Charles "Charlie" Bovey devoted his life to preserving Montana's frontier heritage. Interested in collecting and preserving artifacts from a vanishing age since boyhood, he came to Great Falls, Montana, in 1926 and became a successful rancher and wheat farmer. By 1940, he was also saving historically significant buildings and artifacts, including recreating "Old Town Montana" in a Great Falls fairground exhibit hall. During a 1944 visit to Madison County, he discovered what remained of Virginia City, which became his life's work. By 1946, he had founded the Historic Landmark Society of Montana, a statewide nonprofit preservation advocacy group created to protect Montana's vanishing frontier heritage, and one of its first projects was reconstructing Virginia City's Montana Post building after it had burned down a decade earlier. Over the following years, Charlie, his wife Sue, and their son Ford purchased, stabilized, and recreated dozens of Virginia City properties, furnished many with period-authentic interiors, and launched enduring attractions including the Virginia City Players, the Brewery Follies, the Fairweather Inn, and the Wells Fargo Coffee House. In 1958, the Boveys began moving the buildings of "Old Town" and more than 100 other buildings to Nevada City, and as that community took shape, Charlie added a railroad connection between the two towns with the Alder Gulch Shortline Railroad. After Charlie and Sue died, management of the Virginia City and Nevada City properties became too great a burden for Ford alone, and in 1994 local residents formed the Virginia City Preservation Alliance. Their efforts led the Montana State Legislature to purchase the Bovey properties and create the Montana Heritage Commission to manage and preserve this historic treasure and Charlie's dream.