the comstock: economic history of mining bonanza - Inside My Desk

THE 

COMSTOCK: 

ECONOMIC 

HISTORY 

OF 

MINING 

BONANZA 

1865-1885 

RICHARD LYLE GARNER 

COPYRIGHT 2009

RICHARD LYLE GARNER 

Resident of Ann Arbor, Mi. 

Graduate of: 

AB Drew University, 1957 

MA University Of Pittsburgh, 1960 

PhD University of Michigan, 1970 

Web Pages: 

www.insidemydesk.com 

www.insidemyrightbrain.com 

www.comstockhistory.com 

Email: 

richlygarner@gmail.com 

Select Published Articles and Books: 

1980 "Silver Production and Entrepreneurial Structure in Eighteenth-Century Mexico," 

Jahrbuch für Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas, 17, 157-185. 

1985 and William Taylor, eds., Iberian Colonies, New World Societies: Essays in Memory of 

Charles Gibson. State College, PA: Privately published. 

1985 "Price Trends in Eighteenth-Century Mexico," Hispanic American Historical Review, 

65:2, 279-326. 

1988 "Long-Term Silver Mining Trends in Spanish America: A Comparative Analysis of Peru 

and Mexico," American Historical Review, 93:4, 889-914. 

1990 "Prices and Wages in Eighteenth-Century Mexico," in Lyman Johnson and Enrique 

Tandeter, eds., Essays on the Price History of Eighteenth-Century Latin America. Albuquerque, NM: 

University of New Mexico Press, 73-108. 

1993 with Spiro Stefanou. Economic Growth and Change in Bourbon Mexico. Gainesville, FL: 

University Press of Florida. 

1997 "Prices and the Economic History of Colonial Mexico," in Alain Musset and Thomas 

Calvo, eds., Des Indes occidentales á l'Amérique latine: à Jean-Pierre Berthe. 2 vols. Fontenay-aux- 

Roses (France): ENS Éditions Fontenay/Saint-Cloud, 439-452. Series: Sociétés, Espaces, Temps. 

On-Line Essays at www.historydatadesk.com 

2007 Late Colonial Price Trends in Selected Latin American Cities 

2007 Mining Trends in the New World 1500-1810. 

2006 Where Did the Silver Go 

Current Project: 

To Rule Oneself: Self-Government in Antebellum America

i 

Preface 

This book is an extension of research that I have done for 40 years on the colonial 

economies of Latin America. In the 1960s I wrote a dissertation on the Mexican mining 

town of Zacatecas in the eighteenth century. After that I began research on the 

eighteenth-century Mexico economy in which mining figured prominently. In retirement 

and living as a “ski bum” at Lake Tahoe I visited the University of Nevada at Reno 

Library one afternoon out curiosity as to what holdings it had in Latin American colonial 

history. A random decision to type mining records into the computerized catalog yielded 

page after page of archival materials housed in Special Collections. That is how my 

research on the Comstock began. I knew nothing about the Comstock except that many 

years before I had purchased and skimmed Mark Twain’s Roughing It. Through no fault 

of Samuel Clemens his writing about the Comstock left no impression. I was preoccupied 

with other things. As I studied the computer screens, I absorbed by so many references to 

mining company accounts. For those who are not familiar with Spanish colonial mining, 

company accounts simply do not exist. Almost all the published research on colonial 

mining is based on the public record, which is voluminous because mining, although a 

private enterprise for the most part, were heavily regulated and taxed. Information 

specifically on mining operations at the company or individual level is seldom found 

independent of the public record. But according to the catalog the surviving archives 

contained many company accounts. I promptly made my way to the second floor and the 

home of Special Collections, introduced myself and thus began what has proven to be an 

almost serendipitous journey that inheres in this book. 

Economic history has many faces. What has interested over my career and what interests 

me with respect to the Comstock is economic performance. It is well known that very few 

Comstock companies despite capital inflows in the tens of millions of dollars actually 

attained a level of profitability that these inflows would suggest. Mining as practiced on 

the Comstock (and in many colonial silver camps like Zacatecas and Potosí or in the gold 

rush of California) produced enormous wealth, but the control and disposition of that 

wealth did not necessarily redound to the community that produced it. From an 

operational standpoint, mining has a highly local character. The act of extracting and 

processing ores in the quantities realized on the Comstock requires nothing less than a 

community. Plants must be built, workers must be housed and feed and regulations must 

be impose. But the ores that are mined and milled have an international character. They 

seldom remain in the community except to a modest degree to compensate workers and 

to pay for imported goods or to underwrite expansion.

ii 

Acknowledgements 

Many individuals and institutions assisted me in this research. Most of the research was 

carried out in the large mining archives at Special Collections in the University of 

Nevada-Reno Library. Robert Blesse and his staff were always amiable and efficient 

despite the hundreds of requests I submitted in assembling the material for this book. I 

also want to thank the staff at the Nevada State Library and Archives. My knowledge of 

the early territorial and state governments was nil when I started this project, and they 

generously tutored me in how these governments were organized and where I might find 

pertinent documents in their large archives. The Nevada Historical Society also has 

important documents concerning the Comstock period including a long run of The 

Territorial Enterprise and other newspapers. While I made a conscious decision not to 

base this study on newspaper accounts to the extent that other writers have used them, I 

am grateful to the staff in assisting with a search of the manuscript records. I owe a debt 

of gratitude to the staffs of the Bancroft Library at the University of California at 

Berkeley, the United State Archives in San Bruno, California, and the Huntingdon 

Library in San Marino, California, for giving me excellent guidance in how to find 

pertinent materials during visits of no more than a couple of days. I want to pay special 

tribute to the office staff of the Story County Assessor’s Office in Virginia City, Nevada. 

They assisted me ably in locating the actual tax ledgers (post-fire 1875) and in explaining 

how assessments and taxes were levied. Several faculty members at the University of 

Nevada-Reno with expertise in geological and mining matters generously took time to 

answer my emails about the Comstock, and while I tried to be a diligent student 

concerning these matters, I realize that I may have failed the test. This manuscript was 

written far away from the Comstock in Paris, France. Jean-Jacques and Chantal 

Bouquier, the landlords of the furnished apartment that I rented, were attentive to what 

every writer in this day and age needs, access to the Internet, quiet and comfortable 

conditions, information about the best bakeries, markets and restaurants and above all 

invitations to join them for occasional apéritifs after too many hours in front of the 

computer screen. Like my French friends I too had a café – Café des Philosophes on rue 

Vieille du Temple, 4th Arrondissement – that I walked to most every evening for an espresso 

and perhaps a repast. All the serveurs and hostesses made my visits so comfortable and 

pleasant that the I never dreaded the prospect of facing another day of composing, 

rewriting, calculating or just staring blankly into space. Despite so much support and 

attention, however, I alone must assume responsibility for the errors in this book.

iii 

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quoting from it.

THE COMSTOCK [A] 

1 

Chapter 1 

The Nation Perspective in Post-Civil-War America: 

Economic Growth, Coinage Questions, Monetary Policy 

The quest for precious metals is as old as civilization itself. Its modern phase started with 

the discoveries of gold and silver after the Spanish Conquest of the New World. From the 

middle of the sixteenth century into the early nineteenth century Spanish and later 

Portuguese mines pumped billions of ounces gold and silver (probably between 125,000 

and 150,000 tons) into the world economies. 1 In the second half of the nineteenth century 

new discoveries in the western United States added hundreds of millions of ounces to the 

world supply of gold and silver. Foremost among those states was Nevada. Although 

mining began there in the 1850s and continues today, its fame rests on a brief but 

spectacular period from 1865-1885. In that period Nevada produced as much as 

$400,000,000 in gold and silver, more than a third of all the gold and silver reported in 

the United States. While mining operations existed in most Nevada counties, a single 

county, Story, accounted for almost 60 percent of Nevada’s output. Concentrated along a 

lode known as the Comstock under the shadow of Mt. Davidson, the boom spawned a 

new and vibrant settlement called Virginia City. In the city under the streets were the 

richest Comstock veins. One company, known as The Firm, through its two operating 

subsidiaries – Consolidated Virginia and California Mining – registered two-thirds of all 

the ore produced along the Comstock. Public pronouncements of untold wealth that could 

be exploited years and decades into the future, based in large part on The Firm’s success, 

proved to be vastly overstated. The boom was confined to a few years, perhaps a decade 

at most; it was over almost as quickly as it began. Mining continues in Nevada more than 

a century after the Comstock boom and has left an indelible imprint on the state’s 

economic landscape. Since the Comstock, however, mining has fallen to a lower rank in 

the state’s economic hierarchy. Without the Comstock it is hard to envision what 

Nevada’s mining legacy would be. 

By all accounts the United States underwent a profound economic change 

between 1800 and 1900. An agrarian-based society was transformed into an industrialbased 

society in the course of the century. One set of figures published by Robert 

Gallman shows that between 1774 and 1909, a long stretch of 135 years, “real gross 

national product [GNP in 1860 dollars] increased about 175-fold, or an average rate of 

3.9 percent per year.” For various short-term GNP estimates between 1859 and 1885 the 

annual rates range from 2.9 percent to 5.6 percent. If real GNP growth rates could be 

calculated solely for the period coinciding with the Comstock era (ca 1859-1885) they 

could fall between 4 and 5 percent a year. 2 The decade of the 1880s witnessed 

1 

Silver registrations are estimated in Richard L. Garner, “Long-Term Silver Mining Trends in Spanish 

America: A Comparative Analysis of Peru and Mexico,” American Historical Review, 93:4 (1988), p. 898. 

The late Professor John TePaske, Duke University, prepared a new comprehensive database of colonial 

gold and silver production in the New World, and the tonnage may be higher than given here. There is no 

way to capture the volume of gold and silver that escaped royal registration. Estimates range from 10 to 50 

percent. Evading the tax collector was not easy but was nonetheless practiced with some skill and success. 

The database is available on-line at www.historydatadesk.com. 

2 

An overview appears in Robert Gallman, “Growth and Change in the Long Nineteenth Century” in 

Stanley Engerman and Robert Gallman, eds., The Long Nineteenth Century, vol. 2 of The Cambridge 

Economic History of the United States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 2-6 and Table 1.3,


2 

exceptionally strong economic growth according to another measure: the “real 

reproducible tangible wealth per head” that rose about 4 percent over the decade. 3 The 

growth in the economy during the second half of the nineteenth century was real and 

significant, but what was its connection, if any, with the West’s major mineral strikes? To 

be sure, in simplest terms, the surge in mining of minerals, first in California and then in 

Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, Montana, etc. added to the national wealth by producing 

metals that entered the currency stream and by doing business – buying supplies, paying 

wages, reinvesting profits. More gold (in U.S. dollars) was mined between 1850 and 

1900 than the world-wide total mined prior to 1850 and perhaps three-fourths as much 

silver. 4 In the United States alone more than a billion ounces of “fine” gold and silver 

worth $2 to 3 billion was produced in the second half of the nineteenth century. 5 Not all 

of this was coined, and part of it was exported. In other words the American consumer 

did not find his pockets jingling or wallets bulging with several billion dollars more in 

coins or notes. Market conditions, international exchange and government policy all 

influenced how a billion new ounces of gold and silver were allotted and utilized within 

the economy. But the fact remained that since a share of the new mineral wealth was 

coined or traded the effect was to replenish and expand the money stock. Indeed the 

money stock nearly tripled in the second half of the nineteenth century. According to 

Friedman and Schwartz (in their later Monetary Statistics of the United States) the money 

National Coinage and Monetary Policy stock in terms of a “consolidated total” that 

included both currency in the public’s hands plus commercial-bank deposits, all 

seasonally adjusted, was about 1.29 billion dollars in the 1860s. A decade later it had 

reached 1.65 billion dollars, although in 1875 it actually exceeded 1.7 billion dollars. 

Finally in the 1880s it doubled to 3.3 billion dollars. With respect to publicly held 

currency its pattern differed from that of the total money stock. In the mid-1860s it 

averaged about 600 million dollars and then declined to about 550 million dollars in the 

mid-1870s. In the early 1880s it jumped sharply to almost 900 million dollars before 

dropping back to slightly under 800 million dollars. 6 Publicly held currency was directly 

dependent on monetary policy, and its decline in the mid 1870s was attributable to the 

Act of 1873 and its rise in the 1880s to the resumption laws of 1878 and 1879. Perhaps 

more importantly even as the western mining boom was unfolding currency was 

occupying an increasingly smaller niche within the total circulating medium, a trend that 

would continue into the twentieth century and would ultimately reduce coins to a minor 

role in the United States economy. But for many citizens and especially for westerners 

who were extracting millions of tons of gold and silver ore each year, minting coins still 

represented the historically-sound standard by which to bolster the national currency. 

especially note following table. Several Gallman publications with more extensive data analysis are listed 

in the note. 

3 

See also by Friedman and Schwartz in Monetary History of the United States, 93, from Historical 

Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington DC, Bureau of the Census, 1960), 

Series K-1 and K-4, 276, 

4 

These figures are from many different sources and do not always agree. The reason that silver did not 

exceed pre-1850 totals was the enormous output of Spanish-American silver between 1500 and 1800. 

5 

These are estimates based on data from Laughlin, History of Bimetallism in the United States, Appendix 

1. 

6 

Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz, Monetary Statistics of the United States. Estimates, Sources, 

Methods (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research and Columbia University Press, 1970), 61- 

63.


3 

For the average reader monetary histories can be daunting. Citizens spend dollars 

every day but have little understanding of or interest in how money is created or how it is 

valued. In nineteenth-century America the money stock consisted mainly of gold and 

silver coins along with some state and national bank notes. Paper currency then was less 

widely used and trusted than today. Since notes could be discounted at the time of a 

purchase or transfer, those holding them in effect paid more. Coins were preferred to 

notes, but also gold coins were preferred to silver. From time to time prior to the 1870s 

the federal government had minted silver dollars, and nearly all so-called subsidiary coins 

of one dollar or smaller were minted from silver. According to Milton Friedman and 

Anna Schwartz in A Monetary History of the United States, however, “the silver dollar 

had not been in circulation since 1836, and was an unknown coin to Americans” in the 

middle decades of the nineteenth century. 7 This did not mean that silver dollars ceased to 

be coined; rather they ceased to circulate. They were stored in federal vaults or used in 

foreign transactions. The main reason for this was that the market price of silver was 

higher than its mint price. In other words one would do better to sell silver on the open 

market than to sell it to the federal mint. Not surprisingly, as silver output grew in the 

second half of the nineteenth century so too did pressure grow for the national 

government to increase the mintage of silver. 

Two monetary historians – W. A. Shaw and J. Lawrence Laughlin – from the late 

nineteenth century collected and published figures on gold and silver coinage at the 

federal mint. 8 Their series, to be discussed below, are identical with regard to the total 

coinage. Laughlin, however, distinguished between silver-dollar coins and subsidiary 

silver coins: half and quarter dollars, dimes and half dimes (today’s nickel) and other 

minor coins. The importance of this distinction is that while silver dollars could be 

legally coined (“free coinage” according Laughlin) between 1793 and 1873, only 8 

percent ($8 million) of the silver coined was in dollars and the remainder in subsidiary 

coins. In addition his data revealed that no “silver dollars” were minted between 1806 

and 1835 and only slightly more than 6.5 million dollars worth were minted between 

1835 and 1873. The absence of silver dollars in day-to-day business apparently did not 

create any serious currency shortages. 9 In light of the absence of circulating silver dollars 

Congress in 1873 passed with little opposition an act to “demonetize” silver dollars. That 

meant that the US Mint was not permitted either on private or public accounts to coin any 

silver dollars. 10 Europe had given up on bimetallism, and now the United States joined 

the fold. Silver coins under one dollar could be minted as well as something called silver 

trading dollars to be used for transactions abroad, mainly in the Far East. 11 As noted 

7 

Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States 1867-1960 (Princeton, NJ: 

Princeton University Press, 1963), 114. Excerpts of the various currency laws were published in J. 

Laurence Laughlin, The History Bimetallism in the United States (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 

1900), 300-311. 

8 

W. A. Shaw, The History of Currency 1252 to 1984… (London: Wilson & Milne, 1900), 265-266 and 

Laughlin, History Bimetallism in the United States, 338-340. 

9 

Shaw, History of Currency, 260. Friedman and Schwartz’ data on money stocks tend to bear out this 

observation by Shaw. 

10 

Relevant excerpts of the act appear in Laughlin, History of Bimetallism in the United States, 304-305. 

11 

Friedman and Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States 1867-1960, 114-115. Friedman and 

Schwartz discuss the role of silver trading dollars in the US economy in footnote 37, pp. 113-114. In


4 

above, the difference between the market and coin value of silver made the silver dollar 

an unpopular choice. 

Then came a reversal in national policy with the passage of the Bland-Allison Act 

in 1878. Ironically the decade of bimetallism came after the boom in Nevada and 

Virginia City. The accompanying charts show that up to 1878 silver coinage except for 

subsidiary coins was manifestly unimportant in the national currency. After 1878 with the 

resumption of coinage of silver through 1890 the volume of silver currency shot up more 

than ten-fold from a few million dollars per year to tens of million. In a few of those 

years silver coinage exceeded gold coinage. The “goldbugs” mounted a successful attack 

on the Sherman Act, which was repealed shortly after it was passed. The nation virtually 

abandoned bimetallism again, even though the “silverites” continued to press for the 

“free and unlimited coinage of silver” and a restoration of bimetallism. Over the long 

term despite great silver discoveries in Nevada, Colorado and other western states, 

discoveries that fired the imagination of Mark Twain and opened the wallets of San 

Francisco speculators, silver played second fiddle to gold. Silver only accounted for 685 

million dollars or 28 percent of a total coinage of 2.4 billion dollars from 1793 to 1895. 

FIGURE 1 

COINAGE IN THE UNITED STATES MINTS, 1793-1895 

Gold Silver Total 

Dollars $1,755,813,763.00. $685,023,431.00 $2,440,843,544.00 

% 71.93 28.07 100.00 

Growth Rate /Year 8.25% 5.11% 6.69% 

R 2 .76 .68 .85 

Silver producers and their supporters complained that by the “Crime of 1873” the 

gold advocates had robbed the industry and the nation of a new and important source of 

wealth that could stimulate growth and ensure prosperity. Silver proponents under the 

leadership of Congressman Richard Bland from Missouri pushed through Congress the 

Bland-Allison Act in 1878 (and a revision in 1879). This Act restored bimetallism to the 

nation’s currency system. While it did not allow for the “free and unlimited” coinage of 

silver, as some had demanded, it did authorize and direct the Secretary of the Treasury to 

purchase not less than 2 million dollars worth of silver bullion and not more than 4 

million dollars per month. If carried out every month at the maximum level the US 

Treasury would buy enough silver to mint just under 50 million silver dollars. In fact 

silver coinage in the decade following Bland-Allison was about 30 million dollars 

annually, although the Treasury may well have bought more silver than it had coined. 

From the bullion the US Mint was authorized to coin silver dollars of 371.25 grains pure 

silver (412.50 grains standard silver). These silver dollars could circulate as “legal tender, 

at their nominal value, for all debts and dues, public and private” unless stated otherwise 

in legal contracts. 12 The law did not permit owners of silver to convert their bullion 

directly into coin. Rather they sold their bullion to the Treasury at the market price of 

California trading dollars helped to facilitate commercial transactions between the West Coast and the Far 

East. In regions outside California minor coins could be scarce, and currency speculators and money 

brokers found ways to inject trading dollars into local economies. 

12 

Laughlin, History of Bimetallism in the United States, 307-308.


5 

silver. The market price of silver dropped sharply as the output of silver rose after 1873. 

Monetary policy changes may also have contributed to the declining market price. From 

1834 through 1873 the average market price for pure silver of 371.25 grains was $1.0236; 

a year late the price had declined to $0.9898 and by 1886 to $0.7690. 13 That was a 25- 

percent decrease in a dozen years. On average during these years the mint paid about 90 

cents for an ounce of silver and then returned a coin marked “one dollar” even though the 

silver was worth about 10 percent less than that. In many transactions the silver dollar 

was discounted to take into account the difference between the market and nominal 

values of the coin. Also because of the weight of silver dollars, the law also permitted the 

government to issue silver certificates that traded like silver dollars with some additional 

restrictions. Finally the law permitted the continued coinage of subsidiary coins (under 

$1.00). An important underlying consideration is that the law fixed the weights of gold 

and silver coins and therefore the ratios between the two metals. Thus, resumption of 

coinage of silver placed the United States squarely in the camp of bimetallism. In short, 

producers had won a new outlet for the white metal but at some cost – they sold bullion 

for less than the face value of the silver dollar, and they received coins that the market 

deemed to be worth less than the stated value with the result that silver coins and 

certificates might be discounted in commercial transactions. 

FIGURE 2 


$140,000,000 

$120,000,000 

$100,000,000 

Dollars 

$80,000,000 

$60,000,000 

$40,000,000 

R² = 0.65 

R² = 0.54 

R² = 0.46 

$20,000,000 

$0 

1797 1803 1809 1815 1821 1827 1833 1839 1845 1851 1857 1863 1869 1875 1881 1887 1893 

1794 1800 1806 1812 1818 1824 1830 1836 1842 1848 1854 1860 1866 1872 1878 1884 1890 

Years 

Notes: Red=Total Coinage; Blue=Gold Coinage; Orange=Silver Coinage. 

13 

Laughlin, History of Bimetallism in the United States, 297.


6 

Dollars - Semi-Log 

1000000000 

100000000 

10000000 

1000000 

Notes: Y-Scale is semi-log. 

FIGURE 3 


(SEMI-LOG) 

100000 

10000 

1000 

100 

10 

1 

1797 1803 1809 1815 1821 1827 1833 1839 1845 1851 1857 1863 1869 1875 1881 1887 1893 

1794 1800 1806 1812 1818 1824 1830 1836 1842 1848 1854 1860 1866 1872 1878 1884 1890 

Years 

Mining of precious metals, in particular silver, did not stop because Congress 

outlawed the minting of silver dollars. Figure 2 shows the nominal yearly figures for 

gold, silver and total, while Figure 3 shows the annual total on a logarithmic scale. The 

purpose of Figure 3 is to illustrate that in relative terms coinage climbed steadily until the 

third quarter when it reached a plateau before moving higher again in the fourth quarter. 

It is noteworthy, of course, that the third quarter with such high silver production was 

also the quarter of static mintage output. Figure 2 illustrates quite clearly that total 

coinage had three sharp peaks between 1850 and 1880. The first around 1850 coincides 

with gold discoveries in California, the second around 1860 coincides with further 

discoveries of gold and silver in the western states or territories like Nevada and finally 

the third around 1880 coincides with the passage of Bland-Allison and in the waning 

period of the Comstock bonanza. With the first two peaks coinage shot up and then fell 

back over a two- to four-year cycle. Silver had an inauspicious role in the first two runups 

for the reason cited above – silver was not a highly valued coin. Those peaks were 

largely a function of gold production. The third peak is different in that it was reached 

after a decade in which coinage climbed somewhat irregularly from 20 million dollars per 

year to 120 million dollars before declining to about half the high. In this run-up post- 

1878 silver played a much larger role. If unacquainted with silver coins prior to 1880, 

Americans become fully acquainted with them after 1880. After Bland-Addison the U. S. 

Treasury purchased gold and silver to be minted into coins; prior to that it bought 

primarily gold. Between 1873 and 1878, however, Congress enacted almost annually 

laws that authorized the U. S. Treasury to purchase a quantity of silver to replace 

fractional coins and paper notes. That the Treasury enforced these provisions became 

evident in the coinage series from 1875 to 1878. The quantity of subsidiary silver coins 

(no silver dollars were coined) rose from 5 to 6 million dollars to 20 to 25 million


7 

dollars. 14 That would not absorb all the silver being produced. The question arises: what 

happened to all the silver that was mined before 1878? The answer is that tens of millions 

of dollars in silver were exported, mainly to Europe but also to Asia. In other words silver 

bullion had value in other commercial arenas even though it could not circulate on par 

with gold in the United States. 15 Mining, especially the mining of silver, would have 

ceased without an outlet for bullion. Although the transactions were complex and 

probably little understood by the average miner, a mechanism had evolved for the 

disposition of gold and silver, albeit different for each metal. 

14 

Laughlin, History of Bimetallism in the United States, 304-306, 339. 

15 

Currency movements cannot be fully understood in the absence of discussions about macroeconomic 

matters such as price, international trade and seasonal and cyclical factors. See Friedman and Schwartz, 

Monetary History of the United States, 113-122.

THE COMSTOCK [B] 

1 

Chapter 2 

The Nevada Perspective in Post-Civil-War America: 

Overview of Nevada Mining, Geology of Comstock Lode 

The discovery of ore during the late 1850s in the western part of the Idaho territory laid 

the foundation for America’s second mining boom. The first boom, a decade earlier, was 

the California gold rush, and the second was the Comstock, which yielded up both gold 

and silver. President James Buchanan had signed the bill that created the Nevada 

Territory in March 1861. By 1863 with 10,000 to 15,000 residents Nevadans voted 

overwhelmingly for statehood in spite of the fact that the Congress failed to pass an 

enabling act. A state constitution was written in late 1863, but it failed to win ratification. 

Faced with an uncertain presidential election in 1864 Abraham Lincoln and the 

Republicans urged several western territories to apply for statehood. Only Nevada 

completed the process. A new constitution was approved in September 1864, and Nevada 

officially entered the Union in October 1864 in time to participate in the November 

presidential election and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment. 1 It is unlikely, of 

course, that Nevada’s rapid progress toward statehood would have occurred without the 

mining boom no matter how compelling the election calculus might have been. 

By the middle of the 1860s when the territory become a state hundreds of mining 

claims had been registered across the state. In his 1865 Report to the 3 rd Session of the 

Legislature (1867) the Surveyor-General (then responsible for gathering information 

about mining) made the following observations: 

From this discovery [i. e. Comstock] resulted the marvelous growth of 

Nevada. Immediately the lode was claimed for miles; an unparalleled 

excitement followed, and miners and capitalists came in great numbers to 

reap a share of the reported wealth. The few hardy prospectors, exploring 

the mountains for hidden wealth, soon counted their neighbors by 

thousands, soon walked along miles of busy streets called into existence 

by the throng of adventurers, and soon prospectors were ransacking almost 

every part of the State (at present) of Nevada in search of silver lodes. 2 

Nevada had other noteworthy discoveries during the 1850s and 1860s but none 

comparable to the Comstock. The Surveyor-General’s 1866 Report presented to the same 

3 rd Session (1867) of the Legislature identified more than 40 operations with claims along 

the Comstock. Although only about half of the claims were productive, they included the 

well-known companies of Gould & Curry, Savage, Hale & Norcross, Yellow Jacket and 

Crown Point, all of which would participate in the Comstock boom of the next decade. 3 

1 

James W. Hulse, The Silver State, Nevada’s Heritage Reinterpreted, 2 nd edition (Reno & Las Vegas: 

University of Nevada Press, 1998), 74-84. 

2 

“Annual Report of the Surveyor-General of the State of Nevada for the Year 1865” in Journal of the 

Senate and Appendix, 3 rd Legislative Session (1867), 20. 

3 

“Annual Report of the Surveyor-General of the State of Nevada for the Year 1866” in Journal of the 

Senate and Appendix, 3 rd Legislative Session (1867), a fold-out before p. 29. Also a list of mills in Story 

and Lyon Counties.


2 

From the earliest days of statehood the mining industry figured prominently in 

government planning at the state and the local level. For a decade or more the most 

prominent mining official was the Mineralogist. The first Mineralogist was appointed for 

the biennium, 1864-1865, even though the Office of the Mineralogist was not established 

by law until 1866. In 1869 the Legislature changed the office from appointive to elective, 

effective in 1871. As a cost-cutting measure it abolished the office in 1877, effective 

1878. 4 Once the Mineralogist was appointed he instead of the Surveyor-General was 

responsible for keeping the Legislature informed about the mining industry. He collected 

data on revenues, costs and yields, on future discoveries, on new technologies and on 

special circumstances affecting individual mining districts. In addition to the 

Mineralogist’s reports, the Controller, as Nevada’s chief auditor, collected data on ore 

production. Each quarter he received reports and revenues from county assessors who 

were directly responsible for assessing and collecting taxes on mineral output within their 

counties. The quarterly report known as an “Abstract Statement” contained information 

on ore tonnage, yields, costs and net value for operations of individual companies. That 

information was then published for each county in the Controller’s biennial reports to the 

Legislature. His statistics had a more consistent and systematic character than the 

Mineralogist’s statistics, and therefore they have become the basis for the analysis of the 

numeric series on ore production in the discussion that follows. 5 

FIGURE 1 

TONS BY PERCENTAGES BY COUNTY, 1867-1885 

White Pine 

3.22% 

Washoe 

0.37% 

Churchill 

0.03% 

Elko 

1.06% 

Esmeralda 

3.84% 

Eureka 

8.87% 

Humboldt 

2.06% 

Lander 

1.74% 

Lincoln 

4.55% 

Story 

58.50% 

O rmsby 

1.77% 

Lyon 

12.21% 

Nye 

1.79% 

A further word about Nevada’s tax system may be useful in regard to these data. 

How to raise enough revenue to launch the new state and in particular to build the 

infrastructure across such an arid and rugged terrain was a continuing challenge for local 

and state government. Not surprisingly during the boom years mining assessments added 

substantial funds to government coffers. These receipts were allotted by formula to state 

4 

Statutes, 1866, State of Nevada, Chapter CVI, 206 and Statutes, 1877, Chapter XIX, 59. 

5 

The Biennial Reports (actually two Annual Reports) of the Controller appear in the Appendices of the 

Legislative Reports from the 3 rd Legislative Session (1867) through the 13 th Legislative Session (1887). I 

have used the Reports on file at the Nevada State Archives and Library.


3 

and county governments. In addition both the county and the municipality assessed the 

value of property owned by mining and milling companies. None of the revenue from the 

property tax, so far as I could determine, entered the state treasury. Given the magnitude 

of the boom on the Comstock the governments of Virginia City, Story County and 

Nevada earned hundreds of thousands of dollars per year from the mining assessments 

and property taxes. They may also have had substantial expenses with in-migration of 

tens of thousands. And then in a matter of a few years, as mining operations fell on hard 

times and both mining and property assessments plummeted, the public coffers were 

drained and not easily replenished. Fewer people, of course, required fewer services, but 

the remaining revenues were barely sufficient to maintain minimal public services and 

cover whatever debt service remained from the boom years. 

