HE TOWNS OF THE BIG BONANZA.
As not much has yet been said in regard to the principal towns of the
“big bonanza,” I shall now devote a few chapters to Virginia City and
Gold Hill, but more particularly to railroads, water-works,
lumber-flumes, and other things intimately connected with the growth and
prosperity of those towns, and the cheap and economical working of the
mines.
To begin, I may say that the two towns, Virginia City and Gold Hill,
which were formerly over one mile apart, are now united, and the
dividing line cannot be distinguished. The population of Virginia City
is a little over twenty thousand, and that of Gold Hill about ten
thousand, according to the directory for 1875.
Virginia City, as has already several times been mentioned, lies along
the eastern face of Mount Davidson, on a broad sloping plateau, and is
surrounded on all sides by rugged hills and rocky mountain peaks. In the
early days, these hills were covered with a sparse growth of nut
pine-trees—a sort of stunted pine, in size and form of trunk and
branches somewhat resembling an ordinary apple-tree—but the demand for
fuel for the mines, mills, and domestic uses, swept all these away in a
very few years, and even the stumps have been dug up and made into
firewood by the Chinese.
Gold Hill is situated at the head of Gold Cañon, on the south side of
Mount Davidson, and is shut in by the walls of the ravine, along which
stand the principal buildings of the town. A ridge about two hundred
feet in height, lies between the two towns, which is known as the
“Divide.” The Divide is covered with buildings, and is a fine airy
location—a place where the “Washoe zephyr” waltzes to and fro at will.
In 1859, there were some scattering nut pine-trees on the sides of the
mountains about Gold Hill, but these soon went the way of those about
Virginia City, and now all the hills and mountains, as far as the eye
can reach, are brown and treeless. The only covering of either hills or
valleys is the eternal and ever-present sage-brush.
This shrub grows to the height of from one to four feet, and its leaves
are not green, but of an ashen-grey—much the color and much the same in
shape as the leaves of the common garden sage. The botanical name of
this shrub is _artemisia tridentata_. Through the scanty covering of
sage-brush the rocks everywhere rise up as though they might be the
bones of the land peeping through its skin.
The first house built in Virginia City was a canvas structure, eighteen
by forty feet in size, erected in 1859 by Lyman Jones, one of the
pioneers of the country. Mrs. Jones was the first white woman who lived
where Virginia City now stands, and her daughter Ella, was the first
white child seen in the camp.
The first white child born in Virginia City was a daughter of J. H.
Tilton, one of the pioneer wagon-road builders of the country. She was
born on the 1st of April, 1860, and was named Virginia. She still lives
in the town in which she first saw the light.
In Virginia City are to be seen as many large and substantial buildings,
both public and private, as in any town of like population on the
Pacific Coast. The Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists,
Baptists, and other leading Christian denominations have fine and costly
churches in the town, and these are as well attended as the churches in
any other land. The Masons and Odd Fellows have fine halls, and both
societies are in a very flourishing condition.
[Illustration: VIRGINIA TILTON.]
There are in the city most of the orders and societies found in other
large towns; as, the Knights of Pythias, Ancient Order of Druids,
Improved Order of Red-Men, Knights of the Red Branch, Champions of the
Red Cross, Crescents, Irish Confederation, Ancient Order of Hibernians,
Caledonia Society, Society of Pacific Coast Pioneers, two Turn Vereins,
Miners’ Union, Printers’ Union, and several similar societies.
In the way of benevolent associations, there are, the Virginia
Benevolent Society, Italian Benevolent Society, Hibernian Benevolent
Society, St. Vincent de Paul Benevolent Society, and several others. In
the city is St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum and School (under the charge of the
Sisters of Charity), built at the cost of about $100,000, and the St.
Vincent Hospital, which cost $40,000 or $50,000. In the town are five
military companies—the National Guard, Emmet Guard, Washington Guard,
Montgomery Guard, and the Nevada Artillery.
In the several wards of the city are handsome, commodious and
comfortable school-houses, and there are several flourishing
Sunday-schools, conducted under the auspices of various religious
societies. The city is lighted with gas, is supplied with pure water
from the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and has telegraphic communication with
all parts of the world.
