Virginia City is the living, historic reminder of one of the greatest silver finds in the history of the world. Its famous Comstock Lode helped finance the Union in the Civil War; it provided backing for the Transcontinental Railroad and the Atlantic telegraph cables; and it helped make San Francisco a jewel of the West.
Brothers Hosea and Ethan Allen Grosch may have been the first to find gold, and then a promising vein of silver quartz, in the sagebrush-filled hills of what was then called the Washoe in 1852. Their letter home to family in Pennsylvania expressed optimism about their find, with an assay of three thousand dollars of silver to the ton. In 1857, however, Hosea accidentally pierced his foot with his pick while working their claim. His foot subsequently became infected, and he was dead within two weeks. His grief-stricken brother abandoned the claim and headed off to California over the Sierra Nevada. Like many in the Donner Party eleven years before, he was caught by winter weather and froze to death.
By the mid-1850s, a few prospectors were working the same area as the Grosches’ discovery. They were hampered by a kind of sludge that was referred to as “blasted blue stuff,” a metallic conglomeration that covered the mercury that normally helped separate gold in the bottom of their rockers. The primitive camp that formed around their diggings was known as Johntown, a hodgepodge of shacks and tents that saw more and more hopeful newcomers attempting to find placer gold in the nearby canyons.
Stories vary about who found the first real bonanza and how they did it. One popular version begins in January 1859 when Virginia native James “Old Virginny” Finney (or Fenemore) and Henry T. Paige “Old Pancake” Comstock located placer claims without knowing that rich primary deposits lay beneath the surface. Eventually those deposits gave a name to the entire area: The Comstock Lode.
Another version leaves Old Virginny out of the picture and has Peter O’Riley and Patrick McLaughlin finding gold in the spring of 1859, along with “heavy black stuff” (the same “blasted blue stuff” hated by prospectors a few years earlier). In this version, however, Henry Comstock came along and said they were on his land. Fearing to be cut out entirely, they offered to cut him in. Comstock agreed for a good reason: His claim was a bluff. He had title to nothing.
Virginia City’s citizens wanted to impress visitors with buildings that exuded splendor, permanence, and wealth. The 1876 Storey County Courthouse is a prime example.
C Street is the main thoroughfare in Virginia City. Most of these elaborate buildings, with their ironwork façades and fancy cornices, date from the mid-1870s.
A few months later, two visitors to the Comstock claim asked about the “black stuff.” Comstock told them it was worse than worthless, because it hampered the process of gold recovery. The two men, out of curiosity, took a sample of the sludge-like clay to an assay office in Grass Valley, California. The clay was laden with sulphurites of silver. It was worth three thousand dollars per ton in silver and another eight hundred dollars per ton in gold. The Comstock Lode had gold, all right, but it also contained the richest silver deposit America had ever seen. When word got out, California miners working the nearly tapped-out gold fields of the 1849 strikes were on the move to the Washoe along with farmers, merchants, and—to lead them all to their jackpot—thousands of prospectors.
In 1850, the territory that would become Nevada had a population of—apart from the nomadic Native Americans who occasionally camped there—about a dozen people. After the silver discoveries of the Comstock Lode, the population rose to 6,857 in 1860, to 42,491 in 1870, and to about 75,000 by 1875. Several camps sprouted in addition to the shanties of Johntown, including Gold Hill, Silver City, and Como. One of the smaller camps, likely named for that early prospector Old Virginny, was destined to eclipse them all: Virginia City.
The four men mentioned as the possible discoverers of the great lode did not fare well with the bonanza. Old Virginny Finney lived for only two years after probably providing the name for his town. He was killed when he fell off a horse in a drunken stupor. Henry Comstock, who provided the name for the famous lode, sold his share of the claim for $11,000. He squandered it and eventually committed suicide with a pistol. Patrick McLaughlin sold out for a mere $3,500. When he died, he was a cook on a ranch in Montana. Peter O’Riley held out for $40,000, but he fared no better. At the end of his life, he was an inmate of an insane asylum.
