STAGING THE PAST in Montana’s ALDER GULCH Courtesy the author In the late 1940s, Charles and Sue Bovey launched a decades-long effort to preserve Virginia City, a historic gold-mining town in southwestern Montana; ten years later, the Boveys acquired property in neighboring Nevada City, where they fabricated a second attraction using buildings rescued from a variety of Montana locations. By the mid-1960s, Alder Gulch had become one of Montana’s principal tourist destinations. What few visitors realized—then, and even now—is that what they were seeing was as much a mid-twentieth-century interpretation of the past as it was the “authentic” history from Montana’s gold rush years. This photograph of stagecoaches offering rides outside the Wells Fargo Coffee Shop in Virginia City was taken in May 2007.

16 MONTANA THE MAGAZINE OF WESTERN HISTORY Ruminations on History, Tourism, and Preservation

by J. Philip Gruen

he ore ran out a long time ago, yet the legend Tof the 1860s gold rush in Alder Gulch lives on. Tourists visiting this area in southwestern Montana can relive the legend while strolling uneven wooden boardwalks flanked by false-fronted buildings. Faded or repainted signs announcing services are discernible below the rooflines: Wells Fargo & Co., Star Bakery Restaurant, Overland Stage Line. In some areas, canopies stretch the length of the boardwalks to protect passersby from inclement weather. Horse-drawn carriages stand ready to transport visitors to various sites of historical interest.1 The effect can be magical, catapulting tourists back to the mid-1860s, when some ten thousand people descended upon the gulch to try their fortune at placer mining. By the time the initial claims played out in the late 1860s, settlers had erected hundreds of buildings, established institutions, and exacted their own form of frontier jus- tice along a fourteen-mile stretch of land straddling both sides of Alder Creek. Much of the activity concentrated in Virginia City, the largest settlement. Today the town appears unchanged—and this is exactly the point. Promo- tional materials confidently promise to transport visitors back into the gold rush years, where they can encounter a place seemingly “frozen in time.” A popular motto bril- liantly captures the image of today’s Alder Gulch: “People say we’re old-fashioned. We hope so.”2

J. PHILIP GRUEN | W I N T E R 2 0 1 1 17 But how “old-fashioned” is Alder Gulch, really? West,” the of “Williamsburg Smith, Huntington in photographer, Coffey, Pat The historic and the modern, the authentic and the inauthentic, reality and myth are not so easily distin- guished. In many ways, what tourists experience in Alder Gulch is less about a distant nineteenth-century

history than a mid-twentieth-century reimagination of that history—a reinvention generated from a desire to preserve the past. Charles A. Bovey, a state ­senator and heir to the Minneapolis-based General Mills ­fortune, and his wife, Sue Ford Bovey, the daughter Collier’s, of a wealthy bank president and member of a pioneer Nov. 8, 1952, p. 40 p. Nov.1952, 8, Montana ranching family, were instrumental to this process of reinvention. When the Boveys first set foot in Alder Gulch during a summer trip in 1944, they encountered an area in economic distress and the built environment in considerable disrepair. “We went up to Boot Hill, and ate in a tavern,” Charles Bovey recalled in one account of his and Sue Bovey’s initial visit to Virginia The Boveys became inspired to save the deteriorating buildings of Virginia City during a trip to Alder Gulch in City. “I guess I expected to find an old bar with gold summer 1944. Charles was a Montana state senator and scales, and miners paying for drinks in dust. Instead, heir to the Minneapolis-based General Mills fortune, and Sue was the daughter of a wealthy bank president and a we found a ‘quick and dirty’ with Coca Cola signs member of a pioneer Montana ranching family. They are and no atmosphere.”3 Yet enough buildings remained pictured above dressed in period costumes in 1952. from Virginia City’s gold rush era—formative in the establishment of Montana Territory—that the Boveys thought the town could be brought back to life. Less thousands of artifacts—actions vital to the city’s des- than one year later, they had begun purchasing and ignation as a National Historic Landmark in 1961 and repairing buildings along and surrounding Wallace its placement on the National Register of Historic Street, the town’s principal avenue.4 Places in 1976. As part of their preservation efforts, These actions spearheaded an extensive process the Boveys strove to educate the public about the of construction, reconstruction, rehabilitation, and past through a comprehensive picture of nineteenth- restoration that lasted more than twenty-five years, century life. Where possible, they outfitted buildings encompassed hundreds of buildings, and included with artifacts from the time period—whether or not

The Boveys’ efforts to preserve Alder Gulch’s nineteenth-century history began at a time when physical reminders of the western mining frontier were beginning to disappear. These included the typical Main Street with its false- fronted buildings and wooden boardwalks, the legendary setting for shootouts and other exciting events associated with the western past in the popular imagination. This 1953 image of Virginia City’s onetime red-light district, along the south end of Wallace Street, demonstrates the condition of many buildings before the Boveys began their preservation efforts. MHS Photograph Archives, Helena, PAc 95-53 B4

18 MONTANA THE MAGAZINE OF WESTERN HISTORY MHS Photograph Archives, Helena, 76-82 PAc 4-A-140b According to the caption of this 1950s Montana Highway Commission photograph of the Kiskadden Barn, “The family album must include a picture aboard the Wells Fargo stage coach at Virginia City, Montana. A restored ghost town, Virginia City is convenient to visit en route between Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks.” all the artifacts hailed originally from Alder Gulch. directly related to the Boveys’ efforts, and although They also encouraged historical reenactments (with they claimed that profit did not drive their initiatives, individuals carrying out tasks while dressed in period a steady flow of summer tourists has kept the region clothing) to help the public best experience life as economically afloat for almost seventy years—nearly they imagined it to have been.5 half of its settled existence.7 The Boveys’ involvement marks a watershed Emblematic of Alder Gulch’s transformation are moment in the history of Alder Gulch. It is to this two sites that attempted to illuminate the gulch’s period, beginning in the 1940s, that one can date the nineteenth-century history while catering to the beginning of the region’s modern history, when pres- modern-day traveler: Daylight Village, a way ­station ervation helped transform a stagnant mining-based with false-fronted motel units begun in 1946 on the economy into one that relied largely on tourism. eastern edge of Virginia City; and Nevada City, an While curiosity-seekers filtered into the region­e arlier open-air museum of nearly one hundred historic (some 6,500 visitors arrived in 1937), in 1950, just five buildings—including lodging units, a saloon, and a years after the Boveys’ preservation efforts began in restaurant—that Charles Bovey began moving there earnest, approximately 150,000 tourists descended from elsewhere in Montana in 1959. Strictly speak- into the gulch. In the late 1950s, Alder Gulch aver- ing, neither can be characterized as examples of aged approximately 400 to 500 tourists per night, and historic preservation: Daylight Village was mostly by the mid-1960s, aside from Glacier and Yellowstone constructed anew but designed to suggest the past; national parks, the gulch had become Montana’s prin- Nevada City—approximately a mile and a half from cipal tourist attraction.6 The increase in visitors was Virginia City—involved older buildings, but few of

J. PHILIP GRUEN | W I N T E R 2 0 1 1 19 “Virginia City, Montana: A Good Place to Hang Around,” brochure, circa 1960s, Vertical File, MHS Research Center, Helena Research MHS File, Vertical 1960s, circa brochure, Around,” Hang to Place Good A City, Montana: “Virginia

To accommodate visitors, Charles Bovey developed lodgings, a museum, and a gas station at the northeast endf o Virginia City’s Wallace Street. Built between 1946 and 1961, Daylight Village (above in green) consisted of some forty buildings.

them were originally located in situ. Yet these well- to capture the essence of mining towns, thereby promoted sites received hundreds of thousands of projecting a tidy, civilized image of the frontier that visitors and played an important role in raising public never quite existed in Montana or elsewhere in the awareness about the history of the gulch.8 ­American West. Since the sites do not provide a pre- Because they do not trace direct lineage to Alder cisely accurate view of the past, neither is authentic Gulch’s nineteenth-century past, Daylight Village within a traditional preservationist’s schema focusing and Nevada City raise several interesting, yet com- on originality and the distant past. Moreover, as alleg- plex, issues regarding historic preservation, includ- edly inauthentic re-creations that do not date to the ing the question of what constitutes a historic site. gold rush era, neither site contributes to the National The architecture, signs, displays, and reenactments at Historic Landmark or National Register districts. these sites illuminate the gold rush history for which This makes them less clear as candidates for preser- Alder Gulch is principally famous, but they also stage vation and more vulnerable to modification, neglect, that past through scenographic displays that attempt or razing.

