thumb|300px|"Mining on the Comstock", depicts the headframes and mills of the various mines, and the mining technology used at Comstock, most prominently the method of square-set timbering developed there to work the veins.

thumb|300px|Comstock Lode geologic map, north. Ophir is in the top center; "qz" is quartz and signifies the Comstock Lode.

thumb|300px|Comstock Lode geologic map, south. Gold Hill is in the center left; "dt" is diorite and "hI" is andesite. Hosea injured his foot and died of [[sepsis in 1857. In an effort to raise funds, Allen, accompanied by an associate, Richard Maurice Bucke, Bucke lived, but upon his recovery returned to his home in Canada.

When Comstock learned of the death of the Grosh brothers, he claimed the cabin and the lands as his own. He also examined the contents of the trunk but thought nothing of the documents as he was not an educated man. What he did know is that the gold and the silver ore samples were from the same vein. He continued to seek out diggings of local miners working in the area, as he knew the Grosh brothers' find was still unclaimed. Upon learning of a strike on Gold Hill which uncovered some bluish rock (silver ore), Comstock immediately filed for an unclaimed tract directly adjacent to this area.

Gold Hill Discovery

Four miners discovered the Gold Hill outcropping, at the head of Gold Canyon, making placer claims after finding traces of gold on January 28, 1859. They were James Finney ("Old Virginny"; a contemporary rumor was that he changed his name from Fennimore to Finney after murdering a man), John Bishop ("Big French John"), Aleck Henderson, and Jack Yount.

These claims were followed by claims from Lemuel S. "Sandy" Bowers (see Bowers Mansion), Joseph Plato, Henry Comstock, James Rogers, and William Knight. In the spring of 1859, after digging down to a depth of about ten feet, they found a gold-rich reddish quartz vein. Their discovery was actually part of the Comstock Lode, the Old Red Ledge.

Fate of the discoverers

[[File:ComstockShafts.jpg|thumb|300px|North Comstock Lode ore bodies and claims: south (left) to north (right), Potosi, Chollar, Hale & Norcross, Savage, Gould & Curry, Best & Belcher, Con. Virginia, California, Ophir, Mexican, Union and Sierra Nevada, the last three not depicted.

Innovations and development

Mining

thumb|right|Bonner Shaft, Gould & Curry Mine, 1874

The ore was first extracted through surface diggings, but these were quickly exhausted and miners had to tunnel underground to reach ore bodies. Unlike most silver ore deposits, which occur in long thin veins, those of the Comstock Lode occurred in discrete masses often hundreds of feet thick. Sometimes, the ore was so soft it could be removed by shovel. Although this allowed the ore to be easily excavated, the weakness of the surrounding rock resulted in frequent and deadly cave-ins. The excavations were carried to depths of more than 3,200 feet (1,000 m) (eventually, after years of work).

The cave-in problem was solved by the method of square set timbering invented by Philip Deidesheimer, It is estimated eighty million feet of timber and lumber annually were consumed in the Comstock. Lumber and cord wood were harvested with little regard for impact, for housing, commercial building, heating, and steam boilers at sawmills and ore mills. Teams also hauled over the Sierra all the mining machinery, all supplies required by both mines and mills, as well as goods and merchandise needed by the stores and businesses. Each team hauled trains of two to four wagon loads. When the large reduction works of the Ophir Mining Company were in peak operation, lines of teams from one to three miles (5 km) in length moved along the wagon roads, and sometimes blocked Virginia City streets for hours.

From 1859 to 1868, great quantities of goods were transported across the Sierra to and from California on the backs of mules. When the Central Pacific Railroad line was completed to the Truckee Meadows, this hauling was bi-directional from Reno to Virginia City via the Geiger Grade wagon road, for transfer to rail for delivery to points east and west. Peak production from the Comstock occurred in 1877, with the mines producing over $14,000,000 of gold and $21,000,000 of silver that year (about $ and $ today).

The greatest depth reached, in 1884, was by the Ophir-Mexican winze at below the surface. Production from Comstock mines from 1859 to 1878 was $320,000,000, with a net profit of $55,000,000, most of that in the 1870s. The bonanza period was at an end by 1880. the largest in the world at the time, and drove a tunnel 9,585 feet from the mill under Gold Hill. The economics of this project were tenuous, and with a drop in silver prices, it closed in 1924.

