The only dimension that separates us from these people and events, as they happened, is time.

More than 110 years ago, some residents of Virginia City, Montana, realized the significance of five unmarked graves in Boot Hill Cemetery. They knew bad guys were in the graves, but who was in each grave was the question?

 Names are important, Woody Guthrie said so.

This trip starts as Megan walks on the wide, wooden sidewalks along the only paved road in Virginia City, Montana, a community that has celebrated 150 years of "civilized" history.

Take a good look at this plain, old building. The walls have 150 years of stories to tell, including plans made by the Vigilantes as they plotted and schemed to make the Western town and roads leading into town safer for innocent people unaware of robbers lying in wait.

The dirt road to Boot Hill is clearly marked and passes the crumbling walls of an old dug-out, cobblestone home.  We just wish that we could have taken a peek inside.

We wondered about these plain, plank headstones and why everybody died on the same day - Jan. 14th, 1864. Then we noticed, "Hanged," which made us wonder why ... and on the same day.

The key to this lineup is the first grave, "Clubfoot George" Lane. 

Apparently, residents knew the order of burial, they didn't have a starting point.

One of the "Vigilantes" responsible for hanging the men, pointed to a grave 40 years after the deed, and said Clubfoot George was buried in that spot.

The city ordered the grave exhumed in October 1907. They were surprised to find that the outlaws had been buried in caskets, and the skeletal foot bones of Clubfoot George, who claimed to be innocent to the very end, verified his identity.

A piece of the casket and those foot bones apparently are on display in a glass case in the Virginia City museum.  We did not have time to tour the museum.

Double creepy!

According to this sign, 20 miles up the road at Robber's Roost, those five road agents were members of the "Innocents." They hung out at Pete Daly's roadhouse and scouted travelers to rob after they left this, basically motel and restaurant.

Pete Daly arrived at this location in 1863 and built the original cabin and stage coach stop, where road agents are reported to have hung out.

Pete Daly built this new two-story, log stagecoach station in 1865-66. It is another historic project being preserved by the state and local historical societies.

All we got were pictures and impressions.

Travelers could get a meal and night's rest 145 years ago, and stagecoach drivers got fresh horses.

A place like this must have felt like heaven after a long stagecoach ride across the high plains and through the mountains ...

Megan is still shaking her head at the idea of a four-hole outhouse. Talk about getting to know your fellow travelers intimately, this is a little too chummy for our mores. I think the big metal contraption was for a stove. So who lit the fire? Did they use the methane gas for heat?

Yes, Megan's using the wooden footbridge to cross a little stream across the property and walk through tall, green grass.

Sorry Megan. The door's locked up, but you can look inside the cabin Frank Bird Linderman built for his family in 1896 at Brandon, a community above Sheridan, Montana.

Frank Linderman wanted to move his family away from Butte, Montana. That town was lawless with robberies daily. People were robbed for their lunches.
He moved to the Ruby Valley so that his children could have the acquaintance of trees, grass and flowers.
He wrote that his youngest child, 3-year-old Wilda, was so moved by the sight of grass that she cried. She was afraid that walking on it would kill the grass, which she believed were flowers.

Frank and Minnie Linderman's log cabin was preserved and moved to this site in 2010 by the Friends of the Sheridan Library and Virginia City Preservation Society.

"Who invented this damn gate? I'm hung up."

Megan laughed, "Dummy, they have them in high-end department stores and hotels. Don't you know how to operate this thing."

Time to drive back across the abandoned railroad tracks, that the Earth is trying to reclaim.

Back at Boot Hill ...

We're sitting beside the headstone for William and Clara Dalton. They moved to Virginia City, Montana, in 1863 and died of natural causes in January 1864, leaving four children. A grandchild erected this headstone.  To us, this leaves many unanswered questions like what became of their four orphaned children?

Historians believe many more unmarked graves are on Boot Hill. Epidemics took lots of people and they were buried here. How sad that is. Names are important, and they are lost forever. Here's J.W. Fouts, 1864, that's all we know. No birth date, but this confirms his existence. That's a starting point.

One writer surmised, that we're standing at the actual point in space where energetic events took place. These people actually existed. The only dimension that separates us from these people and events, as they happened, is time. And that's about the only selling point for Virginia City, Montana, in 2014.  We are glad we went. 

Don't you find that mind-boggling? Where did that energy go?

Megan and Dwain

I've got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle
As I go ridin' merrily along
And they sing, 'Oh ain't you glad you're single
And that song ain't so very far from wrong.
- Joseph J. Lilly, Frank Loesser, 1942