20 MONTANA THE MAGAZINE OF WESTERN HISTORY Courtesy John Ellingsen, map maker Nevada City was an open-air museum of nearly one hundred historic buildings, most of which Charles Bovey moved to the site from elsewhere beginning in 1959. This map shows the Nevada City Hotel, the largest building on the main road, and motel units at right center. In 1964, Bovey added the Alder Gulch Short Line Railroad to shuttle visitors to Virginia City a mile and a half to the east. It was strictly a visitor amenity since historically no rail line ever reached Alder Gulch.

Yet Daylight Village and Nevada City are no less visitors, among the most popular sites were the Hang- significant to Alder Gulch than many of the buildings man’s Building, where some of the more notorious surviving from the 1860s and 1870s. With their lodg- road agents were hung from a beam, and the Boot ing, gas, and food catering to the automobile traveler, Hill Cemetery, where they were interred. Later Alder they represent a post–World War II culture of rising Gulch tourists also visited the Thompson-Hickman mass tourism and expanded leisure time that saw Memorial Library and Museum, completed in 1921 millions of Americans take to the road—many, inter- to house many artifacts from the gold rush years, as estingly, in search of heritage and the past.9 Their well as Rank’s Drug Store, which displayed a series authenticity lies in their role as consciously created of nineteenth-century curiosities and had been open sites that assisted in the preservation of Alder Gulch for public viewing at least since the early twentieth and supported, if not codified, the burgeoning tourist century. Apparently, enough people visited Virginia industry that raised the region’s profile and saved it City that boosters sought sites to accommodate them, from further neglect. including in an area near the Thompson-Hickman Museum—just west of where Daylight Village stands Auto tourists first began visiting Alder Gulch today. Yet no permanent lodging ever material- in the first decades of the twentieth century. For early ized in Virginia City, and a general lack of traveler

J. PHILIP GRUEN | W I N T E R 2 0 1 1 21 ­accommodations—and the dilapidated condition of the early twentieth century as well as the nineteenth.15 the built environment—made it difficult to attract a ­Methods of “preservation” at Old Town were hap- consistent flow of visitors.10 hazard and unorthodox, at least relative to today’s Instead of tourism, Virginia City’s survival relied standards. But these methods established precedents on its status as the county seat and corporate-run for what the Boveys would undertake in Alder Gulch, dredging operations, which began in the 1890s and and, in fact, the Old Town buildings were stabilized proceeded intermittently through the early 1940s. and eventually relocated to Nevada City in 1959 after By 1940, the physical reminders of the nineteenth- fair officials closed the exhibit.16 century past existed in a state of dis­array. Many In part due to the popularity of the Old Town already-crumbling gold rush–era edifices were being exhibit, Charles and Sue Bovey—together with his- dismantled for their lumber, others had been long torian Joseph Kinsey Howard and bank director and abandoned or converted to other uses, and the city wheat farmer John Henry Sheffels—founded the non- had suffered a devastating fire in 1937 that destroyed profit Historic Landmark Society of Montana in July a handful of nineteenth-century buildings along 1944.17 During the war, many historic structures had ­Wallace Street. Although Virginia City continued been used for materials, and the society’s articles of to have a year-round population, the 1940 census incorporation declared an intention to preserve his- revealed only 380 residents. In 1942, gold mining was toric buildings and to “encourage widespread public declared a “nonessential industry” and suspended by participation in Montana historical study.”18 federal order on account of the war, further crippling The organization’s aims were primarily “benevo- the town.11 lent and educational,” although in a speech at Old But even as Virginia City dwindled, a group of Town, Charles Bovey implored the assembled group local citizens formed the Vigilance Club in 1938 to to consider how the Landmarks Society might induce assist with the care of historic structures in town.12 “tourists to return year after year, to the mutual The club assumed responsibility for the dilapidated ­benefit of all Montana businessmen.”19 Introducing “Vigilante Barn” (now Kiskadden Barn) when the the new organization in a publication distributed at mining corporation that owned the structure wanted Old Town, Howard pointed to Virginia City as one to demolish it for safety reasons. Although the club of the communities requiring immediate attention. did not begin the physical work of stabilizing the By August 1945, the Landmark Society boasted 448 barn, its actions did save it from further neglect.13 members from seventy-two different communities These early Virginia City efforts were part of and had begun restoration work on a series of historic a ­rising preservation consciousness in Montana, a structures throughout the state, including providing development in which Charles Bovey played a sig- monies for new fronts and the re-roofing of a series of nificant role.14 The first of Charles Bovey’s large-scale historic Virginia City buildings.20 projects was the Old Town exhibit at the Northern The Landmark Society and the Vigilance Club, Montana Fairgrounds in Great Falls in 1941. Starting however, could not raise the funds to undertake sig- with an 1880 Fort Benton harness shop and saddlery nificant work in Virginia City, so the Boveys added and all its contents, Bovey purchased a number of monies of their own to get the projects off the ground. buildings that were in imminent danger of collapse By 1945, Charles Bovey was two years into a stint as or in the process of demolition at their original sites a state legislator, and he had begun to accumulate and had them re-erected inside the fair’s giant live- something of a small fortune through farming and stock pavilion for the public’s enjoyment and edu- ranching ventures near Great Falls—in addition to cation. Unless original items were available, Bovey what his parents would occasionally send him and outfitted the buildings with nineteenth-century fur- Sue through the mail.21 The Boveys’ wealth enabled nishings and equipment collected or donated from them to begin buying property in Virginia City, start- around the state. At the same time, he displayed auto- ing with the one hundred dollar purchase of the 1868 mobiles from his personal collection on Old Town’s Henry Blake House—one of the earliest ­surviving dirt-covered Front Street, thus providing a more frame houses in Montana. The purchase of the Blake general picture of life in the past—one that suggested House spurred a number of Bovey ­acquisitions

22 MONTANA THE MAGAZINE OF WESTERN HISTORY Courtesy John Ellingsen Charles Bovey’s interest in preserving Montana’s early history did not start with his work at Virginia City. His first large-scale project was the creation of the Old Town exhibit at the fairgrounds in Great Falls in 1941. Sullivan’s Saddlery, an 1880 Fort Benton harness and saddlery shop, was the first structure that Bovey bought and had re-erected. He also preserved the shop’s contents and introduced a living history element with reenactors (below). The saddlery, a barbershop from Elkhorn, and a blacksmith shop from Augusta are pictured along with some of Bovey’s antique vehicles (above). Old Town’s buildings were relocated to Nevada City in 1959. Yaw Photo Yaw Shop, photographer, MHS Photograph Archives, Helena, 950-187

J. PHILIP GRUEN | W I N T E R 2 0 1 1 23 In their restoration work, the Boveys favored a generalized nineteenth-­century past. They based some restorations on physical or documentary evidence and completely reconstructed other buildings. For instance, the Anaconda Hotel, a one-story, four-room structure originally built in 1863, became the two-story, fourteen-room Fairweather Inn seen here in the 1950s. The building included parts from the ruins of the Goodrich House in Bannack, the territory’s first known hotel.

and alterations from the mid- 1940s onward. Already by the end of 1946, the Boveys had made some substantial acqui- sitions, including the Bale of

