INTRODUCTION
By Marian Albright Schenk
FOREWORD
By Dean Knudsen
SECTION 1
Primary Themes of Jackson's Art
SECTION 2
Paintings of the Oregon Trail
SECTION 3
Historic Scenes From the West
 |
| On June 14, 1937, The University of Colorado awarded "William B. Jackson" a medal for distinguished service to Colorado and the West. Jackson was so pleased that, ". . .being accorded the distinction of a Latin eulogy far outweighs the discomfort of having my middle initial altered." (SCBL 2704) |
Section 3: Historic Scenes from the West
STRIKING IT RICH
When William Henry Jackson first went west in 1866, his goal was the mining camps of Montana. There he hoped to make his fortune and join his sorrows with those miseries of the wealthy. Gold had been discovered in Montana in 1856, but it wasn't until 1863, when Henry Edgar and Bill Fairweather made an accidental strike in Alder Gulch, that the rush to Montana began in earnest.
Almost overnight, a town sprang up near the diggings which came to be known as Virginia City. So quickly did this community grow, that on February 7, 1865, Virginia City temporarily became the second territorial capital of Montana. This "boomtown" was described in the inaugural issue of its own newspaper, the Montana Post on August 27, 1864:
On arriving at this place what astonishes any stranger is the size, appearance and vast amount of business that is here beheld. Though our city is but a year old, fine and substantial buildings have been erected, and others are rapidly going up. One hundred buildings are being erected each week in Virginia City and environs. Nevada and Central cities are equally prosperous. Indeed the whole appears to be the work of magic—the vision of a dream. But Virginia City is not a myth, a paper town, but a reality. . . The placer diggings will require years to work out.1
 |
| The West changed a great deal during Jackson's lifetime. On his first trip into the frontier, Jackson sketched these people he described as, "Immigrants on C&RI RR (Chicago and Rock Island Railroad) May 29, 1866." (SCBL 119) |
This truly seemed to be the case, as fueled in part by the economic demands of the Civil War, in the first year of mining operations, $10,000,000 worth of gold was recovered from the Virginia City mines! For the next couple of years Virginia City was a prosperous and energetic city, that boasted theaters and orchestras.
However, despite the optimistic predictions, the veins began to play out and the miners moved on to other strikes. By 1870 Virginia City's population had fallen to 2,500. Gold and silver were still being found, but the prosperous days were over, and by 1880 the population was reduced to only 600.
In its second incarnation, Virginia City became a business and agricultural town.
William Henry Jackson's decision, made near Salt Lake City, to turn away from the Montana goldfields may well have saved him from years of frustrating struggle and hard labor. As it was, Jackson did eventually make it to Virginia City in 1871—but this time he was in search of another kind of riches—as the photographer for the U.S. Geological Survey and on his first trip into the Yellowstone country.
Jackson recorded his feelings about belatedly making it to the Montana goldfields:
We were to enter the Yellowstone from the north, then the easiest route. On the way through upper Utah and across Idaho I took a few pictures. Up in Montana I made a few more pictures. No one could understand what I found to interest me in Virginia City, by that time nearly played out as a mining center; but, of course, no one knew how hard I had worked to go most of the way there five summers before.2
1. Muriel Sibell Wolle, The Bonanza Trail; Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of the West (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1955), 181.
2. Jackson, Time Exposure, 197.
 |
| Virginia City. Signed and dated 1941. 35.4 x 38.1 cm. (SCBL 149) |
 |
scbl/knudsen/sec3g.htm Last Updated: 14-Apr-2006 |
 |