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P.O. Box 5630, Helena, MT 59604 800.821.3874 • fax 406.443.5480 Linda Netschert • [email protected] Sue Johnson • [email protected] Lisa Kuntz • [email protected] Robb Helfrick • [email protected] WITNESS TO HISTORY: The Remarkable Untold Story of Virginia City and Nevada City,

BY: John D. Ellingsen

EDITED BY: Clay Scott

FOREWORD BY: Amy Sullivan, Executive Director, Montana History Foundation

PUBLISHED BY: Montana History Foundation

PRODUCED BY: Sweetgrass Books

SHELVING CATEGORY: Regional History

RELEASE DATE: December 2011 1 1 SPECS: 80 pages, 9 ⁄8" x 8 ⁄8", 27 black-and-white photographs, 9 illustrations, 8 color photographs

SOFTCOVER ISBN: 978-1-59152-089-4

PRICE: $16.95

HARDCOVER ISBN: 978-1-59152-090-0

PRICE: $24.95

CALL OF THE PAST: HOW VIRGINIA CITY AND NEVADA CITY MONTANA CAME TO BE SAVED

The first time John D. Ellingsen rode into historic Virginia City, he was nine years old and accompanied by a cargo of twittering baby chicks. In the mid-1950s, the Northern Pacific Transport Stage shuttled passengers, and select cargo, from the Great Northern Depot in Butte to Virginia City, just as an Old West might have done nearly a century earlier. Half-bus and half-truck, the unusual form of transportation, with its evocative name and historic route, captured Ellingsen’s imagination and held it. When he arrived in Virginia City with his mother and aunt, the buildings that made up the old mining boomtown would captivate him even more. He would devote 25 years of his life to preserving what he found that day. Ellingsen went on to study history and architecture at Montana State University and in 1972 became the official curator of Virginia City. Together with preservationist Charles Bovey of Great Falls, Ellingsen would play a pivotal role in the restoration and preservation of two iconic Montana towns. Ellingsen’s new book, Witness to History: The Remarkable Untold Story of Virginia City and Nevada City, Montana, and How They Came to Be Restored and Saved for Future Generations, recounts the rough beginnings and glory days of both towns and the decades-long journey to preserve them. More than two dozen historical photographs illustrate the book, along with drawings, perspective maps, and other period illustrations. Eight special sidebars, titled “If These Walls Could Talk,” profile Virginia City’s most famous buildings. Among the best known, the Montana Post building first housed a newspaper, then the City Book Store, and finally a saloon. In 1937, it burned to the ground, leaving only the stone walls of the print shop. The Historic Landmark Society of Montana, with funds donated by Charles and Sue Bovey, reconstructed the building in 1946. Not only was the original building’s appearance replicated exactly, but its interior was fitted with authentic period printing equipment and type.

FARCOUNTRY PRESS PO BOX 5630 HELENA, MONTANA 59604 WWW.FARCOUNTRYPRESS.COM Ten years later, this very same restored building would capture the attention of nine-year-old John Ellingsen, who walked in during his first visit to Virginia City. “I was fascinated by the building that housed theMontana Post, Montana’s first newspaper,” he writes. Looking at the printing press, with its cogs, wheels, and gears, made of brass, iron, and steel, Ellingsen had a flash of childhood insight. “I understood that what I was looking at represented the pinnacle of technology of another era.” Not one to dismiss the past even then, Ellingsen realized that although the human ingenuity of a previous era had created the printing press he saw, “human ingenuity is the same from generation to generation, and from era to era.” Witness to History is a book about using human ingenuity and persistence to restore and preserve buildings, but it is also a book about heeding the lessons of the past. “I’ve felt that certain eras spoke to me,” writes Ellingsen. “I’ve long been convinced that we Americans were in such a hurry to launch ourselves into the twentieth century that we neglected much of what the nineteenth century had to teach us.” Ellingsen helped save some of those lessons from the destruction, attrition, and neglect that befell so many other gold mining towns across Montana and the West. His story of how it was done blends history, memoir, and impassioned essay. “For me, the past and present have always run together in a continuum,” he writes, “and it has always struck me as artificial and simplistic to separate them so neatly.” Ellingsen hopes Witness to History will awaken readers to how individual citizens can help save places such as Virginia City and Nevada City. He is quick to credit others besides himself. “The history of Virginia City has been set forth in many different ways,” says Ellingsen. “I hope this particular book will bring Charles and Sue Bovey the recognition they so richly deserve for their role in preserving not only the history of Virginia City, but also the .” Witness to History is available at local bookstores and gift shops, through online retailers, or from distributor Farcountry Press at 1.800.821.3874, www.farcountrypress.com.