Hay Saloon (1866) and an 1863 MHS Photograph Archives, Helena, 76-82 PAc 4-A-126 former residence and ­saddle shop, which they began converting into the Cabbage add a floor, but they built a new porch with archi- Patch (now Kramer) Dress Shop. The Boveys also tectural elements—including columns and rails—sal- purchased the 1863 Anaconda Hotel (formerly the vaged from what was allegedly Montana’s first hotel, Young American ­Eating House) and the 1864 Hang- the Goodrich House in Bannack. In the process, they man’s Building, and—earlier in 1945—had begun removed the original nineteenth-­century false-fronted reconstructing the original Montana Post Building. facade. The Montana Post Building, meanwhile, was They did not restrict themselves to 1860s buildings a complete reconstruction since the Boveys had little either: the Buford Block consisted of three adjoining with which to work beyond a photograph of its for- buildings, one from 1875, another from 1888, and a mer ­appearance. And then there were the changes third from 1899. By the time of Charles Bovey’s death made to the Buford Block, the center building of in 1978, Bovey Restorations (the management arm of which featured large plate-glass windows that the all Bovey-owned properties) owned approximately Boveys removed and replaced with smaller windows one-third of the properties in Alder Gulch. Most of and a porch to match the scale of the adjoining, older these dated from the 1860s and 1870s.22 Wells Fargo Office Building. In effect, they altered the As they set to work restoring buildings in Virginia Buford Block to an appearance it never had.23 City, the Boveys attempted to return them to a gener- The Boveys also outfitted the interiors of most alized nineteenth-century past. Some of their restora- buildings they restored with materials and goods they tion strategies, such as those they employed with the considered common to nineteenth-century ­American Kramer Dress Shop, were based on physical or docu- taste. These were items that they owned, received mentary evidence regarding earlier conditions. Bovey from individuals, or purchased at auction, rummage purchased the dress shop from an individual who was sales, and thrift stores. Although they occasionally planning to install a “picture window,” and instead he included examples of material culture exclusive to used as many of its original materials as possible in the Virginia City, only a handful of items remained that restoration of the building. From a current perspec- could accurately document the buildings’ original tive—which favors a building’s integrity as a principal function. The display of artifacts varied according consideration for historic significance—other deci- to the circumstance and what the Boveys felt was sions are more difficult to fathom. The conversion most appropriate to convey a general sense of the of the one-story, four-room Anaconda Hotel into the time period. Although, in general, the Boveys did not two-story, ­fourteen-room Fairweather Inn is but one restore buildings so they could be identified precisely example. For that ­project, not only did the Boveys with the gold rush era, Charles Bovey did declare in a

24 MONTANA THE MAGAZINE OF WESTERN HISTORY Tourists peer into what was originally the New York Dry Goods Store (now the McGovern Store) on Wallace Street. The Boveys left the contents more or less as they found them when they bought the property.

February 1946 letter to his parents that he hoped to remake Virginia City as a “going town of perhaps 1870 with blacksmith shop, sad- dlery, cabinetmaker shop, news- paper office, dry goods store and novelty shop with some one in each during the tourist season.”24 The Boveys’ efforts to preserve Virginia City coincided with the rise of tourism in the post-war era. Freed from the material shortages and gas rationing of the war years, more Americans than ever took to the road for leisure. These long- distance travelers required ameni- ties such as gas, food, and lodging. To accommodate them, some twenty-six thousand motor courts

MHS Photograph Archives, Helena, 76-82 PAc 4-A-139b had been constructed nationwide by 1948, and fifteen thousand more were built between 1949 and 1952 alone. The 1950s also saw the rise of standardized quality from national hotel/motel chains such as Best ­Western, Howard Johnson, and Holiday Inn that championed the comforts of home in strange places.25 Montana was no stranger to the growth of post-war tourism: visitors flocked to the state in record numbers, and an entire infrastructure of motels and roadside attrac- tions emerged to support them. Indeed, by the 1960s, more than 85 percent of out of-state visitors arrived in Montana by car.26 To bring these tourists to Virginia City, the Boveys knew they would have to provide modern conveniences.27 To this end, they transformed the

The Boveys outfitted the interiors of most buildings they restored with materials and goods they thought common to nineteenth-century American taste. Charles is shown at left in 1947 with Victorian-era furnishings in the Fair-

MHS Photograph Archives, Helena, 95-53 PAc B4 weather Inn.

J. PHILIP GRUEN | W I N T E R 2 0 1 1 25 The Wells Fargo Coffee Shop was one of the conveniences provided for tourists. A National Geographic writer in the 1950s noted the difficulty in obtaining reservations for one of the popular “smorgasbord” meals, which the author described as a “colonial-type buffet supper.” MHS Photograph Archives, Helena, 95-53 PAc B4 Catlin Studio, photographer, courtesy John Ellingsen Visitors to Alder Gulch welcomed the modern services available in the new building complex called Daylight Village— especially the motel units (hidden behind the building complex) and the gas pumps (one of which is just visible on the right side of this 1960s photograph). Like other Virginia City buildings, Daylight Village transported visitors back into the past: the Carriage House and Village Pump facades were designed to recall the early-twentieth-century garage. In the Carriage House, Charles Bovey created an automobile museum featuring a number of his antique vehicles; in the Village Pump to the right was a Model T Ford demonstration shop. Admission to the museum cost twenty-five cents but was free with the purchase of fuel. To accommodate more vehicles, the Carriage House was later extended toward the main road.

Anaconda Hotel into the Fairweather Inn with a new writer in 1950 reported that he was “lucky” to obtain heating system, beds with “inner spring mattresses,” ­reservations for one of the “smorgasbord” meals at and furnishings with pastel yellows and blues to the ­restaurant that “seated 300 customers and turned match 1940s tastes and also converted a portion of the away as many others.”29 Buford Block into a full-service restaurant known as To provide additional lodging, Daylight Village— the Wells Fargo Coffee Shop. The restaurant, in par- some forty buildings in a large clearing between Wal- ticular, was instrumental to the success of the recon- lace Street and the 1864 Gilbert Brewery—was built stituted Virginia City, which had no major eating between 1946 and 1961. For the 1950s automobile establishment prior to the Boveys’ interventions.28 tourist heading into Alder Gulch via the steep grade It became so popular that a National Geographic from Ennis, Daylight Village must have appeared to

26 MONTANA THE MAGAZINE OF WESTERN HISTORY Daylight Village included a row of concrete-block motel units (left, 1952) and, on either side of Daylight Creek, hotel rooms in false-fronted buildings (below) built of “weather-beaten lumber” and sporting painted signs. The signs, added some- time after initial construction, represented businesses adver- tised in ­nineteenth-century editions of the Montana Post. Charles Herbert, photographer, courtesy John Ellingsen Courtesy John Ellingsen be from another era. Near the bottom of the hill, there auto ­mobile garages or service ­stations from the early stood an elongated wooden building with the words twentieth century.30 “Village Pump” and “Carriage House” emblazoned Any travelers who ventured beyond the building across it. The architecture of the building drew upon complex would have recognized a fully mid-­twentieth- western antiquity tradition with its dentils, pedi- century entity. Hiding behind facades stood two ments, balustrades, sash windows, and decorative rows of concrete cabins, the southernmost of which brackets with volutes—details that loosely suggested included six of the fifteen units that maintained the the Thompson-Hickman Library and Museum across slope of the Carriage House and Village Pump roofs the street. However, a closer inspection would reveal (but remained invisible from the gas pumps and dif- that Daylight Village was not all rooted in the distant ficult to see from the main highway). The individual past. The easternmost segment of the complex—the units closely approximated prefabricated housing Village Pump—was a Model T Ford demonstration manufactured for the war, and the overall configura- shop; the adjacent Carriage House contained an tion of cabins, with units arranged in two rows (some exhibit of approximately twenty automobiles from with private baths), resembled the motor courts Bovey’s personal collection. Tourists could refuel at that marked the American roadside in the post-war the two gas pumps that stood in a parking area under years.31 An office, bathrooms, and a laundry building modern lampposts in front of the retrograde build- were completed between 1950 and 1951. ing complex. The look of the building transported Nonetheless, at Daylight Village Charles tourists into the past, although in this case it recalled Bovey hoped to temper the modernist present by

J. PHILIP GRUEN | W I N T E R 2 0 1 1 27 MHS Photograph Archives, Helena, 950-147 Helena, Archives, Photograph MHS

The teeming main thoroughfare of Nevada City was photographed on July 4, 1865. Large-scale dredging destroyed most of these buildings in the late 1890s and early 1900s.