  • Arizona Comstock Company in 1933 began underground mining through the Hale & Norcross tunnel, followed quickly by a surface mine known as the Loring Cut and located across from the Fourth Ward School. Arizona Comstock processed its ore at a 330-ton-per-day flotation plant located near the Hale & Norcross portal, but the flotation method alone turned out to be relatively ineffective at recovering Comstock gold and silver and this operation shut down by 1938. of Virginia City, Nevada, which has consolidated control of approximately 70% of Comstock mining claims. On September 30, 2012, Comstock Mining Inc. returned gold and silver production to the Comstock with its first pour of doré bullion and continues surface mining in lower Gold Hill.

Legacy

Nevada is commonly called the "Silver State" because of the silver produced from the Comstock Lode. However, since 1878, Nevada has been a relatively minor silver producer, with most subsequent bonanzas consisting of more gold than silver. In 1900, Jim Butler discovered Nevada's second largest silver strike in Tonopah, Nevada. Nevada is currently ranked as the second largest producer of silver in the United States. Nevada's leading silver producer is the Rochester Mine in Pershing County. This mine ranks behind the Greens Creek mine in Alaska, the largest producer of silver in the US.

According to Dan De Quille, a journalist of the period, "the discovery of silver undoubtedly deserves to rank in merit above the discovery of the gold mines of California, as it gives value to a much greater area of territory and furnishes employment to a much larger number of people".

The latter quarter of the nineteenth century and first decade of the twentieth employed miners and mining technology invented on the Comstock, throughout various other mining camps in the west. Deep underground, hard rock mining was a constantly evolving development for the miners and their companies, and the tactics developed on the Comstock became famous within the mining industry, worldwide.

Two U.S. Navy ships have been named for the Comstock Lode. The first was the USS Comstock (LSD-19) which was launched in 1945 and the second is the USS Comstock (LSD-45) which was launched in 1988.

Fortunes made

Four Irishmen, John William Mackay, James Graham Fair, James C. Flood and William S. O'Brien formed a business partnership in 1869 known as the "Bonanza Firm", which dealt in silver-mining shares, and controlled and ran a number of Comstock mines over the years, notably the Consolidated Virginia Mining Company. These four men were among the "Bonanza Kings" or "Silver Kings" of the Comstock.

William Chapman Ralston, founder of the Bank of California, financed several mining operations, repossessed some of those mines as their owners defaulted, and ultimately made enormous profits from the Comstock Lode.

William Sharon, a business partner of Ralston, was the Nevada agent for the Bank of California, and acquired Ralston's assets when his financial empire collapsed. William Sharon became the second United States Senator from Nevada.

In 1939 the arts section of the Federal Works Agency invited California artist Ejnar Hansen to create a mural for the newly completed post office building in Lovelock, Nevada, as part of the New Deal program. After a visit to the former mining town, Hansen chose the discovery of the lode as a suitable local subject, treating it in the style of modified realism favored by the Agency. Once his canvas was installed over an interior doorway, it was widely admired for its authenticity, especially by miners and prospectors with experience of the desert locale.

In fiction

  • Bonanza season 1, episode 9 (1959), titled "The Henry Comstock Story", recounts a fanciful tale of Mr. Comstock, portraying him as a P. T. Barnum–like conman.
  • In Deadwood season 2, various episodes (2005), several characters, including Whitney Ellsworth and Francis Wolcott, are portrayed as knowing one another from "The Comstock". Additionally, the Francis Wolcott character is portrayed as a mineralogist working for George Hearst.

See also

  • Silver mining in Nevada

References

Bibliography

  • Bush, Don. "Nevada and the Comstock Lode". 1992. March 10, 2007 <www.vcnevada.com/history.htm>.
  • "Comstock Lode". Britannica. Ed. Jacob E. Safra. 15th ed. Vol. 3. London: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1998. 551.
  • "Comstock Lode". Encyclopedia Americana. Ed. Wayne Gard. International ed. Vol. 7. Richmond: Grolier Incorporated Inc., 1988. 494.
  • "Comstock Lode". Grolier Online Encyclopedia. Ed. Elliott West. Washington, 1997.
  • "Comstock Lode". World Book. Ed. Stephan A. Erickson. Vol. 4. Chicago: World Book, Inc., 1988. 926.
  • Edward S. Barnard. The Gold Rush in America. New York: The Reader's Digest Association Inc., 1977.
  • Highfill, John. The U. S. Silver Dollar Encyclopedia. 4, 65–66, 73, 86, 143, 640, 920.
  • Kyle, Stacy. The Gold Rush in America. London: Troll Association Inc., 1998.
  • , Nevada Historical Marker 13
  • Virginia City, Nevada official site
  • Guide to the Manuscripts and Notes Chiefly Concerning the Comstock Lode, 1859-1936 at The Bancroft Library