Chronicler of the West J. Ross Browne visited fledgling Virginia City in 1860 and described it as made up of “frame shanties, pitched together as if by accident; tents of canvas, of blankets, of brush, of potato sacks and old shirts with empty whisky-barrels for chimneys, smoky hovels of wood and stone; coyote holes in the mountain side forcibly seized and held by men; pits and shafts with smoke issuing from every crevice.”
Virginia City, however, was not to remain a crude camp for long. Roads were built to haul goods in and silver ore out. Financiers and mining professionals brought expertise to tap the vast lode. A German engineer, Philip Diedesheimer, invented a timbering process known as the square-set, a clever bracing system that allowed Comstock mines to follow veins in any direction and to seemingly any depth.
Mine superintendent Robert Graves created this showplace residence, now known simply as “The Castle,” in 1868.
The Silver Terrace Cemeteries of Virginia City used to be a verdant parklike place. Virginia City itself is in the background.
Virginia City’s apparently endless wealth brought in refinements that smaller camps never had—opulent mansions for mine owners, a beautiful courthouse, an extravagant opera house, a costly schoolhouse, three lovely churches, and elegant restaurants and saloons. Of course, the burgeoning city also had slums, a red-light district, and a criminal element, along with noise and pollution. But those were merely necessary evils outshone by the sunlight of prodigious prosperity.
One of America’s most beloved literary figures began his writing career in Virginia City. Samuel Clemens took a job writing for the Territorial Enterprise in 1862, a position he held for only two years before moving to San Francisco to work for four newspapers. While in Virginia City, he first used the nom de plume Mark Twain. By 1869, after only seven years as a writer, he was a national sensation for his travel narrative Innocents Abroad.
But back to Virginia City. Just when the bonanza seemed about to fade, new discoveries brought Virginia City back to life. In 1869, new silver strikes brought the Virginia & Truckee Railroad from Carson City. That same year saw the first work on the Sutro Tunnel, built by Adolph Sutro to ventilate the mines and drain them of water. In 1871, a new rich vein was found in the Crown Point Mine. Two years later, the biggest strike of all was made in the Consolidated Virginia Mine— a bonanza that yielded more than one hundred million dollars in silver. It made millionaires of miners John Mackay and James Fair along with their eventual partners—two members of the San Francisco Stock Exchange, James Flood and William O’Brien.
These enormous silver strikes sent Virginia City to even greater glory. Now a city of about twenty thousand citizens (almost a tenth of them Chinese), it could boast of six churches, five newspapers, four banks, fifty mercantiles—and more than a hundred saloons.
Solomon Noel, who died in 1896 at age fifty-eight, is memorialized with the touching figure of a woman who holds a bouquet in her left arm as she drops a rose with her right.
The Great Fire, in October 1875, took out two-thirds of the buildings in town. Although much of Virginia City was rebuilt, it never approached its former glory. In the peak year of 1876, Virginia City mines produced $38 million in ore. The four-mile-long Sutro Tunnel was completed in 1879, but the peak was already over. By 1881, silver production had fallen to only $1.4 million. By 1899, the total was a mere $172,000.
Between 1859 and 1878—only nineteen spectacular years—Virginia City mines produced well over $300 million in silver and gold. After that period, mines worked sporadically for another sixty-two years, yielding another estimated $100 million in riches.
WALKING AND DRIVING AROUND VIRGINIA CITY
The main thoroughfare in Virginia City is C Street, which features shops, former hotels, saloons, casinos, restaurants, and museums—all hoping to see your credit card. Many of Virginia City’s attractions require an admission fee. For my reaction to their merits versus their expense, see pages 304 to 306. But the buildings themselves are the real stars of downtown, so be sure to look at the elaborate cornices, the interesting window treatments, and the elaborate metal façades. On the bottom corners of several façades are dates and places of manufacture. Virtually all of these buildings were erected in 1875 or 1876 to outdo the competition.