FIGURE 2 

TONS, STATE & STORY COUNTY, 1867-1885 

1200000 

1000000 

Nevada 

Story 

800000 

600000 

400000 

200000 

0 

Two components of the quarterly assessment statements - total tons and values – 

provide the foundation for the construction of the database on ore production at the 

Comstock and in Nevada. 6 Across the state the reported tonnage of extracted ore plus 

tailings between 1867 (the first year with usable data) and 1885 was 11.6 million for an 

average of 610,000 tons each year. Not surprisingly, almost 60 percent of the total 

6 

In following chapters I will examine the mining assessments in greater detail. Here I am interested in 

presenting some totals for individual counties based upon reports to the State Controller. The Controllers’ 

annual reports to the biennial Legislative sessions were broken down into quarters. The last or eighth 

quarter of a biennium (October-December) was not included because the data were not yet available for the 

Legislative session that began in January of the next year. The final quarter of the previous biennium would 

be the first quarter of the next biennial report. For example, for the 5 th Biennial Legislative Session, starting 

in January 1871, the quarterly reports ran from the fourth quarter of 1868 through the third quarter of 1870. 

In order to create annual figures, I have reorganized all quarterly reports into conventional twelve-month, 

January-to-December calendar years. Therefore, I could not use the totals from the Controllers’ Reports. 

Some of the Controllers’ Reports had inaccurate quarterly totals so that all the figures from the quarterly 

totals to the annual totals have been recalculated. My series from the Controllers’ Reports will not agree 

with other published series based also on the Controllers’ Reports.


4 

tonnage came from Story County. The next three largest county producers were Lyon 

(next to Story), Eureka and Lincoln, but their total share was barely half of Story’s. 

Figure 1 shows the percentage of ore extracted in tons for each county during the twenty 

years. Extracted ore contained a mixture of gold and silver, and while the proportions 

varied from county to county and mine to mine, a common ratio was 40 percent gold to 

60 percent silver. About half of the total tonnage - between 800,000 and 900,000 tons per 

year – was extracted between 1872 and 1878, which, as Figure 2 illustrates, coincided 

more or less with the bonanza on the Comstock. 7 Tonnage figures reveal a more dynamic 

state-wide mining industry than might be deduced from percentages alone. In the late 

1860s nearly all the recorded tons came from Story County. As other counties reported 

more and more discoveries, however, Story’s share dropped below 60 percent by 1873. 

The Comstock bonanza pushed Story’s percentage back up over 60 percent through 1877 

and as high as 73 percent in 1876. From 1878 through 1885 Story’s share fell again and 

more sharply than before. It reached a low of 27 percent in 1881 before recovering 

somewhat to 53 percent by 1885. As important as Story County was to Nevada mining 

from 1865 to 1885, it was not the only county to post impressive discoveries and yields. 

Although Story County was never seriously challenged in terms of total tonnage, its 

success combined with that of several other counties served to ignite an enthusiasm 

among public officials and private investors for a bright, long future in mining. Just as the 

Comstock boom was short-lived so too were booms in other areas. The rapid ascent and 

the equally rapid descent of Comstock production in the 1870s might well have been 

ample warning of mining’s vicissitudes, but they went unheeded in part because other 

districts showed promise even to the extent of not just supplementing but supplanting the 

Comstock. Of course mining booms have always had a way of distorting the future. 

Tonnage of ore extracted indicated the size of the mineral field but did indicate 

the quality of the ore. The value of ore per ton was recorded in the company’s ledgers, in 

the assessor’s ledgers and in the mint’s ledgers. Indeed the tax collected by various 

agencies was levied in terms of value per ton. 8 The more gold and silver to be extracted 

from a ton of ore the more value that ton had. The range was huge, from a hundred 

dollars or more to a few dollars per ton. If the ore body was simply “streaked” with gold 

and silver, then it was worth far less per ton. When Figure 2 and Figure 4 are compared, 

the difference is immediately apparent. Tonnage remains at 800,000 or above per year 

from 1872 through 1878, but value climbs from $25,000,000 to $45,000,000 per year in 

the same period. What accounts for the upswing in value as well as tonnage in the middle 

1870s was the discovery, primarily under Virginia City, of ore bodies that were measured 

in hundreds of cubic feet and were packed with gold and silver. Once these bodies were 

extracted and no others like them were found, the Comstock bonanza came to an end. 

Figure 5 is based on an average yield per ton for all Nevada districts. From 1875 through 

1778 yield per ton exceeded $40. For the remaining years it fluctuated between $15 and 

$40 per ton. Between 1866 and 1885 the nearly 12 million tons equaled about $400 

7 

It should be pointed out that to get this much ore required removal of great quantities of dirt, rock, clay, 

etc. to reach the veins. 

8 

The law contains a complicated formula that will be discussed in chapters ahead. For the text of the law, 

see M. S. Bonnifield and T. W. Healy, compilers, The Compiled Laws of the State of Nevada Embracing 

Statutes of 1861 to 1873, Inclusive, 2 vols (Carson City, Charles A. V. Putnam, 1873), Chapter C, Section 

3245, Section 1.


5 

million for an average of just under $20 million per year. If converted to current dollars 

the output would be between $7 and $8 billion dollars. Nevada’s production curve clearly 

shows the role played by rising and falling values per ton. 

120% 

FIGURE 3 

PERCENTAGE OF TONS IN STORY & OTHER COUNTIES 

100% 

80% 

60% 

40% 

20% 

0% 

Other 

Story 

It is important to recall that these were the values reported by the companies 

based on an inflated formula of the worth of silver. From 1873 to 1878 silver could not be 

coined. Most of the silver ore presented to the mint was returned as silver bullion and 

then exported. For accounting purposes, however, it was entered into the company 

accounts at $1.2929 per ounce. That was about 25 percent more than it was worth on the 

open market. Paradoxically the abundant Comstock discoveries had driven silver prices 

below $1.00 per ounce and as low as 89 cents per ounce after several decades of 

fluctuating narrowly between 1 dollar and 1 dollar and 5 cents. Grant Smith in his wellregarded 

history of the Comstock discounted the value of silver from the standard 

$1.2929 by more than 11 percent to about $1.14 per ounce so that his total values were 

less than those reported by the companies and the Controller. Although the value of the 

ore in the coin could differ from the value of the ore on the market, Smith’s discount was 

still 10 to 15 percent above the market value in any given year. 9 Still for this analysis 

either the reported or the discounted figures serve my purposes, that is, to evaluate the 

trend over the two decades. If we focus on the 15 years from 1870 to 1885, we can easily 

observe that in the last year ore production in both Nevada and Story County had fallen 

below what it was in the initial year. If we accept 1877-1878 as the turning point, we can 

calculate that ore output rose by 14 percent per year from 1870 through 1877 across 

Nevada and by 19 percent per year in Story County. The decline from 1878 through 1885 

9 

Market prices reported in Laughlin, The History Bimetallism in the United States, 297. Smith’s 

recalculations appear in The History of the Comstock Lode, 1850-1997, (Reno, NV: Nevada Bureau of 

Mines and Geology with University of Nevada Press, 1946/1998), 260-261. In time, as the market value of 

silver declined, the ledgers of Virginia and California reduced the standard formula to about $1.21 per 

ounce. Of course, that was still considerably above the market value.


6 

was even greater for each component: 19 percent for Nevada and 22 percent for Story. 10 

Such rates in either direction were unsustainable. But the magnitude, especially on the 

upside, suggests why so much euphoria existed among public officials and private 

investors. Ore bonanzas had a way of inspiring hyperbole. Even the famous nineteenthcentury 

German engineer, Baron von Richthofen, in a report written about the Comstock 

in the mid-1860s, certainly bolstered that euphoria. Even though he was careful to 

dampen enthusiasm about the continuing discovery of very rich ore bodies, like those 

near the surface of the Comstock, he did conclude that “the amount of nearly fifty million 

dollars which had been extracted from the Comstock lode is but a small proportion of the 

amount of silver awaiting future extraction, in the virgin from the lowest levels explored 

down to indefinite depths….” 11 The State Mineralogist reprinted a summary of 

Richthofen's study in his 1875 Report to the State Legislature at the beginning of the 

Lode’s biggest bonanza, and two years later, well into the bonanza, he told the next 

legislative session that “the supply of ore to be obtained from the Comstock lode is 

almost inexhaustible. Never before were there more encouraging prospects for the future. 

Never before was there more confidence felt in the permanency of the mines….” 12 Within 

a year the bonanza peaked and over the next seven years it vanished. The decline was 

swift, like air escaping a balloon, and while Nevada and even Story County would enjoy 

some minor bonanzas over the next 100 years (a topic for another essay), the bonanza of 

the 1870s remained unique and the subsequent history of the Comstock Lode was mainly 

filled with borrascas (storms, squalls literally, downturns, failures, pitfalls). 

60000000 

FIGURE 4 

ORE VALUE, STATE & STORY COUNTY, 1866-1885 

50000000 

Nevada Value 

Story Value 

40000000 

rs 

la 30000000 

o 

D 

20000000 

10000000 

0 

1865 1870 1875 1880 1885 1890 

Figure 4 reveals unmistakably that Story County’s production curve began to 

decline one year ahead of the Nevada’s production curve. Story County peaked in 1876 at 

10 

These rates were calculated by a simple linear regression. R 2 -values were .69 to .83. 

11 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist for the State of Nevada in the Years of 1873 and 1874,” in 

Appendix to Journals of Senate and Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session, 1875, 91-101, quote from 101. 

12 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist for the State of Nevada in the Years of 1873 and 1874” in 

Appendix to Journals of Senate and Assembly, 8 th Legislative Session, 1877, 120.


7 

$38.0 million while Nevada peaked the following year at $47 million. But from 1876 to 

1877 Story’s decline was a modest 2.6 percent. This did not set off any alarms in part 

because in previous years production had surged 55.2 percent (1871), 79.4 percent (1873) 

and 46.2 percent (1876). Overriding any serious concern for the Comstock was the fact 

that the State as a whole had posted a rise in output of 2.7 between 1876 and 1877. But 

the small decrease in 1877 presaged the end of the boom. Those rich strikes from 1875 to 

1877 were not duplicated even as companies sunk deeper shafts and cut longer tunnels. 

From 1777 to 1881 output in Story plummeted: 44.9, 63.2, 43.4 and 65.7 percent 

respectively. For the next four years (1881-1885) mining in Story showed small gains, 

but they hardly signaled a full-scale recovery. The value of ore fell from $38.0 million in 

1876 to $3.0 in 1885, even after four years of rising output. Nevada’s premier mining 

center was merely a shadow of its mid-1870s self. And in time the ore curve for Nevada 

followed Story’s path: from $47.0 million to $6.8 million. As Story County slid from 

1876 to 1881, other Nevada counties recorded notable advances in ore output in 

percentage terms. In absolute terms, however, they could not compensate for what was 

lost in Story and lift Nevada mining from depression into prosperity again. 13 

FIGURE 5 

NEVADA AVERAGE VALUE PER TON, 1867-1885 

60.00 

53.28 51.39 

40.48 

50.00 

40.00 

30.00 

20.00 

33.66 

31.1230.41 

37.75 

27.39 

24.94 

37.78 

35.28 

42.72 

27.25 

21.9921.63 20.6518.6616.0115.06 

10.00 

0.00 

The fruits of the bonanza along the Comstock were not shared by all the mining 

and refining companies. Through mining-assessment documents we can refine the 

Comstock database to show how much each company reported annually from 1875 to 

1885 over and above what was reported to stockholders or publicized by speculators. For 

now, let me focus on a single year, 1876, when the Comstock produced ore worth just 

under $40 million. About two-dozen firms were recorded as paying assessments on ore 

from the mines and tailings. The two principal mining districts in Story County were 

13 

County figures from various legislative reports compiled for each Biennial Legislative Session. The 

calculations are by the author.


8 

Virginia City proper and Gold Hill, just south of the county seat. The biggest producers 

of ore were in the heart of the city. A half dozen shafts for removing the ore were located 

between D and H Streets. The total reported ore, as certified by the County Assessor, was 

$38,038,240.80. This number turns out to be very close to the figure, $38,038,145.76, 

reported by the State Controller to the Legislature in 1877. More than 79 percent of the 

ore was registered by two Virginia City companies, Consolidated Virginia and California, 

which were the principal mining properties of a business conglomerate known as the 

Firm, under the control of John Mackay, James Fair, William O’Brien and J. D. Flood. In 

addition to their mining properties this quartet had invested in milling, logging and other 

local businesses that gave them virtual control over the Comstock and the County’s 

economy for a decade at least. Some referred to them as the “owners” of the Comstock. 

The Firm certainly made money from mining, and its mines were among the few that 

paid dividends instead of imposing assessments. Accounting for more than $30 million of 

the $38 million recorded by the County Assessor, The Firm spent under $10 million for 

extracting, transporting and refining the ore plus taxes collected by the County and State. 

Other costs, operational and non-operational, and a more precise return on investment can 

be teased from the company’s extensive records. These mines made money because their 

yields of ore per ton were about $110. No other company even approached such yields. 

Even more telling was the fact that the Firm accounted for 65 percent of the gold and 

silver reported in 1876. The Firm obviously had the richest ore bodies and may well have 

had the most efficient and profitable operations in Nevada or along the Comstock. It was 

the best year in the history of the Comstock and the final year of the Comstock bonanza. 

After a decade and a half in which new discoveries saved the Comstock from demise, the 

Lode’s treasure, deemed to be inexhaustible, was found to be finite. It was truly the 

beginning of the end. 14 

The western mining boom in the second half of the nineteenth century caught the 

attention of the American public and suffused the American imagination. Not only 

among those who went west in search of fame and fortune, but among those who 

dreamed about fame and fortune. Perhaps given the level of government corruption and 

economic discontent in the wake of the Civil War another “gold rush” offered a welcome 

diversion. For Nevada, however, the Comstock was more than a diversion. Mining was 

the economic backbone of the new state that was wrestling with how to finance, maintain 

and expand the public infrastructure. Of the $400 million worth of ore recorded between 

1865 and 1885 probably 60 percent came from mines along the Comstock. Based on 

existing state and county mining taxes this yielded several million dollars for the public 

coffers. More to the point, however, almost half of the $400 million was extracted during 

a few years of the middle 1870s. While dozens of mining companies operated along and 

in the vicinity of the Comstock, a handful, mainly working under Virginia City, pushed 

output to the mid-decade’s unprecedented levels. When they exhausted their diggings, 

14 

Specifically for Story County in 1876 some of the data were drawn directly from the assessment ledgers 

in the vault of the Story County Assessor’s Office and the rest from the microfilm copies of the assessment 

ledgers on file in Special Collections, University of Nevada, Reno, Library under The County Microfilm 

Project, Story County, ST66. In addition the Nevada State Bureau of Mines published “Nevada’s Metal and 

Mineral Production (1859-1940, Inclusive” in a 1943 issue of the University of Nevada Bulletin. The 

compilers, Bertrand Couch and Jay Carpenter, used various sources including the Controller’s Reports to 

assemble these series for each county.


9 

they reduced or terminated their operations, and more importantly they were not or 

perhaps more accurately could not be replaced. Shafts were pushed deeper and tunnels 

further but without success. The buoyant outlook of the first half of the 1870s turned into 

bitter accusations against speculators, bankers and investors, always described as 

outsiders, had drained Nevada of its natural wealth for their own selfish ventures 

elsewhere. Seldom in the long history of New World mining did the camps or their 

localities become long-term beneficiaries of the mineral wealth that they produced, and 

the Comstock would not be the exception. 

FIGURE 6 

PERCENTAGE OF ORE BY COMSTOCK COMPANIES, 1876 

50.0000% 

45.0000% 

43.7906% 

40.0000% 

35.0000% 

35.2299% 

30.0000% 

25.0000% 

20.0000% 

15.0000% 

10.0000% 

5.0000% 

0.0000% 

7.4164% 6.2750% 

2.3817% 2.2519% 1.2760% 1.3785% 

The Comstock era “officially” began in the spring of 1859. In the upper region of 

the Gold Cañon (where Gold Hill would soon be founded) placer miners dug into the top 

of the vein that would constitute the southern branch of the Comstock Lode, and some 

weeks later a mile north at the “Ophir Diggings” where the future Virginia City would be 

founded another group of placer miners dug into the same vein. Much controversy 

surrounds who deserves the credit for discovering or locating the Lode and when that 

occurred. For nearly a decade after 1850 prospectors for gold had worked the streams and 

outcroppings between the Carson River (somewhat beyond the Lode’s southern 

boundary) and the Ophir Diggings. The area was streaked with veins of gold. While 

working these veins some prospectors might have actually tapped into the Comstock 

Lode without knowing that they had done so. In any event working these veins did not 

lead to any rich deposits until 1859. Even the Gold Hill discoveries, in the words of Grant


10 

Smith, “created little excitement”. 15 The difference, it appears, was the discovery of silver 

with the gold on the northern end of the Comstock Lode. In the course of constructing a 

trench 6 to 12 inches deep to reach the gold the claimants had to discard heavy blue sand. 

Placer miners were familiar with black sand but not blue sand. A few weeks after the 

initial discoveries assays from Ophir and its companion claims, Mexican and Central, 

showed that the blue sand was rich in silver. The effect of this combination of gold and 

silver was to push the yields per ton of ore from tens of dollars to hundreds of dollars. As 

the news of the Ophir assays spread the Comstock experienced its first real “rush”. 

Although estimated in the thousands, mainly from California, how many actually joined 

the so-called Washoe rush cannot be verified. Apparently many more came than stayed. 

The placer miners complained that there was no “ground worth having” and the quartz 

miners complained that the best mines were “already located”. 16 Those who stayed had to 

endure a harsh winter with few amenities. Winter in the Nevada Sierras was nothing like 

winter in the foothills of the California Sierras. Despite complaints of hardships the new 

arrivals during the initial rush staked out hundreds if not thousands of claims in an area of 

no more than 75 to 100 square miles. It would be an exaggeration to say that every square 

inch of the Comstock and the region surrounding it was claimed, and yet the truth was 

that any land with even the slightest evidence of vein matter was staked. 17 After a hiatus 

during the winter 1859-1860 the rush resumed in the summer of 1860, again mainly from 

California. Prospecting had yielded ample rewards, and the Comstock according to the 

1860 census had a count of over 3,000. 18 The Comstock was for real even if the vast 

majority of the claims proved to be barren. 

From the earliest years Nevada mining was closely linked to California. In the 

first place, as the home of the first western mining boom, 

California had a pool of experienced miners who began to 

see more opportunities in Nevada than California. What 

they had learned about mining in California, however, was 

barely applicable in Nevada. In the California gold fields 

miners depended on placer mining. In ancient times 

“placers” referred to both surface and underground 

deposits, but in the United States they were defined legally 

as alluvial deposits of sand, gravel, clay and other materials 

on the surface and in or under the river beds that could be 

dredged and washed to flush out valuable minerals like 

gold. California was not without underground or lode 

mining. In the Alleghany (CA) Mining District, for 

example, 18 tunnel mines were said to be operating 

Illustration 1: Comstock Discovery 

profitably in 1858. The Rainbow Mine was apparently the 

first to find a gold vein below the lava cap. According to a 1932 United States Interior 

15 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 6. 

16 


17 

Smith declared that “First and last over 16,000 claims located in the Comstock region.” He did not 

provide a source and did not explain if it covered just the first year of the Comstock or its entire history. 

The Comstock Lode, 19-20. 

18 

Roland James, The Roar and the Silence, A History of Virginia City and the Comstock Lode (Reno & Las 

Vegas, NV: University of Nevada Press, 1998), 34-35.


11 

Department Report, recounting operations there, the “favorable opportunities for 

discoveries beneath the lava were offered by tunnels that crosscut the upper part of the 

bedrock in order to reach the gravel channels,” and the “vein was cut in the gravel tunnel 

2,000 feet from the portal, and an incline was sunk on the vein”. Rich ores were 

harvested until the mine was flooded soon after the discovery. The mine was marginally 

operative until the 1880s when some new discoveries were made. In the same report the 

authors remarked that lode mining “proceeded in a rather desultory fashion.” They 

concluded that this was the result of the way in which the ore deposits were arranged. “A 

shoot of enormously rich high-grade ore would occasionally be encountered” and the 

owners instead of using their proceeds to search for new “shoots” simply cashed out and 

moved on. Only a few mines stayed in business for the long haul. 19 For Californians with 

some experience in underground mining, however, Nevada posed formidable challenges. 

Whatever mining knowledge the newcomers brought with them from California or other 

localities, they soon learned that adaptation and innovation became the touchstone for 

success in mining on the Comstock. The history of the Comstock was not only about 

mining rich deposits of gold and silver but also about introducing and developing new 

technologies that allowed miners to reach those ores. 

Shortly after the initial Comstock discoveries Nevada became a laboratory for 

scientists – geologists, chemists and engineers – and for cartographers who were in 

demand to describe and map the mineral phenomenon. Visitors included Americans and 

Europeans whose reports and treatises on Comstock geology were published or 

summarized in local and regional newspapers and journals. Under authorization of the 

United States Geological Service several surveys produced splendidly rendered maps, 

charts and tables for the western latitudes in general and the Comstock Lode in 

particular. 20 The Comstock Lode was simply one of “four quartz-dominated vein systems. 

It was the longest and richest of the four. The other three were the Silver City Lode, 

which connected to the southern end of the Comstock Lode, and the Occidental and 

Flowery Lodes to the east of the Comstock. All of these lodes were located “in or near 

normal faults”, e.g. fractures in the earth’s crust that occurred during periods of dynamic 

geological activities. Along these fractures, as a result of the shift in underlying rock 

formations, spaces opened up where mineralization took place. The dominant minerals 

found in these faults (as well as in cross-faults) were, of course, gold (Au) and silver 

(Ag). 21 The Comstock riches were virtually exhausted within a quarter of a century, but 

mining continued sporadically and with little financial gain during the rest of the 

nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century. Today Nevada is the largest 

producer of gold and silver in the nation, and its mineral-resource production (including 

19 

Henry G. Ferguson and Roger W. Gannett, Gold Quartz Veins of the Alleghany District California 

(Washington, DC: United States Department of Interior, Geological Survey, Professional Paper 172, 1932), 

3-5, downloaded from www.origsix.com, web site for Original Sixteen to One Mine, Inc. 

20 

See George F. Becker, Atlas to Accompany the Monograph on the Geology of the Comstock Lode and the 

Washoe District (Washington, DC: Department of the Interior, 1882). 

21 

See Kai Yang, Jonathan F. Huntington and Joseph W. Boardman, “Mapping the Comstock Epithermal 

Mineralization System, Nevada, Using Simulated ARIES-I Hyperspectral Data,” 

www.gisdevelopment.et/aars/acrs/1999/ts10, 2, and D. M. Hudson, “Summary of the Geology of the 

Comstock District, Nevada,” in J. L. Johnson, ed., Bulk Mineral Precious Metal Deposits of the Western 

United States. Guidebook for Field Trips (Geological Society of Nevada, 1987), 413-418; Hudson also 

available at www.seismo.unr.edu/.


12 

oil and gas) contributes between 2 and 3 percent to the state’s gross domestic product. 22 

Equally important from historical perspective is that the continuing interest in the state’s 

mining sector has yielded new maps and surveys that have significantly added to the 

knowledge base of the geological and lithological conditions at the time of the most 

intense Comstock activity. The history of the formation of the Comstock is much better 

known now than it was more than a century ago. Whatever the state of science during the 

heyday of the Comstock, the miners themselves through trial and error eventually figured 

out enough about the Comstock to do their work. That had to happen because there was 

virtually no prior mining experience in the country from which to draw. Lode mining in 

Mexico and South America had some features in common with Comstock mining, and 

that knowledge found its way into the lore and the science that informed the local mining 

community. But the initial and even the subsequent encounters with the Comstock’s 

physical world continually challenged Comstock miners to review and revise their 

techniques for dealing with an ever-expanding underground network. 

It is risky for one like me with virtually no knowledge of the science of geology to 

try to describe the physical features of the Comstock Lode. Some description is 

necessary, however, because the formation of the Comstock and the presence of its ores 

had an impact on how the industry developed. As noted above, Californians in particular 

soon realized that their lode-mining experiences would play but a minor role in opening 

up the Comstock. Many were unfamiliar with the igneous rock which surrounded the 

Lode and through which the tunnels or shafts had to be cut in order to gain access to the 

ore itself. Igneous rocks are “fire-formed” rocks consisting of grains and crystals of 

varying shapes and densities. They formed when magna or hot, molten rock crystallized 

and solidified. The process (melting) originated deep within the Earth not far from the 

boundaries of the active plates, which are also known as “hot spots”, and then rose 

upward toward the surface. The area that generated the magma is assumed to be the 

asthenosphere, which is the top layer of the upper mantle. The upper and lower mantles 

combined are about 1,800 miles thick and make up about 83 percent of the volume of the 

earth. Above the mantles is the crust (about 1 percent) and below the mantle is the core 

(about 16 percent). Almost all the rocks that appear on the surface of the earth or are 

mined from beneath the surface of the crust can be traced to the solidification of molten 

magma because they share its chemical and mineral properties. From the surface through 

the crust (the ocean crust is about 1-2 miles thick and the continental crust from 12 to 40 

miles thick) into the upper part of the asthenosphere, a distance of about 60 miles, exists 

the lithosphere. This region can be identified with earthquakes, volcanoes, uplifts that 

form mountains, continental drifts and tectonic plates. Lode mining occurs in the crust of 

the lithosphere and involves igneous rocks born out of the movement of magma 

(temperatures of 1,100 to 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit) from the asthenosphere or the bottom 

of the lithosphere through the crust and onto the surface. These are the rocks that 

contained the gold and silver of the Comstock. 23 The heat of the magma made it less 

22 

Various publications and statistics can be accessed on the Web Site of the Nevada Commission on 

Mineral Resources, Division of Minerals, at www.minerals.state.nv.us. 

23 

Descriptions of igneous rock formations can be found on scores of web sites devoted to rocks and 

minerals. See http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/images/pglossary/index.php, US Geological Service volcanic-rockclassification 

web page. See also www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals, Fundamentals of Physical 

Geography, Chapter 10 Introduction to the Lithosphere, (a) The Rock Cycle (h) Structure of the Earth, and


13 

dense than the rocks around or above it and caused it to wend its way toward the surface. 

The movement of the magma could remake the rock formations and chemical properties 

of the lithosphere. 

In his Fundamentals of of Physical Geography, M. Pidwirny presents the 

accompanying chart to 

describe the surface and 

subsurface processes of rock 

formation. 24 Two flavors of 

igneous rocks, generally 

speaking, were left in the 

wake of the magma bursts: 

intrusive (also known as 

plutonic) and extrusive 

(volcanic). Intrusive refers to 

a rock formation from magna 

“trapped deep inside the 

Earth.” Such molten matter 

because of its high 

temperatures naturally rises 

toward the surface but in fact 

remains “trapped below” the surface where it cools slowly and the “individual mineral 

grains” having a long time to develop turn into large rocks with a “course-grained 

texture.” Extrusive, as the word implies, refers to magna that “cools outside of, or very 

near the Earth’s surface.” When the magna erupts through the surface of the Earth and 

cools quickly into what is popularly known as lava, the result is a rock of fine-grained (or 

glassy) texture. Plutonic and volcanic igneous rock activity occurred “intermittently and 

repeatedly from earliest geologic history to within the last thousand years” according to 

Jonathan Price, a Nevada geologist. This activity began with the spreading of the sea 

floor hundreds if not millions of years ago, and it was further elaborated through 

“collisions of ancient and modern plates” along with “hot spots in the Earth’s mantle and 

perhaps outer crops….” The majority of Nevada’s mineral deposits have some 

association with these activities. Price writes that some “metals came from the magmas 

themselves” and some from magma heat that caused hot water to circulate and deposit 

minerals in the veins and the fractured rocks. Some “spectacular mineral specimens 

occur[red] in ore deposits that formed when magmas intruded and metamorphosed 

sedimentary rocks.” 25 

www.geology.csupomona.edu, Igneous Rock Identification, Nature’s Fiery Cauldron by David Jersey and 

Donald Tarman. 

24 

M. Pidwirny, 2 nd Edition, Fundamentals of Physical Geography, originally produced by Digital Library 

for Earth System Education, 2009, reproduced on http://www.physicalgeography.net/. 

25 

Jonathan G. Price, “Geology of Nevada,” in S. B. Castor, K. G. Papke and R. O. Meeuwig, eds., Betting 

on Industrial Minerals, Proceedings of the 39 th Forum on Geology of Industrial Minerals, May 19-21, 2003 

(Sparks, NV: Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology Special Publication, 33), 5.


14 

Whether a rock is “fine-grained volcanic” or “course-grained plutonic” is simply 

the starting point for a more detailed classification systems of a region’s geologic 

formation. The accompanying table, again by Professor Pidwirny, offer one approach to 

how volcanic and plutonic 

rocks can be arranged. The 

descriptive terms that 

appear in Pidwirny's table 

and in the earliest surveys 

by George Becker and the 

United States Geological 

Service differ, although it 

is still possible to follow 

the basic Comstock 

geology. Becker listed 

more than a dozen different 

rock formations. On a large 

map entitled “Geologic 

Map of the Washoe 

District” and on an insert 

entitled “Geologic Map of 

Virginia, Nev. and 

Immediate Vicinity” 

(between 119 o and 120 o 

longitude and 39 o and 40 o 

latitude) Becker and his 

team took hundreds of samples from which they identified up to 14 different rock 

formations. The Lode itself (between two and three miles long, north to south) was 

described simply as “quartz” or “quartz vein”. Quartz is the most abundant mineral on the 

face of the earth and is an important constituent of igneous rocks (as well as in 

metamorphic and sedimentary rocks). Rocks are fundamentally silica, combinations of 

silicon and oxygen (not unlike glass), and quartz is crystallized silica. In terms of the way 

in which igneous rocks are classified, quartz is a major component of plutonic or 

intrusive rocks known as granodiorite and granite and of volcanic or extrusive rocks 

known as dacite and rhyolite. From 5 to 20 percent of granodiorite and dacite can be 

quartz and from 20 to 35 percent of granite and rhyolite can be quartz. Other crystallized 

minerals in these rock formations include feldspars (with calcium, sodium and potassium 

among others) and hornblende and biotite (iron and magnesium). Further down the 

classification scale, intrusive rocks named gabbro and diorite and extrusive rocks named 

basalt and andesite have little or no quartz. Among the dozens of silicon-based minerals 

quartz has a ranking of 7 on the hardness scale, one of the highest. Feldspars, which 

could make up 20 to 60 percent of intrusives like granodiorite and granite and extrusives 

like dacite and rhyolite, comes in at 5 to 6 on the scale. 26 Quartz, of course, did not exist 

independent of plutonic or volcanic rocks. Some rock specialists consider diorite as a 

quartz-bearing plutonic rock. In fact diorite and its companion volcanic rock andesite 

have little quartz, perhaps up to 5 percent. Granodiorite rather than diorite is technically 

26 

See www.theimage.com/mineral/class.htm for information on silicates and other minerals.


15 

the correct name, but diorite, it appears, continues to be used. When Becker made his 

survey and prepared his atlas, he seldom if ever used the term granodiorite. I best leave it 

to the geologists and other specialists to sort how and when these terms should be 

employed. What I can propose by way of an elementary explanation is that diorite and 

andesite were the predominant rocks in the immediate vicinity of the Comstock Lode. 

