Nevada City Ghost Town - Montana

On August 2, 1997 I visited Nevada City, Montana a historic mining ghost town.

Virginia City and Nevada City lie along Alder Gulch about one mile apart, the site of the richest placer gold strike in the Rocky Mountains with an estimate total value of 100 million dollars throughout the 18th and 19th century.

In the early 1860s, during the first three seasons, an estimated $30 million worth of gold was removed from the gulch.

Along with Virginia City, Montana is was rescued from complete destruction by the Bovey family starting about 1945 and they restored/preserved many buildings.

The historic stuff was purchased in 1997 by the State of Montana.

Nevada City has essentially no commercial operation and the "town" is simply a historic display inside a fenced area.

Most of the buildings are original to Nevada City but some historic structures from other nearby towns have been moved in.

There is a two story outhouse at the back of the hotel.

There is also a well preserved "mansion" here - really just a normal house - but it and many other buildings have appropriate furnishing and you can go inside many of them.

There is also a bunch of old railroad stuff and a small dredge at Nevada City.

About five different dredges worked various parts of this valley over the years and were some of the most successful gold recovery operations of that era.

In its first five years, Alder Gulch produced between 30 and 60 million in gold. By 1876 about 35,000 people lived in the gulch. Times ran out but the gold never did. You can still find it in the hills and streams of Alder Gulch.

There were five dredges working this stream at one time ranging in size from a No. 2 to a No. 16, the worlds largest dredge. They removed from 150 to 200 million.

The Mount Vernon is a No. 2 and was donated to the museum by Mr. Harold Lynch and Mr. Joe Gray in 1985. It worked in Deadwood Gulch and Crooked River of Idaho. The dredge was built at a cost of $37,350 in 1937.

The bucket line has 65 two cubic foot buckets and could dig 2000 cubic yards a day. It has a digging depth of 20 feet and was powered by diesel electric generators.

The gravel which contains the free gold is picked up in the buckets, dropped in the revolving screen, referred to as a trommel, where it is washed. Oversize gravel is dumped behind the boat with a conveyor belt referred to as a stacker.

The gold bearing gravel passes into ruffled sluice boxes then into a mercury trap before before being discharged at the rear of the boat. On clean-up days the sluices are cleaned, the amalgam retorted and sent to the smelter.