Virginia City and Nevada City lie along Alder Gulch, the site of the richest placer gold strike in the Rocky Mountains. During the first three seasons in the early 1860s, an estimated $30 million worth of gold was removed from the gulch.
It all started on May 26, 1863 when Barney Hughes, Thomas Cover, Henry Rodgers, William Fairweather, Henry Edgar and Bill Sweeney camped along a small stream fringed with alder trees. Fairweather and Edgar went to prospect a place of rimrock. Fairweather dug the dirt, filled a pan and told Edgar to wash the pan in the hope of getting enough gold to buy tobacco. When the first pan turned up $2.40, they knew the gulch had great potential.
By the middle of 1864, 10,000 people were living in a number of communities lining Alder Gulch, including Virginia City and Nevada City. In 1865, Virginia City became the capital of the Montana Territory.
The discovery of gold in Last Chance Gulch (Helena) in the summer of 1864 foretold the coming decline of Virginia City. Many of her residents soon moved to Helena. Virginia City's population collapsed to only a few hundred in the early 1870s and never recovered. In 1875, the territorial capital was relocated to Helena. After 1900, few new buildings were constructed in Virginia City, and many old structures collapsed, were destroyed by fire, or were torn down.
Virginia City's declining fortunes began to revive gradually after 1944, when Montana rancher and state legislator Charlie Bovey and his wife Sue first visited the small community. Captivated by Virginia City's old buildings, the Boveys initiated an extensive privately financed preservation program. They and the Montana Historic Landmark Society (funded by the Boveys) began to preserve some of the deteriorating buildings in the community. By 1978 they owned one-third of the town. The Boveys did not just purchase and stabilize or restore existing buildings. They also built reconstructions of original buildings along lower Wallace Street using historic photographs as guides. They installed static displays in some of the buildings, furnished with artifacts associated with the buildings or items they had collected from around the state. They wanted their buildings to look lived in, so they felt that well-worn artifacts (even ones that were broken or seriously deteriorated) enhanced the authenticity of the display.
Charlie Bovey died in 1978 and his wife Sue in 1988. It was then that their son Ford took over. The family's efforts over several decades provided one model for historic preservation and boosted Virginia City's economy, helping to keep the community alive and vital. After the death of Charlie Bovey in 1978, little more than very basic maintenance was done on any of the buildings in Virginia City or Nevada City. By 1989, many of the Bovey-owned properties were for sale.
On May 16, 1997, the State of Montana purchased the Bovey properties in Virginia City and Nevada City for $6.5 million ($5 for the artifacts and $1.5 million for the buildings and land). Thus, the state now owns about half the historic structures in Virginia City (one-quarter or fewer of all the buildings in the town) and all of the historic community of Nevada City, plus buildings moved in or constructed at both sites by Charlie and Sue Bovey. The Montana Heritage Commission was formed to manage these properties. The key components of the Commission is to preserve the historic resources it manages, providing historical interpretation to visitors and operating its facilities in a manner that leads to economic self-sufficiency.
Virginia City today has approximately 150 year-round residents and about 300 summer residents. It sits at an elevation of 5,680 feet, in a bowl along the edge of Alder Gulch. Approximately 70,000 visitors come through Virginia City annually. Montana Highway 287, a paved highway maintained by the Montana Department of Transportation, runs right through Virginia City along lower Wallace Street and bisects the core historic area. The other streets in the town have gravel surfaces and are maintained by the city. Virginia City is located 85 miles from West Yellowstone. This is one of the major gateways to Yellowstone National Park.
Montana Highway 287 also runs through Nevada City. The railroad yard and associated displays are on one side of the highway and the gated area and almost all of the furnished building displays are on the other. Nevada City has fewer than five permanent residents. One of them has lived for many years in a moved-in historic residence inside the gates of Nevada City. Although not formally included in the National Historic Landmark nomination, the buildings constructed or reconstructed by Charlie and Sue Bovey are now seen as contributing to the significance of Virginia and Nevada Cities, because part of its significance today lies in the efforts of the Boveys to preserve the buildings.
For a more complete history in the words of our local historian, 
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