The rock formation on the Mt Davidson (or western) side of the Lode was diorite and 

across the Lode on the eastern side was andesite. As a general rule volcanic rocks such as 

andesite could be 50 percent crystalline while plutonic rocks like granodiorite could reach 

100 percent crystalline. 27 If any of these rock formations but in particular granodiorite (or 

diorite) and andesite had not been altered (or had not morphed) over time, they would 

appear harder to mine than if they had undergone some modification. Some and perhaps a 

substantial portion of the Comstock had been altered. Indeed Becker used classifications, 

such as metamorphic diorite, to suggest such modifications. Some Comstock quartz was 

found in a crushed or sugary form as a result of geologic changes, and the miners soon 

learned that sugar quartz was easier to mine than the unaltered quartz. 28 That some rock 

along and around the Lode had been softened up through the metamorphosis of the rock 

itself allowed for speedier construction of shafts and drifts than might have been the case 

with unaltered rock. 

Mastering rock formations and vein structures could lead miners to mineralbearing 

ores, but what was a mineral-bearing ore? After cutting through various materials 

such as rocks, clay, quartz, porphyry, etc. how did they know that had reached the socalled 

ores from which gold (Au) and silver (Ag) (and other minerals) could actually be 

extracted? Gold and silver were themselves born out of activity and movement of the 

magma. As the magma began to cool and solidify, it released water and steam along with 

some volatile elements. Water and steam had high enough pressure and temperature to 

make fissures in the rock through which the magma could flow. The hydrothermal 

solutions that flowed into the cracks and crevices began to cool and to solidify and form 

quartz rocks or quartz veins. These solutions also contained molecules of gold and silver 

that became attached to the quartz. In their pure, native form gold and silver along with 

copper, lead, aluminum and mercury belong to the “Gold Group” because they have 

similar chemical properties and appear in the same column on the Periodic Table. Gold 

can be alloyed with silver, as was the case on the Comstock. If gold and silver occurred 

as “native” ores, that is, not in combination with other minerals, they could be identified 

by color and appearance. Gold occurred that way far more often than silver. Silver 

seldom occurred in a natural form and almost always combined with gold, copper, lead 

and zinc among the major minerals but also with 50 or more other lesser minerals. Thus 

one can picture a crew of miners cutting through rock, removing clay or porphyry and 

finally reaching vein matter that appeared to contain recognizable minerals like silver. 

(They could also have followed vein matter toward what they hoped would be a sizable 

deposit.) Historically speaking, even though silver came in many variations, galena 

(PbS), a lead sulphide that contained more lead than silver, was one of the best known of 

the silver-bearing ores. But silver sulfides such as argentite and acanthite also could yield 

the mineral silver. The Comstock had a much greater concentration of acanthite/argentite 

27 

See http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/images/pglossary/index.php 

28 

Communications with geologists at UNR.


16 

(AG 2 S), a class of silver sulfides, than galena. 29 Such ores also were found in the major 

colonial Mexican camps and perhaps in the Andes as well. And of course what made a 

huge difference on the Comstock was that the sulfides enclosed by rocks and other 

materials featured both gold and silver, a condition that would not describe the ores of 

Zacatecas or Guanajuato in Mexico nor the ores of Potosí in Bolivia. Although the silver 

extracted from the Comstock was voluminous and rich, had it been the only mineral the 

Comstock would still have qualified as a mining bonanza but with lower overall value 

since the presence of gold (40 percent) raised the value of a ton of ore considerably. The 

rock and its related components in particular the quartz might be said to have surrounded 

gold and silver ores that once extracted had to be milled to be separated. 30 Not necessarily 

a common occurrence for silver mining in the New World, the gold and silver 

combination gave the Comstock a celebrity status among the big western mining 

bonanzas. 

FIGURE 7 

OVERMAN MINE GEOLOGY, BECKER, ATLAS SHEET XII 

[LINES OF SOLFATARIC ACTION HAD NO LETTERS] 

Notes: Overman Mine was on the southern end between Caledonia and Belcher Mines. 

29 

In the Quarterly Newsletter of Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology the statement occurs: “… the 

substantial amount of silver sulfide (Ag2S, the mineral acanthite) which was present in the Comstock 

ores…” (Winter 1992) on NBMG website: http://www.nbmg.unr.edu. 

30 

I examine briefly the types of ores encountered in the Spanish colonial mines in Mexico and Peru in an 

essay published under the title of “Silver Mining Trends Colonial Latin American Mining” at 

www.historydatadesk.com.


17 

FIGURE 8 

GEOLOGY OF COMSTOCK LODE, WASHOE DISTRICT, 

BECKER, ATLAS SHEET IV 

[Enlarge PDF To Read Type] 

Note: Becker's description may not agree with contemporary geological surveys and maps. It is presented 

to illustrate how the Comstock geology was viewed toward the end of the bonanza era. Red lines across 

map are adits for drainage or Sutro Tunnel. 

Sources: See footnote 20.


18 

FIGURE 9 

ILLUSTRATIONS OF ROCKS 

Illustration: Granite 

Illustration: Dacite 

Illustration: Gabbro 

Illustration: Rhyolite 

Illustration: Diorite 

Illustration: Andesite


19 

In his highly readable The History of the Comstock Lode Grant Smith briefly 

described some of the formidable challenges faced by Comstock miners, especially the 

early Californians, in building an underground system to reach and extract the ores. In 

addition to familiarizing themselves with the igneous rock formations, they had to learn 

how to read the veins once they were underground. In California having located the veins 

miners could extract the ores more or less by following normally narrow veins until they 

petered out. The Comstock was riddled with metal-bearing veins, most of which were 

largely worthless. Comstock gold and silver occurred in “large thick bodies” scattered 

across the Lode at various depths. They could begin a foot or two wide, grow to a 

thickness of 50 or 100 feet and then just disappear. As a result dozens of shafts were 

dropped and hundreds of tunnels were dug to try to intercept those ores bodies along and 

in the vicinity of the Comstock Lode. In carving out these vast underground networks, 

miners first and foremost had to figure out how to keep them from collapsing. Using the 

rock itself (common in Spanish-American mines) or wooden posts and beams to shore up 

the tunnels proved to be unreliable. The expanse of work areas around ore deposits 

required more in support than the conventional methods provided. In addition the walls of 

the shafts and tunnels were simply not strong or solid enough to bear the weight of the 

ground surrounding them. They consisted of altered or fractured rock. Consequently the 

quartz rock, which contained the minerals, had a “sugary” character, “crushed and watersoaked”, 

as Smith described them, after millennia of hydrothermal and seismic activities. 

But there were even more serious problems. These underground spaces were “rendered 

still more unstable by the presence of clay and inclosed [sic] fragments of porphyry.” 

Clay walls often surrounded ore deposits, and as the rock was removed to reach the ore 

the clay could not bear the weight above or on the sides. These clay barriers “were only a 

few feet in thickness as a rule, but occasionally increased to 20 or 30 feet. Beyond the 

clay were belts of partly decomposed porphyry and other walls of clay, with occasional 

parallel sheets of ore. When an opening was made [into the clay] the whole country 

began to swell and move unless held back by stout timbering. The expansive power of the 

clay almost surpasses belief”, reported Smith, at which point he quoted a passage in 

James Hauge’s U. S. Explorations of the 40 th Parallel by Clarence King, who became 

Director of the United States Geological Survey: “[the clay] is of tough consistency, and 

when the air is admitted by gallery or shaft it immediately begins to swell and exert 

tremendous pressure, forcing itself through the interstices of rocks, bending and breaking 

the most carefully laid timbers and filling the mine openings with extraordinary 

rapidity.” 31 From time to time scalding water was encased in these clay formations, and 

when the clay was pierced or broken the water would pour through the adjoining tunnels. 

Fragmented porphyry did not make the situation any better. By definition 

porphyry was quartz that had undergone both slow and rapid cooling as the magma 

erupted toward the surface; as a consequence it had a mixture of large and small grains. It 

too could become sugary over time from the same forces that altered the composition of 

quartz. Even though miners came to realize that fragmented porphyry could be an 

indicator of the presence of gold and silver ores, it in combination with clay made for 

treacherous working conditions. 

31 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 24.


20 

Before turning to how underground operations confronted these natural 

impediments I should make clear that except for the official surveys along with some 

expert commentaries the technical references to rock and ore formation seldom appeared 

in the mining companies’ annual reports or the superintendents’ weekly reports. More 

often the rock was called hard or not so hard and the ore good or not so good. Terms like 

quartz, porphyry and clay to describe where the ores might be did appear in the weekly 

reports. The purpose in summarizing geological and mineral information was to try to 

pinpoint more precisely what the miners encountered even if the miners themselves were 

not conversant with the technical or scientific knowledge base. 

The story of building an underground system had two contrasting elements. Days 

of arduous work with unaltered and often hardened (given the equipment) plutonics like 

granodiorite could then be followed by days of less arduous but more daunting work with 

altered porphyry amidst shifting clay and scalding water. Even shafts and tunnels cut 

through moderately hard rock could buckle as nearby sections of clay and porphyry 

shifted and collapsed. It is improbable that lode mining could have continued or 

expanded along the Comstock without the invention of a method of framing that could 

accommodate the unpredictable character of the natural elements. The Ophir Mine posed 

the initial challenge. Although there is some disagreement about the width or thickness of 

the Ophir ore body as it descended to depths of several hundred feet, the numbers still 

illustrate the problem. At the 50-foot level the ore body was said to be from 3 or 4 feet 

thick to 10 or 12 feet, and by the time the mine had followed the ledge that contained the 

ore 175 or 180 feet the width had grown from 40 to 50 feet or perhaps as much as 65 

feet. 32 To prop up the crumbling walls and roofs the miners tried to strengthen the upright 

posts and horizontal capstones by splicing the timbers together. But they had no success 

with this approach. “Surrounded by riches, they were yet unable to carry them off and 

their mass of black sulphurets [gold and silver minerals] bade fair to become a white 

elephant on their hands. The Ophir Company began to wish themselves less fortunate, as 

their miners narrowly escaped burial day after day in their attempts to stope out the 

ore.” 33 

To the rescue came a young California miner and German-trained engineer, 

Philipp Deidesheimer. He was the superintendent of a quartz mine in El Dorado County, 

California, when William F. Babcock, a trustee of the Ophir Company, asked him to visit 

its Comstock property and advise on ways to improve the timbering of the interior of the 

mine. With some experience from “gravel and quartz” mines in California he arrived in 

Virginia City in the autumn of 1860 and set about to develop timbering that came to be 

known as the “square-set” system. It consisted of a base made from four horizontal 

timbers, four to six feet in length, to which were attached four corner posts, six to seven 

32 

Eliot Lord in Comstock Mining and Miners (Berkeley, CA: Howell-North, 1859, reprint of 1883 edition), 

89, reported 3 to 4 feet at 50 feet and 65 feet at 187 feet while Smith in The Comstock Lode, 24, reported 10 

to 12 feet at 50 feet and 40 to 50 feet at 180 feet. Lord’s sources were the Sacramento Union from 12 

December 1859 and the San Francisco Evening Bulletin 11 July 1860, and Smith’s was the San Francisco 

Bulletin (probably meant to be Evening Bulletin) 12 April 1860. I cannot verify the accuracy of the 

newspapers’ reports. I found d no such references in the archives to which I had access. 

33 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 89.


21 

feet in height. Four more horizontal timbers were attached to the tops of the posts, and 

four more vertical posts were attached to the horizontal timbers. These cubes could be 

“extended to any required height and over any given area, forming a series of horizontal 

floors, built up from the bottom sets like the successive stories of a house. The spaces 

between the timbers were filled with waste rock or with wooden braces, forming a solid 

cube when ever the maximum degree of firmness was desired.” 34 As the miners worked 

their way along the Lode - in the case of the Ophir Mine descending from 50 feet to 

nearly 200 feet - they could adjust the cubes to account for the angle of the stope and the 

openness of the chamber. The “square-set” modules allowed for the weight of the rock, 

clay and porphyry to be spread across more than a “cap and post” approach. This helped 

to reduce the risk of cave-ins from the weight of the material above the working 

chambers and from less than sturdy walls surrounding the chambers. 35 Since the Ophir 

ore body was replicated in more than a dozen other Comstock locations that required 

huge cavities to be constructed in order to extract gold and silver at ever-increasing 

depths the “square-set” platform remained the basic format. Today Virginia City sits over 

a plot of ground, the underpinnings of which are not the natural elements of rock and clay 

but rather are Deidesheimer’s cubes. 

FIGURE 10 

PHILIPP DEIDESHEIMER'S CUBE SUPPORT 

BELCHER MINE 

Nearly all of the Comstock histories credit Deidesheimer was the most timely of 

inventions. Besides descriptions of square-sets (the above from Lord’s Comstock Miners 

and Mining) Comstock histories included wonderful illustrations of how square-sets may 

have looked inside the mines where the ore bodies existed. Whether these illustrations 

accurately portrayed the installation of square-set timbering in underground chambers, 

34 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 90. 

35 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 24, Dan DeQuille [William Wright], The Big Bonanza…. (New York: Alfred 

Knopf, 1947), 90-91, 93, and James, The Roar and the Silence, 54-56.


22 

some of which were hundreds and hundreds of cubic feet in volume, cannot be 

determined from various company reports. A decade later in the largest mines such as 

Consolidated Virginia and California (to be discussed later) underground crews included 

bulkheaders and timberers who were responsible for the installing and maintaining these 

structures. Certainly Deidesheimer opened the way for companies to develop their 

underground assets at a time when knowledge about deep mining was minimal. But his 

technology did not eliminate the underground nemeses of structural overload and shifting 

terrain that could endanger lives and suspend operations at all levels. Over time as miners 

learned from experience how to refine and adapt underground timbering techniques these 

nemeses became more manageable and less disruptive. As will be discussed in later 

chapters, active companies annually committed material and personnel to rebuilding and 

repairing their underground works in addition to expanding those works. 

Once the outcroppings and the shallow veins were exhausted, the Comstock’s 

continuing operation depended on money. Few miners, whether early prospectors or later 

entrepreneurs, had the capital to open and expand these underground systems. Thus 

began a long and often rocky financial relationship between San Francisco and the 

Comstock. Almost from the outset to find the ores and once found to extract and refine 

them required large capital outlays. Without them deep mining on the Comstock would 

certainly have followed a different historical path. San Francisco, having grown up 

around the California gold rush, was uniquely situated to become the Comstock’s banker. 

As a financial center, however, San Francisco had fallen into a minor position. Not only 

had many northern California’s gold fields been exhausted, but because of a series of 

mining-stock frauds in connection with those fields the city’s financial reputation had 

also been tarnished. The Comstock presented new and potentially lucrative opportunities 

for San Francisco’s financial community. As word about the riches of the mines spread 

San Francisco investors and speculators alike began to buy mines and build refineries at a 

rapid pace. San Francisco money financed the expanding underground operations that 

saw output jump from several hundred thousand dollars per year to several million, and 

this helped to transform San Francisco itself into the west Coast’s financial epicenter. The 

most direct evidence of this was the establishment of the city’s stock exchange in 1863. 

The exchange became the vehicle for both the legitimate advancement of capital funds 

and the less than legitimate manipulation of stock prices. Not surprisingly the California 

connection, although vital, was not always welcome. The manner in which capital was 

raised, profits, if any, were distributed and stock was manipulated inspired much Populist 

rhetoric about the raping of Nevada for the benefit of the rich and powerful in San 

Francisco. While a mechanism was needed to underwrite the cost of deep mining, it was 

often criticized as serving the financial schemes of the brokers and bankers rather than 

the financial needs of the Comstock. Nevada itself had little liquid capital, and if San 

Francisco had not served as the Lode banker some other financial center would have. 

Economic benefits accrued to the region of the Comstock and to the State while the 

mines were being worked, but what aroused the anger of the Nevadans (nearly all 

transplants) was that what flowed into the region or the state in the form of wages, profits 

or dividends was a pittance compared to what flowed out mainly to San Francisco and the 

West Coast. When the Comstock bonanza ended once and for all in the 1880s there was 

widespread condemnation of the practice of outsiders – investors, speculators, financiers


23 

and even notable miners – reaping fortunes in Nevada and reallocating them to 

California. How and where such internal development could have been channeled in a 

nation and a region that deeply distrusted any form of public economic planning (had 

such planning any relevance in the first place) was never explained, and indeed 

historically extractive economies like early Nevada’s were more often than not exporters 

of wealth and not investors of it. The Comstock was unique to the degree that it sired one 

of the grandest mining ventures ever, but it was hardly unique in how its mining economy 

evolved and functioned. 36 

36 

Many books and articles were been published on the financial connection between the Comstock and San 

Francisco. Almost without exception whether of the nineteenth-century laissez-faire or muckraking 

tradition they take note of the malicious and profligate actions of the San Francisco capitalist network. By 

far the grandest complaint was that this network of moneylenders, speculators, and investors were often 

driven to manipulate the prices of the stocks of the Comstock mining companies for personal gain rather 

than by sound business practices. It is almost uniformly true across the history of large-scale mining in 

many societies that the communities that produced the wealth realized few long-term benefits from the 

wealth itself. The Comstock was no exception. Among the earliest and most vividly written critiques were 

by George Lyman, the Progressive historian: The Sage of the Comstock Lode (New York: Charles 

Scribner’s Sons, 1937) and Ralston’s Ring California Plunders the Comstock Lode (New York: Charles 

Scribner’s Sons, 1937).

THE COMSTOCK [C] 

1 

Chapter 3 

Statistical Profile of Mining Industry: 

Prospectors to Investors, Profile Database, Costs versus Profits 

From the beginning the Comstock served the interests of the less than scrupulous. As 

Smith pointed out, the presence of so many “silver-mad investors”, mainly from San 

Francisco and California, encouraged cheating and lying. His description of how he 

believed the claiming of the Comstock took place is worth reviewing. He began with the 

weather. Early November winter storms dumped several feet of snow on the Comstock. 

Surface mining more or less came to a standstill while lode 

mining at shallow depths continued. Despite the snow the weather 

cleared enough to allow local prospectors to stake out more and 

more claims even without knowing what was under the snow. 

Californians, especially the incipient financial community of San 

Francisco, “were in a fever of excitement of the Washoe mines.” 

Many were willing to buy claims “without knowing anything 

about the location or the value, and the local prospectors were 

preparing to supply the demand.” According to Smith’s 

calculation more 16,000 claims were staked out. Many claims 

were worthless, but they were often sold, abandoned and then in 

the wake of further “good news”, even if fabricated, they were 

resurrected and sold again. 1 

FigureAA Smith’s Book 

Illustration 1: UNR Press 

The opportunity for fraud did not end as the era of corporate mining replaced the 

prospecting free-for-all. Since a claim consisted of so many linear feet, it could be 

divided among one or more shares of stock per foot. Four companies - Ophir, Gould & 

Curry, Savage and Yellow Jacket – were incorporated between 1860 and 1863 and 

claimed a total of 4,600 feet along the Lode. Ophir claimed 1,400 feet and issued 16,000 

shares or 12 shares per foot. The total value was more than $5 million so that a share of 

stock had a nominal cost of $300. Both Gould & Curry and Yellow Jacket claimed 1,200 

feet each, and whereas Gould & Curry issue 4 shares per foot Yellow Jacket issued only 

one share per foot. The nominal value of the capital stock was more than $2 million or 

$500 per share for Gould & Curry and $1 million or $1,000 per share for Yellow Jacket. 

Savage with 800 feet issued 800 shares with a nominal value of $2,000 per share. 2 The 

value of the stock was not so much based on the capacity of the mine as on what the 

stock might trade for in the marketplace. Since no marketplace a priori existed for these 

stocks, held initially by the incorporators, one had to be created. It was created by 

inviting outsiders – persons who were known to speculate in real estate and other assets 

as well as persons of means – to buy a portion of their shares. Creating this marketplace 

often entailed “fictitious trades”. Two stockholders might trade the same shares over and 

over again in order to move the price of the stock and to attract attention. In addition 

there were “sympathy trades”. As the prices of shares in one company began to move 

1 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 20. Smith provided no source for the figure of 16,000, although in all 

probability it was drawn from studies of the hundreds of lawsuits that were contested in state and federal 

judiciary. 

2 

Maureen Bloomquist Jung, “The Comstock and the California Mining Economy, 1848-1900: The Stock 

Market and the Modern Corporation” (PhD dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1988), 70.


2 

upward, the holders of stocks of other companies would begin to trade their shares in 

hopes of impressing investors that all stock prices were on the rise. It helped that the 

dollar value of Comstock production, to the extent that figures existed, jumped from 

several hundred thousand dollars in 1859 to $12.5 million in 1863. A 10- to 15-fold 

increase made it fairly easy to entice market speculators but also legitimate investors. 

While the aggregate value of gold and silver mined in the first several years came to 

nearly $25 million, the value of mining stocks sold in San Francisco may have been 

several times that amount. In short, as promising as the Comstock was, brokers and 

speculators in San Francisco tried to enhance their own financial positions through 

opportunistic purchases and sales that had little in common with actual Comstock 

operations. 3 

It is hardly surprising, though, that mining stocks were a frequent source of 

financial chicanery. By its very nature mining, especially underground, was a perpetual 

roller coaster. While past output was measurable, it seldom was a reliable indicator of 

future output. The Comstock was filled with surprises, even for 

serious-minded scientists, who year by year gained more 

knowledge about the character of the Comstock but could not 

always predict where the next bonanza would occur nor how 

much longer the Comstock would continue to generate 

bonanzas. Conversely they were reluctant to be bearers of bad 

news and seldom said much about the bonanza-borrasca cycle 

that was becoming evident in the early years. One of the most 

important of the visiting scientists was Baron Ferdinand von 

Richthofen, a German geographer and geologist. His report in 

1865-66 identified correctly many of the geological and 

chemical features of the Comstock but incorrectly posited that 

Illustration 2: Baron von 

Richthofen 

the richest veins would be located in the upper regions with a 

diminution in the quality and the concentration of the ore as the 

depths increased. In fact since the mines had only reached 

depths of several hundred feet he could not have known nor did 

he anticipate that the richest deposits were found between 1,000 and 1,500 feet beginning 

in the early 1870s. 4 The work of the scientific community was important, and their 

findings could actually move markets. But more often than not the slightest shift up or 

down in production or just the rumor of a shift had a more pronounced impact that could 

cause prices of stocks to skyrocket or plummet. And of course company executives like 

market speculators were not above planting information in order to manipulate stock 

prices. Even after the establishment of the San Francisco Stock Exchange in 1863 and the 

3 

Jung, “The Comstock and the California Mining Economy”, 76, 88, 114. 

4 

The Baron’s report was widely circulated and cited. It exists in a microform version under the title The 

Comstock Lode: its character, and the probable mode of its continuance in depth [1866] at the University 

of Nevada, Reno Library. Perhaps the Baron’s most serious miscalculation was to conclude that the richest 

pockets of ore were located toward the top of the Lode, and the quality would diminish as the depths 

increased. In fact between 1,200 and 1,500 feet the richest strikes ever were made. Below 1,500 feet the 

quantity and quality of the ore declined to virtual barrenness even though the strikes between 1,200 and 

1,500 feet caused some investigators to revise their projections in favor of greater depths would yield richer 

strikes.


3 

enactment of some minimal trading rules, market manipulation in the hands of some bulls 

and bears achieved the level of an art form. The timely release of information whether 

truthful or fictional about progress or the lack thereof could serve stockholders who 

wanted to unload their holdings at the highest possible price or to increase them at the 

lowest possible price. Newspapers like Virginia City’s Territorial Enterprise could 

become unwilling conduits of false information. The extent to which the activities of the 

stock exchanges influenced day-to-day decisions in the Comstock operations themselves 

is not easy to determine with any certainty. Grant Smith organized his History of the 

Comstock Lode in such a way as to accentuate the role of the San Francisco bulls and 

bears in precipitating the cycles of boom and bust on the Comstock. But historically 

production cycles were normal phenomena in every mining economy, although heavy 

speculation in mining stocks may well have exaggerated the movement of the cycle. 

What is necessary but difficult to do is to separate the legitimate institutional functions of 

a stock exchange from those that were conceived for other perhaps illegal purposes. 5 

Noted earlier was the fact that the discovery of ores was the occupation of the 

many, but their exploitation became the occupation of the few. Lode mining, certainly as 

the depths increased, required not only capital but also organization and management. 

Mining had always seemed to attract strong personalities and flamboyant characters, and 

while the Comstock had its fair share, it also confronted them with the challenge of 

developing their business skills to complement their personal ambitions. A profile of the 

Comstock mining industry during the two decades, 1865-1885, clearly illustrates and 

demonstrates how the free-wheeling, almost egalitarian spirit of the first locators was 

fairly quickly supplanted by a more industrial mentality that emphasized control and 

production. Of the hundreds if not thousands who tried their hand at making a fortune 

from the wealth of the Comstock became casualties rather than victors in their endeavors. 

The road was rocky for all with a high percentage of financial failure at every level. But 

in terms of the sheer volume of ore extracted and refined, only a handful of companies 

qualified. The structure of the Comstock mining industry was generally oligopolistic and 

at times came close to being monopolistic. Even among the oligopolists profitability was 

elusive and bankruptcy was unavoidable. Whatever their ultimate financial fate, major 

producers were large companies, some of which owned or controlled dozens of mines 

and mills across the Comstock. 

One set of public records through which we can build a profile of Comstock 

mining is county assessment rolls. Other documents such as company accounts and state 

reports can be used to supplement these records. Unfortunately they are incomplete. 

Because so many of the early placer miners were from California, where mineral 

5 

Smith, The Comstock Lode. Chapter 7, for example, has a section with the intriguing title “Stock 

Devilment” (p. 62-63). Smith was not alone. Lord wrote in Comstock Miners and Mining (p. 318 and Smith 

cites on p. 62, footnote 3): “A well-managed ‘stock deal’ was as acceptable to most holders [of mining 

stocks] as an actual development of ore.” Smith also cited Fred MacCrellish, editor of the Atlas California, 

who compared “the stock-jobbing business” to gambling, “the most demoralizing kind: for, unlike card 

playing it is pursued openly and has been regarded as respectable….It is worse than card gambling, because 

the players are not upon an equal footing…and it breeds an increasing crop of professional liars whose 

business it is to entrap honest but credulous people.” Smith, p. 63, footnote 3 from Atlas California, 16 July 

1871.


4 

production was not taxed, they successfully opposed any taxation (property or 

production) during the First Territorial Legislature in 1861. Such opposition did not 

obviate the need for revenue, and in subsequent legislative sessions (as a territory and a 

state), a tug-of-war ensued between the mining interests and the government over how to 

tax the output of the mines. Finally in 1871 the Nevada Legislature agreed upon a mining 

tax that remained in effect for decades. I will look more closely at the actual debate over 

taxation of mining in a later chapter. For now I want to explain how the assessment 

records once the legislation was approved can be used to create a profile of the industry 6 

The 1871 law was called a mining “net-proceeds” tax, and it was applied against 

the net proceeds of the mines in the same way as property taxes were applied. In fact tax 

rates on mining proceeds could be no more or no less than property-tax rates. The 

legislation spelled out how county assessors were to maintain assessment records and 

what they were to report to the state controller. Each quarter miners, millers and 

individuals who might have acquired ores were required to pay their assessment taxes. In 

calculating and collecting these taxes assessors were to organize their records or ledgers 

in the following way: Name of Owner(s); Description and Location of Mine; Number 

of Tons Extracted; Gross Yield or Value, in Dollars and Cents; Actual Cost of 

Extracting; Actual Cost of Transportation to Place of Reduction or Sale; Actual 

Cost of Reduction or Sale; Net Yield or Value, in Dollars and Cents; and Total 

Amount of Tax. 7 Story County assessors generally maintained their records in accord 

with the law, although toward the end of the period for this study the entries in the 

ledgers became more disorganized and less useful. With these records we have access to 

Comstock production on a quarter-by-quarter and a company-by-company basis for more 

than a decade. These are rich sources for the study of the Comstock mining industry, 

although they are not by any means perfect. [A copy of the ledger for the 3 rd Quarter, 

1877, appears in a Special Appendix at the end of the chapter.] 

There is one important caveat, however. A fire in Virginia City, the county seat, 

in October 1875 destroyed the courthouse and many of the county’s records including 

assessments and collections of mining-proceeds taxes from the passage of the legislation 

in early 1871 through the first half of 1875. From the third quarter of 1875 (miningproceeds 

taxes for the third quarter were collected in the fourth quarter) through the 

fourth quarter of 1885 the documentation is complete. The surviving documents are 

stored currently in the Story County Assessor’s Office, and microfilm copies are 

available at the Nevada State Archives and Libraries and in Special Collections at the 

Library of the University of Nevada at Reno. Some of the missing records have been 

located in other archives, in particular the archives of the Controller’s Office. The State 

of Nevada received a portion of the taxes on mining proceeds, and quarterly each county 

6 

Romanzo Adams, Taxation in Nevada, A History (Carson City, NV: State Printing Office, [Publication of 

the Nevada Historical Society] 1918), 71. 

7 

The text of An Act providing for the taxation of the net proceeds of mines, approved 28 February 1871, 

appears in Bonnifield and Healy, comps., Laws of Nevada, 2:225-228. It is located in Chapter C Of the 

Taxation of the Net Proceeds of Mines Sections 3245-3252. Sections 3255-3258 consider the taxation of 

Borax and Soda, which are not discussed with respect to the Comstock. The Constitutional provision that 

governs taxes on proceeds is Section 10, Article 1. Taxation of mining proceeds was and remains 

controversial and will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 17 & 18.


5 

assessor provided the Controller with a summary (Abstract Statement) of the taxes 

collected and authorized a transfer of money to state treasury. Some but not all of the 

Story County Abstract Statements for quarters prior to the fire have survived in the 

Nevada State Archives, and while these were summaries of the actual accounts kept by 

the assessors, they can be used to fill in a part of the missing quarterly data between 1871 

and 1875. 8 Finally, the State Mineralogist, who prepared a biennial report on the status of 

mining for the Legislature, included data from the Abstracts submitted by the counties 

including Story County. Although the Mineralogist extracted only certain data from the 

Abstracts (which themselves were summaries of the county records), he usually included 

tonnage and bullion figures for all the operations that paid assessments in his biennial 

reports. 9 It turns out, then, that despite the destruction of the original documents other 

records allow us to reconstruct a large portion of the destroyed assessment rolls for Story 

County. The result is that I have been able to assemble a dataset on tonnage and value of 

bullion for each quarter from the first quarter of 1871 through the fourth quarter of 1884 

by mine or mill (that is, by owner of the bullion) except for the fourth quarter of 1872. 

