Location: Approximately 8 miles north of Hwy. 50 at Mound House, east of Carson City, Nevada.
A tremendous amount of information is available concerning Virginia City, Nevada so I will only touch on key points. Needless to say, Virginia City is not a true ghost town. It is a historical site that is a great place to visit. There are the usual assortment of tourist shops along with many museums and historical buildings to see. You can even take a train ride along some of the original Virginia and Truckee Railroad. There are antique shops, book shops including Mark Twain's Bookshop that has many new and used books on the history of the area. Walk along the boardwalk and don't forget to stop in at the Bucket of Blood Saloon. There are also tours given depending on the time of year, of some of the mines that made up the famous Comstock Lode.
History: Virginia City was to silver and Nevada, what the 49'ers and gold were to California. The discovery and subsequent mining of one of the world's greatest silver deposits was the determining factor in Nevada becoming a state when it did. The discovery also helped finance the Union's fight during the Civil War. The population of the state jumped from less than a dozen in 1850 to more than 75,000 by 1875.
The first two miners to recognize the existence of silver in the area were the Grosh brothers, Allen and Hosea. The brothers realized the silver content of their placer operations by the early 1850's but both brothers died before being able to profit from their knowledge.
| Winter view towards C St. with mine equipment in the foreground. |  |
In the mid-1800's the state was an obstacle to get across by the many people pouring into California during the gold rush. Some of the early prospectors had found some "color" while panning the streams throughout Nevada but the lure was still to the gold fields located across the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It wasn't long before the realization that most of the gold mining claims in California were taken and the miners, remembering the color they had seen coming over, returned to Nevada to check the prospects there. These miners returned to the Dayton area and began panning the small gold deposits of Gold Canyon and Six Mile Canyon just north of Dayton. These early miners were plagued by a heavy blue material that clogged their rockers and needed to be constantly cleaned away in order to get to the gold. In early 1859, two prospectors named Peter O'Riley and Patrick McLaughlin set up their equipment in Six Mile Canyon to mine gold. In order to supply water to their rockers, they set about digging a reservoir. It was while digging this reservoir that they uncovered the top of one of the greatest lodes of the Comstock mines. What they had found would be called the Ophir bonanza. When they began working the gravel deposit they found they were recovering from $500 to $1000 worth of gold per day. Since this kind of news spreads like wildfire, in a very short time a rush ensued to the newly found bonanza. It was a rancher from Truckee Meadows that took a piece of ore back to California with him as a curiosity and started the great rush back over the Sierra Mountains. The ore was assayed in Grass Valley, CA (one of the riches's gold towns of the mother lode country) and the assay showed that the ore contained sulphurites of silver at the unbelievable value of $3000 per ton plus the gold values. The rush was on and the new state of Nevada was about to be born.
The Comstock eventually produced some $310,000,000 worth of gold and silver by 1879 when some of the mines ran out of high-grade ore plus the decline of the price of silver forced the closure of most of the mines. The area still managed to produce another $70,000,000 worth of ore throughout the last century.
Many people became famous and realized wealth from the boom around Virginia City and the Comstock. People such as William Sharon and the Bank of California that opened a branch in the city and organized the Union Milling and Mining Co. They also built the Virginia and Truckee railroad that made hauling the ore out and the bringing in of large mining equipment easier. Many of the mills were located along the Carson River and the railroad provided a means of transportation to the mills. Another man that could have become a millionair but did not, was Phillip Deidesheimer the inventor of "square-set" timbering.
A colorful character named Adolph Sutro came up with a grand scheme to help drain of mines of water in 1869, that was an ever-constant problem. His idea was to tunnel below the mines from the area of Dayton along the Carson River and drain the mines through his tunnel. Unfortunately, it took so long for Sutro to come up with the financing and another 10 years to complete digging the tunnel, that by the time his tunnel intersected the mines, the mines were already far below the drain tunnel. Even so, the Sutro tunnel did allow the mines to help drain the water and made the task easier because the water did not have to be brought up to the surface. The tunnel itself was even used as a method of transportation for people wishing to come down to Dayton. The tunnel can still be found east of Dayton just beyond a new shopping center and housing tract.
The city had five different newspapers including the famous Territorial Enterprise that had as one of its contributors, the young writer and sometimes miner, Mark Twain. There were over 110 saloons, 50 stores, 4 banks, 20 laundries, 6 churches and several schools including the Fourth Ward School that can still be found at the southern edge of town. Much of the city was destroyed by a great fire in 1875 but was quickly rebuilt.
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"The Way It Was" museum in Virginia City, NV. This museum contains many displays of mining equipment and daily life in early Virginia City. |
The city is much smaller now with the one main street (C street) and several smaller streets with private residences lining them. The old cemetary can be found on the north end of town and is a favorite place to visit. Piper's Opera House , the Courthouse, St. Mary's Church, and the Episcopal church along with several mansions of successful mining men are open for visitors around the city.
In the summer, the town provides a cool place to visit and many events are held to provide entertainment to both the town's people and visitors. The winter can be cold with light snow on the ground so bring a coat. Some of the attractions are closed in the winter but the roads are regularly cleared of snow.
For more pictures both old and new of Virginia City, Click Here
Reference: Nevada Ghost Towns and Mining Camps by Stanley W. Paher and Railroads of Nevada and Eastern California Vol. 1 by David Myrick
Try the atlas by Paher, Nevada Ghost Towns and Mining Camps Atlas.