Two daily papers are published in Virginia, the _Territorial
Enterprise_, and the _Evening Chronicle_. The _Enterprise_ is a morning
paper, and the _Chronicle_, as its name implies, is published in the
evening. The _Enterprise_ is the oldest newspaper in Nevada. The first
number (it was then a weekly), was issued at Genoa, on Saturday,
December 18th, 1858. This was the year before the discovery of silver in
Nevada, and Genoa was then a town of about 200 inhabitants. The office
of publication was removed to Carson City, in November, 1859, and
remained there till November, 1860, when it was removed to Virginia
City. The office in which the _Enterprise_ was first published in
Virginia City, was a small, one-story frame building with a shed or
lean-to on one side, and was a queerly arranged establishment. The
proprietors had the shed part fitted up as a kitchen and dining and
lodging-place. Bunks were ranged along the sides of the room, one above
another, as on shipboard, and here editors, printers, proprietors, and
all hands “bunked” after the style of the miners in their cabins. A
Chinaman, “Old Joe,” did the cooking, and three times each day the whole
crowd of “newspaper men” were called out to the long table in the shed
to get their “square meal.” The “devil” went for numerous lunches
between meals, and often came flying out into the composition-room with
a large piece of pie in his mouth, and the old Chinaman at his heels.
The Virginia City Fire Department contains four fine steam fire engines,
one Babcock engine and two or three hand engines, hook and ladder
apparatus, and all else required in battling with fires in a town of the
size. There are also in various places hydrants, to which hose can be
attached and powerful streams thrown, in case of a fire occurring in
their neighborhood.
In the business part of the city are many large and substantial
fire-proof brick and stone structures. There is a large frame theatre
and several halls in which balls and lectures are given. The rooms of
the Washoe Club are as fine as those of most similar clubs in large
cities, and were fitted up at a cost of about $75,000. They contain a
library, reading and billiard-rooms, dining-room, and all else required
for the accommodation of members. Many fine oil paintings adorn the
walls, and the furniture and all the appointments are costly and
elegant.
Owing to the fact that the plateau on which the town is built slopes
rapidly to the east, buildings that are but three stories high in front,
are in places five or six stories in the rear. This configuration of the
ground is of great advantage to those who wish to make a display in
cellars and basements.
On account of the altitude, the atmosphere is very light and thin, but
the climate is as healthful as that of any town on the Pacific Coast.
When the town was first settled, for some reason never explained, a
notion prevailed that it was a bad place for children—that children
could not be reared there; but this was a great mistake. Finer or more
robust children can be seen in no town or city in the Union than those
of Virginia. They grow like mushrooms. This is probably because they
have to contend with but a small amount of atmospheric pressure—there is
nothing to prevent their shooting up and expanding in all directions.
[Illustration: COUNTRY AND CITY.]
It is a well-known scientific fact that animals, as sheep and deer,
found on elevated mountain ranges, have larger lungs than the same
species when inhabiting places at or near the level of the sea;
therefore the children of Virginia City are likely to be large-lunged
and broad-chested when they arrive at maturity. The air being thin and
light, it is necessary for those breathing it to inhale it in greater
volume than would be required in breathing the denser atmosphere of
places at or near the level of the sea, and to do this, there must be a
proper and proportionate expansion of the lungs. Children born in the
country provide themselves with a proper supply of lungs without any
looking after, but adults sometimes find the stretching of their lungs
to the required standard, a somewhat unpleasant operation.
The town of Gold Hill is well supplied with churches and schools,
societies of all kinds, fire apparatus, and all else that should be
found in a place of its population and business. What has been said of
Virginia City in regard to these matters, will apply equally well to
Gold Hill. The town has one daily paper, the _Evening News_, contains
the works of many of the leading mines of the Comstock, and is a lively,
bustling business place—is full of the thunder of machinery and the
shriek of steam-whistles. Although but a mile from the centre of
Virginia, the temperature of Gold Hill is about five degrees higher,
winter and summer, than in the first-named town.
The whole town is undermined, and may be said to stand on a foundation
of timbers. The ground worked out underneath the town has, however,
been so thoroughly filled in with timbers and waste rock that there is
no danger of it caving, though it is immediately but slowly settling.
To the eastward of the town, and behind a large hill on which a portion
of the town stands, a crevice has opened which is nearly a mile in
length, and in places over two feet in width. This shows that the
whole place, hill and all, is gradually “subsiding.” Both Virginia and
Gold Hill have frequently been swept over by great fires, involving
a loss of property to the extent of many millions of dollars. The
burnt districts, however, have always been speedily rebuilt. The
houses destroyed have been replaced with better and more substantial
structures, and consequently the towns have improved in appearance by
means of the fires they have passed through, though many persons have
suffered great loss.
A striking feature of both towns, and one which at once rivets the
attention of all strangers, is the immense piles of rock seen in the
neighborhood of all the principal mines. In these great dump-piles are
heaped the rock and earth extracted in sinking the shafts, running the
drifts, and in making other underground excavations. Persons from the
Atlantic States, who are in the habit of judging of the depth of a well
or other excavation by the amount of rubbish seen on the surface, are
greatly surprised at the size of the dumps, and their first question is:
“Did all that dirt come out of one mine?” As soon as they see one of
these mountains of waste rock, they begin a mental calculation as to the
size of the hole left in the ground. It is no small pile of rubbish that
comes out of a shaft six feet wide, twenty-two feet long, and from 1,500
to 2,500 feet deep—to say nothing of the _débris_ from innumerable
drifts, crosscuts and winzes.
