CHAPTER XXX.

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.]