It is important to examine what the Act actually stipulated. To determine the 

assessment from which the tax was calculated county assessors “shall demand from the 

President, Superintendent, Treasurer, or managing agent of each corporation, association, 

or firm engaged in extracting ores and minerals within his county, and from any person 

so engaged other than as a corporation, association, or firm, a statement under oath or 

affirmation” with the appropriate information noted above. He could also “demand” that 

the company or individual “open” their ledgers to inspection, although the procedures by 

which such audits would be made was not specified in the law. 10 It is not known how 

often if ever an assessor inspected a firm’s accounts. It would appear that the government 

depended mainly on honest affirmations rather than expensive audits. While the firm or 

individual surely understood the risks in lying to the government and then getting caught, 

the temptation to misrepresent their finances probably remained strong. Certainly among 

contemporary observers and later commentators there was considerable suspicion that the 

mining executives were ever totally honest in reporting their finances to state or county 

officials and even to their own stockholders. Unfortunately the task of demonstrating that 

these executives cooked their books to avoid paying taxes or simply to avoid revealing 

information is a very difficult one. Where company records exist (for example, the 

financial records of Consolidated Virginia and California Mining Companies are almost 

complete) the financial summaries extracted from these records tend to be in general 

agreement with what companies reported to state or county officials and more 

8 

I have examined the actual surviving ledgers for the last two quarters of 1875 and the full years of 1876 

and 1877 in the Assessor’s Office located in the Courthouse of Story County, Virginia City. My principal 

source was microfilm copies listed under The County Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story County, in 

Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. 

9 

Surviving Abstracts of the Story County assessment rolls and the tax collections submitted to the State 

have been found in the Nevada State Archives. They include 1 st Quarter 1871, 1 st , 3 rd and 4 th Quarters 1872, 

and 4 th Quarter 1874. The Biennial Reports of the State Mineralogist of the State of Nevada for the Years 

1871, 1872, 1873, 1874 and 1875 appended to the Journal of the Senate 6 th Legislative Session (1873) and 

appended to the Journals of the Senate and the Assembly, 7 th (1875) and 8 th (1877) Sessions of the 

Legislature of the State of Nevada. 

10 

An Act providing for the taxation of the net proceeds of mines, approved 28 February 1871, in Bonnifield 

and Healy, Laws of Nevada, 2:226-227 specifically sections 3246-3248.


6 

importantly with what they reported to their stockholders. It is not easy, therefore, to 

pinpoint the discrepancies, and where discrepancies may appear to exist they do not 

always appear to be significant. The category, which invited the worse abuse, was 

reported operating costs – extraction, refining and transportation. These figures could be 

more easily fudged than the value (in dollars) of the output because the latter was actually 

determined by the mint. It should also be recognized that business practices like 

accounting and bookkeeping was evolving in the late nineteenth century and that 

companies may not have known with the precision of current contemporary auditing 

standards what their real costs were. Of all the figures that the assessor collected the 

value of the gold and silver extracted from the ore, which the owner declared in tons, 

were probably the most accurate. Certainly they were the easiest to trace and verify 

through the mint records. 

The calculation of mining taxes from mining proceeds had a curious proviso. The 

law clearly stated that the proceeds would be arrived at by deducting the “actual cost” of 

extracting the ores from the mines or the “actual cost” of processing the tailings from the 

gross return: “the remainder shall be deemed the net proceeds, and shall be assessed and 

taxed as provided for in this Act”. The proviso declared “that in no case whatsoever shall 

the whole amount of deductions allowed” exceed the gross yield. In short, if costs 

matched or exceeded receipts taxes would still collected on the bullion in accord with a 

schedule based on per-ton yields. Every producer with bullion to declare paid netproceeds 

taxes even if the costs were greater than the receipts. The aim clearly was to 

make sure that every producer paid some taxes. Producers had to report yields per tons in 

gold and silver bullion, and the higher the yields the smaller the deductions for costs 

against value of the bullion. For example, if the yield per ton was $20, the producer could 

claim a deduction no greater than 80 percent. Thus a producer with $1,000 worth of 

bullion from ores yielding $20 per ton at a cost of $900 to extract, reduce and transport 

per ton would pay taxes on $200 worth of bullion instead of on $100, the difference 

between the bullion value and the mining costs. The value of the bullion that was taxable 

was called the assessment, and the tax rate could not exceed the millage by which other 

property holders were taxed. In this example the producer could not count all his costs in 

the determination of the assessment. In many cases no deduction at all were allowed. To 

cite again the $1,000 example, if the total costs had been only $500 even with a yield of 

only $20 per ton the bullion would be taxed at “net”, that is, no deduction. Under this 

procedure it was certainly possible for the company to falsify the tonnage so that the 

yield per ton would be lower and the deduction higher as well as to misrepresent the 

costs. And this may well have occurred, although where the company’s declared tonnage 

can be compared to the recorded tonnage few discrepancies could be found. Cooking the 

books on a regular and consistent basis would have been a large undertaking that few 

companies, it would seem, had either the time or the money to pursue. This is not to 

argue against producers using various deceptions to evade the tax collector (among 

others) but rather to argue that such deceptions were sporadic and not continual. The Act 

also provided that a further adjustment in determining the taxable value was allowed 

when ore were refined by a process known as the Freiberg method, although Freiburg 

was not widely used on the Comstock.


7 

By isolating one quarter of data from the assessment rolls we can see how the 

system worked. The quarter chosen was the fourth, October through December, of 1876. 

It was not chosen because it is typical; rather it was chosen because it had fewer 

declarations than in other quarters and is less cumbersome to summarize. Seven mines 

and four mills, mainly tailings mills, declared assessable ores. Two mines were assessed 

on the basis of the “net” – the balance after costs were deducted from receipts. In both 

cases the reported costs were between 32 and 38 percent of the receipts and therefore did 

not qualify the mines for deductions in their assessments. Two mines reported yields and 

costs that allowed them to shield 60 percent of their bullion from taxation, two mines 80 

percent and one mine 90 percent. With respect to the four mills two were granted 

deductions and two were assessed at net. The Act provided for various penalties if 

owners refused to open their books or to supply the data required to determine the 

assessments and taxes. But these penalties do not appear to apply in the above examples. 

In the final analysis since cheating was hard to detect and expensive to investigate the 

most trenchant criticism of the net-proceeds mining taxes was that the formula described 

above was too generous. By some calculations mining companies paid less per $1,000 in 

assessments than did other taxable properties. 11 

What can we learn from the assessment rolls even with the less-than-perfect 

statistics that they generate? We can begin with the obvious. The initial sentence in the 

1871 Law that “All ores, tailings, and mineral-bearing material, of whatever character, 

shall be assessed for purposes of taxation….” 12 Story County assessments distinguished 

between ores and tailings, and the first contributed 90 percent and the second 10 percent 

of the total bullion value. Ores referred to the extracted matter that was crushed and 

amalgamated to yield the precious minerals. Tailings were residues that escaped during 

the transportation of the crushed watery ores to the amalgamation pans. They usually 

ended up in slag piles or holding ponds scattered around the mines and mills. They were 

also dumped into the Carson River, the bed of which today is still covered with these 

residues. Sometimes sluices were built to capture the tailings and direct them to their 

final resting places. Since tailings contained small amounts of gold and silver, they could 

be reprocessed in mills built specifically for that task. It had always been a matter of 

concern and speculation as to how much gold or silver was lost in the tailings. Some 

believed that more minerals were lost in tailings than were actually processed at the mills. 

It is not an easy to confirm or deny such assertions. Enough could be recaptured, though, 

to lead some companies to convert or construct mills specifically for the reprocessing of 

tailings from their amalgamation mills. The 1871 Act also stipulated that assessment rolls 

should have two columns that read: “Actual cost of transportation to place of reduction or 

sale” and “Actual cost of reduction or sale”. As the column titles suggest ores could be 

sold, and when they were sold the buyers paid the net-proceeds taxes. How much ore was 

11 


and Healy, Laws of Nevada, 2:226-227 specifically Section 3245 along with the previously cited sections; 

quarterly data from assessments on microfilm in The County Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story 

County, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno. 

12 


and Healy, Laws of Nevada, 2:226-227, Section 3245. Certain compounds like borax could yield precious 

minerals, and the State Controllers’ Annual Reports showed that two Nevada counties – Esmeralda and 

Churchill – reported assessments on ores, tailings and boraxes.


8 

sold under the terms indicated in the 1871 law in any given year is not known and cannot 

be separated out from the figures as they appear in the assessment rolls. Most of the 

extracted ores were not sold but were processed by the producers, and those that were 

sold were probably tailings. 13 

Not only did the rolls distinguish between ores and tailings, but they also noted 

the mining districts where the mines or mills were located. From the earliest years miners 

organized themselves into districts in order to administer the rules (which the miners 

themselves generally wrote and approved) and to adjudicate disputes. Nearly all the 

declared ores came from mines in the districts of Virginia City and Gold Hill. A very 

small quantity came from a third district, Flowery, a different lode to the east of the 

Comstock that was being explored more intensively in the 1880s as the Comstock went 

into decline. The actual boundaries of the districts cannot be precisely delineated. The 

district boundaries for Virginia City and Gold Hill may have coincided with the 

municipal boundaries. With few exceptions the mines that declared ores were known to 

be within the municipal boundaries whereas the mills and particularly the tailings mills 

with ores to declare were located throughout the county and beyond in adjacent counties. 

When locations were given for tailings mills, they might be as general as Virginia City or 

Gold Hill or they might be more specific such as Six Mile Canyon or Geiger Pass. And in 

some quarters the locations of the mills were not noted at all. Joseph Tingley, notable 

contemporary scholar of Nevada mining and the Comstock in particular, writes that 

American Flat, south of Gold Hill, was also designated a mining district. There was an 

American Flat mining claim and other claims surrounding that mine, but in the extant 

assessment rolls no ores were ever declared from those mines or that district (if it 

continued to exist). 14 At times Virginia City and Gold Hill were referred to as the 

Comstock District, but that designation was not used in the assessment rolls. The 

importance of identifying the district within the assessment rolls had tax implications. 

Tax rates as applied to assessable ores differed from district to district. Even though Gold 

Hill and Virginia City were adjacent to each other, they did not always share the same tax 

rates. From the assessor’s standpoint it was necessary to know where the ore came from 

so that the correct rate could be levied and the revenue raised by the tax could be 

distributed to the appropriate district based on what the county commissioners had 

legislated. 15 

Between 1871 and 1884 production data can be assembled for 55 of the 56 

quarters (only the fourth quarter 1874 is missing). In that period the number of bullion 

owners (mines and mills) totaled at least 71. I stress owners of bullion to be assessed 

because there were many more mine and mill owners who may have had operations that 

yielded no useful metal. The actual number may be slightly higher or lower than the 

number given because in compiling these statistics I have had to deal with entries in the 

assessment rolls that lacked consistency, especially in the recording of names,. It is 

relatively easy to keep track of the major producers (mines or mills), but it is less easy 

13 


and Healy, Laws of Nevada, 2:226-227, Sections 3245-46. 

14 

See Joseph Tingley, Mining Districts of Nevada, Report 47, Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, 2 nd 

edition, 1998, for a discussion of the Comstock Mining District. 

15 

More about the tax implications in Chapters 17 & 18.


9 

with small, marginal producers. Where I thought that it was reasonable to assume that 

operations with slightly different spellings or identifying notations could be grouped 

under a single name, I have done so. Although the number of such groupings was small 

and mainly concerned modest operations, it can affect other calculations such as 

rankings. Of the approximately six dozen bullion owners that I have identified 56 percent 

were mining operations and the remaining 44 percent were milling operations. In terms of 

ore production and bullion yield the statistics are quite different. The mines accounted for 

90 percent of the tonnage and 98 percent of the bullion. As voluminous as tailings were, 

they were not a significant factor in overall ore production. Against claims numbering in 

the hundreds along the Lode or in the region of the Lode no more than a few dozen mines 

produced the bulk of the ore in a decade and a half. 

Total ore tonnage of all the declarations between 1871 and 1884 reached 

approximately five million with a bullion value of $204 million. When ranked according 

to tonnage Crown Point stood at the top of the list with 804,000 tons or 16 percent, but 

when ranked by bullion it ranked fourth with $26 million or nearly 13 percent of the total. 

Close behind Crown Point in tonnage was Consolidated Virginia with 791,000 or 16 

percent. In bullion, however, Consolidated Virginia was first with nearly $64 million or 

31 percent of the total. The other major ore producers were well-known mines: Belcher 

was third in tonnage and bullion with 15 and 16 percent respectively, and California was 

fourth in tonnage with 12 percent but second in bullion with 23 percent. In fifth place but 

far behind the aforementioned leaders was Chollar Potosi with 5 percent of the tonnage 

and 3 percent of the bullion. Further scrutiny of these figures suggests significant 

differences in per-ton yields, perhaps the most important measure of a mine’s 

productivity. Not surprisingly Consolidated Virginia and California occupied the top two 

positions with average yields of $81 and $80 per ton respectively. Behind them in third 

place was Belcher with $44 per ton. Further down the list at sixth was Crown Point at $32 

per ton. In fourth and fifth place at $36 per ton were Ophir and Union Consolidated. Both 

of these properties were on the northern end of the Comstock Lode in the vicinity of the 

two most productive mines, Consolidated Virginia and California. As high as their perton 

yields were Ophir and Consolidated Union were much farther down on the lists of the 

rankings by tonnage and bullion: Ophir had no more than 3 to 4 percent of the tonnage 

and bullion, and Union Consolidated had about 1 percent. 

During these 15 years the average yield for all properties was slightly more than 

$41 per ton. That figure was directly influenced by the extraordinarily high yields at 

Consolidated Virginia and California. When a median from all of the computed per-ton 

yields is calculated, it comes in at an extremely low $11 per ton. Since this analysis of 

tonnage and bullion includes output from tailings mills, which often reported per-ton 

yields in the low teens and below, the median may understate the performance of the 

Comstock. Another approach is to make these calculations from mines alone. If all the 

known tailings mills are excluded, then the mean for the mines is $45 per ton and the 

median is $14 per ton. One could, of course, treat Consolidated Virginia and California as 

outliers, since no other properties came even remotely close to their productivity. 

Removing them from the calculations would drop the mean to $26 per ton, but the 

median remains at $14 per ton. Clearly without the bonanza mines of Consolidated


10 

Virginia, California, Belcher, Crown Point and perhaps one or two others Comstock 

yields would barely have justified further investment or exploration. 

The ultimate test was profitability. The best measure of Comstock performance 

would include a comparison of yields per ton versus costs per ton. Yield data were fairly 

reliable because they were determined at the mint. It was harder for the bullion owner to 

cheat, if he were so inclined, about yields than about costs. Since there is no sure-fire way 

to account for fraud, it is worth making quarterly comparisons of miners’ reported costs. 

(I have excluded millers because they did not have mining costs.) Eliot Lord was openly 

critical of the profligacy of mine owners and their managers. He observed how 

extravagant and wasteful they were in the use of company capital by not paying attention 

to unjustified outlays that boosted their costs and reduced their profits, which should be 

used to rebuild their capital. 16 But Eliot was complaining about poor business judgment 

rather than conniving and deceiving. One approach is to examine per-ton yields quarterby-quarter 

and compare them to quarterly costs as reported by the companies. Data on 

yields and costs, when assembled and plotted, cover 43 quarters between 1871 and 1884. 

(Figures from 1885 assessments are virtually unusable.) In these quarters 3.4 million tons 

were recorded in the assessment rolls with a bullion value of $145 million at a cost of $76 

million. The calculation of a mean reveals that the ore yielded $42 per ton in bullion at a 

cost of $22 per ton. But the mean can be affected by outliers within the variables, and the 

coefficient of variation (standard deviation/mean) indicates that variability in yields was 

more than twice that of costs (61 percent to 27 percent). The median, computed for each 

variable over the 43 quarters, is notably different with a narrower spread: bullion yields 

came in at $27 per ton and the costs at $22 per ton. The two variables – yields and costs – 

correlate only moderately at about 63 percent. Expansion in output characterized the 

period from 1871 through 1878 and contraction for 1879 through 1884. In the first period 

the mean for yields and costs came in at about $50 per ton and $24 per ton respectively 

with coefficients of variation at 32 percent and 14 percent (still more than twice). For the 

second period, costs per ton exceeded yields by 10 cents per ton ($18.72 to $18.62). 

Coefficients of variation were closer – 45 percent for yields and 32 percent for costs – but 

again yields even in a contracting economy had greater variability than costs. The mean 

cost per ton fell by about $5 during the second period, but the mean yield per ton dropped 

by $24. The level of costs per ton across the entire 43 quarters appears to be fairly 

consistent, and if miner owners or their agents were manipulating the books in order to 

reduce tax burdens one might expect less consistency. It can be assumed that they were 

so clever as to cheat with consistency. It’s more likely that their costs were close to real, 

and whatever gains accrued by manipulating costs were small and perhaps insignificant. 17 

That mine owners simply did not pay enough because of the way in which the 

assessments were structured was a far more valid criticism. 

16 

Throughout Comstock Mining and Miners Lord depicted managerial behavior that he thought was 

detrimental to the success of the Comstock. He was probably more critical of that behavior in the first 

decade than later. The owners who came to the fore in the 1870s were more sober and conscientious in 

terms of running their companies. 

17 

All the calculations were made from assessment (1875-1884) in The County Records Microfilm Project, 

ST 67 Story County, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno, and in the Story County 

Quarterly Abstracts submitted to the State Controller for 1 st Quarter 1871, 1 st , 3 rd , 4 th , Quarters, 1872, and 4 th 

Quarter, 1874, on file in the Nevada State Archives.


11 

FIGURE 1 

COMPARISON OF YIELDS PER TON AND COSTS PER TON, 1871-1884 

Quarters # Bullion Per Ton Cost Per Ton 

1 Quarter 1871 1 $22.81 $16.61 

1 Quarter 1872 2 $30.12 $22.32 

3 Quarter 1872 3 $27.23 $23.70 

4 Quarter 1872 4 $28.86 $21.44 

1 Quarter 1874 5 $46.31 $30.40 

3 Quarter 1875 6 $54.93 $23.48 

4 Quarter 1875 7 $45.25 $28.41 

1 Quarter 1876 8 $69.03 $23.23 

2 Quarter 1876 9 $66.22 $26.10 

3 Quarter 1876 10 $55.97 $28.07 

4 Quarter 1876 11 $52.02 $25.71 

1 Quarter 1877 12 $75.48 $24.86 

2 Quarter 1877 13 $57.24 $23.97 

3 Quarter 1877 14 $57.79 $23.26 

4 Quarter 1877 15 $59.40 $23.34 

1 Quarter 1878 16 $69.01 $25.65 

2 Quarter 1878 17 $53.70 $22.82 

3 Quarter 1878 18 $29.44 $20.63 

4 Quarter 1878 19 $37.65 $19.38 

1 Quarter 1879 20 $36.34 $22.43 

2 Quarter 1879 21 $35.74 $23.10 

3 Quarter 1879 22 $25.03 $21.42 

4 Quarter 1879 23 $33.17 $26.38 

1 Quarter 1880 24 $32.96 $29.28 

2 Quarter 1880 25 $26.55 $22.68 

3 Quarter 1880 26 $18.82 $14.07 

4 Quarter 1880 27 $13.18 $21.02 

1 Quarter 1881 28 $20.73 $36.26 

2 Quarter 1881 29 $14.97 $24.80 

3 Quarter 1881 30 $8.35 $11.89 

4 Quarter 1881 31 $11.76 $14.25 

1 Quarter 1882 32 $14.26 $17.23 

2 Quarter 1882 33 $17.76 $16.46 

3 Quarter 1882 34 $11.79 $15.14 

4 Quarter 1882 35 $15.39 $15.95 

1 Quarter 1883 36 $16.18 $17.04 

2 Quarter 1883 37 $13.76 $12.68 

3 Quarter 1883 38 $15.04 $16.99 

4 Quarter 1883 39 $12.68 $16.82 

1 Quarter 1884 40 $14.19 $14.31 

2 Quarter 1884 41 $13.95 $14.24 

3 Quarter 1884 42 $12.07 $12.49 

4 Quarter 1884 43 $12.21 $12.29 

Median $27.23 $22.32 

Source: Story County Net-Proceeds Assessment Rolls, see footnote 17.


12 

FIGURE 2 

COMPARISON OF YIELDS AND COSTS PER TON 1871-1884 

$80 

$70 

$60 

$50 

Per-Ton Yields 

Per-Ton Costs 

$40 

$30 

$20 

$10 

$0 

0 10 20 30 40 50 

Quarters Sequentially 

The vast majority of mine owners and operators even in good times operated in 

the red or very close to the edge of red. It would have taken more than figuring out a way 

to cheat on taxes to enhance profitability. For whatever reason – malfeasance, 

incompetence or misfortune – mining companies had to rely on capital (as opposed to 

tax) assessments to stay in business. Authorization of assessments against stockholders 

meant that companies at the very least had too few profits from which to underwrite 

further explorations, to maintain existing facilities or upgrade underground technologies. 

In some cases assessments were required to meet daily operating expenses. Mines not 

only lacked profits that could be converted to capital for investment but at the basic level 

revenue streams that paid for day-to-day operations. But then again companies were 

expected to pay dividends so that whatever profits they might earn often ended up in the 

stockholders’ pockets. If companies were paying dividends, theoretically they had profits 

and surpluses that could be invested in continuing explorations and operations. It was not 

uncommon for companies to pay dividends while collecting assessments. This created 

burden than tax payments. It was the basis of much of Lord’s complaint against owners 

and operators. He compiled a table of assessments and dividends for all stocks trading on 

the San Francisco Exchange as of 1880. One caveat: his data cannot be readily verified 

although his research was generally viewed favorably. In any event he found that the 

Exchange listed 103 mining stocks for Washoe Mines (mines along the Comstock Lode 

and beyond). Fourteen mines paid dividends totaling $116 million. The four largest 

bonanza mines – Consolidated Virginia, California, Belcher and Crown Point paid out 

$102 million. The balance of $10 million was spread among the other ten mines. That 

group included well-established operations such as Gould & Curry, Hale & Norcross, 

Kentuck, Ophir, Savage and Yellow Jacket, which combined paid out $13 million. Four 

smaller operations split up the remaining million dollars. Only 14 percent of the mining 

companies whose stocks traded generated profits from which to pay dividends. By 

contrast 102 of the 103 companies (California was the sole exception) approved


13 

assessment that totaled $62 million. Only five of the companies – Belcher, Consolidated 

Virginia, Crown Point, Gould & Curry and Kentuck – had profits after deducting 

assessments. (California had profits as well but no assessments.) Thus, while 14 percent 

paid dividends, only 5 percent had profits that exceeded their assessments. If California is 

added to the list (profits but no assessments) 6 percent had free and clear profits. Of the 

$62 million in assessment $44 million (63 percent) was never repaid. 18 Although Lord’s 

data do not resolve the basic issue of yields versus costs, they do reinforce the idea that 

except for a handful of operations over a quarter of a century could be said to make any 

money for their owners and investors. Other operations might have been profitable from 

time to time but over the long term they were not moneymaking investments. Whatever 

the actual spread between yields and costs quarter by quarter and company by company 

may be, these computations nonetheless suggest that the color red was as prominent in 

the Comstock’s financial world as gold and silver were in its mineral world. 

Special Appendix: 

Below are sample pages from microfilm copies of the Net-Proceeds Mineral Tax as 

recored by the Story County Assessor, 3 rd Quarter, 1877. The ledgers were composed of 

larger-then-normal pages, and the copies (below) have been arranged as follows: top left, 

bottom left, top cneter, bottom center, top right, bottom right. 

TOP LEFT – MINING COMPANIES 

18 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 419-421.


14 

BOTTOM LEFT – TAILINGS MILLS PLUS STATEMENT BY ASSESSOR 

TOP CENTER- TONS, YIELDS, COSTS


15 

BOTTOM CENTER – SAME DATA AS TOP CENTER FOR TAILINGS MILLS 

PLUS ANOTHER STATEMENT BY ASSESSOR 

TOP RIGHT – TOTAL COSTS, DEDUCTIONS PERMITTED, TAXES 

ASSESSED


16 

BOTTOM RIGHT – CONTINUATION OF TOP RIGHT AND ASSESSOR'S 

STATEMENT FROM BOTTOM CENTER

THE COMSTOCK [D] 

1 

Chapter 4 


First Stage 1860-1870 

In the preceding section on the Comstock mining structure I focused on the decade and a 

half after the enactment of the 1871 tax because the official public record allow broad 

trends and patterns to be identified and studied. In the decade prior to 1871 the Comstock 

had important discoveries that led to the earliest bonanza mines. The quantity and quality 

of the documentation, however, is less consistent and complete, and this presents some 

complications in the effort to link the two decades and to develop a long-term analysis of 

Comstock mining from 1860 to 1885. There is a fairly large body of private and public 

data on mining operations and finances from 1860 to 1870, but it has survived in a form 

that does not lend itself to the creation of a profile such as discussed above. Numeric data 

are more scant for the first half of the 1860s than the second half. During the territorial 

period government generated few documents on mining operations, and except for 

judicial records as the result of hundreds of lawsuits concerning property disputes public 

documentation is sparse. On the private end prospectors with their picks, pans and packs 

seldom keep records on ores extracted from outcroppings or streams that they worked. 

Even when some of the outcroppings led to bonanzas, the record keeping was spotty. 

Over time, as entrepreneurs replaced prospectors and as the scale of mining grew to 

unprecedented levels, the paper trail became more conspicuous and pertinent. In the wake 

of the organization of state government the official public record began to grow. In 

addition mining companies as stock-issuing corporations had to issue periodically 

financial reports for stockholders and investors, and these reports plus the business 

accounts upon which they were based came to constitute private-company archives, some 

of which have survived in part because they were considered to be collectibles. The well 

of documentation for the first decade of Comstock mining is not dry by any means, and it 

can be drawn from to develop a profile of the mining industry during the first decade that 

can be linked to a far more detailed profile for the second and third decades. 

Early Comstock history is subject to frequent rewriting. Who made the first 

discoveries and how events evolved from there are based as much on lore as on 

documentation. When the Surveyor-General wrote his first legislative report in 1865 

(submitted to the 3 rd Legislative Session, 1867), his version of the Comstock earliest 

history offered a reasonably accurate rendition of how events unfolded. The Grosch 

brothers were the first (certainly among the first) to find silver while panning in the area 

of Silver City around 1857. One brother died from a pick-in-the-foot accident, and 

shortly thereafter the other brother headed for California. Whether or not the Grosch 

brothers deserve to be credited with the founding of the Lode (since their discovery was 

modest and their presence brief), reports of their discoveries circulated through western 

Nevada and eastern California and attracted others. During the next two years panners 

and prospectors continued to work on the Lode’s southern edge around Silver City and 

northward into the vicinity of Gold Hill and Virginia City. Surface conditions certainly 

made prospecting attractive, and while a major discovery remained elusive, it had 

become a probability rather than just a possibility for those working the valleys and 

hillsides. Perhaps the most important figure during these first two years was James


2 

Finney, known as “Old Virginia” (being a native Virginian). His fellow miners regarded 

him as a first-rate placer miner and so honored him by naming Virginia City for him in 

1859. The Surveyor-General actually credited Finney with discovering the Comstock, 

even though the Lode was named for another prospector, Harry Comstock, a naming that 

the Surveyor-General considered a fraud. He based that on a quartz claim that Finney 

filed in February, 1858. This claim was for an outcropping, known as “Virginia 

Croppings”, at the head of Six Mile Canyon, and in the view of the Surveyor-General it 

was the “western portion” of the Comstock Lode. Finney had actually abandoned his 

diggings there, and some months later in the summer of 1859 others while “gold 

washing” discovered a large silver deposit that Finney had missed. So the founding of the 

Comstock will remain shrouded in controversy, perhaps as it should, because prospecting 

by its very nature resists being documented. Less controversial is the fact that the 

prospectors’ activities had by 1860 drawn those individuals who would lay the 

foundation for the Comstock mining industry. 1 

In those early months and years no one knew how much ore lay below the surface 

or how it was configured. It was imagined, as one editor quoted by Smith said, that 

“Every hill and canon around seems to be literally made of silver—there is no end to it.” 2 

The scattered nature of the underground deposits as well as their great depth was not yet 

understood. But a rush was underway, and as a result little of the Comstock escaped 

being staked for claims. Even ten years later when the topography and geology of the 

Comstock was better understood, surveyors’ maps (many of extraordinarily high quality) 

still showed virtually every 

plot of ground along and 

beyond the Comstock under a 

claim, although many had 

fallen into desuetude. 3 Only a 

few rich outcroppings led to 

large underground deposits 

that could be tunneled into 

with little or no risk. The 

majority of the claims 

contained vein matter – streaks 

of ore not usually profitable – 

or turned out to be absolutely 

barren. But enough ore was 

found or was rumored to have 

been found to launch a frenzy 

Illustration 1: Map of Comstock Claims 

of building. The depth of the 

shafts and the length of the tunnels, the horsepower of the hoists and the capacity of the 

1 

“Annual Report of the Surveyor-General...1865” in Senate Journal and Appendix, 3 rd Legislative Session 

(1867), 19-20. Also see Smith, The Comstock Lode, 4-16. For a lively and modern rendering of the early 

years see James, The Roar and the Silence, Chaps 1-3. 

2 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, quote on p. 32 with no source cited. 

3 

See J. B. Treadwell, compiler, “Graphic Chart of the Comstock Mines, State of Nevada, 1876,” issued 

with the San Francisco News Letter, 3 June 1876, on file, G4352 C6 1876 T7, at Special Collections, 

Library, University of Nevada, Reno.


3 

mills were frequently commented upon in local newspapers and published in state reports 

to illustrate how immense this undertaking had become. Placer mining offered little 

precedent for what lode miners confronted on the Sierra’s eastern slopes. It was 

accomplished in large measure through a combination of experimentation, innovation, 

money and luck. Some new, important technologies from framing the underground 

workings to accelerating the amalgamation operations – were quickly developed and 

widely adapted. 4 The Comstock benefited from the fact that America was in the midst of 

a manufacturing revolution, which meant that many industrial-grade products – cables, 

motors and drills to name a few – could be enlisted in the conquest of the Comstock. In 

addition it benefited from the fact that the American West and California in particular 

attracted inventors, engineers and scientists who could be called upon to address the 

challenges posed by the Comstock. What the first prospectors thought that they had found 

evolved into a mining business that they would not have recognized. Indeed the 

Comstock both captured and reflected the inventive and entrepreneurial spirit of America 

in the second half of the nineteenth century. 

FIGURE 1 

SOUTHERN SECTION, COMSTOCK LODE, BECKER ATLAS SHEET XI 

[BRACKETED FIGURES FROM SURVEYOR'S POINT (GOULD & CURRY), OVERMAN 

(COMBINED) MINES EXHAUSTED AT 600', BELCEHR, CROWN POINT AT 2,000', 

KENTUCK AT 1,400', YELLOW JACKET AT 1,500', CHALLENGE, CONFIDENCE, 

IIMPERIAL AT 1,000'] 

Notes: Depths from surface above mines may be several hundred feet shallower than surveyor's depths. 

Official mining statistics from the territorial period are minimal. A few public 

documents such as judicial proceedings over disputed claims and company accounts 

provide a scattering of mining and milling data. Much of the economic, financial and 

technological information for the territorial period has been drawn from newspapers and 

periodicals. As word spread about the wealth of the Comstock so too did coverage. 

