| This piece by one of the 2006 workshop participants eloquently summarizes his experience of the week spent in Virginia City.
My interest in Virginia City, Montana has been high the last few years, as I worked on my book, a biography of Thomas Francis Meagher, to be published as The Irish General by the University of Oklahoma Press in the summer of 2007. Meagher’s calamitous career had brought him there in 1865, which was around the time my grandfather, Christian Richter, and his partner Henry Gilbert started their brewery business. When my wife Arlene read that the Virginia City Institute for Preservation Research & Technology group was evaluating the Richter house in a week-long workshop, we couldn’t wait to sign up. To know the intimate details of the old, long vacant, stone house on the road leading to the brewery had always been one of my dreams; and now knowing that the famous Irishman, Meagher was there in the same era made it even more fascinating. We couldn’t wait to get started.
What Arlene and I didn’t know was that we were headed into one of the most enriching weeks we have ever had. Right from the start, when we walked into Jeff McDonald’s office, in the old territorial offices building which housed Meagher when he was acting governor, we were treated to a brilliant seminar that dealt with not only the  preservation of my grandfather’s house, but also the art of preservation. Jeff and his crew carefully explained every detail of the process and as we started to evaluate the old house and its surroundings we definitely got into hands-on experience that continued throughout the week. The old brewery itself was soon part of our education, and walks around town showed us the interiors of many of the older buildings. We could imagine Christian Richter, the German brewmaster and cooper at his trade; and we could see Meagher, a native Irishman and a Civil War brigadier general, striding along the streets, sometimes in his military uniform, as he visited the halls of a controversial legislature he had convened in 1866, and as he raised an equally controversial militia in 1867.
In the end though, it was not the added knowledge of Meagher and Richter that carried the day. It was the understanding we gained into historic preservation technique so graciously passed on by Jeff McDonald and his crew.
Paul R. Wylie
Bozeman, Montana
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