­underscoring Alder Gulch’s nineteenth-century past. quickly became the setting for a number of endan- On the reverse side of the northern row of cabins, gered historic buildings from across Montana. The Bovey created false fronts of “weather-beaten lum- scale of Nevada City’s transformation was prodigious. ber” with painted signage, similar to the wooden Between 1959 and 1978, nearly one hundred build- facade of the western frontier.32 These facades looked ings and attractions joined approximately fifteen toward another set of false fronts, which served as existing structures that remained, in varying states of the entrances to ten units in five separate buildings decay, from the nineteenth and early twentieth cen- assembled as part of the first phase of Daylight Vil- turies—eleven of which dated from 1863 and 1864.36 lage development.33 Because of the false fronts, it was Between 1958 and 1959 alone, some thirty-three not at all obvious that the northernmost row of unat- buildings appeared; twenty more were added in the tached individual or double units actually consisted 1960s; and forty additional buildings in the 1970s. By of prefabricated mobile trailers that had been moved 1978, the buildings moved originally from Old Town by truck to the site from Montana State College in comprised only a small percentage of the overall city. ­Bozeman.34 Although it is not likely that discrimi- Unlike Daylight Village, Nevada City had a nating visitors would have mistaken the facade for ­nineteenth-century past. It emerged with the initial a ­frontier street, particularly as they were not quite gold rush, similar to other settlements that crowded at full scale, their juxtaposition and signage—which Alder Gulch in 1864. A series of residential and com- advertised businesses that once existed in Virginia mercial structures, including a lumberyard, brewery, City— ­nonetheless suggested the Main Street of a bakery, and livery stable, rose quickly along Wood western mining town. Street, the main avenue, to support the popula- As extensive as the Daylight Village offerings were, tion.37 The settlement shared many of the various the Virginia City site represented a small undertaking trials and tribulations of other mining towns in the as compared to the development, or redevelopment, West—although quite literally since it provided of Nevada City that Charles Bovey undertook on the setting for the trial of road agent George Ives. The land he had purchased by 1958.35 Beginning in 1959 Vigilantes—whose story perhaps remains the single with the relocation of the Old Town buildings from ­biggest ­tourist draw to Alder Gulch—formed shortly the Northern Montana Fairgrounds, Nevada City thereafter.

28 MONTANA THE MAGAZINE OF WESTERN HISTORY Yet the 1865 discovery of gold in Helena Ellingsen John Courtesy and the subsequent population drain from Alder Gulch left Nevada City in a situa- tion from which it never fully recovered. Although the town boasted approximately 1,000 people in 1863, there were perhaps 100 left by 1869, and only 50 by 1880. Gold mining continued nearby for sev- eral decades after the 1860s, and at least one Nevada City property—the Finney House—maintained continuous occupa- tion from 1863 to 1951. By 1899, however, In Nevada City, Bovey combined existing cabins with nineteenth-century gold mining had taken the form of large- miners’ cabins he brought in, transforming them all into up-to-date scale ­dredging, and dredges began destroy- lodging along Brewery Street, seen here circa 1964. ing portions of the fourteen-mile city lining Alder Gulch. They eliminated the western edge of Nevada City, while the eastern side held on vague attempt to reconstitute buildings precisely as if only because the owners of the Finney property they once had been.39 And restoration to an original refused to sell their land. By the late 1950s, Nevada appearance may not have been possible even if he had City was essentially a ghost town.38 desired to do so: Nevada City itself was never ­platted, Bovey’s intention with his reconstitution of and only a few existing photographs of the city’s Nevada City—as with elsewhere in Alder Gulch— ­nineteenth-century configuration existed. Apparently, stemmed from a desire to educate the public about Bovey began reconstructing the town based primar- a local, or at least regional, past, but he made only a ily on a single surviving 1865 photograph and then broadened his vision based on his archi- val research and visits to Montana ghost towns.40 With only fifteen original build- ings remaining in Nevada City, ­workers filled gaps either with new structures meant to resemble earlier ones or relocated crumbling buildings that best recalled those once on the site.41 The assembled structures represented common building types of an earlier era: saloons, a barber- shop, a school, a post office, a blacksmith shop, miners’ cabins, even outhouses. Whereas few extant Chinatowns existed anywhere in Montana, Bovey attempted to re- ­create one in Nevada City by relocating at least seven buildings once associated with Chinese communities in Madison County.42 Many of Nevada City’s buildings

Bovey installed a number of antique music machines in a Music Hall building transported to Nevada City from Yellowstone National Park. Here visitors enjoy a coin-operated

Charles Herbert, photographer, MHS Photograph Archives, Helena, 84-91 PAc A7584.28 music machine on August 7, 1975.

J. PHILIP GRUEN | W I N T E R 2 0 1 1 29 Chet Drecher, photographer, MHS photograph Archives, Helena, PAc 86-15 C10-Q1 4-A-211 C10-Q1 PAc 86-15 Helena, Archives, photograph MHS Drecher,photographer, Chet

Bovey grafted two older buildings—an 1863 structure from Salisbury, Montana, and a 1911 structure from Yellowstone Park—to create the Nevada City Hotel (above). For many Nevada City buildings, the alternative to relocation would have been destruction or collapse at the original location.

Bovey stuffed with artifacts of various provenances. vated an original bakery-turned-house and reopened For example, the Music Hall, a building transported it as the Star Bakery-Restaurant, serving three meals from Yellowstone National Park, was filled with a col- a day. He grafted two older buildings—one an 1863 lection of organs, coin-operated music players, and structure from Salisbury, Montana, and the other tools purchased from the Molinari Organ Works in a 1911 structure from Yellowstone—to create the Brooklyn, New York.43 Nevada City Hotel, and he joined existing cabins with As with Daylight Village, many buildings in a series of imported nineteenth-century log miners’ Nevada City disguised modern services to cater to cabins, transforming them into up-to-date lodging visitors searching for the western past.44 Bovey reno- facilities. In 1964, Bovey added the Alder Gulch Short

30 MONTANA THE MAGAZINE OF WESTERN HISTORY Line Railroad to shuttle visitors to Virginia City.45 By pictures of the nineteenth-century West. Their the early 1960s, visitation numbers to Alder Gulch wooden boardwalks, canopies, architectural details, jumped to between 200,000 and 250,000 visitors signs, and false fronts hide modern functions and per year—numbers no doubt partially attributable evoke nostalgic visions of the mining frontier. to Nevada City’s reputation as a repository for Mon- Invented traditions are not necessarily collective tana’s architectural history.46 memories. They are, rather, selective memories that Although the vast majority of Nevada City build- enhance or create preferred ones; they edit the past ings were not original to the site, there is no evidence and obscure a more comprehensive understanding.49 that visitors were particularly distraught by the fact. In the case of Virginia City and Nevada City, that And not everyone knew, either. John Platero, an invention offered a mythic vision of the western past Associated Press writer evaluating Virginia City and that, even by 1950, had become so widespread with Nevada City following a late 1960s visit, contended the proliferation of Hollywood Westerns that they that the restoration of both cities was “thorough,” shaped the public imagination about the American from the back alleys and to the side roads. “The West as a whole. ­grocery stores, barber shop, drug stores, hotel, eating Invented traditions are dangerous because more places, saloons and theater,” he wrote, “are exactly as complex historical circumstances or more ordinary they were.”47 pasts are often—sometimes intentionally—bypassed. Not exactly. From another perspective, both Vir- The Alder Gulch past was far messier than Bovey’s ginia City and Nevada City offer a somewhat rosy, if staid collection of buildings conveys: the frenzy of not sanitized, view of the past—what historian Eric nineteenth-century mining activity left a complicated Hobsbawm has called an “invented tradition,” where cultural landscape where ethnic and cultural tradi- a generally more comfortable, desirable, or exciting tions often collided.50 Virginia City and Nevada City past is created or favored to counter the turbulence offer few, if any, clues to discrimination or racism, no of the present.48 Their current deterioration or decay sense of economic struggle or business ­competition, notwithstanding, both offer tidy, if not prosperous, no political conflict, no danger whatsoever. The Charles Herbert, photographer, MHS Photograph Archives, Helena, 95-53 PAc B4 Visitors in the 1950s would have been well aware of the collision between old and new in Alder Gulch. Above, wagons of two distinct eras stand in the yard near some of the motel units that made up Daylight Village. The units visible here are still used by seasonal employees. In the foreground, a hanging sign directs motorists up to the Boot Hill Cemetery, where the notorious nineteenth-century “road agents”—later hung by the Vigilantes—are buried.

