Prospectors found placer gold along a streambed choked with alder trees in May 1863, drawing thousands from every corner of the world to try their luck in the placer mines and seek a share of the far-famed treasure. A brief but turbulent period of lawlessness and vigilante justice ended with the creation of Montana Territory in 1864. Virginia City quickly became the territorial capital from 1865 to 1875, but its glory faded when the placer gold played out and people moved on. Bypassed on the railroad route, the town struggled, but gold dredging operations from the 1890s to the 1940s saved it from abandonment. In the 1940s, Charles and Sue Bovey began buying the dilapidated gold-rush-era buildings, and Virginia City became one of the first preservation efforts in the West. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, and its gold-rush-era false fronts and territorial-period landmarks reflect the optimism of its early residents and provide a unique window to the past.