The Reduction Works of the Early Days
In the early days the building of quartz-mills kept pace with the building up of the towns. As early as October, 1859, Logan & Holmes had a four-stamp horse-power mill in operation at Dayton, and Hastings & Woodworth had two water-power arastras at work, which reduced six tons of ore a day. This ore was not worked as silver ore. It was from the surface of the Comstock Lode, at Gold Hill, and was worked for gold only. In the spring of 1860 many mills for working silver ore began to be erected.