J. PHILIP GRUEN | W I N T E R 2 0 1 1 31 architecture hides the social, cultural, economic, and a more recent past.53 Virginia City and Nevada City, political complexity of the past: the buildings become with an overall look recalling the nineteenth-century little more than facades transforming history into a mining frontier, fit uneasily into an age characterized stage set and making it more palatable for tourist by speed, signage, and spectacle.54 consumption. But Daylight Village and Nevada City reveal The overall appearance of Virginia City and particular facets of post-war history. They emerged Nevada City also catapults over more than a half-­ at a time when physical reminders of the American century of other pasts, implying that Alder Gulch West celebrated in dime novels, paintings, and film had little worthwhile history aside from the era were beginning to disappear. This included the that surrounded the gold rush. When Virginia City frontier Main Street with its false-fronted buildings was recognized as a National Historic Landmark in and wooden boardwalks—the legendary setting for 1961—a designation indicating exceptional quality or shootouts and other exciting, often sordid, events

value in illustrating or interpreting the heritage of the that had become associated with the western past in Courtesy John Ellingsen United States—the statement of significance focused the popular imagination. Bovey’s three-dimensional on the magnitude of the gold discovery and the city’s re-creations of this past may not have been the first role as the territorial capital of Montana. When it in the American West—Walter Knott, in 1940, hauled earned a listing on the National Register of Historic buildings from the silver rush ghost town of Calico, Places in 1976, Nevada City—with so few original California, to Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, buildings—was not included. The nomination form California—but they were among the pioneering acknowledged the Bovey preservation efforts, but the ­examples and almost certainly among the first in the emphasis remained the ­nineteenth-century gold rush Rocky Mountain West.55 past, not tourism and the post–World War II years.51 Virginia City and Nevada City are also representa- tive of cultural reactions to anxieties brought about VIRGINIA CITY and by the rapid change enveloping the landscape in the post-war years. Construction of high-speed roads NEVADA CITY fit uneasily (including the interstate highway system facilitated into an age characterized by by the National Interstate and Defense Highways speed, signage, and spectacle. Act of 1956), expanding suburbs, and urban renewal projects benefited some, but they also contributed More than three decades later, recognizing the to sprawl, social and racial upheaval, and the subse­ ­ historic value of the post-war built environment— quent emptying out of American cities. As the luster particularly the ordinary roadside landscape of gas of these technological achievements wore off, Ameri- stations, motels, and tourist attractions—remains a cans increasingly sought psychological reassurance challenge for a contemporary mindset that still dis- in heritage and the past—what cultural historian T. J. regards the recent past in favor of a more distant Jackson Lears, in a more global context, has identified one.52 Where post-war American architecture is as a cyclical “antimodernist” impulse that rises up in concerned, if anything is celebrated, it is the tech- moments of dramatic transformation.56 Despite their nological achievements of steel, glass, and concrete: historical inaccuracies and their ­mythologization of buildings that seem to exemplify the optimism the past, Virginia City and Nevada City permitted of the so-called “Atomic Age.” Moreover, in the visitors to engage in a growing nostalgia for a van- sphere of historic preservation, there is a tendency ished history. to champion ­architect-designed buildings associ- In the late 1960s, the tourist enterprise run by ated with ­important events rather than vernacular the Boveys in Alder Gulch underwent a transfor- ­architecture or collections of buildings; identifiable mation when the IRS demanded that the Boveys aesthetic styles, not hybrids or mixtures; the moment enclose Nevada City with a fence and charge admis- of ­creation instead of evidence of changes over time; sion. Already by the early 1970s, Daylight Village was buildings situated in their original locations rather serving fewer and fewer visitors following the State’s than new ones; and, in general, the distant past over closure of the gas pumps and the conversion of the

32 MONTANA THE MAGAZINE OF WESTERN HISTORY Part of the difficulty in recognizing the significance of Daylight Village and Nevada City and justifying their preservation is that their “modernity” is cloaked in historical garb. Yet they are no less significant to Alder Gulch than the buildings surviving from the 1860s and 1870s. The remnants of the Carriage House and Village Pump, photographed in 2010, reveal the extent of Daylight Village’s deterioration since the early 1970s, when the State of Montana demanded closure of its gas pumps. Now defunct motel units, visible to the right in the photo, stand as important reminders of a post-war landscape that lured tourists to Alder Gulch and provided them with the modern amenities they expected—even in a region whose principal attraction remained its nineteenth-century past. automobile museum to storage, and the ­buildings to their era, were not overly concerned about the began to deteriorate.57 The State of Montana saved “authenticity” of their creations. Indeed, the notion much of Alder Gulch from an uncertain fate, however, of authenticity is a cultural construction relative to when it purchased all of the Bovey-owned properties time and cannot easily be measured in absolutes. If from the Boveys’ only son, Ford, in 1997 for $6.5 mil- visitors to Virginia City or Nevada City believe that lion. The Bovey properties are now principally under these sites teach them about nineteenth-century life the stewardship of the Montana Heritage Commis- on the mining frontier, are they still inauthentic? sion, although a number of other stakeholders are The many stewards of the region’s past under- also involved, including the Montana History Foun- stand the multilayered complexity of the Boveys’ dation, the Montana Historical Society, the Virginia accomplishments and interpretations but also must City Chamber of Commerce, the Virginia City Insti- decide which stories are most likely to draw visitors tute, the National Park Service, the National Trust for and keep Alder Gulch economically afloat.58 The Historic Preservation, Madison County, and the city decision seems an easy one: the nineteenth century of Virginia City. wins every time. But the importance of the post-war Today the mid-twentieth-century landscape in era to Alder Gulch is neither reconstituted or mythic. Alder Gulch is muted. Nearly all of Daylight Village Whether the historic value of that era will become suffers from deterioration and neglect; only the gas legendary, however, remains to be seen. pumps and motel units offer visual connections to automobile culture. Nevada City continues to attract J. Philip Gruen is associate professor in the School visitors, but one must know its history to understand of Architecture and Construction Management at its importance as roadside architecture. Thus, even Washington State University. He teaches the his- now, Daylight Village and Nevada City do not easily tory of architecture and urbanism, and his research lend themselves to an identifiable­h istoric significance. focuses primarily on tourism and the built environ- They seem almost unreal—perhaps “inauthentic.” ment in American cities. Gruen is completing a book Yet the more recent past was crucial to Alder Gulch’s entitled Manifest Destinations: Tourist Encounters in survival and has become historic in its own right. No the Late-Nineteenth-Century Urban American West, preservation project can possibly restore buildings to which is under contract with the ­University of Okla- a thoroughly “authentic” past, and the Boveys, true homa Press.

