Virginia City

Storey County

Most of the Nevada mining camps that are written about on this website were small and short-lived. It can be tough to find much information on them. You can find books from a few authors like Hall, Paher and Patera. You can also find a few websites like NVExpeditions, Ray Dunakin, Forgotten Nevada and NVTami. But beyond that, it gets tough to find further information. That's why I am also writing about them on this website. With that said, towns like Austin, Battle Mountain, Beatty, Belmont, Caliente, Dayton, Elko, Eureka, Goldfield, Manhattan, Pioche, Tonopah and Virginia City (Comstock/ Gold Hill & Silver City) are NOT those camps. These places were massive mining towns with expansive and long-spanning mining histories. Each of these towns had populations in the thousands. A simple internet search will reveal a long list of websites that have written about these places. These towns are also still populated to this day. From a couple dozen in Belmont, to 2,500 in Tonopah, and 15,000 in Dayton. Therefore, I am not going to re-write the same history that can already be found in great detail on the internet. I am going to post extensive historical photographs for each of these towns though. Each one of these towns also has its own Nevada historical marker from the Nevada- State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO). Each one of these towns will have their historical quote posted to its page.

I have a personal love for the Comstock. It boomed before statehood and paved the way for Nevada to become a state in 1864. I have also done something regarding the Comstock that I do not believe that anyone else has done. At least I haven't found it if they have. I went back through old Comstock area newspaper archives from that time period. I put a name and as much of an identity as I could, to nearly every miner that died in the Comstock mines. There were hundreds.
May they all Rest in Peace. BATTLE BORN!

Also see the following pages: There are over 40 different individual pages linked to the Comstock on the "Storey County" main page. Historical places such as Piper's Opera House, The Tahoe House and the Washoe Club. Fraternal buildings such as the Masons and Odd Fellows. And mining sites such as the Combination, Occidental and Union mines. There are also several Gold Hill and Virginia City cemeteries on the "Old Cemeteries" page. This includes the page titled Comstock Mining Deaths.

Nevada Historical Marker #13- The Comstock Lode:
"Near this spot was the heart of the Comstock Lode. The fabulous 2 1/2 mile deposit of high-grade ore that produced nearly $400,000,000 in silver and gold. After the discovery in 1856, Virginia City boomed for 20 years, helped bring Nevada into the Union in 1864 and to build San Francisco. Several major mines operated during the boom. Their sites are today marked by large yellow dumps. Several of which are visible from here- The Sierra Nevada a mile to your left, the Union, Ophir, Con Virginia, and, on the high hill to the southeast, the Combination. The lode was worked from both ends. North up Gold Canyon and south from the Sierra Nevada, Utah mines."