2015-07-17 Day 19: Gold, Robberies, and Hangings

Spent the day with Teresa and Marion walking through history in Virginia City, MT. The history of this town is one driven by greed, murder, and hangings. Virginia City sprung up over night when gold was found in Alder Gulch in 1863. In very short order thousands of prospectors come to the area. Along with the gold seekers, business were created to mine the wealth from the miners. These businesses included saloons, brothels, banks, and hotels. The population of the region swelled. The town quickly became the perfect real life example of the Lawless Wild, Wild West. The gold strike proved to be one of the largest in U.S. history. With the amount of gold being found, problems followed. A sheriff, Henry Plummer, was assigned over the region. Still, miners were robbed and murdered. Then wagon trains and the railroads carrying gold were targeted. The gang of thieves were highly organized and in time took on the name "The Road Agents".

The law abiding citizens of the region had had enough. They organized a posse called "The Vigilantes". They captured a Road Agent, gave him an impromptu trail, then hanged him. In an effort to save himself he revealed the names of many other road agents and their leader who was none other than Henry Plummer (of course). When they hanged Henry Plummer, his final request was "Give me a good drop boys." And they did. Over the next month the Vigilantes hanged 30 more Road Agents. Five of those were hanged together in the center of town with all the towns' folk watching. As a warning to others, those 5 were buried above the town on a ridge where their wooden grave markers can clearly be seen silhouetted against the sky for all to see.

All this history is preserved in Virginia City where today they still have about 50 of the original buildings dating to the 1860(s). It's really quite a place.