J. PHILIP GRUEN | W I N T E R 2 0 1 1 33 Dec. 13, 1876; Omaha Daily Bee, Dec. 30, 3. Edmund Christopherson, This pointing to the promotion—and popular- 1887; Sundance (Wyo.) Gazette, May 31, Here Is Montana (Missoula, Mont., 1961), ity—of Daylight Village, see Bob Fletcher, 1889; Red Cloud (Nebr.) Chief, Mar. 4, 58–59. For more on the Boveys’ arrival, Virginia City, Montana: 3–7–77 (Butte, 1915. see John Ellingsen, interview by Jeffrey Mont., 1953); “Virginia City, Montana,” 25. San Francisco Daily Alta Cali- J. Safford, transcript 1871, Nov. 20, 1998, News from Home, Summer 1954, clip- fornia, Oct 22, 1869, quoted in http:// pp. 18–23, Montana Heritage Preservation ping, Promotional Articles/Magazines M discussion.cprr.net/2007/12/oyster-­car- and Development Commission Oral His- to W, Pace Collection; and Maxine Marte, photographic-image-search; Booker, tory Project (hereafter MHPDCOHP), “Virginia City Offers Look at Old Fron- “Oyster Growers and Oyster Pirates in Montana Historical Society Research tier,” Deseret News and Telegram, Dec. 20, San Francisco Bay,” 73; Jacqueline White, Center, Helena (hereafter MHS). [1961?], and Karen Klinefelter, “Virginia Jennifer L. Ruesink, and Alan C. Trimble, 4. Daylight Village and Nevada City City Shows West in Restoration,” ­Dallas “The Nearly Forgotten Oyster: Ostrea are typically associated more with Charles Times-Herald, July 30, 1961, D-10, in lurida (Olympia Oyster) Carpenter 1864 Bovey than Sue Bovey, although both “1961 Travel Editors PNTA Tour” book- History and Management in Washington sites should be understood in relation let, MHS. For early accounts highlighting State,” Journal of Shellfish Research, 28, to the Boveys’ methods elsewhere in the Nevada City’s popularity, see Cornelius no. 1 (2009), 45. New Orleans oysterman Alder Gulch. C. Smith, “Nevada City Lives Again,” Al Sunseri of the P & J Oyster Company 5. For the Boveys’ preservation philos- Ford Times, June 1963, and “Nevada City helped interpret the matter of sacked ophy, see Jane Brown Gillette, ­“Restaking Helps Attract Tourists to Virginia City,” oysters, a manner of fresh oyster delivery the Claim,” Historic Preservation, 45, Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune, Aug. 18, from dockside common to this day. His- no. 1 (1993), 35ff.; R. H. Fletcher, “Vir- 1964, both clippings in folder 16, box 16, torically a burlap sack of fresh oysters usu- ginia City,” Ford Times, Aug. 1950, 10–14; Bovey Papers. ally measured one bushel, or four pecks, C. A. Markham, “Restoration at ­Virginia 9. Susan Sessions Rugh, Are We There and weighed some sixty pounds. Today a City,” The Monitor, 42 (Oct. 1952); Yet? The Golden Age of American Family sack of fresh oysters commonly measures “Virginia City Pioneer Days Revived; Vacations (Lawrence, Kans., 2008), 3–4, a bushel and a half, or six pecks, and Buildings Restored,” Helena, (Mont.) 41–43. See also Phil Patton, Open Road: weighs some one hundred pounds. Mini Independent-Record, June 1, 1947, all in A Celebration of the American Highway sacks weighing forty to forty-five pounds Charles Bovey Binder, Dick Pace Col- (New York, 1986), 232–33; James J. Flink, are also common today, enough to fill to lection, Thompson-Hickman County The Automobile Age (Cambridge, Mass., heaping a five-gallon paint bucket. Library, Virginia City, Montana (hereafter 1988), 181–82; and William Kaszynski, 26. Cheyenne (Wyo.) Leader, Oct. 8, Pace Collection). The American Highway: The History and 1870; Bismarck Quartermaster Depot 6. On tourist numbers, see Kathryn Culture of Roads in the United States (Jef- Letter Received, Jan. 3, 1877, Record McKay, Virginia City and Nevada City: ferson, N.C., 2000), 152. Group 92, Records of the Quartermaster Preservation and Interpretation Strategy 10. Dick Pace, Golden Gulch: The General, National Archives, Kansas City, (Columbia Falls, Mont., 2001), 5; Laura Story of Montana’s Fabulous Alder Gulch Missouri; Broken Bow (Nebr.) Custer Arata, “Embers of the Social City: Busi- (Virginia City, Mont., 1962), 81; Virginia County Republican, Nov. 3, 1908. ness, Consumption, and Material Culture City (Mont.) Madisonian, Sept. 26, 1913; 27. MacKenzie, “History of Oystering in Virginia City, Montana, 1863–1945” Federal Writers’ Project, Montana: A in the United States,” 20–21, 72; Mac­ (master’s thesis, Washington State Uni- State Guide Book (1939; repr., New York, Kenzie, “Causes Underlying the Histori- versity, 2009), 191–92; and Ellen Baumler, 1973), 362; John Ellingsen, interview by cal Decline in Eastern Oyster,” 927–33; “More Than the Glory: Preserving the Jeffrey J. Safford, Oct. 1, 1998, transcript Kochiss, Oystering from New York to Gold Rush and Its Outcome in Virginia 1872, pp. 13–15, MHPDCOHP, MHS. Boston, 60; Hooker, Food and Drink in City,” Montana The Magazine of Western For a comprehensive account of efforts America, 314. History (hereafter Montana), 40 (Autumn to attract tourists and settlers to Vir- 1990), 74. See also “Ghost Town Jumps,” ginia City in the early twentieth century, Billboard Cavalcade of Fairs, Nov. 24, see Arata, “Embers of the Social City,” Staging the Past in 1951, Jay Edgerton, “Yellowstone Quake 176–88. Montana’s Alder Gulch Revives ‘Ghost,’ Minneapolis Star, Aug. 11. Paul D. Friedman, Dames and 1. This article emerged from an under- 20, 1959, Seattle (Wash.) Argus, July 31, Moore, Denver, Colorado, “Architectural, graduate summer course in the School 1964, all clippings in folder 12, box 12, Historical, and Archaeological Inventory of Architecture and Construction Man- Charles A. Bovey Papers (hereafter Bovey of the Virginia City National Historic agement at Washington State University Papers), MHS. According to Dick Pace, Landmark, Madison County, Montana,” (WSU) in 2008, in conjunction with the the summer tourist average was between Aug. 9, 1990, p. 44 (hereafter D & M Montana Heritage Commission and the 150,000 and 175,000—but those figures, doc.). (The Dames and Moore survey Public History Field School in the WSU he wrote, “are strictly guesswork because report is an unpublished document con- Department of History. For assistance, there is no accurate check of the thou- ducted as part of an inventory for the Vir- advice, and feedback with various aspects sands of visitors.” Pace, “The Story of ginia City National Historic Landmark. It of this project, the author expresses Virginia City,” Montana Sports Outdoors is on file at the State Historic Preserva- gratitude to Jeff MacDonald, Bill Peter- Magazine, 3 (Aug. 1961), 26, clipping, tion Office, Helena, Montana [hereafter son, Ellen Baumler, Jared Infanger, Kate Promotional Articles/Magazines M to W, SHPO]); Pace, Golden Gulch, 77–81; Hampton, John Ellingsen, Laura Arata, Pace Collection. Baumler, “More Than the Glory,” 74. Kingston Heath, Monica DeGraffenreid, 7. Apparently the Boveys only once 12. As early as 1937, the poor condi- Orlan Svingen, Rob McCoy, Jim Carpita, turned a profit in Alder Gulch—their tion of Virginia City’s buildings drew the Robert Swartout, Greg Kessler, Patty personal wealth allowed them to pursue attention of the National Park Service, Dean, Janna Norby, Renn Breshears, the Virginia City projects. On the Boveys’ which used WPA funds to assess the Scott Nicholson, and Amy Canfield. attitude toward profit, see McKay, Vir- town’s historic significance—although 2. See, for example, http://­www.­ ginia City and Nevada City, 5. no money was provided to preserve it. virginiacity.com/. 8. For a sampling of early accounts Lary M. Dilsaver and William Wyckoff,

