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This old historical Comstock town located just 30 miles east of Reno, Nevada sits on the slopes of Mount Davidson. History tells us it was once a boom town in the late 1850’s that was filled with grubby prospectors who soon struck it rich and were turned into instant millionaires. Virginia City was once thought to be the mining metropolis of the west and contained banks, theaters, churches, and 110 saloons. The newly rich started to build extravagant mansions and filled them with furniture imported from Europe and the Orient. Today you can still see some of these incredible works of architecture like the Mackay mansion, and the Castle, still standing around town. The quantity of gold and silver that was being recovered from these mines was so large that it caught the eye of the then president of the United States, Abe Lincoln. Because he felt that he needed the gold and silver to keep the Union solvent during the civil war, on October 31, 1864 Lincoln made Nevada a state though the population of the state wasn’t nearly enough to warrant statehood. The boom on the Comstock financed the civil war.
At its peak, Virginia City’s 30,000 residents operated this boisterous town 24-hours a day both above and below the ground, and was considered to be the most important settlement between Denver and San Francisco. The town was even fabled to have contained the first elevator located between Chicago and the West Coast. This contraption new to the wild west was housed inside the six-story International Hotel and it was nicknamed the “rising moon”. The town held Shakespeare plays, had opium dens, a red light district, fire departments, and at least 5 police precincts. The towns and Nevada’s first newspaper “the Territorial Enterprise”, was written by Mark Twain and Bret Harte.
In 1863 the town now housing an estimated 20,000 people started to complain about the unsafe darkness of the streets at night, and demanded gas lamps to illuminate the streets. Soon this new gas making equipment arrived to the Comstock, and even though the most prominent citizens living on “Millionaires Row” up on “B” street received the first lamps, the main street was soon lit, and the citizens were content. The lamps are still in working condition today, and are lit on special conditions like the “Christmas on the Comstock” parade held in December annually.
Today as you walk down historical “C” street on the original wooden sidewalks from the late 1800’s, you will happen by the Bucket of Blood Saloon, the Delta Saloon, and the Ponderosa Mine and Saloon, once full of wild and boisterous miners, are now tourist attractions filled with souvenirs and memorabilia from this time in history. The town hosts an abundance of museums, among them are the Way It Was Museum, the Fourth Ward School Museum, the Mark Twain Museum of Memories, and the Fireman’s Museum, that explain in pictures and antiques the turbulent and opulent life of the miners and their families on the Comstock.
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