built in 1905, the schoolhouse is an example of the octagonal schools commonly found in the Mid-Atlantic and associated with mid-nineteenth-century reformer Orson Fowler's promotion of the “Octagon Mode of Building” in his book, A Home for All. The octagonal design of the school allowed for greater interior area and increased natural lighting, with windows present on three of the school's walls. The original school also featured an open front porch and an open bell tower, which were enclosed and removed in later renovations. The Malmborg School survived the consolidation of school districts and subsequent decline of one-room schoolhouses beginning in the 1920s and is still operational today as a K-8 school, with 12 students and 1 teacher in the 2019–2020 school year. The school was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 21, 1981. It was one of thirteen one-room schoolhouses listed together on the register on this date in Gallatin County, Montana. Three additional one-room schoolhouses in Gallatin County were listed on the register later.
Laurin is an unincorporated community in Madison County, Montana, United States. The community is on Montana Highway 287 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Alder.