NOTES | WINTER 2 0 1 1 91 MHS Photograph Archives, Helena, PAc 95-53 B4 PAc 95-53 Helena, Archives, Photograph MHS “Failed National Parks in the Last Best Place,” Montana, 59 (Autumn 2009), 22. 13. John Ellingsen, interview by author, July 29, 2011; John Ellingsen inter- view, transcript 1871, pp. 19, 23–24. 14. The importance of the past to Mon- tanans is recounted in Clyde A. Milner II, “The View from Wisdom: Four Layers of History and Regional Identity,” in Under an Open Sky: Rethinking America’s West- ern Past, ed. William Cronon, George Miles, and Jay Gitlin (New York, 1992), 203–22. 15. “Old Town, Located at the North Montana Fair Grounds” pamphlet (Great Falls, Mont.), copy in Vertical Files, MHS. The automobiles were part of the collection Bovey had been assembling since his childhood in Minneapolis. Prior to the development of Old Town, he also erected barns at his Deep Canyon Ranch designed to resemble false-fronted general stores. Bovey’s fascination with antiques and his penchant for collecting The Boveys encouraged historical reenactments with individuals is discussed in Amy D. Baird, “Charles carrying out tasks while dressed in period clothing. Here John Ellingsen, A. Bovey: Pioneer in the Preservation of a longtime employee of the Boveys, plays the role of barber in the Montana’s Living History” (senior thesis, Virginia City Barber Shop. Carroll College, Helena, Mont., 2002), 1–27; John Ellingsen interview, transcript 1871, pp. 1–30. 16. For a list of initial buildings, see Members of the Historic Landmark Soci- basement of the reconstructed Montana “Old Town, Located at the North Mon- ety of Montana, Aug. 1, 1945, ibid. The Post Building; brought a nineteenth-cen- tana Fair Grounds”; and “Old Town in Landmarks Society initially set annual tury music machine, known as a Cremona 1944,” Old Town Promoter, 1 (Aug. 7, membership rates at three dollars per Photoplayer, into the old Smith and Boyd 1944), copy in Vertical Files, MHS. year and lifetime membership at fifty dol- Livery while converting the building into 17. Joseph Kinsey Howard, “You Can lars. New members were presented with the Old Stone Barn Playhouse for the Help New Society in Preservation of a copy of a newsletter and assurance that Virginia City Players; and put up man- Storied Structures,” Old Town ­Promoter, their membership dues would go only nequins in the old Wells Fargo Office 1 (Aug. 7, 1944); Charles A. Bovey to toward office costs and the preservation Building. Harold F. Smith, Aug. 29, 1944, folder or restoration of Montana’s architectural 25. Warren Belasco, Americans on the 6, box 16, Bovey Papers; Clifton Abbott, heritage. Road: From Autocamp to Motel, 1919–1945 “Galloping Ghost Town,” Family Circle, 21. Ellingsen interview, transcript (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), 169–70; Flink, 40 (Feb. 1952), 66; Baird, “Charles A. 1871, pp. 18, 43. Charles Bovey’s letters The Automobile Age, 186–87; John A. Bovey,” 18; Dale White, “Old Town,” Col- to his parents contain a number of grate- Jakle, Keith A. Sculle, and Jefferson S. lier’s, June 16, 1945. Old Town remained ful “thank yous” for generous checks, Rogers, The Motel in America (Baltimore, a permanent fixture in the exhibit hall although his profits from wheat farming 1996), 150–51, 261–63, 329–30; Chester H. for eighteen years until a new fair board apparently were so great that, according Liebs, Main Street to Miracle Mile: Ameri- demanded its removal in favor of a U.S. to a 1952 article, he could have retired in can Roadside Architecture (Boston, 1985), Air Force exhibit featuring jet engines, 1942, at age thirty-five. See the letters in 184–85. rockets, and bomb shelters. Ellingsen folder 1, box 3, Bovey Papers; and Abbott, 26. Michael P. Malone, Montana Cen- interview, transcript 1872, pp. 39–43; and “Galloping Ghost Town,” 66. tury: One Hundred Years in Pictures and John D. Ellingsen, “Why Nevada City 22. McKay, Virginia City and Nevada Words (Helena, Mont., 1999), 247. On the Exists Today,” Reflections on the Past: City, 5. Late in 1945, the Boveys began rise of Montana tourism in the post-war Feature Articles from the Newsletter of making repairs to the 1864 Gilbert Brew- years, see Michael P. Malone, Richard B. the Montana Ghost Town Preservation ery, which was put back into service as a Roeder, and William L. Lang, Montana: A Society, 1970–1983 (Virginia City, Mont., beer and soda pop dispensary. History of Two Centuries, rev. ed. (Seattle, 1983), 30. 23. Grant,A Guide to Historic Virginia 1976), 342; Jon Axline, “‘Howdy Every- 18. “Articles of Incorporation of His- City, 49–50; Baumler, “More Than the one! Glad to See You’: Montana Tourism toric Landmark Society of Montana, July Glory,” 74–75; Ellingsen interview, tran- and Its Port of Entry Stations,” Montana, 29, 1944,” folder 6, box 16, Bovey Papers. script 1871, pp. 35, 36. 61 (Summer 2011), 63; and Brian Shovers, 19. “Speech by Mr. Charles Bovey, for 24. Huntington Smith, “Williamsburg “From Treasure State to Big Sky,” Mon- Delivery at State Fair,” n.d., ibid. of the West,” Collier’s, Nov. 8, 1952, 39; tana, 53 (Spring 2003), 59. 20. Charles A. Bovey to Dad and Charles A. Bovey to Dad and Mother, Feb. 27. Regarding the public’s expecta- Mother, Dec. 4, 1944, folder 1, box 3, 17, 1946, folder 1, box 3, Bovey Papers; tions, see, for example, Karen Klinefelter, Bovey Papers; Charles A. Bovey to How- Ellingsen, transcript 1871, pp. 44–45. For “Virginia City Shows West in Restora- ard A. Johnson, Oct. 18, 1944, folder 6, example, the Boveys added some of their tion,” Dallas Times-Herald, July 30, 1961, box 16, ibid.; Charles A. Bovey to the own antique printing machinery into the D-10, and Virginia Safford, Minneapolis

92 MONTANA T HE M AGAZINE O F W ESTERN H ISTORY Star-Tribune, n.d., both clippings in Nevada City listed on the National Reg- 49. Michael Kammen, Life in the Past Bovey Papers, box 12, folder 12, MHS. ister. The other is the 1863 house that Lane: Historical Perspectives on American 28. Baird, “Charles A. Bovey,” 31, 36; belonged to Donald L. Byam, one of the Culture (New York, 1997), 199–212. D & M doc., p. 47; Ellingsen, transcript judges in the celebrated 1863 trial of road 50. See, for example, Baumler, “More 1871, pp. 41–43; Fletcher, “Montana Med- agent George Ives. Than the Glory,” 72–73; D&M doc., ley,” 58. 39. Jarvis, “Historic Resources Sur- pp. 63–70; and Heath and Heath, “The 29. Leo A. Borah, “Montana, Shining vey,” 2, 9. Finney House,” 71. Mountain Treasureland,” National Geo- 40. Ibid., 4; Ellingsen, “Why Nevada 51. For the statement of significance for graphic Magazine, 57 (June 1950), 714. City Exists Today,” 30. the National Historic Landmark designa- 30. On early gas station design, see 41. Feider, “Boomtown to Outdoor tion, see http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail. John A. Jakle and Keith A. Sculle, The Museum,” 4, 65; Ken Sievert and Ellen cfm?ResourceId=304&ResourceType=D Gas Station in America (Baltimore, 1994), Sievert, Virginia City and Alder Gulch istrict; the National Register form can be 137–42; Liebs, Main Street to Miracle (Helena, Mont., 1993), 50; Gillette, found here: http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/ Mile, 97–102. “Restaking the Claim,” 40; Kingston docs/NHLS/Text/66000435.pdf. 31. What were variously called auto Heath, “False-Front Architecture on 52. On the debates surrounding courts, cottage camps, or auto camps Montana’s Urban Frontier,” Perspectives the preservation of the recent past, see emerged as early as 1913, but it was not in Vernacular Architecture, vol. 3 (1989), Kelli Shapiro, “From Modernism to until the 1930s that modern ­amenities 22. Mc­Donald’s: Ideology, Controversy, and such as bathrooms were included in indi- 42. Jarvis, “Historic Resources Sur- the Movement to Preserve the Recent vidual units. See Belasco, Americans on vey” provides a comprehensive survey of Past,” Journal of Architectural Educa- the Road, 129–73; and John Jakle, The Nevada City’s structures. Also see Elling- tion, 61 (Nov. 2007), 6–14; and David Tourist: Travel in Twentieth-Century sen interview, transcript 1872, pp. 44–51; Fixler, “Appropriate Means to an Appro- North America (Lincoln, Nebr., 1985), and Feider, “Boomtown to Outdoor priate End: Industry, Modernism, and 146–98. Museum.” Preser ­vation,” APT Bulletin: Journal of 32. North Star Pole News, 6 (Oct. 1951), 43. Helena (Mont.) Independent Record, Preserva ­tion Technology, 39, no. 4 (2008), clipping, folder 16, box 16, Bovey Papers. July 23, 1998, 5A. The overall nineteenth- 31–36. 33. The earliest known reference to century appearance of Nevada City was so 53. Although these valuations are less the development of Daylight Village is in compelling that Arthur Penn, the director common today, such tendencies have his- a June 12, 1946, letter from Charles Bovey of the 1970 movie Little Big Man, chose torically shaped the professional practice to his parents. He wrote that the “Tour- it as the setting for many of the movie’s of historic preservation. See Dell Upton, ist Camp—‘Gold Camp’ is taking shape. urban scenes “Architectural History or Landscape His- The ten cabins should be roofed in by the 44. Klinefelter, “Virginia City Shows tory,” Journal of Architectural Education, middle of next week.” See folder 1, box 3, West in Restoration,” D-10. 44 (Aug. 1991), 195–99; Daniel Bluestone, Bovey Papers. 45. The miniature railroad has always “Academics in Tennis Shoes: Historic 34. The trailers had formerly served been historically out of place: the closest Preservation and the Academy,” Journal as temporary student housing following any railroad ever came to Virginia City of the Society of Architectural Historians, their use as worker housing for plutonium was when the Northern Pacific Railroad 58 (Sept. 1999), 300–307; and Richard production near Richland, Washington. extended a spur to Alder in the 1920s to Longstreth, “Architectural History and D & M doc., p. 81. appease the dredging companies; in the the Practice of Historic Preservation in 35. Ellingsen interview, transcript 1872, nineteenth century, no railroad line got the United States,” Journal of the ­Society p. 43. closer than an area near Dillon. Nonethe- of Architectural Historians, 58 (Sept. 36. There is some debate regarding the less, the railroad was a popular attraction 1999), 326–33. number of original buildings in Nevada from 1964 to 1969, after which Bovey 54. For the built environment of the City. For seventeen buildings, see Jim apparently shut it down for safety reasons. post-war years, see John Brinckerhoff Jarvis, “Historic Resources Survey and It was revived again three years later with Jackson, “Truck City,” in A Sense of Place, Inventory of Nevada City, Montana in a new gasoline-powered engine when A Sense of Time (New Haven, Conn., Madison County, Montana,” Nov. 2001, J Nold Midyette took over the manage- 1994), 170–85; Jakle and Sculle, The Gas on file at SHPO; and Ellingsen, transcript ment of the Virginia City Trading Com- Station in America; and Robert Venturi, 1872, p. 43. For fifteen, see Lara Briann pany and convinced Bovey to resurrect it. Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour, Feider, “Boomtown to Outdoor Museum: The depot was brought to Nevada City Learning from Las Vegas (Cambridge, An Examination of Nevada City, Montana in 1964, doubling as a railroad museum, Mass., 1972). for Placement on the National Register of which remained open until 1995. Heath 55. Precedents for three-dimensional Historic Places” (master’s thesis, Univer- and Heath, “The Finney House,” 73, recollections of the past—open-air muse- sity of Montana, 2007), 2. For eleven, see 76; John Ellingsen, interview by Jeffrey ums—already existed with the Henry Kingston Heath and Randall May Heath, J. Safford, Jan. 9, 2001, transcript 1986, Ford Museum and Greenfield Village “The Finney House in Nevada City, pp. 17–18, MHPDCOHP, MHS. in Dearborn, Michigan, and John D. Montana, and the Notion of Heritage 46. On the 250,000 figure, see Smith, Rocke ­feller’s Colonial Williamsburg, in Transformation,” in Vernacular Archi- “Nevada City Lives Again,” Ford Times, Williams­burg, Virginia, both established tecture Forum 2009: Butte and Southwest June 1963, 7. On the 200,000 figure, see in the late 1920s. See William J. Murtagh, Montana: Field Guide for the 30th Annual “Nevada City Helps Attract Tourists to Keeping Time: The History and Theory of Meeting, ed. Richard Gibson (Butte, Virginia City;” and Great Falls (Mont.) Preservation in America (Hoboken, N.J., Mont., 2009), 68. Tribune, Aug. 18, 1954. 2000), 75–86; and “Visit­ing the Past: His- 37. Heath and Heath, “The Finney 47. Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune, July tory Museums in the United States,” in House,” 71. 31, 1968. Mike Wallace, Mickey Mouse History and 38. Feider, “Boomtown to Outdoor 48. Introduction to The Invention of Other Essays in American Memory (Phila- Museum,” 13, 15. The former Finney Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Ter- delphia, 1996), 3–32. property is now one of two buildings in ence Ranger (Cambridge, U.K., 1983), 1–14. 56. T. J. Jackson Lears, No Place of