About the Author John D. Ellingsen is a native of Great Falls, Montana. He has a Masters of Arts and Applied Arts degree from Montana State University. Ellingsen has won numerous awards for his work in historic preservation, including a lifetime achievement award from the Montana Preservation Alliance, the Governor’s Award for historic preservation, and a “special award for preservation” from the Department of the Interior for his work at Garnett . Since 1972 he has worked as curator in Virginia City. At present, he is curator emeritus. Ellingsen lives in Nevada City, Montana. For an interview, contact the author at John D. Ellingsen (author) 406.843.5522, 406.843.5220, [email protected], or contact the editor at [email protected].

About Distributor Farcountry Press Celebrating its 32nd year in 2012, award-winning publisher Farcountry Press specializes in photography books, children’s series, and regional history titles nationwide. Farcountry Press also distributes books for several publishers, including Northern Rockies Publishing, University Pride Publishing, and Sweetgrass Books, Farcountry’s custom- publishing division. www.farcountrypress.com, 800.821.3874 For a press kit (cover image, interior photos, review copy), contact Heather Ripkey, Sales Assistant, [email protected], 406.422.1267.

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M U S I C M A C H I N E S A N D T H E B A L E O F H AY

As I have described elsewhere in these pages, I have had a life- was the player piano museum, where even young kids were long fascination with the music machines that you can see in welcome: a dozen orchestrions, various arcade machines, the Bale of Hay Saloon. This famous building was occupied a long line of cast-iron mutoscopes, and, at one time, a from 1869 to about 1890 by J. F. Stoer, a merchant in haunting gypsy fortuneteller in her case. Behind swinging groceries and alcoholic spirits. The building was then turned doors was the bar room—he back bar of magnificent, s I mentioned earlier, the people flooding into Virginia City were not into a saloon by Messrs. Smith and Boyd, who dubbed it “The Eastlake-style walnut, glittered with beveled mirrors; the front all necessarily seeking gold. A large percentage of them were Bale of Hay.” Smith and Boyd stayed in business until about bar, worn smooth over the years by the elbows and forearms 1908. It then stood empty until 1945, at which time it was of a wide assortment of humanity. And then there was a sort merchants of one kind or another; many were emigrants who, restored by Charlie Bovey. The main part of “The Bale” is of “inner Sanctum,” a couple of dark rooms with elaborate deciding the West Coast was too far, had veered off the exactly as it was when Charlie found it, except for the ornate reddish wallpaper, gold wainscoting, oversize nude paintings, toward southwest Montana; and many—perhaps most—were 1880-vintage bar and back bar, which were brought from and the melancholy strains of the Reproduco Pipe Organ. Benchland, Montana. simply afflicted with the restlessness that was common to so It could be argued that no authentic Old West saloon would many Americans during that period. The old Bale of Hay was a magical place, a sort of trip in time have so many player pianos, but then, the Bale was in into that vanished, pre-Prohibition Old West. The front room many ways more like a strange and pleasant dream than a “re-creation.” It had an almost indescribable realism that no museum could approach. There were several main routes by which these petered out for two main reasons: Firstly, a larger immigrants came to Virginia City. From the east, U.S. Army presence rendered the area of present- Charlie Bovey’s collection of rare music machines grew, and A H A S T Y C H R O N O L O G Y O F T H O S E Y E A R S I N W H I C H from what is now Casper, , north to day Montana and Wyoming much safer (from a people marveled at the orchestrions in the Bale of Hay, the M O N TA N A B E C A M E A T E R R I T O R Y, the Bozeman Trail and then west; from the west non-Indian point of view), and so more people double violin player at the Wells Fargo Coffee House, the soft (mostly California), via either Corinne, Utah, or were tempted to travel overland; and secondly, the music boxes in the hotels, and the ear-splitting marches of the gigantic band organs in the Nevada City Music Hall. A N D V I R G I N I A C I T Y B R I E F LY I T S C A P I TA L overland from Walla Walla, Washington; and from transcontinental railroad was finally completed, the north, up the via steamboat to making it easier, cheaper, and safer to transport A fire on Friday the 13th, 1983, badly burned many of the Fort Benton and south to Virginia City from there. people and goods north from Utah. precious music machines. Some were beautifully restored in Steamboat traffic was very significant for a period other parts of the world. But I will always remember the of several years, although it was seasonal: Much of People and mail at this time were transported into sounds they made—melodic and cacophonous, harsh and the river was frozen in the winter, and the water Virginia City primarily via horses, light coaches, sweet—like ghosts from the past. flows were low late in the summer. Many of the and wagons. Heavier freight was brought in on artifacts presently in Virginia City were brought up sturdy wagons, pulled by either oxen or mule teams. the Missouri River. Steamboat traffic eventually There was for some time a type of “”

THE GLORY DAYS OF VIRGINIA CITY 29 48 WITNESS TO HISTORY

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