One block west of C Street is B Street, which features the 1876 Storey County Courthouse, the oldest continuously operating courthouse in Nevada. Next door is the 1885 Piper’s Opera House, where luminaries such as Buffalo Bill Cody, Lily Langtry, Edwin Booth, and Sarah Bernhardt performed. This opera house is the third to stand in this location; the other two burned in 1875 and 1883, respectively.
A few blocks south on C Street stands the 1868 mansion owned by Robert Graves, a mine superintendent. Now known simply as The Castle, it has an elegant carriage house that mimics the architecture of the mansion itself. It is private and closed to the public at this writing, as are all the major mansions in town. I certainly hope that changes; I toured the lovely John Mackay Mansion (at D and Washington streets) in 1980 and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Virginia City has three historic churches. The late-1860s Presbyterian church, located south of the main business district on C Street, was the only one to escape the Great Fire of 1875. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, on F Street at Taylor, was erected in 1876 to replace one that was lost in that same conflagration. Across the intersection from the Episcopal church is St. Mary’s in the Mountains Catholic Church, an enormous, elaborate monument from Virginia City’s generous parishioners, prominently including millionaire John Mackay, who underwrote the rebuilding of the church after the 1875 fire.
Virginia City’s 1867 Silver Terrace Cemeteries stand northeast of town off of Carson Street. A brochure, which should be available at the main entrance, tells you that in Virginia City’s heyday, the graveyard featured flower gardens, flowing water, and paths for respectful contemplation. It was, in effect, the community’s city park. Eleven separate cemeteries are located within the Silver Terrace, including sections for the Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias, the Masons, and for those buried by the Wilson and Brown Funeral House.
One unusual graveyard in the Silver Terrace is the Exempt Fireman’s Cemetery. A sign at the entrance explains that a fireman could retire, or go “exempt,” after twenty years of service. He didn’t have to respond to calls, but he enjoyed all the other benefits and privileges of active service, including the right to be buried in this place of honor.
WHEN YOU GO
From Reno, take U.S. Highway 395 south for about nine miles to Nevada Highway 341. Take Highway 341 for 14 miles to Virginia City. From Carson City, drive west on U.S. Highway 50 for about 8 miles and turn north on Highway 341. Virginia City is 8 miles north.
Note: The best ghost town in the West (but outside of the Mountain West parameters of this book), California’s Bodie, is less than 125 miles from Virginia City. For more information on Bodie and the towns of the ’49er Gold Rush, consult my book Ghost Towns of Northern California.
Virginia City Attractions
You can spend a lot of money in Virginia City, and dozens of businesses are there to help you do just that. I decided to become the ultimate tourist in a tourism machine and visit virtually every attraction in town. The easiest way to do that is to go to the Virginia City Convention and Tourism Authority building at the northwest corner of Taylor and C streets and purchase its deluxe ticket booklet. The pleasant ladies in that office suggested that I use the tram tour ticket first, since I would get an overall picture of the town and see many of the attractions I would later visit. That was excellent advice.
What follows is my assessment of the attractions in the ticket packet, ranked in order of what I considered the most entertainment value for the money. (Since maps of the town are available in the tourism authority and other places, I am not giving directions.) Naturally, if you buy the booklet, the attractions then seem free, so to speak, but you do feel obligated to experience them all since you have paid for them. To visit all the attractions in one day would be exhausting. Unless you are going to stay overnight (I stayed three nights and loved the experience), I wouldn’t buy the deluxe booklet. Where, then, should you spend your money if you don’t have enough time to visit them all? Here are my recommendations:
1. The Virginia & Truckee Railroad: I love tourist train rides, so perhaps I’m not a fair judge, but this attraction offered the best value for my tourist dollar. Our trip was powered by a 1916 Baldwin steam locomotive, a big plus over a diesel operation, and the train went through a tunnel, which is always enjoyable. The ride, at this writing, takes only thirty-five minutes, which might be an advantage for parents with children. I watched the delight on two young faces as they took their first train ride, which was short enough that they were engaged throughout. Eventually, however, the train will go all the way to Carson City, a route the railroad last traversed in 1938. In our short version, the train backed down to neighboring Gold Hill, so the soot and smoke trailed harmlessly behind. But on the uphill return trip, we had the thrill (and the smell, the smoke, and the soot—even within the covered car) of the power of a steam locomotive. It was exhilarating.
