Discovery / Ellingsen Park

By editor

Virginia City, Madison County, Montana

John Ellingsen arrived in Virginia City in the 1960s, stepping onto a stage already set for the drama of preservation and old-time fussing over aging buildings. This was the era when Charles Bovey, a man with enough gumption and stubbornness to make a mule jealous, was in the middle of his decades-long project to restore and preserve the crumbling skeletons of Virginia City and Nevada City. These weren’t just any towns--they were the sort of places where gold dust once glittered in the air and fortunes were made and lost faster than you could say “placer claim.”

Ellingsen, a man who started out with a hammer and a willingness to learn, became over the next thirty years the closest thing Montana had to a walking encyclopedia on nineteenth-century building construction and restoration. Now, that might not sound like a glamorous title, but in towns like Virginia City, it’s the sort of expertise that keeps history from slipping into the dustbin of forgotten things.

His work was the kind that would make a historian squint and a carpenter nod approvingly. Ellingsen cleaned and set up authentic displays, painted storefront signs in fonts that looked like they had been squeezed out of an old printing press, and furnished places like the Sedman House and Barber Shop in Nevada City with the kind of attention to detail that borders on obsession. He even printed in the Montana Post Print Shop, wielding type and ink as if reviving the ghosts of newspapers past. Repairing nickelodeons and band organs was part of his repertoire, and if you think those are just dusty old curiosities, you haven’t heard the clatter and music that once brought these towns to life.

But perhaps the most extraordinary feat was his role in hunting down, disassembling, and reconstructing old buildings from all over the state. This wasn’t just moving buildings; it was moving history, brick by brick, board by board. Alongside Charles Bovey, Ellingsen helped build about half of the buildings in Nevada City, a feat that required more than muscle--it demanded patience, knowledge, and a certain stubborn affection for the past.

Charles Bovey, the man who started this enormous preservation project, died of a heart attack in Nevada City on June 9, 1978. His last words to Ellingsen were reported simply as “take care of things.” That charge stuck with Ellingsen like a lodestone. After Bovey’s death, Ellingsen continued his work for Bovey Restorations under Bovey’s wife Sue until her passing in 1988, then under their son Ford. If you think the work ended with Charles Bovey, you’d be mistaken. Preservation is a relay race, not a sprint.

By 1989, Ford Bovey had convinced Ellingsen to take his cause to the Montana Legislature in Helena, pushing for the state to purchase the Bovey properties. The vision was to save these historic places from being sold off piecemeal, scattered like so much dust in the wind. The 1995 session saw a near miss--the bill was one vote short. One vote. That’s the kind of thing that makes you wonder about the priorities of legislators.

But persistence paid off. In 1997, House Bill 14 passed with 81 votes in favor and 19 opposed. The state of Montana purchased 250 buildings, 160 acres, and over a million artifacts for $6.5 million. A sizeable sum, but a bargain when you consider the cultural and historical weight of those buildings and artifacts. It was a move that prevented what could have been a slow dismemberment of Montana’s early history.

Ellingsen’s greatest accomplishment was not just the physical rebuilding or the painstaking restoration, but saving Virginia and Nevada Cities from being sold off in fragments. The towns might have turned into a scatter of souvenirs and souvenirs rarely tell a coherent story. His devotion to “taking care of things” was more than a job--it was a mission.

Ellingsen’s academic background is as solid as his carpentry skills: a master’s degree in history with a minor in architecture and archaeology. This blend of scholarship and hands-on skill gave him the tools to understand the structures not just as buildings, but as artifacts of human endeavor and error. His efforts earned him numerous awards, including a lifetime achievement award from the Montana Preservation Alliance and a special recognition from the Department of the Interior for his work at Garnet Ghost Town.

Garnet itself is a place where the past lingers stubbornly. Ellingsen’s work there involved similar challenges--preserving fragile wooden buildings exposed to the elements, maintaining authenticity while making them safe for visitors. The Department of the Interior’s award acknowledged that kind of dedication, the kind that often goes uncelebrated because it involves nails, paint, and endless patience rather than headlines.

Today, Ellingsen lives in Nevada City, continuing in many ways to “take care of things.” That phrase, simple as it sounds, carries the weight of decades spent rescuing history from oblivion and keeping the stories of Montana’s gold rush era alive. He is the custodian of a time when hopeful men and women packed up their dreams and headed west, sometimes finding riches, more often finding hardship, and always leaving behind the skeletons of their hopes in the form of weathered buildings and worn streets.

As Charles Bovey once said, “We’re not just moving wood and nails, John. We’re moving stories.” Ellingsen took those words to heart, shaping a career that intertwines history and preservation with the patience and determination of a man who knows that some things are worth saving, even if no one is watching.

See also

• Discovery / Ellingsen Park at Virginia City, Madison County
• Saving Montana's History at Virginia City, Madison County
• Virginia City at Virginia City, Madison County