Besides the local press there were journalists from San Francisco as well as eastern cities 

4 

“Annual Report of the Surveyor-General...1865” in Senate Journal and Appendix, 3 rd Legislative Session 

(1867), 22.


4 

like New York. News reports as historical sources always raise the issue of accuracy, and 

in the case of the Comstock the press has served as an important historical repository for 

the reminiscences, chronicles and histories written about the Comstock. Not surprisingly 

the two most famous chroniclers, Grant Smith and Eliot Lord, made extensive use of 

journalistic sources. Almost everyone who has written about the Comstock in the earliest 

years portrayed it as rife with speculation that resulted in too many mines and mills being 

built. Lord, relying on data published a decade later (3 March 1877) in a periodical 

known as the Mining and Scientific Press, averred that in 1861 that 86 mining companies 

had been organized “with an aggregate capital stock” of $61.5 million. That averaged out 

to be about three-quarters of a million dollars per company. These were large numbers by 

any measure. If we accept the numbers as generally accurate and then compare them to 

the Surveyor-General’s 1866 report, we observe that the Comstock industry had slimmed 

down considerably. The Surveyor-General’s list had half the number of mines cited by 

Lord, and only half of those actually registered any production. Lord’s retrospective view 

of such frenzy in mining on the Comstock, a view shared by Smith and others, accepted 

this for what it was – fantasy. “In the unknown there is an almost infinite range of 

possibility, and who could then oppose the confident faith of the optimists, except with 

unsupported doubts,…[as] every stroke of the pick revealed new treasures.” 5 Smith 

calculated that between 1859 through 1862 output probably rose from several hundred 

thousand dollars to several million dollars. Impressive but not spectacular, and yet 

enough to clog the trails from California with would-be fortune seekers. But, as would 

happen more than once in the first quarter century of Comstock mining, new discoveries 

sent production skyrocketing. Output jumped to $6 million in 1862, $12 million in 1863 

and to $15 million dollars in 1864 and 1865. From 1859 to 1866 the Comstock had 

yielded up about 1.7 million tons of ore worth about $50 million dollars (near $1 billion 

today). 6 A quantum leap had occurred, and this was not lost on those who followed 

Comstock mining. By far the largest operation by ore produced in the first half of the 

1860s was Gould & Curry with $14,000,000 worth of ore or nearly a third of the total. 7 

Even though Comstock production had more than doubled between 1862 and 1864 its 

overall financial health was called into question. The San Francisco Stock and Exchange 

Board (created in November 1862) had helped to push stocks prices up after major 

discoveries in 1862, but, as output appeared to stall in 1864, the Exchange then drove 

them down. Investors and speculators had thrown a lot of money at the Comstock 

without, as the Surveyor-General’s report insinuated, much serious scrutiny of the Lode’s 

financial potential. Too many mines and too many mills and too few profitable ores 

precipitated a crash. Bankruptcy, tight money, unemployment and out-migration spoiled 

the party. Now Virginia City had become to those who remained “dull” after several 

5 


6 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 32, no source cited for quote. Other materials on pp 28-37, 58-62. Surveyor- 

General estimated that $45 million worth of ore for a shorter period of five years from 1861-1865. See 

“Annual Report of the Surveyor-General…1865” in Senate Journal and Appendix, 3 rd Legislative Session 

(1867), 22-23. 

7 


(1867), 23; Smith, The Comstock Lode, 25-26; Lord cited figures for 1863-1865 that exceeded $11 million 

in Comstock Mining and Miners, 128.


5 

“splendid” years. But the Comstock was not yet to be declared dead. The downturn in the 

mid-1860s simply served as an invitation to another group of investors and speculators to 

buy in. As Smith wrote: “The mines were worth far more than [their] bedrock prices.” 8 

FIGURE 2 

MIDDLE SECTION, COMSTOCK LODE, BECKER ATLAS SHEET X 

[BRACKETED FIGURES FROM SURVEYOR'S POINT AT A (GOULD & CURRY), CHOLLAR 

POTOSI EXHAUSTED AT 700', HALE & NORCROSS AT 1,600', SAVAGE AT 1,000', 

GOULD & CURRY AT 600', BEST & BELCHER BARREN] 

Notes: Depths from surface above mines may be several hundred feet shallower than surveyor's depths. 

Comstock statistics become more ample after 1865 in large part because 

government had a vested interest in knowing how much ore was being produced on the 

Comstock and in other mining districts. More data did not mean, however, that there was 

always agreement about how much ore was produced or how many claims were active on 

the Comstock. Nevada’s Surveyor-General stated the obvious: “It is impossible to give a 

total yield of ores from the various claims upon the Comstock Lode since its discovery, 

as but few companies have kept records of the amount raised.” 9 But, as Comstock mining 

assumed a more corporate, industrial character, record keeping expanded and improved, 

even a few years after the initial discoveries. In particular the State in need of financing 

for public services had a direct interest in gathering more information. Initially the 

8 


9 


(1867), 22.


6 

Surveyor-General assembled what financial data he could in his role as monitor of the 

State’s mineral resources and mining operations. With the establishment of the Office of 

the Controller, the State’s chief auditing and accounting officer, data on revenues (in 

which mining taxes came to play a major role) and expenditures were collected regularly 

and published annually. Finally, by the late 1860s the State appointed (and then elected) a 

Mineralogist, who having assumed most of the oversight responsibilities assigned 

originally to the Surveyor-General broadened the statistical database by requesting more 

detailed financial information from mining companies and then publishing long annual 

reports. Scattered company accounts combined with numerous legislative reports prior to 

the 1871 enactment of the net-proceeds tax provide a fairly solid basis for estimating the 

performance of the mining industry. 

The Surveyor-General’s reports, submitted to the biennial legislative session in 

1867, contained inventories of Comstock mines (1865) and mills (1866). 10 [See Special 

Appendix at end of chapter for sample pages from two tables.] The 1865 compilation 

contained names of 46 mines with statistics on the length of the claims (explored and 

unexplored), the depth of the mines, and the number of engines employed in each mine. 

According to his findings the 46 mines had claimed about 23,000 feet of the Comstock, 

and they had explored about half of the Lode thus far claimed. But he warned that some 

claims included in this inventory were largely unexplored and could be excluded once the 

actual dimensions of the Lode were fully documented. The average depth of the mines 

exceeded 400 feet. The shallowest mine – Union - was 80 feet and the deepest – Best & 

Belcher – was 821 feet. 11 He estimated that underground excavations (tunnels, drifts, 

adits, etc.) had reached 67.5 miles [350,000 feet]. Underground excavations were defined 

at times as ore-paying and non-ore-paying. The latter was also known as “dead work”. 

Even though such works were necessary in order to reach the ores, they could prove to be 

so expensive and unprofitable that many companies failed to cover those costs even after 

they found ores of moderate yields. The longest tunnel up to this point, according to the 

Surveyor-General, was Latrobe. It may have been started as early as 1861 and may have 

reached 3,200 feet by 1865. It was built to drain several small mining properties known 

as Sides and White & Murphy and perhaps one or two others. It ran from the Lode along 

the footwall next to Mt Davidson at about 700 feet toward the hanging wall where it 

surfaced. Little else is known about the tunnel’s early history, although Smith declared 

10 


(1867), 21; “Annual Report of the Surveyor-General…Year 1866” in Senate Journal and Appendix, 3 rd 

Legislative Session (1867). The Surveyor-General compiled two tables: “Mines on the Comstock Lode” 

with more than two-dozen columns of data and “Tabular List of Mills Crushing Ore from the Comstock 

Lode During the Year 1866” with mills listed by county and more than two dozen columns of data. The 

tables appear in the 1866 Report following p. 26. Sources for mine table were not precise, although the 

Surveyor-General admitted that he had not visited the mines themselves since 1863 (1865 Report, p. 22). 

He also noted that since some mine owners were reluctant to share information, the list and the data were 

incomplete. Sources for the 1866 mill table were described in the 1866 Report, p. 19. The two annual 

reports, 1865 and 1866, by the Surveyor-General were bound together in a volume containing the business 

of the 1867 Legislative Session. It is not clear if the mine table was originally a part of the 1865 Report or a 

part of the 1866 Report where it was found. 

11 


(1867), 21. Eliot Lord cited some of the above figures from the Surveyor-General’s 1865 report in his 

Comstock Mining and Miners, although he claimed the year incorrectly to be 1866 instead of 1865. See p. 

227 and footnote 3.


7 

that the mines that it was supposed to drain eventually abandoned it. 12 Between $13 and 

$16 million worth of ore was extracted and processed in 1865. 13 Even through the bullion 

was many times greater in value than a half-dozen years earlier, the enormity of the task 

to locate and recover the ore both in financial and technological terms was becoming 

more worrisome. The Lode was not a solid, uninterrupted wedge of profitable ore but 

rather pockets of ore separated by large, barren spaces that had to be explored and 

maintained at costs that could exceed the value of the output of any given claim along the 

Lode. A massive, expensive and complex structure was taking shape underground at the 

same time that an equally impressive city was being built above ground. Worrisome was 

the risk and uncertainty arising from the cost to build both of these networks. Not enough 

profit-yielding ores were being found to maintain the profligate ways of the initial 

organizers of the Comstock industry. 

For 1866 Surveyor-General’s statistics on Comstock mining activity were far 

more detailed than for the previous year. Not only is it possible to establish quarterly 

figures for ore production and yields, but it also possible to analyze these data on a 

company-by-company basis. The backdrop for 1866 is the so-called “Panic of 1865”, 

when mining stocks sold off sharply at the San Francisco Exchange because mining 

companies were alleged to have squandered opportunities and fortunes through 

mismanagement, needless lawsuits and unproductive explorations. 14 Under these 

circumstances output can be expected to fall. Unfortunately a single, clean number does 

not exist. The Surveyor-General reported several different numbers. One number was the 

quarterly “ore product” of each mine. It was calculated from tons extracted times the perton 

value to equal the “bullion product” of the mine. The total was $11.9 million. But in 

this only ores yielding $20 or more per ton were counted. Owners of ores yielding less 

than $20 per ton simply did not report their tonnage or sold the ores on the open market. 

This amounted to slightly more than $82,000, and the total of the two categories of ores 

was $12 million. The Surveyor-General offered a third set of numbers - $11.3 million - 

from Hillyears & Co.’s Stock Circular. All three figures fall between $11 and $12 

million, and since some ores yielding less than $20 per ton may not have been included, 

the total product of all ores could have been $12 million or higher. 15 Grant Smith 

published a figure of $12 million, but Eliot Lord published an even higher figure of more 

than $14 million. 16 The Surveyor-General’s 1866 estimate represented an decline of 8 

12 


(1867), 22; Smith The Comstock Lode, 46, 146-147. Smith reported that the tunnel had only reached a 

length of 2,800 feet. 

13 


(1867), 22, reported $13.5 million while Smith in The Comstock Lode, 58, published a figure of $16 million 

without any specific citation. 

14 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 58-59. Despite the production of about $16 million in bullion in 1865, 

speculators and investors alike began to sell off their holdings. The market value of Comstock mining 

companies fell from near $50 million in 1863 to $12 million in the summer of 1865 and $4 million in 

December of 1865. Some correction was to be expected in light of much-inflated stock prices plus 

expensive lawsuits, extravagant outlays for mills and offices, poor management and no new bonanzas. 

15 


(1867), Table following p. 26 and p. 29. 

16 

In The Comstock Lode (p. 99) Smith actually rounded the total up from the $11.7 million, the figure that 

appeared in his Notebooks. He attributed the information in his Notebook to a report on the Comstock by 

James G. Hague. See: “Tabular Statements of Assessments, Products and Dividends During 1866, 1867,


8 

percent from his 1865 total, and Smith’s 1866 estimate represented a 25 percent decline 

from his 1865 figure. 17 FIGURE 3 

OUTPUT ($) BY COMPANY, VARIOUS SOURCES, 1866 

Company Output $ Output $ Output $ Output $ % % 

Smith SG 1 SG 2 SG 3 (SG 2) (Smith) 

Yellow Jacket $2,297,233 $2,397,792 $2,397,792 $2,310,000 20.1 18.2 

Savage 1,814,879 1,721,869 1,722,273 1,805,800 14.4 14.4 

Gould & Curry 1,624,781 1,583,378 1,583,378 1,605,228 13.3 12.9 

Crown Point 1,312,471 1,317,248 1,320,926 1,313,057 11.1 10.4 

Hale & Norcross 1,186,543 1,133,089 1,133,089 1,199,768 9.5 9.4 

Chollar Potosi 848,751 847,307 856,433 848,750 7.2 6.7 

Imperial 910,387 699,525 699,525 910,187 5.9 7.2 

Kentuck 571,507 568,400 568,400 4.8 4.5 

Empire 422,291 285,578 299,898 486,778 2.5 3.3 

Ophir 417,472 262,187 262,187 450,000 2.2 3.3 

Consolidated (21 Feet) 233,700 233,693 240,132 2.0 1.9 

Eclipse 206,499 206,386 231,374 1.9 1.6 

Gold Hill Quartz 115,484 115,491 119,839 1.0 0.9 

Winters, J. D. & Co 95,537 95,554 106,182 0.9 0.8 

Confidence 304,932 79,715 87,941 303,920 0.7 2.4 

Piute 84,077 84,082 84,082 0.7 0.7 

Plato 51,921 51,975 51,975 0.4 0.4 

Trench 41,019 41,019 41,019 0.3 0.3 

Bacon 34,606 34,606 34,606 0.3 0.3 

Segmented Belcher 30,305 30,305 0.3 

Mexican 28,567 28,667 0.2 

Bowers 28,555 28,555 28,555 0.2 0.2 

Challenge 23,299 23,299 0.2 

Overman 27,953 27,953 0.0 0.2 

Allen 

Alpha 

Apple & Bates 

Baltimore-American 

1868 and 1869 of the Leading Claims on the Comstock Lode,” (Copied from James G. Hague’s Report on 

the Comstock, p. 191), Binder 1, Typescript with revisions in pen or pencil, NC229, Special Collections, 

Library, University of Nevada, Reno; also “Recorded Production of Little Gold Hill Mines, as far as 

known, for years 1866 to 1869,” Binder 1, typescript with revisions in pen or pencil, NC229, Special 

Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno. Eliot cited the 1866 “Report of the United States 

Commissioner of Mines and Mining” in Comstock Mining and Miners, 226, footnote 2. Couch and 

Carpenter in their publication entitled “Nevada’s Metal and Mineral Production” in University of Nevada 

Bulletin, 37:4, 132-138, provide production figures for Story County with data for the early years being 

drawn from figures published in Smith. 

17 


(1867), 23; Smith, The Comstock Lode, 58.


9 

Belcher 

Best & Belcher 

Bullion 

Burke, Hamilton & Co 

California 

Central 

Central #2 

Consolidated Virginia 

Exchequer 

Kinney 

Lady Bryant 

North American 

Sides 

Sierra Nevada 

Union 

Utah 

White & Murphy 

Total $12,630,598 $11,869,620 $11,951,877 $11,261,441 100.0 100.0 

Sources: Grant Smith, Tabular Statements…, 1866, Binder 1, NC229, Special Collections, University of 

Nevada, Reno; “Annual Report of the Surveyor-General of the State of Nevada for the Year 1866,” in State 

Journal and Appendix, 3rd Legislative Session (1867), Table following p. 26. Company names in red 

appear only in Smith and in blue only in Surveyor-General. The Surveyor-General’s Report had three 

different totals, as explained in text. Percentage rankings for Survey-General’s data from SG 2 or “Total 

Yielding over $20 per ton, and ores sold”. Blank spaces indicate no production recorded for the company. 

Since it is not known for certain if companies were active with no production or inactive with no 

production, those with blank spaces were not included in the rankings. If all the companies with blank 

spaces were active with no production, then that would change the rankings in a significant fashion. The 

companies are ranked on the basis of the data from the Surveyor-General. In the adjacent column rankings 

based on Smith’s data are given. For the top five companies the rankings are the same but the percentages 

differ slightly. 

The early structure of the Comstock mining industry can be laid out in modest 

detail based on financial statistics for companies with claims on the Lode in 1866 

assembled by the Surveyor-General and Smith. 18 A total of 45 mining companies 

appeared on the two lists, as shown in the preceding Table. Of the total 24 or 53 percent 

reported ore production. Of the remainder it is impossible to determine if they were 

operating but had no ore production to report for that year or if they had no ore 

production because they were shut down. In a few cases among the non-producing 

companies both the Surveyor-General and Smith reported that the companies had raised 

money through assessments, but that in and of itself did not prove that the companies 

were actually in operation. What the data suggest, as early as the mid-1860s, is that in 

any given year only a handful of companies accounted for the bulk of the ore extracted 

18 


(1867), Table following p. 26, Notes p. 29; Smith, “Tabular Statements”, Binder 1, NC229, Special 

Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno; also “Recorded Production,” Binder 1, NC229, Special 

Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno.


10 

from the Comstock. On this matter both lists agree. The Surveyor-General had 43 

operations and Smith had 36. The former included nine operations that did not appear on 

Smith’s list, and latter included two not on the Surveyor-General’s list. Of the nine on the 

Surveyor-General’s list only two recorded ore production for a total of 0.5 percent, an 

insignificant amount. The two companies in Smith’s list but not on the Surveyor- 

General’s list reported no ore production. According to the Surveyor-General’s data the 

total output in 1866 was between $11.2 million and $12.0 million (numbers rounded up). 

Smith, on the other hand, came up with a total output of $12.6 million. Since their 

sources were different, their totals should not be expected to agree. 19 A figure between 

$12 and $13 million is reasonable in light of the available evidence. 

Although the figures from the Surveyor-General and Smith on total production as 

well as company-by-company production (based on the value of the bullion in dollars) 

differed, the rankings of the companies were quite similar. In comparing the two datasets 

I have used the Surveyor-General’s figures for all ores. He divided the ores into two 

classes: bullion from ores that yielded more than $20 per ton and bullion from ores that 

“sold” because they yielded $20 per ton or less (Product SG 2 in Figure 12). 20 Thus the 

totals being compared are $11,951,877 from the Surveyor-General and $12,630,598 from 

Smith. (The totals being used will affect the respective rankings.) The Yellow Jacket 

mine on the southern end of the Comstock near the Virginia City border accounted for 

one fifth of the total output: $2.4 million for 20 percent of the total on the Surveyor- 

General’s list versus $2.3 million or 18 percent on Smith’s list. Behind Yellow Jacket 

was Savage with $1.7-1.8 million or 14 percent, Gould & Curry with $1.6 million or 13 

percent, Crown Point with $1.3 million or 11 percent and Hale & Norcross with $1.1-1.2 

million or 9 percent. Taken together these five accounted for $8.2 million or two-thirds of 

the total ore. Another eight mines produced 27-28 percent of the total, and the remainder 

accounted for less than 1 percent each of the total. To recapitulate both lists contains 15 

to 20 mines with no reported production at all. The rankings will undergo numerous 

changes over the next 20 years. Some of the high producers will remain active players 

and others will cease operations. Among non-producing mines several will arise like 

Phoenix to enjoy great bonanzas. The number of producing mines in any given year was 

19 

Smith’s data were taken from US Mint records in San Francisco, some of which appeared in a report 

written by James D. Hague for Clarence King. The Surveyor-General’s data were taken from the records of 

Story County’s assessor, who levied a tax of 0.75 percent against two classes of ores: those worth more 

than $20 or more per ton and those worth $20 or less. The Table (“Annual Report of the Surveyor-General 

…1866” in Senate Journal and Appendix, 3 rd Legislative Session, 1867, Table followed p. 26, under Notes 

p. 29, involved some elaborate calculations, not all of which were correct or consistent. In paying their 

taxes producers reported to the assessor the tons of the ores that they had processed and the per-ton values 

each quarter. The per-ton values multiplied times the tons processed equaled the so-called “bullion 

product”. In checking the results some errors were found in multiplying the tons by the per-ton averages. 

Thus, the total “bullion product” was probably off by thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of dollars. 

That would mean that the value of the bullion for each producer and the total value for the Comstock 

should be higher than reported in the Surveyor-General’s Table. Even after this correction the Surveyor- 

General’s total was lower than Smith’s total. This would be the case even if the “bullion product” 

consisting of ores worth more than $20 per ton were added to “Ores Sold” consisting of ores worth $20 or 

less per ton. A third total on the surveyor-General’s Table was from Hillyears & Co.’s Stock Circular. It 

was even lower - $11.3 million versus $11.9 and $12.0 million – because it did not include production from 

a dozen medium-size and small operations. 

20 

See the above footnote.


11 

always small compared to the alleged number of active mining operations, and the 

concentration of production became more pronounced, especially as mergers and 

acquisitions of mining properties accelerated. 

FIGURE 4 

COPY OF UPPER SECTION OF SAVAGE, GOULD & CURRY AND BEST & 

BELCHER MINES, BECKER'S ATLAS, XVI 

[Purpose to illustrate how shallow ore bodies were in early years. Two depths: without parentheses, 

from mine surface; with parentheses from Gould & Curry survey point. Tiered colors=depths: green 

on top of red, on top of brown, on top of yellow, approx 100 to 900 feet. Colors repeat at lower 

depths. View: looking down from surface. Savage's ore bodies from 200 to 900 feet; Gould & Curry 

from 0 to 500 feet; Best & Belcher barren. Slanted dark line (west to east) claim borders. Tunneling – 

drifts, winzes, upraises – at various levels show extent of underground exploring.]


12 

Sources: See footnote 19. 

FIGURE 5 

QUARTERLY TONNAGE AND YIELDS IN EXCESS 

OF $20 PER-TON BY COMPANY, 1866. 

[Surveyor-General Data] 

Companies 1st Q Per Ton 2nd Q Per Ton 3rd Q Per Ton 4th Q Per Ton Total Per Ton 

Hale & 

Norcross 2,658.0 $26.17 5,796.0 $38.34 7,974.0 $49.16 8,457.1 $53.12 24,885.1 $45.53 

Savage 7,224.0 $50.23 6,042.0 $45.84 9,197.0 $46.61 16,038.0 $40.67 38,501.0 $44.69 

Crown Point 8,133.0 $44.06 8,368.3 $40.23 6,956.0 $33.65 10,737.0 $36.15 34,194.3 $38.52 

Mexican 100.0 $30.00 676.0 $37.79 776.0 $36.83 

Kentuck 1,043.0 $42.50 2,526.2 $31.50 6,350.6 $37.56 7,656.0 $26.89 17,575.8 $32.34 

Ophir 1,596.0 $44.91 4,562.5 $28.28 1,878.0 $27.10 430.0 $26.94 8,466.5 $30.96 

Yellow Jacket 10,045.0 $29.41 17,681.3 $28.70 26,859.0 $35.28 23,985.5 $27.07 78,570.8 $30.52 

Gould & 

Curry 13,547.0 $32.64 11,897.0 $37.60 15,100.0 $25.00 13,883.0 $23.00 54,427.0 $29.09 

Challenge 854.7 $27.26 854.7 $27.26 

Imperial 6,597.0 $23.54 4,173.0 $31.55 7,216.0 $23.15 8,353.0 $29.39 26,339.0 $26.56 

Winters, J. D. 

& Co 

3,598.0 $26.55 3,598.0 $26.55 

Gold Hill 

Quartz 

712.0 $28.25 1,849.0 $21.55 1,079.0 $31.16 734.0 $29.84 4,374.0 $26.40 

Trench 1,624.5 $25.25 1,624.5 $25.25 

Bacon 1,370.0 $25.26 1,370.0 $25.22 

Segmented 

Belcher 1,262.5 $24.00 1,262.5 $24.00 

Chollar-Potosi 8,144.0 $24.66 10,553.8 $23.87 7,811.5 $21.09 9,164.5 $22.51 35,673.8 $23.76 

Confidence 1,362.0 $22.27 2,126.0 $26.23 3,488.0 $22.85 

Consolidated 

(21 Feet) 1,797.0 $21.87 2,660.0 $23.88 3,100.0 $22.13 2,848.0 $21.88 10,405.0 $22.46 

Empire 4,023.0 $23.00 4,768.0 $21.33 4,228.0 $21.50 13,019.0 $21.93 

Eclipse 1,617.5 $24.67 960.0 $21.17 2,830.0 $20.85 4,180.0 $20.87 9,587.5 $21.53 

Plato 767.0 $24.50 1,653.0 $20.06 2,420.0 $21.47 

Piute 920.5 $21.82 3,056.0 $20.94 3,976.5 $21.14 

Bowers 1,415.0 $20.18 1,415.0 $20.18 

Totals 75,858.0 83,205.5 107,046.1 110,694.1 376,803.8 

Average $31.59 $31.88 $31.93 $30.62 16,382.8 $31.72 

Median $24.96 $28.49 $26.83 $26.94 8,466.5 $26.40 

The Surveyor-General’s report from 1866 contained other useful information on 

how the industry was developing. For tax purposes companies had to report the tons of 

ore that they had processed or sold at the end of each quarter, and from these data 

quarterly production figures can be assembled for the entire Comstock and for individual 

companies. 21 In the wake of the “Panic of 1865” Comstock ore tonnage was lower at the 

beginning of the year than at the end; 1866 turned out to be a year of recovery. This was 

evidenced in the quarterly production figures: tonnage of ore processed or sold advanced 

5 percent from 82,000 tons in the first quarter to 86,000 in the second, 25 percent to 

21 

The rate of taxation on the proceeds was three-quarters of 1 percent.


13 

108,000 tons in the third and finally 4 percent to 112,000 in the fourth Even though the 

annual production for 1866 was off by 25 percent compared to 1865 the quarterly upward 

trend, spurred by new discoveries, could only have been heartening to both the mining 

and the investing community. Twenty-three companies reported taxable ore production of 

388,000 tons for an average of 17,000 tons per company. Ninety-seven percent or 

377,000 tons belonged to the class of processed ores ($20 per ton and above) and 3 

percent to the class of sold ores. For both classes the yield-per ton by which Comstock 

productivity was measured was $31.72. 22 This is a rough estimate because the data in the 

Surveyor-General’s report from which this average has been computed contained some 

arithmetic errors. 

New ore discoveries, of course, were the most powerful force to revive 

interest in the Comstock among miners and investors. Discoveries at Hale & Norcross 

and Crown Point played that role in 1866. In the case of Crown Point its discovery spilled 

over into Yellow Jacket so that both mines were working the same deposit, although at 

different depths. These discoveries added to the knowledge of the configuration of the 

Lode. The picture that was emerging from the underground was more complex and 

quixotic than the original rendition. Miners were learning that the Lode had vast stretches 

of barren ground that almost at random contained concentrated pockets of rich ores that 

upon discovery could pay for the costs that had accrued in searching for them. In other 

words, money had to be spent on explorations without any guarantee of eventual returns. 

On top of that they were learning that as their explorations reached the range of 500 to 

1,000 feet they were better served by angling away from the head wall at the foot of Mt 

Davidson toward the hanging wall at the outer edge. The Comstock was not a solid, 

inexhaustible, perpendicular mineral formation. The riches were in pockets spread along 

several miles from the northern to the southern tip and across a width of several thousand 

feet. Most importantly, while several ore pockets may lie at approximately the same 

depth, they were seldom connected. Hopes rested on the discoveries of the pockets, but 

they also had to embrace with a cyclical regimen that deposits would be mined out before 

new ones turned up. A cycle of bonanzas and borrascas ruled the Comstock until the 

Lode had given up its riches. Hence, in 1866 after the “panic of 1865” and the handringing 

over the future of the Comstock that it induced the new discoveries ignited a new 

enthusiasm. Stock prices had plummeted in 1865, and gloom dominated the forecasts at 

the outset of 1866. Three large companies - Ophir, Gould & Curry and Chollar Potosi – 

with mines under Virginia City found little or no profitable ores as they opened 

explorations below 500 feet. On the other hand another Virginia City mine, Savage, was 

able to report that an ore deposit, which it shared with Gould & Curry, continued in a 

southerly direction away from Gould & Curry for another 500 feet to almost the 1,000- 

foot level. In addition Savage shared with Hale & Norcross on its southern border an ore 

deposit that was situated between 500 and 1,500 feet. Except for a small patch of ore 

above 500 feet near the surface, Hale & Norcross owned mainly barren ground until just 

below the 500-foot level where like Savage it struck a bonanza. Gold Hill was about 400 

22 

Lord reported an average of $29.50 for 1866. His total tonnage was 480,239 (extracted and milled) with a 

value of $14.2 million. His total bullion from information published by the U. S. Commissioner of the Mint 

was higher than the totals from the Surveyor-General and from Smith. His total tonnage was extrapolated 

from “Official Reports of ten mining companies, representing more than two-thirds of the total yield”. The 

average was calculated by dividing the total bullion by the total tonnage.


14 

feet lower in elevation than Virginia City, the high point of the Lode. Its mining 

companies between Alpha on the north and Belcher on the south including many of the 

small claims discussed above were also probing more deeply and discovered ores 

between 400 and 900 feet. (800 to 1,300 feet from the Virginia City survey point). While 

the northern Gold Hill mines will find little of value below 900 feet the southern mines 

(Yellow Jacket, Crown Point, Kentuck and Belcher) will find great riches. The year 1866 

would be a bridge to a brighter future even though the pitfalls made that far from 

obvious. Of the 23 companies with taxable bullion five had per-ton averages above 

$31.77, the producing-mine average, and 18 had averages below. In other words these 

were the best performers by a measure often used to determine profitability. They were 

Hale & Norcross, Savage, Crown Point, Mexican and Kentuck. Combined they produced 

slightly more than 126,000 tons or a third of the total, and their bullion upon which taxes 

were paid was worth more than $5 million or 42 percent of the total. Some contrasts 

among the five are worth noting: Hale & Norcross ranked first in per-ton output at $45.53 

and seventh in tonnage with less than 25,000 tons (6.6 percent of total); Mexican had the 

lowest tonnage at 776 (a fraction of 1 percent) but the fourth highest yield at $36.94. 23 

Turning from per-ton values to total tonnage a different line-up of companies emerges. 

Some heavy producers had markedly lower per-ton values. In total tonnage eight 

companies exceeded the group average of 16,383 tons. The highest producer was Yellow 

Jacket at nearly 79,000 tons with a per-ton value about one dollar below the average for 

the 23 companies. The next highest was Gould & Curry at nearly 55,000 tons and a perton 

value more than $2.50 below. Chollar-Potosí was third in total tonnage but sixteenth 

in per-ton value. Hale & Norcross with the highest per-ton value ranked seventh in total 

tonnage. All 23 companies, however, could have made money since the list included only 

operations with yields greater than $20 per ton, the dollar value that miners were using as 

the break-even point. 

