Virginia City

Historic Site Maintenance

Historic Site Maintenance, what is it you ask? A day like December 21, 1863 qualifies for the history part. First day of winter and last day for road agent George Ives, hanged at sundown in Nevada City. Everybody has knowledge of maintenance--MAYBE NOT. Consider maintaining a sod roof on a cabin where a guy named X Biedler witnessed the hanging. Enough History?? Now to describe the site, take three miles of Alder Gulch add two hundred fragile, historic buildings sprinkled around two hundred acres, cut in two miles of railroad track, three locomotives and a two-story outhouse. Mix with tens of thousands of tourists and seasonal visitors to Virginia City and Nevada City. ENJOY!

The tale begins with our maintenance team in the winter plowing snow from boardwalks and keeping fire lanes open, all the while mindful of building snowloads on the roofs. No snow to move? Time to work on trucks or locomotives, and with around fifty gasoline engines one always needs an oil change.

Spring is coming fast, are the lawnmowers, weedeaters, chainsaws, manlift and chipper/shredder ready for a new crop of volunteer and seasonal workers? Don't sit down yet, we'd better start turning on the water to the hotels, cabins and other housing units. There are always certain ones of our more than twenty-five businesses who want to be first!

Summertime and the trains are running, the Candy Store is open, work in the train barn is now interrupted often by tourists with cameras and questions. Are the vans available to shuttle passengers if the train rains out? Everyday we must be ready for anything from a lost gold ring under the boardwalk, to a train derailment, electrical problems caused by old wiring, to another tired old sewer line giving way.

Autumn means school starts and tourist head home, things slow down, right? WRONG! READY! SET!

WINTERIZE EVERYTHING!!!!

If you have questions, comments or if you can compute the snowload on a sod roof, please contact Jack Frost, Maintenance Supervisor at 406-843-5247, ext. 238, JFrost3@mt.gov.