The dump-piles of the Savage and Hale and Norcross, mining companies,
situated in the southeastern part of Virginia City, are among the
largest on the Comstock, the shafts of these mines having been carried
down to a depth of nearly 2,500 feet; the waste-dump of the Bullion
mine, at the north end of Gold Hill, is also of great size. In many
instances, the waste rock hoisted out of the mines is utilized in
filling in and leveling the ground surrounding the buildings above the
shafts. In this way, acres of level ground are made, and the number of
the unsightly dump-piles is much diminished.
J. P. Jones, United States Senator from Nevada, has a residence in the
town of Gold Hill, where live his mother and three of his brothers, one
of whom, Samuel L. Jones, is superintendent of the Crown Point mine, one
of the leading mines of the Comstock. The mother of the Senator,
although she might reside in any one of the cities of the Union, prefers
to make her home at Gold Hill—is really in love with the wild beauty of
the surrounding hills, and the thunder of machinery, and all the sights,
sounds, and excitements incident to life in the midst of the
silver-mines.
[Illustration: RHODE ISLAND, GOLD HILL.]
[Illustration:
WASTE ROCK.
(_Hale & Norcross Mines_.)
]
Omnibuses ply between Gold Hill and Virginia City, and soon street-cars
will be running between the two towns, and perhaps as far as Silver
City, a distance of five miles. Gold Cañon, between Gold Hill and Silver
City, is filled with mills, hoisting-works, business houses and
residences, and from the place last named to Virginia City, a distance
of five miles, it may be said to be one town.
In the early history of the Comstock towns, huge “prairie schooners,”
laden with goods, merchandise, and machinery, from over the Sierras,
thronged the streets. Each “schooner” was drawn by a team of from
fourteen to sixteen mules, and each mule was provided with a chime of
bells, suspended in a steel bow or arch above the bearskin housings of
his collar. A few of these teams sufficed to fill a whole street with
music, but it was a kind of music that sounded best when heard at a
distance and far up in the mountains. These great teams are now no
longer seen. The only big teams are those employed in hauling quartz to
mills that are off the line of the railroad, and in similar local
freighting.
Many of the wagons still in use are capable of hauling immense loads. In
that country they have a way of hitching a second and smaller wagon
behind the first, which second wagon is called a “back-action.” Often as
many as three and four wagons are thus coupled together in a train. In
this way twenty-four cords of wood have been hauled by a team of twelve
animals; ten horses hauled on one occasion 73,050 pounds of quartz, and
on another occasion twelve horses hauled 84,000 pounds of ore a distance
of eight miles. Four wagons were used in each instance. These were, of
course, unusually large loads, and were hauled on account of there being
some bantering between certain team-owners, but the teamsters of Nevada
usually haul heavier loads than are hauled elsewhere.
Being in Gold Hill, on one occasion, with two Western farmers who wished
to see some of the mills and hoisting works of the place, I was somewhat
amused at their anxiety to satisfy themselves in regard to the weight of
the loads hauled by the Washoe teamsters. They had been told a good many
stories in regard to big loads, and had made many memorandums of the
same, but still could hardly credit what had been told them.
Seeing a wagon-load of ore being weighed, they said: “Now we have caught
them in the act! Now we shall see for ourselves. They are just weighing
that load. Two—four—six horses. We shall now see what is a Washoe load
for six horses!”
As the wagon was driven off the scales, I said to the man who had done
the weighing: “These gentlemen are farmers from the West. They are
curious to know the weight of the load of ore that has just been driven
off the scales.”
“It weighed just 28,000 pounds,” said the man of the scales. The farmers
looked at each other and smiled.
“You may see for yourselves,” said he of the scales; “the weights used,
as you see, are still on—count them up.”
“No;” said the farmers; “we are satisfied; but it will never do for us
to speak of the loads hauled in Washoe, when we get back among our
neighbors.”
Said the weigh-master, “I’ll tell you what is a fact; a team of ten
horses, drawing a train of four wagons, hauled a load of ore which
weighed over 73,000 pounds along this street on which you stand.”
Said the Iowa farmer to the Ohio farmer: “Let us go; we don’t want to
hear too much!”
The man at the scales then offered to show them a whole bookful of
weights of loads hauled, if they would step into his office; but they
had seen and heard enough, and, as they said—“More than we dare speak of
at home.”
At present, the greater part of the ore that is not reduced near the
mines, is exported by rail, and, indeed, the railroad does most of the
heavy freighting of the whole country.
[Illustration: WOOD AND WATER.]