Montana

Saturday 11 August 2001

Had a cup of tea and read the Guardian in the sunshine at an outdoor table in the campground, which felt very civilized and peaceful except for the noise of the Harley Davidsons starting up as the bikers who had been staying in the motel set off for the day. Lunch in Mullan, Idaho (popn. 821) most of which was for sale. Through a couple more mountain passes into Montana, where the countryside slowly became more green and less deserty. Overnight at Indian Creek Campground, Deer Creek.

Sunday 12 August 2001

In the morning we visited the Grant Kohrs Ranch, a national monument just up the road from the campground. This is a well-preserved typical Montana cattle ranch from the 1850s, which used to cover vast acres of the west although most of the land has now been sold off or returned to the Native Americans. The ranch is still operational, but on a much smaller scale.

The original Johnny Grant built it up by trading with the pioneers on the Oregon Trail who passed that way: one of his healthy prime cattle for two of their tired knackered ones which he then brought back to peak condition and repeated the process. He sold out in 1866 for $19,200 to Conrad Kohrs, a German butcher who with his wife and family continued to grow the business. On Mr. Kohrs' death his grandson bought the property, and spent his whole life trying to repay the loan but never succeeded. The National Parks Service acquired it in 1972.

In the afternoon we drove to and stopped at Virginia City Campground and RV Park, a pleasant spot on a hillside with its own miniature golf course just outside the town. Virginia City (known locally as VC, which doesn't stand for Viet Cong in this context), is one of the earliest gold rush towns in the west. In the 1860s it had over 10,000 inhabitants, created Montana's first public school, and for a while was the territorial capital (this is before Montana became a state in 1889). Many of the original properties have been preserved, largely thanks to a Mr. Bovey who started buying up early wooden buildings all over the west in the 1940s when many were being destroyed or just collapsing ...

We'd heard that VC was a ghost town, but in fact it's a popular tourist destination, with a permanent population of around 150 in the winter rising to several hundred in the tourist season. We took a tour of the town in an immaculate converted 1941 fire engine; it's still quite a sizeable place with the feel of a thriving community.

In the evening we went to the Gilbert Brewery Revue, a slightly risqué but nonetheless amusing performance in the old brewery building. It did help to be American as a lot of the references were incomprehensible to us, but we enjoyed it as well as the dark hoppy Moose Drool beer.

The following morning before leaving the campsite (1.00pm throwing out time - very civilized) we went down the road to Nevada City (NC, not North Carolina), another ghost-type mining town. This one owes even more to the Bovey family as it became the repository for most of their vast collection of wooden buildings acquired over a period of 50 years ...

The collection was offered to the state of Montana several times but was repeatedly turned down; it was only when one of the more recent Boveys got fed up with having to maintain the collection at a loss and threatened to sell the more commercial parts of it off that they saw sense and took it over. Amongst the buildings are the Chinese shops whose wares are still preserved in their original yet still disgusting state ...

This area is famous for the creation of the original group of vigilantes in 1863. They came about as the result of the actions of Henry Plummer, an outlaw who arrived in the territory and became sheriff by the simple means of volunteering for the position. When he learned of a prospector who had struck it rich and was about to head for civilization with his gold, he notified his gang who would waylay, rob and kill the previously ecstatic but ultimately short-lived miner. The vigilante committee, realising that the sheriff was not going to be a great deal of help, hanged 24 of the gang including Mr. Plummer himself, and the behavior of the residents improved greatly as a result.

After the initial gold rush had subsided, commercial interests moved in to mine the considerable but less accessible deposits using dredgers, water cannon and other similarly environmentally friendly devices. The survival of one side of NC is due to the stubbornness of the Finney family who refused to sell up and so preserved their side of the main road; the other side was demolished and washed away by high-pressure water hoses. Hurrah for the Finneys.

Finished our trek into Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park.