Who is comstock lode

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Discovered under what would become one of the most important gold camps in the West — Virginia City , on the eastern slope of Mt. Davidson, the mines would yield more than million dollars of silver and gold ore during the first decades. Gold was first discovered in the area in the spring of by Mormon emigrants on their way to the California Gold Rush.

After arriving far too early to cross the Sierra Nevada range, they camped on the Carson River in the vicinity of present-day Dayton, to wait for the snow to melt. While they were waiting, some of the men began to prospect the area a discovered gold in Gold Canyon. Even though they found some gold, they crossed the mountains were passable, sure they would discover larger finds at the end of their route. Mining continued in the area, but a camp was not established until the winter and spring of —53, at which time there were about prospectors in the area.

More ore deposits were discovered in the fall of by brothers, Ethan Allen and Hosea Ballou Grosh, sons of a Pennsylvania minister and veterans of the California goldfields. However, before they could work or file the claim, both would die tragically. Hosea Grosh ran a pick through his foot, which eventually resulted in lockjaw septicemia and he died on September 2, His brother, Allen, while traveling to Last Chance, California in November , got caught in a snowstorm and suffered severely from exposure.

Though he was found before his death and taken to Last Chance, his legs were completely frostbitten, and refusing to have them amputated, he died on December 19, Gold Hill, Nevada Timothy H. He and several others laid claim to several sections of the Comstock Lode in The population soared from 4, in to 25, in The town's six-story hotel had the only elevator west of Chicago, and downtown had saloons, several opium dens, and 20 theaters and music halls.

Largely because of Virginia City's population boom, Nevada Territory was created in and statehood came just three years later. But beginning in , Virginia City's population began to decline, and by , only still lived in the town.

Working the Comstock Lode was extraordinarily dangerous. Apart from the risk of cave-ins and underground fires, miners had to worry about underground flooding. The temperature of water below feet rose to degrees. When miners penetrated through rock, steam and scalding water would pour into the tunnel, and miners had to jump into cages, risking death if the hoisting mechanisms failed to lift them quickly enough. Thus is the Comstock Lode named after Henry Comstock.

However, he was not the most successful of those who found precious metals or invested in their discovery and production. The amount of silver discovered in Nevada was large, but a large amount of gold was also discovered. The percentage of silver found in the Comstock Lode was 57; a full 42 percent was gold. The remaining 1 percent was a host of trace amounts of other metals.

The combination of gold and silver made the find attractive to miners and prospectors and very attractive to investors. One particularly successful minder was John William Mackay right , who came from California in , struck it rich, and maintained his wealth for quite awhile.

In the decade following that discovery, their one mine produced half of all silver produced in the U. Since Virginia City was too arid to support large forest reserves, necessary wood had to be imported from the Lake Tahoe region, and hauled to the top of Spooner summit by narrow-gauge railway, allowed to float down to the intervening valley floor by J.

Haines's invention, the V-flume, where water helped flush the timber down. Once it was on the valley floor, the wood was transferred to the Virginia and Truckee Railway , itself one of the Comstock's engineering marvels, where it was transported to supply the square set timbering. Necessary water arrived through pipe laid from the Sierra Nevada into the valleys and then up over the Virginia Range to slake the thirst of the Comstock. The Sutro Tunnel was a brilliantly conceived scheme for draining the excess water found in the mines.

When it was finished, its almost four miles of tunnel linking the underground mining with the Carson River valley was an important and most impressive technological achievement.

But from the standpoint of the Comstock and of Nevada, all of this outstanding achievement was quite transitory.

The governing principle of the Comstock's owners was to take the ore out as rapidly as possible, to use their financial strength to gain high political office and influence, and, when the ore was gone, to leave the scene permanently. Those leaders of the Comstock who were politically ambitious ran for the United States Senate, rather than local office.

It was, after all, far easier and cheaper to bribe a limited group of legislators to gain election to the Senate than to run a statewide race before Nevada voters. Several Comstock leaders went on to the United States Senate: John Jones represented his state for thirty thoroughly undistinguished years; William Stewart, a far more controversial type, for twenty eight.

William Sharon was senator for six years, although he rarely showed up for meetings, and was represented on only two per cent of roll-call votes. As historian Russell Elliott notes, Sharon's "only visits to Nevada during his incumbency in the Senate came while passing through the state on his way to or from the east. Senator for six years. And when the ore was gone, the leadership departed. Almost none of the leaders remained in Nevada—rather they took their money and headed elsewhere.

After , all of the state's mining centers—not only the Comstock but also Austin , Aurora , Pioche , Eureka , and Treasure Hill —declined with only Delamar , in the southern part of the state, to take their place. With a total population of perhaps 25, people at its height, Storey County, which encompassed the Comstock, by had only 3, souls. From to the state lost a third of its people, a calamitous loss, especially considering its limited population to begin with.

By Nevada had only a third as many people as the next least populated state—Wyoming. Outside resentment toward Nevada for having two United States senators was one of the factors that led even such a friendly critic as William Smythe to ask, in the Chicago Tribune in , "Should Nevada Remain a State. Nevada Humanities produces and supports dynamic educational and cultural programs that enrich our lives and encourage us to explore challenging ideas.

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