Ghost Town Day

On the map were several Montana ghost towns held over for the pleasure of those gold diggers that missed the 19th Century adventure. These are predictable, a few old store fronts held up by, well, who knows. There are treasured artifacts from the past inhabitants and a creepy element or two bordering on the dastardly or macbre. There's the hangman's gallows in Bannack visible from the jail. The old haunted Masonic Hall populated by young souls dying of a yesteryear plague plays well against the oldest hotel in commemorative MT history. But I had to remember, the Brits regaled us in the hangings and choppings and other public bludgeonings from the past when we were in refined London. One should not be hasty in criticism. The street of tipsy stores in Virginia City, MT, still open as sweet shoppes, espresso coffee shops and the ever present T-shirt factory. Around in back is the side street theater playing a melodrama set in 1856. Feeling deprived of the tribulations of yesteryear, we plunged forward, unaware of how many more such opportunities awaited on the road home.










The train figures large in these exhibits and the slow, slow train from Virginia City to Nevada City both still in Montana was deemed necessary for the transition between these two old-time outposts. Later I clocked this on my odometer as 1.5 miles to cover a time period sufficient to fly to any other western state. Carole received a sewing lesson on a hand powered sewing machine and I had the benefit of a volunteer fur trapper describing the curing and marketing of beaver pelts, buffalo robes and several other beauties. We stayed for the mock court but had to rush to the train station before the villain of the village was duly convicted. Upon reflection we could have stayed for conviction and sentencing and still beaten the train back by walking.

So there we had it, three ghost towns in one day and finding the same corrupt sheriff had figured in the history of all of them. Or was he guilty at all? http://www.legendsofamerica.com/mt-bannack.html