2. The Comstock Mill: I have rated this attraction so highly because it is, at this writing, unique in America. It is the only stamp mill tour that actually operates, and for me, that was a delight. Other tours show mills only in repose, but this one fires up, with long flapping belts connecting various elements, two stamps pounding away at the ore coming through, and a shaker table madly vibrating to separate the precious metal from the detritus. Whether you think you are interested in mills or not, I would give this a try. You will be amazed at the ingenuity involved in this nineteenth-century contraption.
3. The Fourth Ward School Museum: The star attraction of this museum is the building itself, a three-story Victorian gem that served students from 1876 until 1936. The third story, at this writing, is closed to the public, but the first and second stories feature, among other exhibits, a well-preserved original classroom, with central pot-bellied stove; displays on the history of the Comstock Lode; a showcase of women’s clothing; and a section on the role of minorities in Virginia City.
4. Virginia City Trolley or Tram Tour: As mentioned earlier, this is the first attraction I visited, and I suggest you do the same. Our driver-narrator was informative and entertaining. On the twenty-minute tour, you pass most of the places mentioned here—and many others—and learn a great deal about the history of Virginia City.
5. The Nevada Gambling Museum: Nevada is best-known for its gaming meccas, so here’s a chance to learn something about gambling. This attraction is very inexpensive, costing less than a one-minute foray with a slot machine (of which you will see hundreds after you step inside). My favorite section was on cheating devices, especially the Sleeve Hold Out, something you definitely would not want to be caught wearing in a card game.
6. The Way it Was Museum: The amount of memorabilia in this museum is simply overwhelming—and that’s not necessarily good. I spent about thirty minutes inside, but I could have consumed hours and still not seen it all. If you’re willing to spend the time, it’s a fascinating place. But I kept thinking about all the other attractions I had paid for and felt a bit frustrated. The blacksmith shop is well worth examining, and I enjoyed reading the labels in the pharmaceuticals section to see what amazing promises were made for some products that were clearly “snake oil.”
7. The Ponderosa Mine Tour: This book mentions seven mine tours, and the Ponderosa falls somewhere in the middle. The tour is unique in that the entrance is inside a building: the former Bank of California Building, now the Ponderosa Saloon. We were offered a protective miner’s helmet, but it wasn’t required wearing. We proceeded in about three hundred feet of easy walking, with stops along the way to view various displays. Our guide was very informative but was hard to hear in the tunnel.
8. The Mark Twain Museum: It was a thrill for this writer and former English teacher to descend the very steps that Mark Twain once took. But unless you are interested in old printing press equipment, this attraction has limited appeal.
9. The Radio Museum: If you are fascinated with old radio and Citizens’ Band equipment, this is for you. Unfortunately, I don’t share that fascination.
10. The Chollar Mine Tour: This mine tour was inferior to the Ponderosa. We were not offered protective headgear, and we could have used it because the mine timbers are rather low. The passageway is quite uneven and is wet and slick in spots. You’re also competing for space with a large air duct. This is no place for anyone uncertain of foot. You walk in a stooped position for four hundred feet into the mine and then stand in one spot, get good information about the mining process, and then walk back out.
The Comstock Fire Museum: This deserves a special mention, since it would be up at number three or four on this list, except that it’s not on the ticket—because it’s free (donations accepted). Located in the 1864 Liberty Engine Company No.1 Firehouse, it features several horse-drawn fire wagons, including one from the 1840s, the oldest firefighting apparatus in Nevada. Be sure to examine the incredible brass fittings, the intricate paint striping, and the attention to fine detail on these magnificent machines.
The Fourth Ward School Museum.