Quarterly figures from the Surveyor General’s 1866 data add a small bit more of 

color. There are differences between the mean and median in each quarter: first quarter 

was $31.59 versus $24.96 respectively; the second $31.88 and $28.49; the third $31.93 

and $26.83; and the fourth $30.62 and $26.94. The bonanzas mines post-1871 will have 

such high per-ton yields compared to the rest of the mines with the result of a greater 

differential in the mean and median computations. The differential also existed in 1866 

but to a lesser degree. The most productive mines were Savage in quarters one and two 

and Hale & Norcross in quarters three and four. Four different mines occupied the lowest 

rung. Savage reported yields of $50.23 per ton in the first quarter and $45.58 in the 

second while Bowers and Piute reported yields of $20.18 and $20.94 respectively. In the 

third and fourth quarters Hale & Norcross achieved yields of $49.16 and $53.12 and Plato 

and Eclipse came in at $20.06 and $20.87. In its youth the Comstock had a narrower 

spread between the highest yielding mines and the lowest yielding ones. 

The ultimate question was how much per ton was necessary to realize 

profitability? Obviously that figure depended on many factors that would change over 

time. In his 1866 report the Surveyor-General followed the format of the county assessor: 

23 

Mexican shared a fairly rich deposit with Ophir, but its share was exceedingly small and soon exhausted. 

See Smith, The Comstock Lode, 83.


15 

ores were classified as those that yielded more than $20 per ton and those that were sold. 

It was assumed that ores had to yield more than $20 per ton in order to realize a profit. 

(There was no guarantee, of course, but generally higher yields ensured greater profits.) 

What about ores at $20 per ton and less? Were they ever profitable? In his notes the 

Surveyor-General suggested that the break-even point for Comstock ore might have been 

closer to $15 per ton than $20 per ton. It should be pointed out that the ores classified as 

“sold” (3 percent of the total) had a range of $2.50 per ton to $10 per ton. Even though 

the sales of the ores were taxable at the same rate as the ores at $20 and above, they may 

have been sold because they could have cost the companies more to mill than they could 

return in bullion. Their sale price was not their per-ton value. It is worth noting that none 

of the ore sales were between $10 and $20 per ton. Perhaps some if not all these ores had 

per-ton values of between $10 and $20, and yet in the face of such uncertainty it may 

have been compelling to get rid of questionable ores at some price than to risk the cost of 

refining them. The Surveyor-General himself raised the possibility that not all ores under 

$20 were actually sold. Rather they were refined, especially if they had the potential to 

yield $15 to $20 per ton, but not necessarily reported since the assessor (and the 

Surveyor-General) distinguished between ores above and below $20 per ton. (Remember, 

this was pre-1871 when a more stringent net-proceeds tax was enacted.) If it was held 

that ores needed to reach the threshold of $20 per ton to represent profitability, then 

collecting taxes on ores under $20 was probably not of the highest priority. Even though 

the Surveyor-General was seemingly interested in the fate of ores under $20 per ton, he 

did not initiate any policy recommendations to crack down on whatever fraud was being 

practiced. How much of the lesser ores was refined but escaped taxation will never be 

known, and even if it could be recovered, it would probably not alter the summaries that 

can now be compiled. For better or worse, $20-per-ton remained the generally-accepted 

break-even point for mining operations, although the actual figure probably varied from 

time to time and could be several dollars higher or lower. 24 

A second set of figures was often invoked in any consideration of mining profits: 

the return in bullion per foot of the length of the claim. In the earliest years the size of a 

claim was limited, but by the middle of the 1860s as lode mining replaced panning claims 

were merged and consolidated. Basically the length was a north-south measurement 

along the Lode while the width was an east-west measurement from the footwall to the 

hanging wall. In accord with the findings of the Surveyor-General in 1866 the 43 mining 

companies with and without recorded production claimed more than 30,000 feet of 

Comstock Lode from a point north of Virginia City to a point south of Gold Hill. Exactly 

how long the Lode was remained a matter of dispute, but a length of four to six miles was 

generally agreed upon. The northern and southern ends the Lode split before petering out, 

and much of the debate over the length of the Lode concerned where the end points were. 

By 1866 the heart of the Lode was known to be under Virginia City southward into Gold 

Hill. Virtually all the Lode from north to south was claimed, and the boundaries of the 

claims were still being litigated. Based on the information provided to the Surveyor- 

General claims averaged about 700 feet. Of the 23 companies with recorded production 

24 

Accompanying the Surveyor-General’s tables were revenue and cost data for several mines. “Annual 

Report of the Surveyor-General…1866” in Senate Journal and Appendix, 3 rd Legislative Session (1867), 

33-36. He indicated that he lacked the resources to try to track data for all the companies. That made any 

crack down on evasive tax-payers even less likely.


16 

their claims amounted to only 7,700 feet or a quarter of the total. They averaged 335 feet 

in length, and they yielded on average $3,255 worth of bullion per foot. Variations in the 

lengths of the claims were significant. The longest claim among all 43 mines was 

Baltimore American, but it reported no (taxable) bullion and in addition the Surveyor- 

General did not believe that Baltimore American’s claim was valid. The shortest claim of 

10 feet belonged to Plato, a mine with bullion production. Among the 23 companies with 

bullion production Chollar Potosi had the greatest length at 1,434 feet with a yield of 

$579 per foot and the aforementioned Plato the shortest length with a yield of $5,198 per 

foot. The mining company known as Consolidated With 21 Feet had highest yield based 

on length at $11,435 for each foot, while Ophir had the lowest with $186 for each of its 

1,400 feet. The mine with the greatest total yield was Yellow Jacket at $2.4 million with 

a length of 943 feet and a yield per foot of $2,542. The mine with the lowest total yield 

was Challenger at $23,299 with a length of 50 feet and a yield per foot of $466. Some of 

ground claimed by the 43 mining companies was still in dispute as late as 1866. Gould & 

Curry, for example, claimed 1,200 feet but only 921 feet was undisputed. 25 

Trying to make investment decisions on the basis of the length of the claim was 

risky. The obvious risk for companies owning little ground was the rapid depletion of 

their underground holdings. The unpredictable distribution of the ore along the Lode led 

companies to try to acquire as much ground as possible. Since the Lode was not a 

continuous and solid wedge of profitable ore, the future for companies with small claims, 

no matter how impressive their yields per foot, was dubious. In fact most of the 

companies with modest-sized claims in 1866 ceased operations or merged with adjoining 

companies because their underground assets were soon exhausted. Another consideration 

was that high yields per foot did not necessary translate into high yields per ton. In the 

case of Consolidated With 21 Feet its 11,000 tons of ore yielded bullion worth more than 

$240,000 or $22.50 per ton almost ten dollars below the average of the producing mines. 

Its yield per ton peaked in the second quarter at $23.88, and by the end of the year its 

yield was no higher than it had been at the beginning of the year at $21.87. All but one 

company (Kentuck) with yields per ton above the Comstock average of $31.72 had yields 

per foot below the Comstock average of $3,255. Hale & Norcross with a yield of over 

$45 per ton but only a yield of $2,800 per foot was probably a more profitable investment 

than Consolidated With 21 Feet. Although information of dividend payments may not be 

totally accurate for 1866, what has survived indicates that Hale & Norcross paid 

dividends of nearly $300,000 and Consolidated With 21 Feet paid no dividends. As 

problematic as the yield-per-foot was as a measure of productivity, it continued to be 

used among stock traders and speculators. Companies often allotted shares by footage. In 

some cases companies issued one share per foot, and in others they issued as much as 20 

shares or more per foot. Bullion per foot became convenient shorthand for gauging and 

comparing stock values. 26 

25 


(1867), Table following p. 26 and Notes p. 29. 

26 

All of the calculations made from Table after p. 26, “Annual Report of the Surveyor-General…1866” in 

Senate Journal and Appendix, 3 rd Legislative Session (1867). Consolidated With 21 Feet was part of a 

group of small claims along the so-called Red Ledge in Gold Hill. Their owners resisted consolidation and 

remained independent and profitable during the first half of the 1860s, but as their underground assets were 

depleted, they began to lose money as well as their independence. In the second half of the 1860s many of


17 

For 1866 the Surveyor-General cited seven dividend-paying companies with a 

total outlay of $1.8 million, and Grant Smith cited eight with a total of $1.9 million. 

(Missing from the former’s list was Kentuck.) Despite the differences in the two sources 

they were in agreement that about 15 percent of the total bullion product was paid out in 

dividends. Yellow Jacket paid out $390,000 in dividends or 17 percent of its total bullion 

product. Following Yellow Jacket were Savage and Hale & Norcross with $360,000 

($320,000 in Smith) and $350,000 respectively. Savage’s dividend distribution was 21 

percent (only 17 percent in Smith) of the total bullion product and Hale & Norcross’s was 

30 percent. Hale & Norcross, it will be recalled, had the highest per-ton yield of all the 

ore-reporting companies, and this may well explain why shareholders earned as much as 

they did. Empire, one of the cluster of small mines in Gold Hill, paid out the least amount 

– 11 percent if the total product of the Surveyor-General is used versus 8 percent if 

Smith’s is used. The remaining companies - Gould & Curry, Imperial, Crown Point and 

Kentuck from Smith’s database – had dividend distribution that fell between 15 and 25 

percent. Chollar Potosi, which had bullion worth between $800,000 and $900,000, paid 

no dividends. Ophir, one of the original bonanza mines, on bullion valued at between 

$300,000 and $400,000 paid no dividends either. Most of the Gold Hill small claims 

reported bullion but paid no dividends. By contemporary standards these were generous 

if not excessive returns. The average payout among seven dividend-paying companies for 

which the Surveyor-General listed shares issued was over $600 per share. The highest 

was Savage, which paid nearly $2,200 per share of its 800 total. The lowest was Imperial, 

which had 4,000 shares and paid $175. Hale & Norcross with the highest per-ton figure 

distributed more than $1,400 per share, and Yellow Jacket with the highest bullion value 

distributed nearly $2,000 per share. At one level paying huge dividends could drain 

companies of monies that should have been set aside as capital reserves for future 

explorations or rehabilitations. Given the risks, investors and in particular the principals 

who often owned most of the stock may well have preferred to be rewarded immediately 

when the money was available instead of plowing any surplus back into the operation in 

hopes that such reinvestment might lead to an income and dividend stream that flowed 

steadily and consistently for many years. Experience taught investors that bonanzas could 

seldom be predicted or sustained. It was very much a business of now, not later. 

Excessive dividend payments may also have served as enticements not only to assuage 

stockholders’ fear about the viability of the company but also to attract new investors. 27 

If dividends were rewards, assessments were penalties. Companies used 

assessments to raise working capital. Companies replaced prospectors and panners 

largely because they had the capacity and authority to raise capital through the issuance 

and sale of stock. The stockholder owned a stake in the company, and that entitled him to 

share the profits and also obligated him to assume the debts. And debts began to 

these small claims were merged into several large companies. Smith, The Comstock Lode, 94-98. Also 

Adolph Sutro’s map in connection with his proposal to build a tunnel to drain the Comstock in Smith, The 

Comstock Lode, 100. Map in Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno. 

27 


(1867), Table following p. 26; Smith, “Tabular Statements”, Binder 1, NC229, Special Collections, 

Library, University of Nevada, Reno. The percentages differ not so much because the two sources have 

different dividend figures but rather because they have different bullion figures.


18 

accumulate almost immediately. Some companies faced the horrifying prospect of having 

bought up claims with barren ground, but since the character of the Lode and the location 

of its ore was barely understood, companies had little choice or incentive to change 

course so long as people were willing to put up the capital. In addition there was the 

matter of wasteful spending in anticipation of striking it rich. The Surveyor-General 

noted in his 1865 report that few companies were keeping or had kept records that 

allowed them to accurately measure the state of their financial health. 28 Eliot Lord was 

even harsher in his criticism of how company officers spent money. The lavishness in the 

construction of works and offices, he wrote, “was in part natural and in accord with the 

prodigal temper of the time, and partly exaggerated…in order to assure the minds of 

stockholders of the unprecedented value of their stock and to dazzle and impress possible 

investors, for a plausible outward show of prosperity is worth as much as to a mine as to 

an insurance office.” 29 The result was that assessments against stockholders grew in size 

and frequency. In 1866 the Surveyor-General found that 11 of the 43 companies assessed 

their stockholders for a total of $1.2 million, an average of $120,000 per company. 

Ophir’s assessment at $185,000 was the highest and Baltimore-American the lowest at 

$13,000. Of the ten companies only four – Bacon, Confidence, Ophir and Yellow Jacket 

– actually reported ore production. Even the critics of companies’ financial shenanigans 

recognized that assessments could be legitimate and ultimately produce good results. 

Assessments in one year without any reportable ores could simply mean that a company 

was undertaking repairs or explorations that would lead to production in the following 

years. Suspicions were aroused when stockholders continued to be assessed and the 

company produced little or no profitable ores. Ophir, for example, had been one of the 

bonanza companies in the early 1860s based upon a large ore deposit from the surface to 

about 500 feet. By the middle 1860s the bonanza was fading. Except for a small stretch of 

ore between 500 and 650 feet Ophir owned mostly barren ground below 500 feet. Not 

only had Ophir run out of ore, it had also run into water that was expensive to pump and 

virtually endless. The assessments in 1866 equaled from 40 to 70 percent of the total 

bullion product (several figures exist), not an encouraging picture. Bacon assessments of 

$18,000 was more than half of what the mine produced in the first quarter, the only 

quarter in which it had any reportable ores. Confidence assessed its stockholders an 

amount that was nearly equal to its output of bullion in first and second quarters after 

which it had no bullion to report. Finally, Yellow Jacket was more complicated. Its 

bullion had a value of about $2.4 million against $180,000 in assessments. It also paid 

dividends of $390,000 that were slightly double its assessments. Hence the stockholders’ 

return was cut in half if the assessments were taken into account. The remaining seven 

companies – Union, Bullion, Exchequer, Alpha, Overman, Belcher and Baltimore- 

American – present a somewhat mixed picture. Union, Bullion, Exchequer and 

Baltimore-American owned virtually barren ground. Overman may have yielded bullion 

($28,000) at less than $20 per ton and therefore escaped the Surveyor-General’s 

compilation. Belcher was then exploring barren ground, but unbeknownst to the company 

in 1866 it had much brighter prospects at much greater depths. 30 

28 


(1867), 22-23. 

29 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 126-127. 

30 

Both the Surveyor-General and Smith show Overman with bullion income of $27,953. The source for the 

Surveyor-general was not the county assessment rolls but the market circular known as Hillyears & Co.


19 

The profile of Comstock mining in 1866 was constructed from solid but not 

perfect reports, one in 1865 followed by another in 1866, submitted by the Surveyor- 

General to the Nevada Legislature in 1867. It can be used as a base year for analysis of 

the evolution of the structure of the industry over the next 20 years. What is evident from 

the reports plus additional information from Eliot Lord, Grant Smith and other 

contemporary and historical observers mining companies, incorporated in California and 

largely financed from San Francisco, had assumed control of the Comstock. Only a few 

of the companies actually owned ore-bearing ground. In the rush that followed the 

discoveries in 1859 and 1860 all of the Lode and much of the land surrounding it were 

claimed. By 1865 or 1866, as the geology of the Comstock was being more clearly 

defined, it was becoming apparent that most claims were worthless. Some of the earliest 

bonanza claims were in decline, and the discovery of new claims occurred much deeper 

underground than anyone had anticipated even several years before. Deep lode mining 

required capital, and while many companies failed to be good stewards of the money that 

they raised, they were necessary for mining on the Comstock to take the next step. In 

1866 five companies owned 70 percent of the bullion reported to the county assessor. 

These five companies owned about 4,000 linear feet of the Lode or 13 to 14 percent of 

the Lode that was assumed to be about 30,000 feet in length. Owning the right ground 

was obviously crucial to the prosperity of any company. But since no company could 

accurately predict where the next bonanza would occur, they had to extend their control 

as much as possible across the Comstock. In some cases companies with adjoining claims 

were merged into a single, large company, and in other cases companies with adjoining 

or disconnected claims were brought under the control of several stockholders or a group 

of stockholders much like a holding company. The Comstock’s most productive years lay 

ahead and only after the structure of mining was revamped.. 

Lacking data on company operations comparable to the 1865-1866 compilations 

for the remainder of the decade, we turn to Grant Smith’s aforementioned tabular report 

that included not only 1866 but also 1867 through 1869. As discussed earlier, his data 

were assembled from official publications, market newsletters and newspaper reports. 

The promise of recovery in 1866 was borne out in 1867 as the total bullion reached $13.8 

to $14.6 million, surely the highest yet for the Comstock. 31 Of the three-dozen mining 

Where the Surveyor-General cited data from Hillyears & Co. along side of the county data the figures from 

the former were generally higher, an indication that Hillyears & Co. included ores not sold but valued at 

less than $20 per ton. Overman was the only instance where county data on bullion product was totally 

lacking. Smith may well have used the same source – Hillyears & Co. - or a similar source. His assessment 

data generally agreed with the Surveyor-General’s, the notable exception being Overman. “Annual Report 

of the Surveyor-General…1866,” in Senate Journal and Appendix, 3 rd Legislative Session (1867), Table 

following p. 26 and Notes p. 29; Smith, “Tabular Statements”, Binder 1, NC229, Special Collections, 

Library, University of Nevada, Reno. 

31 

Since the State of Nevada received part of the revenue from mining taxes, the Controller’s annual report 

now included quarterly production data county by county. His 1867 data showed that Story County 

recorded 448,000 tons worth about $13.8 million or $30.52 per ton. “Biennial Report of the Controller of 

the State of Nevada for the Third and Fourth Fiscal Years 1867 and 1868,” in Senate Journal and 

Appendix, 4 th Legislative Session, 1869, 121-123 for 1867. Eliot Lord claimed to have used the same 

database except he reported about 451,000 tons that also yielded about $13.8 million or $30.60 per ton, 

nearly the same as the year before. Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 416.


20 

companies on Smith’s list more than half reported bullion production. Savage and 

Chollar Potosi led the way with bullion worth $3.7 million (26 percent) and $2.7 million 

(18 percent) respectively. These figures represented a doubling in bullion for Savage and 

a tripling for Chollar Potosi over the previous year. Savage’s ore holdings between 500 

and 1,000 feet on both its north and south boundaries proved to be substantial with veins 

ranging from 10 to 80 feet in width. In its annual report (for fiscal year 1867-68) the 

company also reported that the richness of the ores fluctuated and was beginning to 

decline at the lower levels. 32 Chollar Potosi’s 1867 record output was a flash in the pan 

because the ore came from an area near the surface that had been missed in earlier 

explorations. Below the 500- to 600-foot levels where the major explorations were then 

taking place, Chollar Potosi had only barren ground. This will show up in later 

tabulations. 33 The previous leader, Yellow Jacket, was third with $1.7 million worth of 

bullion or about 12 percent of the total bullion. This was a decline of 25 percent from 

1866. The so-called “old works” up to 700 feet had been largely exhausted and 

abandoned, and while good ores were being extracted from 800 to 900 feet and the vein 

matter below 900 feet was promising. Yellow Jacket’s next bonanza was still several 

hundred feet deeper. 34 Fourth on the list was Kentuck, a small claim of about 100 feet in 

length between Yellow Jacket and Crown Point. Its 1867 production in bullion was 100 

percent higher than 1866 when it ranked eighth. It shared rich deposit of ore with Yellow 

Jacket and Crown Point between 600 and 900 feet. Smith called this one of the “surest 

venture ever known on the Comstock” because of its location. 35 The fifth highest 

producer in 1867 was Imperial, the largest of the cluster of small Gold Hill mines north 

of Yellow Jacket. It registered slightly less than Kentuck and slightly more than Hale & 

Norcross, which was sixth, and boasted a 22 percent increase over 1866. As the State 

Mineralogist’s report underscored, the future was not bright for Imperial and the 

associated mines. Its shaft, jointly built with Empire, had reached 900 to 1,000 feet but 

had also encountered water at 900-foot level. Below that virtually no millable or 

profitable ores were found. Imperial did well in 1867 because it had more recoverable 

ores between 500 and 700 feet than the surrounding mines. When those ores were 

exhausted, Imperial and the related companies had nothing but barren ground. Other large 

operations from 1866 and before suffered declines in 1867. Hale & Norcross dropped 8 

percent, Crown Point 30 percent. Gould & Curry 62 percent and by far the most 

significant Ophir 100 percent ($417,000 to $4,100 in bullion). Crown Point and Hale & 

Norcross will recover, but Gould & Curry and Ophir were virtually finished as ore 

producers. In his 1867 annual report the President of Gould & Curry, Alpheus Bull, 

painted a glum future: 

Explorations extensively and vigorously prosecuted in various parts of the 

mine, in search of new bodies of mineral, have led to the absorption of the 

entire receipts of the past year. 

32 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist of the State of Nevada for the Years 1867 and 1868” in Senate 

Journal and Appendix, 4 th Legislative Session, 1869, 30. 

33 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist...1867 and 1868” in Senate Journal and Appendix, 4 th 

Legislative Session, 1869, 25-26. 

34 


Legislative Session, 1869, 31. 

35 



21 

The result of these costly explorations has not, I regret to say, been of a 

very encouraging character, no important deposits of ore having been 

discovered through these developments, not were any very interesting 

flattering indications met with of the existence of such. 36 

The other measures – assessments and dividends – shed further light on 1867. 

Nineteen companies authorized assessments totaling $1.2 million. Both the number and 

the total were slightly higher than in 1866. Nine companies distributed dividends in the 

amount of nearly $4 million. Both the number and the total were slightly higher than in 

more company announced dividends than in 1866, but the 

total outlay was nearly twice as great. Nor surprisingly 

Savage had no assessments and paid out $1.6 million in 

dividends, a five-fold increase. Chollar Potosi assessed its 

stockholders $42,000 and then distributed dividends of 

$420,000 after authorizing neither assessments nor dividends 

in 1866. Yellow Jacket again imposed large (in fact the 

largest) assessments of $240,000 and allotted slightly higher 

dividends of $300,000 than assessments. Finally, as in 1866, 

Kentuck and Imperial made no assessments but issued 

dividends two to three times higher than the previous year. 

The troubled mines of Gould & Curry and Ophir assessed 

Illustration 2: Chollar Interior 

their stockholders $120,000 and $184,800 respectively but 

experienced sharp declines in output and had no surplus to 

distribute. For the second year Bullion had assessments exceeding $100,000 and no 

production. In terms of bullion yields and assessment-dividend rations 1867 was better 

than 1866. The concentration of production among the top five companies also grew from 

52 percent to 72 percent. The obvious loss of several established companies had to be 

unsettling within the mining and investing communities. Expectations had to be more 

muted than before. 

There is considerable disparity in the extant figures for the total bullion product in 

1868, but there is no doubt that output of the Comstock mines declined from 1867. The 

question that cannot be precisely answered is by how much did the Comstock decline? 

Smith’s bullion totals, which more than likely came from U. S. Mint data, were about $9 

million or a 38 percent drop from his 1867 figure. 37 Lord, citing data gathered by the 

State Controller, came up with a total of $12.4 million for a drop of 11 percent. 38 The 

Controller’s total, however, was not what Lord cited, but at $9.4 million was nearly 

identical to Smith’s. 39 Even though it is not possible to resolve the conflicting data, it 

would appear that the Comstock suffered a rather severe and sudden contraction in 1868. 

36 


Legislative Session, 1869, 29, 31. 

37 

Smith, “Tabular Statements” and “Recorded Production of Little Gold Hill Mines”, Binder 1, NC229, 

Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno. To repeat, Smith drew his data from a report on 

the Comstock by Hague (p. 191) with supplemental information from the U. S. Mint. He made it clear that 

these data did not always agree with data from annual company reports because calendar years and fiscal 

years did not always coincide. 

38 



22 

With the reversal came a change in the rankings. Savage was still the top producer with 

an even higher proportion (28 percent) of the total. But Savage’s output was 33 percent 

lower in 1868 than in 1867. That amounted to more than $1.2 million and represented a 

substantial portion of the loss in output between 1867 and 1868. But Savage was not the 

only casualty in 1868. Chollar Potosi and Yellow Jacket fell from second and third place 

respectively in 1867 to fourth and fifth place in the following year. Chollar Potosi’s 

output fell by 67 percent or about $1.8 million and Yellow Jacket’s by 54 percent or 

nearly $1 million. With these three large producers one can account for nearly all the 

difference between 1867 and 1868. The two bright spots were Kentuck, which ranked 

second with 14 percent, and Crown Point, which ranked third with 12 percent. But their 

totals were only slightly higher than what they were the year before. Other companies 

that experienced sharp downturns were Imperial (-38 percent), Hale & Norcross (-64 

percent) and Gould & Curry (-95 percent). Several companies had significant increases: 

Bacon (737 percent), Bowers (107 percent) and Overman (83 percent), but their 

production combined only equaled $700,000, hardly large enough to make up for the 

losses noted above. Ophir, Trench and J. D. Winter & Co. fell off the list of producing 

companies, and although Sierra Nevada and Segmented Belcher now joined the list, they 

accounted for a trifling 0.3 percent of the total. It was a heavy year for assessments and a 

moderate year for dividends. For each dollar of assessment the Comstock recorded $5 in 

bullion in 1868 compared to $1 in $10 from the previous two years. Hale & Norcross 

witnessed a three-fold increase in assessments, from $60,000 to $200,000 as production 

fell from $1.1 million to $400,000 and dividends from $60,000 to zero. Yellow Jacket 

continued to authorize large assessments - $150,000 in 1868 on top of $420,000 in the 

two previous years – but also equally large dividends - $360,000 on top of $700,000. 

Savage paid the highest dividends ($1.2 million) followed by Kentuck ($480,000) and 

Crown Point ($360,000). Crown Point assessed its stockholder $90,000; neither Savage 

nor Kentuck posted assessments. Not much in the 1868 figures was especially 

encouraging. Was this further proof of the cycle of bonanzas and borrascas, observed in 

1865, 1866 and 1867, or were the bonanzas so brief and paltry that the borrascas were 

actually pointing to an unmistakable pattern of diminishing resources? In retrospect we 

can observe from the geological maps that between 500 and 1,200 feet only a half-dozen 

Comstock companies possessed ground that had moderately profitable ores. Based on the 

pre-ton yields, however, those ores appeared to be of declining grades. 40 

In 1869 the contraction continued, more so the result of an exogenous event rather 

than worsening economic fundamentals. All the known sources put the dollar value at 

between $6.7 million and $7.8 million. Smith’s data indicated a 13 percent drop from 

1868 to 1869, while the Controller’s data showed a 29 percent decrease. The downturn 

39 

“Biennial Report of the Controller…1867 and 1868” in Senate Journal and Appendix, 4 th Legislative 

Session, 1869, 49-50 for 1868. Lord claimed that his 1868 figures were taken from the Controller’s annual 

report. In fact they do not agree with the figures published by the Controller, as discussed in the text. It 

appears that Lord took the total tonnage for Story County from the Controller’s annual report and 

multiplied that by an average yield per ton of $36.78 to get $12.4 million. His per-ton yield does not agree 

with the Controller’s calculation, which was $28.26 per ton. At the lower yield the total bullion product 

would be $9.4 million, a figure that was just slightly higher than Smith’s figure. 

40 

Company data found in Smith, “Tabular Statements” and “Recorded Production of Little Gold Hill 

Mines”, Binder 1, NC229, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno.


23 

was confirmed in other data: tonnage fell from about 338,000 to about 280,000, and perton 

yields from $28 to $23. What is not manifest in the statistics is the tragedy that struck 

the Comstock. An April fire at the 800-foot level in Yellow Jacket cost the lives of at 

least 37 workers, and not only closed down Yellow Jacket’s operation on its southern 

boundary but also those of Crown Point and Kentuck, which worked the same vein as 

Yellow Jacket. 41 Of the three mines Crown Point suffered the most with a 90 percent 

decline in output for the year in large part because its performance prior to the fire was 

hardly stellar. Kentuck, by contrast, experienced a smaller 33 percent decline because of 

a stronger first quarter. Yellow Jacket fared the best of all three by doubling its output 

because it made a discovery north of the fire that allowed its underground operations to 

be maintained. The year turned out to be less disastrous than it might have been because 

Hale & Norcross found a large deposit between 500 and 1,000 feet. Overall about the 

same number of companies (15 versus 14) reported bullion in 1869 as in 1868. The leader 

turned out to be Yellow Jacket with nearly 20 percent of the total in 1869 and a rise of 88 

percent over 1868, although its 1869 figure of $1.5 million in bullion was by Smith’s 

own reckoning a rough estimate. It was followed by Chollar Potosi with 18 percent and 

an increase of 54 percent from 1868 to 1869 as it continued to expand its old, shallow 

works under 500 feet. Savage came in with 15 percent of the total but registered a sharp 

50 percent drop from the previous year. Hale & Norcross with 13 percent saw its output 

increase by 162 percent. Finally, the fire-ravaged Kentuck had 11 percent but in fact 

produced a third less bullion. Other notable changes were Gould & Curry whose output 

skyrocketed by almost a 1,100 percent from $30,000 to $350,000, the last gasp of a 

company that had run out of exploitable ores. Sierra Nevada too had an impressive 

upswing from $23,000 to $152,000 for more than 550 percent change. Two new oreproducing 

mines – Occidental with 2.7 percent of total and Belcher with 0.2 percent – 

appeared on the list in 1869. The remainder of the list continued to see their output slide 

or turned from positive in 1868 to negative in 1869. Smith’s assessment and dividend 

tabulations showed that 20 companies assessed their stockholders for $1.4 million, just 

slightly below 1868, and of this number 10 produced bullion. Yellow Jacket had the 

highest assessment at $360,000 or a quarter of the total. Belcher, Crown Point, Imperial, 

Ophir and Overman had assessments that exceeded $100,000, and all but Ophir produced 

some ore. Companies with production but no assessments were Chollar Potosi, Gould & 

Curry, Hale & Norcross, Savage and Sierra Nevada. On the dividend side, seven 

companies (of the 15 ore-producing mines) paid dividends totaling about $1.2 million. 

Yellow Jacket had the largest dividend of $360,000 (that equaled its assessment) 

followed by Chollar Potosi and Savage. Four of the companies paying dividends had no 

assessments; the remaining three did. Although the fire contributed to the lowest 

production since 1862, the underlying trend all along the Comstock was even more 

disturbing. As mines reached 1,000 feet and lower, new bonanzas were few and far 

between. 42 

41 

Smith, Lord and DeQuille all covered the fire. Smith, The Comstock Lode, 122-123, Lord, Comstock 

Mining and Miners, 269-277, and DeQuille, The Big Bonanza, 176-183. Also James, The Roar and the 

Silence, 84-90, who cites aforementioned sources but also various newspaper reports. 

42 

Company data again from Smith, “Tabular Statements” and “Recorded Production of Little Gold Hill 

Mines”, Binder 1, NC229, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno.


