A History of the Comstock Silver Lode & Mines — By Dan de Quille
At a time when most mining companies and maverick prospectors had fanned out from California in pursuit of richer gold claims, three uneducated miners accidentally stumbled upon the world’s richest silver deposit in Nevada. The year was 1859 and it marked the beginning of the West’s most exciting era in mining history. De Quille’s account of this startling discovery (on what was subsequently to be called the Comstock Lode) and his eyewitness report on Virginia City in the heydays of the 1880’s is one of the most fascinating and detailed to be found on the subject.
After describing the events surrounding the initial discovery, the author traces the rapid development of the earliest makeshift towns and mills that were erected on the site. Most notable during this period are the years between 1860 and 1863 when Virginia City emerged and grew uncontrollably in wealth and population as thousands of miners from California, the Atlantic seaboard and Canada converged on the city to labor for the highest wages paid on the American continent. Other key events, such as The Great Fire of 1875 which wiped out a large section of the city, and its miraculous rebuilding in 60 days are covered as well.
The major portion of the book, however, is devoted to the author’s first-hand experience in Virginia City during its biggest boom period of the 1880’s. The vivid composite he creates of the manners and habits of this society is surpassed only by the astounding wealth of facts and figures he provides on the mining companies’ record-breaking profits, the lengths and depths of the Comstock veins, and the multitude of methods utilized for extracting and refining crude silver. Reliable information such as this, and in such bulk, was even scarce in its day.
A general description of the major towns of Nevada, the physical characteristics of the State and its mineral and agricultural resources rounds out the text.