NOTES | WINTER 2 0 1 1 93 Grace: Antimodernism and the Transfor- ical Resources and Management Report, Played a Vital Role in Developing the mation of American Culture 1880–1920 submitted to Montana Heritage Preser- West,” Western Horseman, Oct. 1985, (New York, 1981); David Lowenthal, The vation and Development Commission, 109–10. Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of His- July 27, 2007, 43–47, copy in author’s 7. Phillips County Historical Society, tory (Cambridge, U.K., 1998), 5–6, 10–11, possession; and McKay, Virginia City The Yesteryears, 126. 14–15; Timothy Davis, “The American and Nevada City, 13. 8. The Joseph M. Hartmann Papers Motor Parkway,” Studies in the History (SC 1738) in the Montana Historical of Gardens and Designed Landscapes, 25 Society Research Center consist of Hart- (Oct.-Dec. 2005), 221. Our Snow Covered Trail mann’s 1957 handwritten descriptions 57. On the State’s closure of Daylight 1. Phillips County Historical Society, of eight photo postcards (1890–1916) of Village, due allegedly to an illegally placed The Yesteryears (Malta, Mont., 1978), freight trains drawn by oxen and horses in gas distribution pipeline, see Dames & 126; Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune, Dec. 17, central Montana. Copies of Hartmann’s Moore, “Montana Historical and Archi- 1961. See also Missoula journalist Tom postcard set of freighting views and hand- tectural Survey Form for the Virginia City Bryant’s “Joseph Hartmann: Montana written descriptions are held in the MHS Project,” Permanent Site No. 24MA723, Pioneer Freighter,” Montana Journal, Photograph Archives and MHS Library Temporary Site No. 158–7, Village Pump Sept. 1989, 13. Articles by Cathy Moser collections. Hartmann quotations in the (May 5, 1989), 2, on file at SHPO. As quoting Hartmann appeared in Western captions of this article are taken from late as 1978, Bovey Restorations was still Horseman, April 2006, 152–58; and Mon- these cards. Donation to MHS of Hart- offering accommodations at Daylight Vil- tana Magazine, May-June 2005, 92–96. mann’s book-length manuscript, “Our lage to visiting tour groups, and the six 2. Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune, Dec. 17, Snow Covered Trail” (1964), is currently units on the southwestern edge of the vil- 1961. in process. lage remain open as summer ­housing to 3. Katherine Pewitt Carey, email to 9. Malta (Mont.) Phillips County this day. Regarding Nevada City, Bovey the editors, Nov. 2011; Hartmann barn, News, Jan. 14, 1971; National Register apparently received tax deductions for National Register of Historic Places nomination. the work involved in relocating and erect- Inventory—Nomination Form, on file at 10. This article contains portions of ing buildings—a process which gradu- the Montana State Historic Preservation chaps. 1–3 from Hartmann’s 570-page, ally ran afoul of the IRS in the late 1960s, Office, Helena; Chere Jiusto and Chris- eighteen-chapter “Our Snow ­Covered which claimed Bovey was not running tine W. Brown, Hand Raised: The Barns Trail” typescript. For ease of reading, the his operations like a proper business and of Montana (Helena, Mont., 2011), 206–7. editors added punctuation and corrected thus was not entitled to a deduction. This 4. Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune, Dec. 17, spelling where necessary. Ellipses indi- compelled Bovey to raise rates on the rail- 1961. cate text elisions. road, hotels, and food—and required him 5. “The Freighter’s Dream” appeared to erect a fence around much of Nevada weekly in the Malta (Mont.) Phillips City to monitor access and charge admis- County News from Dec. 23, 1948, through Ahead of His Time sion. Ellingsen interview, transcript 1876, April 14, 1949. 1. Nicholas Vrooman, ms. comments to pp. 9–10. 6. The postcard series was published the author, 2007. 58. Regarding the byzantine difficulties as appendix B in Walt Coburn’s ­Pioneer 2. Bernice Baumgarten to Joseph Kin- these many interests face, see Dilsaver and Cattleman in Montana: The Story of the sey Howard (hereafter JKH), Apr. 18 and Wyckoff, “Failed National Parks in the Circle C (Norman, Okla., 1968), 310–26; May 3, 1951, folder 6, box 1, MC 27, Joseph Last Best Place,” 21–22; Amy Canfield, and as “Early Transportation in the Kinsey Howard Papers, 1927–1954 (here- Virginia City and Nevada City: A Histor- West: Freighters and Their String Teams after JKHP), Montana Historical Society Research Center, Helena. See also Helen Courtesy John Ellingsen John Courtesy King to JKH, June 28, 1951, ibid. 3. S. L. Groff, “Joseph Kinsey How- ard,” Venture, 1 (Winter 1953), 5. 4. Jay Edgerton, Everyone Mourns For “Mr. Montana”: A Biography of Joseph Kinsey Howard (n.p., 1951); Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune, Aug. 26, 1951. 5. Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune, ibid. 6. Later researchers looked at Riel’s mental state and his travel and activities in the United States between 1870 and 1885. In particular, see George F. G. Stanley, Louis Riel (Toronto, 1963); and Thomas Flanagan, Louis “David” Riel: Prophet of the New World (Toronto, 1979). 7. See, for example, Beth LaDow, The Medicine Line: Life and Death on a North American Borderland (London, 2001); Carol Higham and Robert Thacker, eds., One West, Two Myths: A Comparative Charles Bovey constructed the first row of Daylight Village’s false fronts from mobile Reader (Calgary, 2004); Sheila McManus, trailers moved from Montana State College (now University) in Bozeman, where they The Line Which Separates: Race, Gender, had served as temporary student housing following their initial construction for workers and the Making of the Alberta-Montana involved in the Manhattan Project in Hanford, Washington. Visible are the prefabricated Borderlands (Edmonton, AB, 2005); Ster- structures behind the false fronts in this circa 1951 image. ling Evans, ed., The Borderlands of the

94 MONTANA T HE M AGAZINE O F W ESTERN H ISTORY