24 

FIGURE 6 

BULLION PRODUCT BY COMPANY 

1866-1869 

[From Grant Smith's Notebooks] 

Mines 1866 ($) % Total 1867 ($) % Total % Chg 1868 ($) % Total % Chg 

Savage 1,814,879 14.4% 3,737,100 25.7% 105.9% 2,534,868 28.2% -32.2% 

Yellow Jacket 2,297,233 18.2% 1,729,277 11.9% -24.7% 800,000 8.9% -53.7% 

Chollar Potosi 848,751 6.7% 2,668,885 18.3% 214.4% 885,076 9.9% -66.8% 

Kentuck 571,507 4.5% 1,140,742 7.8% 99.6% 1,259,707 14.0% 10.4% 

Hale & Norcross 1,186,543 9.4% 1,097,297 7.5% -7.5% 392,400 4.4% -64.2% 

Crown Point 1,312,471 10.4% 920,718 6.3% -29.8% 1,086,230 12.1% 18.0% 

Imperial 910,387 7.2% 1,106,496 7.6% 21.5% 684,040 7.6% -38.2% 

Gould & Curry 1,624,781 12.9% 614,621 4.2% -62.2% 29,557 0.3% -95.2% 

Empire 422,291 3.3% 278,607 1.9% -34.0% 213,771 2.4% -23.3% 

Overman 27,953 0.2% 192,318 1.3% 588.0% 352,590 3.9% 83.3% 

Consolidated (21 

Feet) 

233,700 1.9% 440,790 3.0% 88.6% 56,970 0.6% -87.1% 

Bacon 34,606 0.3% 34,250 0.2% -1.0% 286,800 3.2% 737.4% 

Confidence 304,932 2.4% 142,049 1.0% -53.4% 110,668 1.2% -22.1% 

Ophir 417,472 3.3% 4,108 0.0% -99.0% 

Gold Hill Quartz 115,484 0.9% 106,399 0.7% -7.9% 103,686 1.2% -2.5% 

Eclipse 206,499 1.6% 101,327 0.7% -50.9% 81,431 0.9% -19.6% 

Occidental 

Winters, J. D. & 

Co 

95,537 0.8% 89,950 0.6% -5.8% 

Sierra Nevada 22,805 0.3% 

Plato 51,921 0.4% 75,350 0.5% 45.1% 15,728 0.2% -79.1% 

Bowers 28,555 0.2% 28,300 0.2% -0.9% 58,676 0.7% 107.3% 

Piute 84,077 0.7% 0.0% 

Trench 41,019 0.3% 40,600 0.3% -1.0% 0.0% 

Belcher 18,312 0.0% 

Segmented 

Belcher 

4,371 0.05% 

Alpha 

Baltimore- 

American 


Bullion 

California 

Central 

Consolidated 

Virginia 

Exchequer 

Lady Bryant 


Sides 


TOTALS 12,630,598 100.0% 14,549,184 100.0% 15.2% 8,979,374 100.0% -38.3 

Mines 1869 ($) % Total % Chg Total % Total 

Savage 1,162,803 14.8% -54.1% 9,249,650 21.0%


25 

Yellow Jacket 1,560,000 19.8% 95.0% 6,386,510 14.5% 

Chollar Potosi 1,366,385 17.4% 54.4% 5,769,097 13.1% 

Kentuck 828,834 10.5% -34.2% 3,800,790 8.6% 

Hale & Norcross 1,029,812 13.1% 162.4% 3,706,052 8.4% 

Crown Point 105,718 1.3% -90.3% 3,425,137 7.8% 

Imperial 273,727 3.5% -60.0% 2,974,650 6.8% 

Gould & Curry 350,000 4.4% 1084.2% 2,618,959 5.9% 

Empire 138,046 1.8% -35.4% 1,052,715 2.4% 

Overman 336,485 4.3% -4.6% 909,346 2.1% 

Consolidated (21 Feet) 731,460 1.7% 

Bacon 250,000 3.2% -12.8% 605,656 1.4% 

Confidence 18,889 0.2% -82.9% 576,538 1.3% 

Ophir 421,580 1.0% 

Gold Hill Quartz 65,207 0.8% -37.1% 390,776 0.9% 

Eclipse 389,257 0.9% 

Occidental 210,000 2.7% 210,000 0.5% 

Winters, J. D. & Co 185,487 0.4% 

Sierra Nevada 151,360 1.9% 563.7% 174,165 0.4% 

Plato 142,999 0.3% 

Bowers 115,531 0.3% 

Piute 84,077 0.2% 

Trench 81,619 0.2% 

Belcher 18,312 0.2% 36,624 0.1% 

Segmented Belcher 4,371 0.0% 

Alpha 

Baltimore-American 


Bullion 

California 

Central 

Consolidated Virginia 

Exchequer 

Lady Bryant 


Sides 


TOTALS 7,865,578 100.0% -12.4% 44,024,734 100.0% 

Sources: Smith, “Tabular Statements” and “Recorded Production of Little Gold Hill Mines”, Binder 1, 

NC229, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno. The list of mines from report by 

Surveyor-General (1866), see footnote 30. His 1866 figures and Smith's do not agree. Smith's figures from 

James Hague. I have not tried to reconcile the differences. Smith's figures appear in different sections of his 

Notebooks. Because of how I have arranged the yearly numbers and because I have corrected for 

arithmetical errors, my totals will not agree with other published versions. For these years company data 

can best be described as a rough measure of company production. 

The Comstock’s second decade did not begin auspiciously. During the last half of 

the 1860s bullion product had fallen by a third. The two top producers – Savage and 

Yellow Jacket – had seen a decline of more than a third in bullion. The fifth-ranking 

company - Hale & Norcross - had suffered a smaller decline of 13 percent decline. Other 

operations (at least based upon estimates) from the first half of the 1860s like Gould & 

Curry, Imperial, Ophir and the Gold Hill small claims had ceased to be major players.


26 

Several had for the most part ceased operations. Not all was negative, however. Two 

companies – Chollar Potosi and Kentuck – had experienced significant increases of 61 

percent and 45 percent respectively between 1866 and 1869. Perhaps some 

encouragement could be drawn from the gains in percentage terms at Overman and 

Bacon, although they were and would remain marginal operations. Certainly the fire 

played a role when figures from 1869 are compared to those from 1866 (Crown Point 

was down 92 percent), but far more telling was the failure to uncover new rich deposits, 

especially on the northern end of the Comstock Lode as companies began to push their 

explorations to 1,000 feet and below. Although companies continued to find vein matter 

and in a few cases notable ore concentrations these were often of such low grade (heavy 

with base metals) and spread so broadly and thinly across the Lode that they could be 

processed only at great cost and little profit. The scarcity of rich ores was becoming a 

serious problem. Mining on the Comstock was clearly an episodic venture. Mines opened 

and closed with regularity, and only a handful had long productive periods before giving 

out completely. Smith portrayed 1870 as the “darkest” year in the history of the 

Comstock. Certainly it was the darkest year to date. (Some very dark years lay ahead.) 

According to the State Controller tonnage fell again by 15 percent to 239,000, and bullion 

reported to the county assessor was worth about $6.9 million or $28.38 a ton. The total 

dollar return was about the same as 1869, although if anything positive could be said 

about 1870 it would be that the yield per ton had recovered from the low of 1869 back 

into the high $20’s. Smith had a total bullion figure of $8.3 million, an increase over 

1869 and comparable to 1868, without citing any source. Smith probably was quoting 

Lord or the report of the U. S. Commissioner of the Mint. Lord included two sets of 

figures: $6.8 million from the State Controller and $8.3 million (identical to Smith) from 

the Mint. 43 

Lord repeatedly accused mining companies and their principals of hoodwinking 

investors and the public at large with adverse consequences for all. As Lord himself 

recognized, the investors probably encouraged shady mining practices since they paid 

little heed to how much it cost to extract and refine a ton of ore. He cited the example of 

Gould & Curry, one of the pre-eminent Comstock companies in 1863 and 1864. No 

matter how marginal the quality of ore the instructions from Gold & Curry’s president 

was “snake it out”, a metaphor for extracting, hoisting and delivering as much ore as 

possible without any regard to quality or cost. The paradox was that the processed ore 

came in at $70 to 80 per ton, twice the average Comstock yield, and even though costs 

were high and margins were thin, the company paid out dividends of nearly $3 million. 

Lord calculated that had the officers and stockholders followed a more prudent course, 

the company would have made even more money. But prudence would have required a 

longer perspective that neither the officers nor stockholders shared. It turned out that 

Gould & Curry was sitting on barren soil below the 500-foot level. No matter how 

prudent that company had tried to be it would have run out of ore. Lord did not detail 

what a more prudent course would have entailed except in general terms he believed that 

had the officers made the cost of extracting and processing the ore the benchmark for 

43 

“Biennial Report of the Controller…1869 and 1870” in Senate Journal and Appendix, 5 th Legislative 

Session, 1871, 56-57 (1870) and “Report of the Controller…1872 and 1873” in Appendix to Senate 

Journal, 6 th Legislative Session, 1873, 204 (1870); Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 416; and Smith 

The Comstock Lode, 126.


27 

how they operated the mine the outcome might have been different. How many mines 

engaged in “snaking it out” is unknown. It is unlikely that Gould & Curry’s president, 

Alpheus Bull, was the only Comstock entrepreneur who understood that paying dividends 

whatever the cost was a given. Mining on the Comstock proved to be an episodic affair– 

a dozen pockets of ores, moderately rich to rich in grade surrounded by barren or much 

less rich matter – that left the majority of the mining companies without a natural product 

that could sustain viable operation. 44 

Perhaps the most revealing information on the Comstock’s gloomy prospects 

concerned the market for stocks and in particular the Lode’s two largest investors. Smith 

wrote that the total value of all the stocks of the leading mining companies was $4 

million instead of tens of millions, as was the case in the previous decade. Stocks in some 

longstanding mining companies sold for as little as $1 or $2 per share. Stockholders were 

exercising the option of selling their shares in lieu of paying assessments, usually to the 

principals, and this practice put financial pressure on the principals who may have ended 

up with more (depreciating) stock but no capital to repair, maintain and expand the 

mines. William Sharon and William Ralston controlled more mining (and milling) 

properties than anyone on the Comstock. Ralston, as the head of the Bank of California, 

was the banker, and Sharon was the miner. Mines under their control at various times 

from the middle 1860s through the early 1870s included Belcher, Crown Point, Yellow 

Jacket, Kentuck, Chollar Potosi, Gould & Curry and Consolidated Virginia. In 1870, 

however, these properties had become the playground of the devil. Belcher, Gould & 

Curry and Consolidated Virginia were exploring barren ground; Crown Point was 

virtually shut down because of the 1869 fire; Yellow Jacket lost much of its underground 

workings on its southern border to the fire but enjoyed a reprieve with new workings on 

its northern border; Kentuck was also a victim of the fire but even worse had exhausted 

its ore holdings; only Chollar Potosi, continuing to find descent ores in rather shallow 

ground, made any money. “Panic-stricken” was how Smith described their demeanor in 

1870. Lord too weighed in on the plight of Ralston and Sharon in 1870 (some of which 

appeared in Smith). The Bank of California had invested about $3 million of its $5 

million in capital in Comstock properties, and without income from their mining 

properties in particular the survival of the bank was in question. 45 An additional risk for 

Ralston and Sharon was that while they owned enough stock to control a property, they 

did not always own a majority of the stock. Under these circumstances they could lose 

control of a property if outsiders began to buy up the stock. In short, as leveraged as they 

were, any downturn could leave them vulnerable to the same strategies that they had used 

to gain control of so many mining properties. They needed a bonanza, but as it turned out 

in 1870 the important finds were in two mines that they did not own – Hale & Norcross 

and Savage. 

44 


45 

Smith The Comstock Lode, 127, and Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 283-284.


28 

Special Appendix: 

Below are samples from Surveyor-General's Tables of “Mines on the Comstock Lode” 

(1865-1866) and of “Tabular List of Mills Crushing Ore from Mines on the Comstock 

Lode During the Year 1866. For Spources, see footnote 11. 

MINES 

MILLS

THE COMSTOCK [E] 

1 

Chapter 5 


Second Stage 1870-1875 

Toward the end of 1870 after months of dismal statistics and pessimistic forecasts a mine 

increasingly held in low regard by many investors and speculators made a discovery that 

would breathe new life (once again) into the Comstock. Crown Point’s stopes on its 

northern border (with Kentuck and Yellow Jacket) not only had been thoroughly worked 

but had also been severely damaged in the 1869 fire. The scuttlebutt was that since it was 

being financed by assessments, it would soon be closed down permanently. At 

approximately 1,100 feet deep (ca. 1,460-foot level measured from the peak in Virginia 

City) a promising discovery was made on its southern border with Belcher. Both mines 

were under the control of William Sharon and William C Ralston, although they did not 

own a majority of the stock in either company. The discovery turned out to be huge and 

rich. It extended from about 950 feet from the surface (1,400-foot level) to about 1,500 

feet (1,900-foot level). The seam extended 400 feet into Belcher and 375 feet into Crown 

Point from the Crown Point-Belcher boundary. Its width (east to west) was from 100 to 

125 feet. In a tug-of-war between Sharon and Ralston and their financial allies, Belcher 

ended up in the possession of Sharon and Ralston and Crown Point in the possession of J 

P Jones, the superintendent of Crown Point under Sharon and Ralston, and Alvinza 

Haywood, a San Francisco speculator who owned shares in both Belcher and Crown 

Point. The Comstock now had the bonanza that had been sought since the mid-1860s. 

Because the ore contained a high percentage of gold the yields were as great as $45 to 

$65 per ton. 1 The impact of the discovery was clearly discernible from tonnage and 

bullion figures. Tons of “worked” ores rose from 239,000 in 1870 to 445,000 in 1871, an 

increase of 86 percent; bullion values grew from $6.9 million to $10.7 million or 55 

percent. 2 FIGURE 1 

BULLION OWNERSHIP 1871 

Bullion Owner Tonnage Value ($) Share (%) Yield/Ton ($) 

Belcher 18,474 $1,198,921 11.3 $64.90 

Yellow Jacket 47,585 1,576,613 14.8 33.13 

Crown Point 60,000 1,970,885 18.5 32.85 

Chollar-Potosi 68,635 2,233,390 20.0 32.54 

Gould & Curry 2,058 47,020 0.5 22.85 

Savage 49,746 1,045,487 9.8 21.02 

Segmented Belcher 3,699 71,167 0.7 19.24 

Hale & Norcross 54,123 947,701 8.9 17.51 

Kentuck 9,183 140,070 1.3 15.25 

American 2,233 32,117 0.3 14.38 

1 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist of the State Of Nevada, for the Years 1871 and 1872,” in 

Appendix to Senate Journal, 6 th Legislative Session, 1873, 131-132. 

2 

“Biennial Report of the Controller of the State of Nevada for the Fifth and Sixth Fiscal Years 1869 and 

1870,” in Senate Journal and Appendix, 5 th Legislative Session, 1871, 56-57 (1870); “Report of the 

Controller…1872 and 1871,” in Appendix to Senate Journal, 6 th Legislative Session, 1873, 204 (1870); and 

“Report of the Controller…1872 and 1871,” in Appendix to Senate Journal, 6 th Legislative Session, 1873, 

206-220 (1871).


2 

Empire 8,701 123,505 1.2 14.19 

Union Mill & Mining 2,500 34,828 0.3 13.93 

Lady Bryan 800 10,804 0.1 13.51 

Caledonia 16,614 212,773 2.0 12.81 

Gold Hill Quartz 74 887 0.0 11.99 

Overman 9,591 108,241 1.0 11.29 

Parke & Bowie 45,609 509,934 4.8 11.18 

Succor 12,700 140,94 1.3 11.10 

J. L. Webster 183 1,893 0.0 10.34 

J. L. Rogers 262 2,593 0.0 9.90 

Midas 680 6,120 0.1 9.00 

Imperial 2,651 23,838 0.2 8.99 

Sierra Nevada 18,294 147,117 1.4 8.04 

S. N. Jennings 116 906 0.0 7.81 

Hartford 2,492 19,147 0.2 7.68 

Luzerne 7,238 37,807 0.4 5.22 

Calculated Totals 444,241 $10,644,705 Mean $23.96 

Recorded Totals 444,553 $10,644,704 Median $13.16 

Sources: See footnote 1. The Mineralogist’s Report contained ton, pounds and value for each mine each 

quarter, 1871. Ranking by yield per ton. Percentage rounding to one-tenth reduces some figures to zero. 

In compiling his list of producing mines in 1871 the State Mineralogist consulted 

the county records, as had other 

commentators in the past. (Since his 

Report was prepared before the 1875 fire, 

he could have had access to the Story 

County tax rolls.) In accord with the new 

net-proceeds bullion tax (approved 28 

February 1871) all mine proceeds were 

taxed. In the past yields below $20 per ton 

Illustration Figure B 1: Section, Figure Abstract A 

Statement 

could be exempted from taxes. The new 

more broadly-based tax, as reported by the 

Mineralogists contained 26 names of mines producing bullion or owners of billion. Many 

of names of the mines are familiar. The average yield per ton was just shy of $24, but 

only four mines had output that exceeded the average. Eighty-five percent of the mines 

failed to reach the average. Since the four 

companies that exceeded the average 

accounted for 76 percent of the bullion, 

their per-ton yields had an inordinate 

effect on the overall average. If the 

median were used as a measure of the 

yield, the figure would only be $13 per 

ton, slightly more than half the value of 

the mean. Some prominent companies 

from the 1860s fell below the calculated 

Illustration 2: Section, Abstract Statement 

mean: Gould & Curry, Savage, Hale & 

Norcross, Kentuck, Gold Hill Quartz, Overman and Imperial. The most interesting


3 

statistics from this much more inclusive list concern per-ton yields. The five largest 

producers from 1866 through 1869 were Savage, Yellow Jacket, Chollar Potosi, Kentuck 

and Hale & Norcross, and they accounted for about two-thirds of the bullion output. In 

1871 the five top producers by total value (Column 3, Figure 1) were Chollar Potosi, 

Crown Point, Yellow Jacket, Belcher and Savage with 76 percent of the total. Chollar 

Potosi had been the ranking producer in 1870 on the basis of incomplete data, and it 

remained in that position in 1871, although its share had fallen from a third to a fifth. Its 

share would continue to fall throughout the first half of the 1870s. Similarly Yellow 

Jacket and Savage would begin their decline as well in the early 1870s. Belcher, which 

had no more than a fraction of a percent of the bullion reported in the second half of the 

1860s, would jump into fourth place with 11 percent ($1.2 million) and Crown Point, 

which had about 8 percent of the total bullion from 1866 through 1869 and ranked sixth, 

reported 19 percent ($2 million) of the total bullion and ranked second in 1871. 3 

The mine-by-mine accounting is incomplete for 1871 because the October 1875 fire 

destroyed the basic documentation and only one Abstract Statement (submitted to the 

state by the Story County Assessor) has been found. The Mineralogists Report added 

bullion production mine-by-mine for all four quarters but only in tonnage and value. 

Other data contained in the net-proceeds tax documentation is missing except for the first 

quarter. Since more and more of the analysis of the Comstock from 1871 onward will be 

based on a reading of the net-proceeds tax rolls kept by the Story County Assessor’s 

Office and submitted to the state in the form of the Abstract Statements, it will be useful 

now to look more closely at the categories of data collected and what these data actually 

reveal about the mines and mills on the Comstock. 4 The first extant Abstract for Story 

County covered January-March, 1871, the initial quarter after the implementation of the 

new tax law. 5 From January to March, 1871, 19 “Owners” registered their bullion with 

the county assessor. Four of these were designated as “tailings” operations, although they 

paid the same tax as the mining operations. The total ore for the quarter was 116,000 tons 

(Mineralogist reported slightly less) with a bullion value of $2.6 million. This represented 

about a quarter of the tonnage for the year but more than a third of the bullion. The perton 

yield was $22 with the lowest from Belcher - $3.70 per ton on only 279 tons - and the 

highest from Chollar Potosi - $36.46 per on more than 24,000 tons. 6 Tailings accounted 

for 8 percent of the total ore with per-ton averages between $8 and $12, far below the 

quarterly average. One mill, Parke & Bowie, accounted for 85 percent of the total 

tailings. Total costs for extraction and reduction (tailings mills were exempted from these 

3 

Smith reported two sets of production figures: From James Wheeler’s report (526-536) by company 

supplemented by data from county assessment rolls he reported $8.1 million in bullion. In another place he 

reported a total of $9.6 million in bullion when broken down by gold and silver. See Smith, Binder 1, NC 

229, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno, a part of the Tabular Statement previously 

noted. 

4 

The 1871 law spelled out the information that all county assessors had to collect and submit, and in Story 

County the ledgers in which the information was entered followed the guidelines almost exactly. See “An 

Act providing for the taxation of the net proceeds of mines,” approved February 28, 1871, in Laws of 

Nevada…, 2:225-228, especially 226. 

5 

The foregoing discussion will be drawn from document entitled “Abstract Statement From the Quarterly 

Assessment Roll of the proceeds of mines of Story County for the Quarter Ending March 31 st 1871,” 

Nevada State Archives. 

6 

Chollar Potosi had two entries: one of 20,897 tons at $39.25 per ton and another of 3,150 tons at $17.89.


4 

provisions), which mine owners were required to declare, reached $1.9 million, or about 

three-quarters of the return in bullion. In first official quarter under the new 1871 law 13 

operations reported costs that exceeded yields on a per-ton basis. The most severe 

disparity involved one of the oldest Comstock companies, Gould & Curry. Its cost per ton 

had reached $52 while its yield per ton was $20. It was not the major player that it once 

was, however, because its 1,713 tons represented 1.5 percent of the total tonnage. The 

other mines with operations in the red had losses (costs exceeding receipts) that ranged 

from a few cents to $9 per ton. Mines not in the red had operating profits (receipts 

exceeding costs) in the range of 50 cents to $22 per ton. Chollar Potosi, the leading 

producer, scored the greatest return. Its reported total costs were $398,000: $106,000 or 

$4 per ton in extraction costs and $291,000 or $12 per ton in reduction costs. That meant 

the company having spent under $17 per ton for a return of over $36 per ton enjoyed an 

operating profit of $19 per ton. No other operation matched the performance of Chollar 

Potosi. 7 A gross operating profit for all the operations of $700,000 or about $6 per ton 

worked was not significant and would have to improve if the Comstock was to recover 

fully. In the first quarter there was no sign that Belcher and Crown Point, which would 

ultimately lead that recovery, were poised to do so. 

FIGURE 2 


BULLION OWNER Tonnage Value ($) Share (%) Yield/Ton($) 

Belcher 83,195 $4,794,659 38.0 $57.63 

Crown Point 110,762 4,598,850 36.4 41.52 

Yellow Jacket 6,025 148,551 1.2 24.66 

Woodville 1,152 24,675 0.2 21.42 

Chollar Potosi 44,350 752,011 6.0 16.96 

McKenzie, James 140 2,338 0.0 16.70 

Hale & Norcross 38,065 617,325 4.9 16.22 

Empire 11,248 177,379 1.4 15.77 

Savage 53,083 811,867 6.4 15.29 

Kentuck 11,138 140,848 1.1 12.65 

Elholm 540 6,325 0.1 11.71 

Midas (Cook & Geyer) 583 6,482 0.1 11.12 

Parke & Bowie 34,460 335,395 2.7 9.73 

Succor 2,000 17,000 0.1 8.50 

Rogers, J. L. 775 6,283 0.0 8.11 

Gold Hill Q 750 6,061 0.0 8.08 

Sierra Nevada 18,380 122,576 1.0 6.67 

Luzerne 600 3,000 0.0 5.00 

Silver Hill 3,458 17,046 0.1 4.93 

Stevenson 1,884 8,478 0.1 4.50 

Challenge 380 1,125 0.0 2.96 

Union Mill & Mining 0 32,000 

7 

Tailings operations did not report any extraction costs since they bought ores that they then processed.


5 

Calculated Totals 422,968 $12,630,274 99.7 $29.86 

Sources: From Abstract Statements submitted to State Controller 1 st , 3 rd & 4 th quarters by Story County, 

Nevada State Archives and from the Mineralogist’s Report for 2 nd Quarter, see footnote 1. The quarters 

where date from the Abstracts and from the Mineralogist’s Report overlap, the entries and totals do not 

always agree. With the original ledgers, lost in the 1875 fire, there is not way to make corrections. In some 

cases the problems arise because the arithmetic is wrong. Ranking by yield per ton. Percentage rounding to 

one-tenth reduces some figures to zero. 

The rising output that began in 1871 continued into 1872. It added another 19 

percent reaching $12.6 million in bullion. Tonnage also rose by almost the same 

percentage to 423,000. Per-ton yields remained constant at about $30. 8 About two-dozen 

operations (mines or tailings mills) can be identified in the second year since the netproceeds 

tax took effect. Belcher and Crown Point ranked first and second in total value 

and value per ton. Belcher produced 83,000 tons that yielded $4.8 million in bullion or 

$58 per ton while Crown Point produced 111,000 tons worth $4.6 million or $42 per ton. 

In combination they accounted for 75 percent of the total. The other major producers by 

total value – Savage ($812,000), Chollar Potosi ($752,012) and Hale & Norcross 

($617,325) - were far behind with yields per ton that were in the mid-teens, well below 

the mean for all producers in 1872 and even below the standard break-even of $20 per 

ton. They combined for about 17 percent of the total. The top five firms had more than 90 

percent of the ore, further evidence of the growing concentration of the mining business 

as the depths increased. 

The discoveries at Belcher and Crown Point had, as one might expect, a direct and 

positive effect on the stock market. Smith wrote that the “Boom of 1872” was manifest in 

the fact that 150 mining stocks listed on the San Francisco Exchange moved up in the 

first half of the year from a value of under $20 million to more than $80 million, and 

some of these stocks were not even located on the Comstock. Stock in Belcher and 

Crown Point in particular rose from several hundred dollars per share to $1,500 to $2,000 

per share. While the bonanzas at Belcher and Crown Point were real, the reactions of 

investors and speculators went beyond the pale. Other Comstock mines began to intimate 

and in one or two cases to promote discoveries of ores between the 1,200- and 1,500-foot 

levels where the holdings of Belcher and Crown Point lay. Another bonanza – even 

greater than Belcher and Crown Point - will be launched at these levels in Consolidated 

Virginia and California on the northern end of the Lode within a year or two, but in 

between the two groups of mines, on the north and the south, except for a small patch in 

Hale and Norcross, no other exploitable discoveries would ever be made. Like every 

other “vortex of speculation” a correction in the market took hold. High-flying stocks 

plummeted during the second half of 1872. The prices of Belcher and Crown Point also 

tumbled, but this was more in response to is a ten-fold increase in Belcher shares and an 

eight-fold increase in Crown Point shares, issued by the companies’ Boards, than to 

8 

“Report of the Controller...1871 and 1872” in Appendix to Senate Journal, 6 th Legislative Session, 1873, 

92-103 (1872) and “Annual Report of the Controller…[1873 and 1874]” Appendix to Senate And Assembly 

Journal, 7 th Legislative Session, 1875, 82 (1872). Smith’s notes in Binder 1, NC 229, Special Collections, 

Library, University of Nevada, Reno, contained an 1872 figure of $12.1 million, and Lord in Comstock 

Mining and Miners (416) had figures that ranged from $12.2 million to $13.6.


6 

market conditions. Both mines continued to produce and to pay dividends as the rest of 

the Comstock struggled. 9 FIGURE 3 

\ 

BELCHER MINE 

A year after the rejuvenation of the Comstock had begun in 1871 the figures 

underscored why a new spirit prevailed. In the first quarter of 1872 the new leading 

producers were Belcher and Crown Point. Belcher hoisted nearly 21,000 tons worth $1.1 

million and Crown Point 19,000 tons worth slightly less than $1 million. The per-ton 

yields were $52 and $54 respectively. Chollar Potosi, the leading producer the year 

before, hoisted only 7,800 tons worth about $165,000 or $19 per ton. Total tonnage 

actually fell by 7 percent to 98,000 but bullion value rose by 11 percent to $2.9 million. 

The average per ton had risen from $23 to $30. It was the richness of the ores that 

dispelled the gloom of the past few years, even though there was little evidence that yet 

that high-yielding ores resided at these levels across the Lode. At this stage the emerging 

bonanza was narrowly confined to the southern end of the Comstock Lode. On the 

northern end not only had Chollar Potosi slipped significantly (nearly a 45 percent loss in 

yield) but Savage also saw its yields dip further to about $18 per ton. The higher 

quarterly average in per-ton yields stemmed directly from the rich ores being hoisted at 

Belcher and Crown Point. Without them the average receipts for the remaining operations 

fell to $17. Total expenditures were reported to be $2.2 million or $22 per ton, about the 

same value as the first quarter of 1871. Costs per ton at Belcher reached $36 per ton and 

were much higher than the average, while those at Crown Point were about the same as 

9 

See Smith’s notes in Binder 1, NC 229, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno for 

company-by-company records and The Comstock Lode, 131-133, for a discussion of the “Boom of 1872”. 

For additional comments see Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, chapter 15.


7 

the average. Despite their high costs on a per-ton basis these companies still had very 

large operating surpluses: Belcher’s costs amounted to 69 percent of the receipts while 

Crown Point’s were only 46 percent. As a result of these differences, Crown Point’s 

profits were nearly twice those at Belcher. The remaining companies as a group had no 

operating surpluses and actually spent 8 percent more money than they received. The 

losses were both small and large from 26 cents to $20 per ton. Yellow Jacket, another 

former prominent mine in the vicinity of Belcher and Crown Point, had the highest cost 

per ton at nearly twice its revenue per ton. The production leader of the previous year, 

Chollar Potosi, managed to squeeze out a gross profit of about 9 percent: bullion receipts 

amounted to $21 per ton and operational costs to more than $19 per ton or between $1 

and $2 per ton. Two other large producers from the late 1860s, Hale & Norcross and 

Savage, had expenses that exceeded receipts by 22 and 24 percent respectively. Of the 10 

profitable operations 7 reported profits of a 33 cents to $1.60 per ton. In terms of 

revenues and costs based on declarations by owners before the county assessor, the 

overall health of the Comstock was suspect. 10 

By the third and fourth quarters of 1872 the pattern observed in the first quarter 

had undergone some changes. Belcher and Crown Point continued to be the leaders. In 

the final six months Belcher hoisted 41,000 tons or 20,000 per quarter worth $2.5 million 

at an even higher per-ton yield of $63 compared to the first quarter. By contrast Crown 

Point raised 57,000 tons or 18,000 per quarter worth $1.8 million at a considerably lower 

yield of $32 a ton. Total output for the first two quarter was 206,000 tons and was worth 

$5.8 million with a per-ton yield of $28. Since the per-ton yield for the first quarter alone 

was $30 the lower per-ton yields of the second quarter had pulled down the average for 

the first half of the year. Per-ton ratios for the rest of the companies during the second 

quarter were comparable to the first quarter at about $13 and $14 per ton. Even with 

higher yields at Belcher, the smaller of the two bonanza sites, the decline at Crown Point 

was significant with respect to overall yields. Moreover, the bonanzas at Belcher and 

Crown Point diverted attention from the fact that the rest of the Comstock was producing 

little profitable ore, and that would remain the case until the greatest of all bonanzas 

began a year or so later at Consolidated Virginia. In the third and fourth quarters Crown 

Point extracted 30 percent more ore than Belcher, but the latter had yields that were 

almost twice as great as the former had. The ore deposits at Crown Point were not rising 

or holding steady. Other formerly prominent mines - Chollar Potosi, Hale & Norcross 

and Savage – saw their luster tarnish further. Their yields were sub-par (between $14 and 

$18 per ton) when compared against all the mines and slightly better than average when 

the list excluded Belcher and Crown Point. A substantial contribution in tailings appeared 

in the fourth quarter under the Parke & Bowie Company with 14,000 tons worth $9.50 

per ton or $132,000. In the third quarter overall costs rose to 90 percent of the receipts 

and then in the fourth quarter fell back to 77 percent. Both figures were higher than the 

first quarter. Costs as a percentage of bullion values at the two leading producers in the 

third and fourth quarters compared to the first quarter moved in opposite directions. At 

Belcher they dropped from 71 percent to 48 percent but at Crown Point they ballooned 

10 

The data for the first, third and fourth quarters of 1872 appear in Abstracts Statements, Nevada State 

Archives. In the first quarter two different entries appear for Chollar Potosi and Gold Hill Quartz Mining. 

