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 Virginia City holds a special place in the history of the West
and America. The first truly industrial city in the West began in the
late 1850's. Gold was found at the head of Six-Mile Canyon in
1859 by two miners named Pat McLaughlin and Peter O'Reilly. A fellow
miner, Henry Comstock, stumbled upon their find and claimed it was on
his property. The gullible McLaughlin and O'Reilly believed him and
assured Comstock a place in history when the giant lode was named.
Following the gold up the canyon an outcropping of gold in quartz was
found. Another miner, James Finney, nicknamed "Old Virginny"
from his birthplace, is reported to have named the town during a drunken
celebration. He dropped a bottle of whiskey on the ground and christened
the newly-founded tent-and-dugout town on the slopes of Mt. Davidson
"Old Virginny Town," in honor of himself.
The
biggest problem in this grubstake paradise was the sticky blue-gray
mud that clung to picks and shovels. When the mud was assayed, it proved
to be silver ore worth over $2,000 a ton - in 1859 dollars! Gold mixed
with high quality silver ore was recovered in quantities large enough
to catch the eye of President Abe Lincoln. He needed the gold and silver
to keep the Union solvent during the Civil War. On October 31, 1864
Lincoln made Nevada a state although it did not contain enough people
to constitutionally authorize statehood.
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Gas
Lamps in Virginia City
History
of Virginia City in Japanese
The
Short History of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad by Don Bush
More
History of the V&T by Roger Colton
The
V&T Timeline
Introduction
to The Roar and The Silence -
A History of Virginia City and The Comstock Lode, By Ronald M. James
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The
resulting boom turned Virginny Town into Virginia City, the most important
settlement between Denver and San Francisco; and the grubby prospectors
into instant millionaires who built mansions, imported furniture and
fashions from Europe and the Orient, and financed the Civil War. With
the gold and silver came the building of the
Virginia & Truckee Railroad, which ran from Reno to Carson City
to Virginia City and later to Minden. The investments made in mining
on the Comstock in the 1860's, 1870's and 1880's fueled the building
of San Francisco. Wm. Ralston and Crocker, founders of the Bank of California
made their money in Virginia City. Names like Leland Stanford, George
Hearst, John Mackay, Wm. Flood and many others made their fortunes in
Comstock mining.
At
the peak of its glory, Virginia City was a boisterous town with something
going on 24 hours a day both above and below ground for its nearly 30,000
residents. There were visiting celebrities,
Shakespeare plays, opium dens, newspapers, competing fire companies,
fraternal organizations, at least five police precincts, a thriving
red-light district, and the first Miner's Union in the U.S. The International
Hotel was six stories high and boasted the West's first elevator, called
a "rising room.
Today,
many mansions such as the Castle, the Mackay and the Savage stand as
monuments to the opulence of life on the Comstock. The Virginia &
Truckee Railroad runs again from Virginia City to Gold Hill. The largest
federally designated Historical District in America is maintained in
its original condition. "C" Street, the main business street,
is lined with 1860's and 1870's buildings housing specialty shops of
all kinds.
Don Bush
1992
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