Virginia City, Nevada and the Comstock Lode

NEVADA LEGENDS

Virginia City and the Comstock Lode

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Virginia City, Nevada, 1866, Lawrence & Houseworth.

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and downloads HERE!

"I have just heard five pistol shots down the street.... The pistol did its work well...two of my friends were shot. Both died within three minutes."

-- Mark Twain describing Virginia City to his mother in a letter.

A once bustling mining town in the late 1800s, Virginia City was heralded as the most important settlement between Denver, Colorado and San Francisco, California in the time of its heydays. One of the oldest settlements in Nevada, it got its start when two miners by the names of Pat McLaughlin and Peter O'Reilly discovered gold at the head of Six-Mile Canyon in 1859. Soon, another miner named Henry Comstock, stumbled upon their find and claimed it was on his property. The gullible McLaughlin and O'Reilly believed him and that assured Henry a place in history when the giant Comstock Lode was named.

However, the Comstock Lode would not be known for gold, but rather, for its immensely rich silver deposits. Though silver had initially been discovered in 1857 in Nevada by brothers, Evan and Hosea Grosh, they died before they could record their claims. Though the miners rushed in after the discovery of gold, they were unable to get to it because of the heavy blue-gray clay that clung to picks and shovels. However, when someone had the good sense to assay the sticky mud, it was found to be worth $2,000 a ton – a very nice amount in those days.

Word of the discovery spread like wildfire and lured California gold miners in a reverse migration back over the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range and within no time, a ramshackle town of tents and shacks was born. When a miner named James Finney, who was more often called "Old Virginny" from his birthplace, dropped a bottle of whiskey on the ground, he christened the newly founded tent-and-dugout town "Old Virginny Town" in honor of himself. It was later changed to Virginia City. By 1862, the population had soared to some 4,000 and would continue to increase over the next decade and a half.

Grubby prospectors became instant millionaires. Famous men like William Ralston and George Crocker, who would found the Bank of California; Leland Stanford, George Hearst, John Mackay, and William Flood made their fortunes in Comstock mining. Soon mansions, imported furniture and fashions from Europe, and the finest in food, drink and entertainment were commonplace. Virginia City quickly rivaled San Francisco in size and excess.

Pioneer Stage in Virginia City, Nevada, 1866, Lawrence & Houseworth.

This image available for photographic prints and downloads HERE!

All the new wealth caught the eye of President Lincoln who needed gold and silver to pay Civil War expenses and on March 2, 1861, Nevada became a territory. Statehood came just three years later on October 31, 1864 even though it did not contain enough people to constitutionally authorize statehood.

It was in Virginia City that Samuel Clemens, then a reporter on the local Territorial Enterprise newspaper, first used his famous pen name of Mark Twain. He went to work for the newspaper in the summer of 1862 at the age of 26. A year later he began signing the name "Mark Twain" to his columns.

Engineers made amazing breakthroughs to facilitate the silver removal. New honey-combed, square-set timbers became the industry standard to shore up mine shafts.

Water pipes were stretched from the Lake Tahoe Basin to provide over 2 million gallons of fresh mountain water daily. A four mile long tunnel was blasted from solid rock by Adolph Sutro to drain over 10 million gallons of boiling, rancid water per day from the lower levels of the mines.

Continued Next Page

Virginia City's Main Street is lined with historic buildings,

Kathy Weiser, July, 2009.

One of several historic cemeteries in Virginia City, photo by Maureen Skoblar, May, 2007.

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