The two sets of figures have been combined into a single set for each operation even though the separate 

entries may have represented what individual owners of the mining properties had declared.


8 

from 44 percent to 78 percent. There is no obvious explanation for this switch. More than 

likely it was an indication that the grade of ore had changed. At the other major producers 

– Chollar Potosi, Hale & Norcross and Savage - in those final two quarters costs 

continued to outpace receipts. At Savage the costs were 72 percent higher than revenues 

and at Chollar Potosi and Hale & Norcross they were 30 percent higher. Of the 16 

companies with taxable bullion in the last half of 1872 eight had expenditures that 

exceeded receipts with the worst performance by Yellow Jacket, which spent $111,000 to 

retrieve and process $45,000 worth of ore. 11 

As the Comstock’s second decade opened, the prospects were mixed. The shared 

bonanza at Belcher and Crown Point raised the productivity bar significantly. No other 

companies had ever enjoyed such high annual receipts (in dollars). For the moment, 

however, no other companies made similar discoveries. The Comstock was in fact 

slipping into a sea of red ink. In spite of that the up-tick in production from 1870 to 1871 

and then from 1871 to 1872 emboldened the promoters and speculators in San Francisco. 

Certainly after a decade of probing hundreds of feet below the surface Comstock miners 

had a clearer understanding of how the Lode was formed. In the early years the 

expectation that increasingly richer ores would be found at increasingly greater depths 

was openly dismissed. By the second decade, however, the psychology had changed 

completely. Rich ores had been located between the 500- and the 1,000-foot levels and 

now between the 1,000- and the 1,500-foot levels. What miners failed to come to terms 

with readily, not only on the Comstock but also in other rich mining regions, was that 

discoveries at given depths could be scattered and limited. As Eliot Lord observed: “It is 

a curious fact in the history of mining that the opening up of a bonanza in any part of a 

district generally causes a rise in the market value of all mines in that district.” Thus, the 

Belcher-Crown Point discovery below the 1,000-foot level launched a flurry of 

promotions and explorations among the other companies at these depths. “In the case of a 

lode like the Comstock there was no reason why the development of an ore-body in the 

section owned by the Crown Point company should cause the section of the Ophir 

Company [on the other end of the lode] to become more valuable….” Of course, as 

hindsight showed and Lord recalled: “There was no likelihood that the Crown Point orebody 

would extend more than a few hundred feet north of the boundary line of the mine, 

and yet it was such an encouraging indication of the probable richness of the unexplored 

fissure that the quoted value of nearly all the mines on the lode bounded upward as soon 

as the importance of the new development was generally realized.” 12 Under these 

circumstances the upward shift in values of mining properties was fraudulent, more the 

result of manipulation by speculators and owners than of concrete discoveries. One of 

San Francisco’s most notorious and successful “stock-jobbers”, Alvinza Haywood, the 

new proprietor along with J. P. Jones of Crown Point, took advantage of the emerging 

euphoria to fabricate a discovery at Savage early in 1872 to boost the price of the stock as 

well as the senatorial candidacy of Jones. Savage like Crown Point had belonged to the 

stable of mining properties owned by William Sharon. Jones had in fact been Sharon’s 

superintendent at Crown Point. Crown Point’s bonanza was real. Savage was a fraud 

11 

See the preceding footnote. Grant Smith’s contain full-year data for some of the firms discussed in the 

text in Binder 1, NC 229, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno. 

12 



9 

orchestrated by Haywood, who gave an order to buy (“unlimited”) shares of Savage 

stock, then at $62 per share. Did this mean that Savage was in bonanza? In fact it had, 

according to Lord, cut into a small body of rich ore but nothing more. Still Haywood 

ordered the miners be confined, an old and often discredited practice to conceal the truth, 

and denied the public, in particular the press, admittance to the mine. Several mining 

properties to the north including Ophir possessed little value but pursued similar 

strategies. Eventually the ruse was revealed through the efforts of disgruntled 

stockholders, jealous owners and nosy journalists, and while the bonanzas at Belcher and 

Crown Point stood the test of time and repaid their investors handsomely Savage and 

Ophir fell into further disrepair. Savage’s performance for the first quarter of 1872 was 

hardly noteworthy. Its ore earned less than $18 per ton, and its costs were at least $50,000 

greater than its receipts. The San Francisco Bulletin reported in its 7 May edition that 

despite a revival of interest in Comstock mining only two mines, Belcher and Crown 

Point, were paying dividends at the time. (Equally telling was the fact that these two 

mines were among four – the two others were in Pinochet, Nevada - out of 150 mining 

claims across the West that could pay dividends). Their stocks were also greatly 

overvalued and fell with the rest. On 19 May the San Francisco Chronicle declared that 

the parties connected with Savage were to blame for launching a spiral of speculation that 

left San Francisco in financial shambles. This was not the first time nor would it be the 

last time the Exchange and the Comstock were out of step with each other. Stock prices 

seldom reflected the worth of the mines or the health of the industry, and only a few 

mines paid dividends in any given year. 13 In fact, though, the bonanza at Belcher and 

Crown Point, irrespective of the stock speculators, acted as a spur to others who launched 

new explorations at levels similar to where the bonanza had occurred. 

FIGURE 3 


Bullion Owners Tons Value ($) Share (%) Yield per Ton ($) 

Belcher 154,664 $10,779,171 49.1 69.69 

Crown Point 142,267 8,317,285 37.9 58.46 

Con sol. Virginia 11,297 644,582 2.9 57.06 

Challenge 113 3,425 0.0 30.31 

Imperial 424 8,343 0.1 19.68 

Hale & Norcross 31,734 593,600 2.7 18.71 

Woodville 2,878 51,442 0.2 17.87 

Chollar Potosi 33,234 566,968 2.6 17.06 

Savage 7,649 94,576 0.4 12.36 

Empire 11,680 142,399 0.6 12.19 

Caledonia 10,344 124,255 0.6 12.01 

Gould & Curry 2,956 35,217 0.2 11.91 

Jennings, George 300 3,325 0,0 11.08 

13 

Both Smith (The Comstock Lode) and Lord (Comstock Mining and Miners) wrote about the rise and fall 

of Comstock mining in 1872, and while their basic recording of the events and personalities was similar, 

they differed in some details and emphases. Smith was relatively brief, 132-133, with a focus on the contest 

between Haywood-Jones and Sharon. Lord devoted Chapter 15, “A Fortunate Deliverance,” to the upswing 

of the early 1870s with more details about mining operations and stock transactions during 1872.


10 

Cousins, Charles 129 1,403 0.0 10.88 

Silver Hill 10,284 107,854 0.5 10.49 

Park & Bowie 28,710 253,344 1.2 8.82 

Justice 6,328 53,293 0.2 8.42 

Trophy 240 1,948 0.0 8.12 

Occidental 1,478 10,752 0.1 7.27 

Sierra Nevada 20,731 132,365 0.6 6.38 

Stevenson, C. C. 350 2,100 0.0 6.00 

Succor 1,500 4,500 0.0 3.00 

Union Mill & 

Mining 8,300 7,975 0.1 0.96 

Calculated Totals 486,090 $21,940,122 100.0 

Recorded Totals 486,598 $21,940,124 

Mean 45.14 

Median 11.96 

Sources: See footnote 14. Percentage rounding to one-tenth reduces some figures to zero. 

The full potential of the discoveries at Belcher and Crown Point was revealed in 

1873. The biennial reports of the State Mineralogist and of the State Controller submitted 

to the 1875 Nevada Legislature are the main sources for production data. Story County 

raised 487,000 tons of ore for what constituted a decline of 7 percent from 1872. The 

yield, however, was the highest yet on record at $45 per ton for a total bullion value of 

$22 million, up 79 percent from the previous year. The richness of Belcher ($70 per ton) 

and Crown Point ($58 per ton) was now fully manifest. Nearly half of the bullion came 

from the ores of Belcher, and another 38 percent from the ores of Crown Point. That left 

less than 13 percent from the remaining 20 mine and mill owners who declared taxable 

ore. The top five producers – Belcher, Crown Point, Consolidated Virginia, Hale & 

Norcross and Chollar Potosi – combined for 95 percent of the total bullion in dollars, the 

highest such concentration recorded to date for the Comstock. Three of the top five, 

however, only accounted for 8 percent against 87 percent of the total for the two leading 

producers. Seventeen of the 23 owners reported less than 1 percent each of the total 

bullion. The aforementioned 17 mine-and-mill owners presented a dismal performance of 

$6 per ton. There is little doubt that the year of 1873 belonged to Belcher and Crown 

Point without which the Comstock would have been on the verge of collapse and 

abandonment. Even old standbys like Hale & Norcross, Chollar Potosi, Savage and 

Gould & Curry had yields in the teens. With hindsight we know what is ahead, the first 

indication of which showed up in the fourth quarter. Consolidated Virginia, the new 

venture of John Mackinaw, James Fair et al. showed up in the assessment rolls with only 

11,000 tons (2 percent of the total), but it earned about $57 per ton, just slightly below 

Crown Point’s yield. Mackinaw and Fair were in the edge of the biggest and richest ore 

vein in the history of the Comstock at approximately the same level (1,200 to 1,600 feet) 

as the Belcher and Crown Point bonanzas. 14 

14 

The 1873 data from “Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist…1873 and 1874” in Appendix to the 

Journals of Senate and Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session, 1875, 156-157. Grant Smith also collected data 

for 1873, presumably as noted above from Wheeler’s treatise. It is far less complete than the Mineralogist’s


11 

The 1873 Mineralogist’s Report was one of the most detailed that Henry 

Whitehall, who served longest tenure from 1871 through 1878, had ever prepared. All the 

Nevada counties received attention in his report, but Story County received the most. His 

survey was compiled from visits and interviews plus printed materials such as annual 

reports to company stockholders. Tables and charts, drawn mainly from the annual 

reports, gave precise details on receipts and expenses for some of the largest operations. 

Because the Mineralogist’s Report covered the two-year period 1873-1874 it did not 

always draw a distinction between events and activities in 1873 as opposed to 1874. 

Moreover, since some of his information came from annual reports and since some of the 

annual reports followed fiscal years that differed from calendar years, underground 

operations such as uncovering new ore bodies or extending drifts, cross-cuts and winzes 

were not precisely tagged in terms of the calendar. One unambiguous message to emerge 

from the survey, however, was that companies were undertaking more and more work at 

the levels and in the directions relating to the bonanzas at Belcher and Crown Point. 

Comstock miners had come to believe that even greater riches lay deeper in the Lode, and 

the success at Belcher and Crown Point plus what was known about work at Consolidated 

Virginia confirmed their expectations and justified their efforts. 15 The optimists and the 

charlatans were not deterred by the fact that no discoveries that could be portrayed as 

bonanzas along the Lode below the 1,000-foot level in 1873 or 1874 except for the three 

mines noted above. And yet companies were investing in extensive explorations between 

the 1,000- and 1,500-foot levels between the football and the hanging wall as well as 

pushing below the 1,500-foot level to the 2,000-foot level. Considerable work was 

underway in Ophir, a much troubled mine since the mid-1860s, and several promising ore 

bodies were alluded to between the 1,300- and the 1,500-foot levels in its 1873-1874 

annual report. Very little came of these discoveries, and while Ophir will remain an 

active operation, it will be so because it will mainly serve as a conduit to the California 

mine on its southern border. California, not Ophir, will share the body of ore that was 

stimulating so much interest in Consolidated Virginia. 16 Summaries of activities in other 

mines should have moderated the enthusiasm. The President of Gould & Curry declared 

that although its operations “have been prosecuted without interruption, no pay body of 

ore has been developed, so that to provide for current expenses, and to meet outlays for 

such improvements…, recourse has necessarily been had to assessments [to raise 

capital].” Still he was optimistic, as perhaps company presidents had to be. The mine had 

at least 11 stations, the deepest being at the 1,600-foot level, and all it had found was vein 

matter that might yield between $1 and $9 per ton or virtual barrenness. 17 Gould & 

Curry’s southern neighbor, Savage, had sunk one of the deepest shaft on the Comstock, 

to 2,081 feet, and had purchased new equipment to rise the shaft and ventilate the mine, 

report. 

15 

The reader is reminded here to distinguish between the actual depth of a mine and the level that it had 

reached. The level was measured from the high point in Virginia City (ca. Ophir), and since the Lode 

sloped north to south by 400 to 500 feet between the northern end (Virginia City) and the southern end 

(Gold Hill) the 2,000-foot level at Ophir may actually approximate 2,000 feet, but the 2,000-foot level at 

Belcher may only be 1,500 to 1,600 feet underground. 

16 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist…1873 and 1874” in Appendix to Journals of Senate and 

Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session, 1875, 101-102. 

17 


Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session, 1875, 125-126.


12 

but tellingly the sections that should have yielded ores, as quoted by the Mineralogist 

from a report by the company’s superintendent, produced only meager results. 18 The 

assessments revealed that tonnage was approximately 7,000 with a yield of about $14 per 

ton 19 . On its southern border Savage’s neighbor, Hale & Norcross, had dropped a shaft to 

the 2,100-foot level, was continuing to construct (in cooperation with Savage) various 

connecting tunnels and could not announce any “encouraging results”. 20 Further to the 

south at Chollar Potosi the President wrote that “the present fiscal year has been barren of 

congratulatory results”, and what ore has been extracted came from the old stopes in the 

upper levels even though the company was spending money to renovate and extend the 

shaft below 1,200-foot level. Between Chollar Potosi and Crown Point and Belcher in 

Gold Hill the prospects were not better. According to Imperials President, the 

“company’s ground has been prosecuted vigorously” without finding a “paying body of 

ore”. He maintained the prospects were bright because the vein matter at the 1,850-foot 

level looked so “strong and well-defined” that it would become paying ore at the 2,000- 

foot level. It did not, of course. 21 Between Imperial and Crown Point was the ground that 

once drove the mighty Yellow Jacket. After 18 assessments to raise $1.9 million (along 

with dividend payments totaling of $2.2 million) the mine had nearly reached the 1,800- 

foot level (actual distance, between 1,300 and 1,400 feet) only to find water instead of 

ore. 22 One section of his survey Whitehall entitled “Going for the Bottomless Pit”. He 

noted that it was startling to think about how deep the mines had reached and yet how 

little thought was given to it. 23 In 1873 (and 1874) the barrenness that was being 

uniformly encountered below the 1,600-foot level was a reality that few entertained 

seriously. In retrospect it is fairly easy to grasp the futility of these efforts, and yet that 

approach may actually be a misreading of history. Company presidents and 

superintendents knew what they had found and they may well have known how 

vulnerable their forecasts were, but in the long history of mining discoveries, especially 

bonanzas often led owners of ground adjacent or nearby to make bold predictions. The 

fact was that miners, even the most skilled, did not know what they would find. Hope 

(more than fraud or deception perhaps) motivated the mining community until the silver 

lining was completely destroyed. 

Despite the troubling details in the Mineralogist’s report on Comstock mining in 

1873 the bonanza mines of Belcher and Crown Point and the new bonanza candidate, 

Consolidated Virginia, helped to forge a countervailing positive attitude. Most of the 

report was taken up not in discussion of poorly performing mines but of the bonanzas 

themselves. Belcher and Crown Point together covered 16 pages of Whitehill’s survey 

and included detailed operational and financial data far exceeding anything relating to the 

18 



19 

Two sets of numbers exist for Savage, a recorded set and a calculated set. 

20 



21 


Assembly, Legislative Session, 1875, 119-120. 

22 



23 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist…1873 and 1874”in Appendix to Journals of Senate and 

Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session, 1875, 123.


13 

other companies. Consolidated Virginia (and California as well since the report covered 

1874 when work had begun on that property) also received extensive coverage. From 

reading these sections plus a section summarizing Baron von Richthofen’s geological 

investigations of nearly a decade earlier would certainly be sufficient to assuage whatever 

negative outlook might be drawn from the actual state of most Comstock operations. The 

view of many Comstockians was that the Lode was on the verge of its greatest venture. In 

a sense that was true, for the bonanzas then underway would be unprecedented. But they 

were also limited. That was what the activists and pundits were ignoring in the 

Mineralogist’s survey. Indeed rehabilitative efforts at the three (or four) bonanza mines 

had been so extensive and successful that they obscured negative indicators. At Crown 

Point, for example, during the fiscal year from May 1873 to May 1874 1,200 feet of 

drifts, 500 feet of crosscuts, 200 feet of raises and 1,500 feet of winzes were constructed 

along with retimbering 2,500 feet of drifts. A new hoisting reel 21 feet and 6 inches in 

diameter was said to be the largest on the West Coast. Its face had a “spiral groove of 

sufficient capacity to wind a two-inch steel rope to work the mine to a depth of three 

thousand feet.” It was driven by a “pair of twenty by forty-two link-motion engines” and 

was so strong that it could hoist 12 tons of ore per load. Given the expense of such 

installations how could one doubt that the ground was rich in ore that simply awaited 

bigger and better machines? From the financial accounts (to be examined in the next 

chapter) made available to the Mineralogist, all mining and milling costs came to 

approximately $20 or $21 per ton whereas return in bullion was between $50 and $60 per 

ton. Gross profits were obviously extraordinary for a mine that some had written off as 

folly. Its neighbor, Belcher, had an equally impressive year. The operational activities 

were reported with fewer details at Belcher than at Crown Point, although Belcher’s 

finances were described as fully as Crown Point’s. The most serious problem was the 

replacement of the air shaft, which a fire had destroyed the year before. In 1873 the new 

shaft had reached the 600-foot level (ca 150-200 feet from the surface) and was to 

connect with an upraise at the 850-foot level. The matter of proper ventilation in 

Comstock mines continued to baffle miners and engineers, and at Belcher, since the ores 

were being extracted from levels between 1,400 and 1,900 feet considerably more work 

had to be done on the air shaft in the coming years. Since air was also needed to run the 

new Burleigh compressors and drills (considered to be the most efficient on the West 

Coast), a six-inch pipe had been installed for a distance of 1,400 feet so that it could 

allow work at the 1,800- and 1,900-foot levels. Belcher like Crown Point reported mining 

and milling the ores cost between $20 and $21 per ton, but its yield in bullion was nearly 

$70 per ton. Belcher was proving to be the richer of the two mines in large part because it 

produced more gold than silver. 24 

As important as Belcher and Crown Point were to the Comstock’s emergent 

recovery, the rehabilitation on the Lode’s northern end at Consolidated Virginia and later 

at California was becoming the headline. It was not lost on the local mining community 

that the new bonanza was launched at approximately the same level, the 1,200-foot level, 

as the Lode’s southern bonanzas. Belcher-Crown Point and Consolidated Virginia- 

California became the bookends for what many had hoped and assumed would be a 

24 

Crown Point was discussed in “Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist…1873 and 1874,” in Appendix 

to Journals of Senate and Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session, 1875, 103-112, and Belcher 112-118.


14 

general bonanza from Gold Hill to Virginia City even though the ever widening and 

deepening explorations along the Lode had yielded few positive results. In his report the 

Mineralogist excerpted portions of articles found in three regional newspapers – 

Territorial Enterprise, Gold Hill News, and Independent. In addition he quoted a large 

part of the annual report by the superintendent, who in this case was one of the owners 

and a long-time well-known local, James Fair. Some figures on receipts and 

disbursements were also cited. The enterprise, which Fair, Mackay, James Flood and 

William O’Brien were building, would become a Comstock behemoth. By the end of 

1873 Consolidated Virginia’s main shaft (between E and F Streets) had reached 1,550 

feet of which more than 1,000 feet had been sunk in 1872 and 1873. What permitted the 

rapid expansion of the main shaft was the absence of water. Two nearby mines, Gould & 

Curry and Ophir, which connected to Consolidated Virginia and its adjoining mine 

California at the 1,200- through the 1,500-foot levels, had pumps of sufficient size to 

drain that section of the Comstock. According to Dan DeQuille he first saw the ore body 

in October 1873 by way of a drift from Gould & Curry’s mine (through Best & Belcher 

to the south) that traversed the ore body at the 1,200-foot level, although this figure may 

refer not to the distance from the standard surveyor’s point on the Gould & Curry 

property but to the distance from the surface of the Consolidated Virginia property 

probably at the site of the main shaft. 25 In any event within a matter of months drifts were 

constructed northward from the Gould & Curry side as well as southward from 

Consolidated Virginia’s main shaft. It was soon apparent that the ore body extended 

northward into California but not as far as Ophir and it did not extend southward, even 

though many held out hope that as the explorations continued in an easterly direction 

toward the hanging wall the ore body would reconstitute itself southward through Gould 

& Curry and northward to Union Consolidated where the Lode then split. Within 

Consolidated Virginia’s claim the heart of the ore body was at 1,500 feet below the 

surface (at 1,636-foor level), and the massive wall of ore rose up to 1,200 feet on an angle 

and extended northward into California at 1,500 feet but not beyond. It would reach a 

depth of about 1,650 feet. From the earliest days, even before the discoverers knew its 

actual dimensions, this was seen as an unprecedented discovery. It not only spread over 

hundreds of feet in nearly every direction, but it was also of unparalleled purity and 

richness. It was almost as if the underground in this section of the Lode was an 

unbounded solid ore mass. Not surprisingly, then, the massiveness of the ore body was 

matched by the massiveness of the technology and construction required to mine and to 

mill the ore. Both print journalists and company officials spared no effort to describe the 

dimensions of the machines and the buildings: a boiler was called “monstrous”, the main 

shaft with three cages could hoist 1,400 tons daily, the foundation for the shaft engine, 

which itself weighed 50 tons, was said to contain 450 cubic years of masonry and to 

weigh in at 600 tons and the shaft that drove the dozens of stamps or hammers that broke 

25 

The surveyor’s point known as “datum point A” on the surveys by George Becker in the early 1880s was 

actually higher by about 150 feet (the difference varied depending on where the measurement was made 

from the surface of Consolidated Virginia’s property). The 1,200-foot-level in the above citation would be 

about 1,050 feet from the surface. This was probably not where the ore body existed. More than likely the 

1,200-foot level referred to distance from the surface and the corresponding surveyor’s distance would be 

about 1,350 (more precisely 1,336 from Becker’s survey. For how the distances were reported see Lord, 

Comstock Mining and Miners, (311), Smith, The Comstock Lode, 158-159 and G. F. Becker and published 

as Atlas, Atlas Sheet 15.


15 

up the ores was 24 inches wide and 160 long. There was nothing modest about the plans 

drawn up and executed by W. H. Patton, the chief designer and engineer, nor about the 

expenditure of the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to build this colossus, and for 

good reason. The Superintendent’s Report referred to the quality and quantity of ore 

during 1873 as exceeding “in value…any other mine which has ever come under my 

knowledge or observation.” The in-mine assays, which yielded results always several 

times greater than the actual value of bullion in dollars, from the 1,550-foot level ranged 

from $200 to $800 per ton. In the end at Consolidated Virginia in the last quarter of 1873, 

when it paid mining-proceeds taxes for the first time, the yield in bullion came in at $57 

per ton, which was less than $10 below Belcher and more than $20 above Crown Point 

for the same quarter. Of course the full scope of the unfolding bonanza remained to be 

charted, but it was already regarded as equal to and perhaps as superior to anything that 

had preceded it. 26 

The following year, 1874, will actually serve as a pause in the Comstock’s new 

cycle of bonanzas. Since 1872 Belcher and Crown Point had led the way, and in 1873 

Consolidated Virginia joined the bonanza parade, although as Dan DeQuille cautioned in 

a now famous 29 October 1873 article in the Territorial Enterprise: “…a first-class mine 

is fast being developed in the Consolidated Virginia, but of course we can see into the ore 

deposit no further than the openings that have been made.” 27 The database itself is less 

ample. The Mineralogist’s Report lacked mine-by-mine statistics for the fourth quarter 

since the taxes were not paid until the first quarter of 1875 when the Legislature was 

already in session. The next report (1875-1876) did not contain mine-by-mine data as was 

included in the 1873-1874 Report. The October 1875 fire destroyed the courthouse files, 

and the only Abstract Statement for 1874 covered the first quarter, some of which 

appeared in the Mineralogist’s Report. The more abbreviated dataset assembled by the 

State Controller provides the basic information of ore production. The totals for 1874 

compared to 1873 revealed that ore tonnage rose about 10 percent to 534,000 tons while 

bullion value fell slightly by a half of a percent to $22.5 million. The average yield per 

ton was $42 in 1874 compared to $47 in 1873. Even with incomplete data, however, 

some patterns can be discerned. Belcher and Crown Point remained the leaders in spite of 

the excitement at Consolidated Virginia. In the first three quarters Belcher reported more 

than 127,000 tons worth $7.7 million or $60 per ton, well above the average yield. Crown 

Point had less impressive figures at 122,000 worth $5.1 million or $42 per ton, and its 

yield fell below the average. What helped to boost the average yield per ton was not only 

the high figure for Belcher (with 33 percent of the tonnage and 46 percent of the value) 

but also the high figure for Consolidated Virginia (with 17 percent of the tonnage and 19 

percent of the value) Against standards used by the mining companies as to how big a 

26 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist...1873 and 1874”in Appendix to the Journals of the Senate 

and the Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session, 1875, 130-138, 156-157. Tonnage and bullion figures from the 

county assessment rolls that appear in the Mineralogist’s Report (156-157) were slightly lower than the 

tonnage and bullion figures that appeared in the company ledgers. The per-ton yield in dollars may have 

been as high as $59. Bullion Records, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, Oct 1873-Nov 1875, 

NC99/1/3/2, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno.. 

27 

According to Grant Smith (The Comstock Lode, 154) the article with this quotation appeared in the 27 

October issue of the Daily Territorial Enterprise under the Headline “Consolidated Virginia—A Look 

Through the Long Forbidden Lower Levels—The Ore Bodies and Breasts, Winzes and Drifts—Rich 

Developments.”


16 

yield was necessary on average to guarantee a profit (between $20 and $30 per ton) 

Crown Point’s figure was still significantly above the mark. 28 

When the first three quarters are disaggregated from the aforementioned totals, a 

pattern emerges that will further alter the structure of Comstock mining. The first 

observation is that only 13 bullion owners appeared on the list – 11 mines and 2 tailings 

mills. This was the smallest number in a decade. Seven of the mines had bullion 

registrations in all three quarters while the remaining four missed at least one quarter. 

The number of operating mines with taxable bullion was shrinking and would remain on 

the low side of a range of one to two dozen for many years ahead. The second 

observation is that the quarterly yields per ton of the two leaders indicated the possibility 

that they had peaked and would begin to decline. With historical hindsight one can see 

that was what happened over the next few years. The 1874 quarterly figures (not 

including, of course, the fourth quarter) already pointed to the waning of the bonanza on 

the southern end. The performance at Belcher and Crown Point was uneven: Belcher’s 

per-ton yield dropped from $65 in the first quarter to $57 in the second and then rose to 

$60 in the third, and Crown Point’s dropped from $47 to $14 and rose to $37. The third 

observation is that Consolidated Virginia’s per-ton yields were rising from quarter to 

quarter from $41 to $50 to $61. Indeed because we have access to Consolidated 

Virginia’s own company accounts we know that in the fourth quarter it continued to rise 

to $63 per ton. The final observation is that if the top three bullion owners were removed 

from the totals, the remaining operations would account for 20 percent of the tonnage and 

6 percent of the bullion for a yield of $14 per ton. Despite the evidence for a continuing 

bonanza on its southern end and an emerging bonanza on its northern end the Comstock 

had little to had little to celebrate in between. The Lode continued to play out its drama of 

a few hugely profitable operations surrounded by an array of impoverished operators. 29 

The year 1874 represented a turning point, in a real sense the final turning point, 

for Comstock mining. It witnessed the launching of the biggest bonanza yet and ever. It 

must have made even the saltiest of the old-timers starry-eyed. Eliot Lord, who could 

scold Comstock owners and investors as severely as anyone, wrote in rapture of new 

bonanza on properties that for years had yielded virtually nothing: even some like Dan 

DeQuille had written as if they knew all along the body was there. 

The miner’s pick and drill are more potent than the magician’s wand 

[having previously referred to the Persian tale of young Aladdin]. Under 

their resistless touch bars of the treasure-house were broken through and 

its hoard revealed to the dazzled eyes of the invaders. The wonder grew as 

its depths were searched out foot by foot. The bonanza was cut at a point 

28 

The fourth highest of $32 per ton was from Ophir ore on only 4,700 tons, about 1 percent of the total. A 

small part of the ore body being worked in Consolidated Virginia and California extended northern into 

Ophir property. Ophir’s main contribution was that its main shaft and several southern drifts were used in 

the renovation and for the ventilation of Consolidated Virginia and California. 

29 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist...1873 and 1874” n Appendix to Journals of Senate and 

Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session, 1875, 176-177and Bullion Records, Consolidated Virginia Mining 

Company, Oct 1873-Nov 1875, NC99/1/3/2 and Dec 1875-Nov 1878, NC99/1/3/4, Special Collections, 



17 

1,167 feet below the surface, and as the shaft went down it was pierced 

again at the 1,200-foot level; still the same body of ore was found, but 

wider and longer than above. One hundred feet deeper, and prying pick 

and drill told the same story; yet another hundred feet, and the mass 

appeared to be still swelling. When, finally, the 1,500-foot level was 

reached and ore richer than any before met with was disclosed, the fancy 

of the coolest brains ran wide. 30 

The obvious question was how long would this marvel continue. Lord’s response was 

somewhat uncharacteristic for a man who already knew the outcome and continually 

distrusted the Comstock community’s inability to forecast: “its expansion seemed to keep 

pace with the most sanguine imaginings.” He then offered a quasi-statistical accounting 

of the progress: drifts were cut lengthwise and even after passing the northern boundary 

[into California property] there was no evidence of “barren rock”; crosscuts indicated a 

width of 150 to 320 feet; winze after winze “perforated level after level” to improve the 

air and to load the tram. