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Old West - Ghost Towns and Forts - Montana

There Was Even Gold Dust in the Laundry

Montana's biggest gold rush was in Virginia City.

By gowestusa Staff

Old West

The prospectors were only looking for enough gold to buy tobacco when they panned in Alder Creek in 1863. But they made a rich strike, and within a year there were 10,000 people in Alder Gulch.

Within just four years, the deposits had yielded $40 million in gold and a town named Virginia City had sprung up in the fourteen mile long gulch. It was a place of saloons, dance halls, gambling, renegades and, of course, gold. The dust was every...[continued]

Bannack Days is held toward the end of July. Costumed recreators fry up buffalo steaks, fire black powder rifles, hawk frontier wares, pan for gold, and drive horse-drawn buggies down the bustling streets.

Old West | Ghost Towns and Forts - One of Montana's best preserved ghost towns. [more]

symbols of a nature-worshipping religion

Old West | Indians - Over 21,000 individual carvings among the rocks. [more]

Old West | It Happened Here - Early travelers left their names on canyon walls. [more]

Old West - Cowboys - New Mexico

The Hoof Highway: 1885 through 1971

The last regularly used cattle trail in the U.S.

By gowestusa Staff

Old West

In 1885 the stockyards at Magdalena, New Mexico were the largest cattle shipping point west of Chicago. Herds were driven here from Springerville in Eastern Arizona and from western New Mexico, with some drives bringing as many as 100,000 head of sheep and cattle to the railroad at one time.

During the drives, cowboys moved about ten miles a day and sheepherders moved about five miles a day, allowing their animals to graze...[continued]

Santa Fe is known for year-round blue skies and temperate weather. But if you can, visit after Labor Day. Hotel prices drop, restaurant reservations are easier to come by, and aspen trees on the surrounding hillsides turn a shimmering gold.

Old West | It Happened Here - Established before the colony of Jamestown. [more]

Old West | Ghost Towns and Forts - ..and Oscar Wilde, Doc Holliday, and Red Stockings [more]

Old West | Indians - Mud and straw walls in this 1,000 year old adobe. [more]

>> More Old West




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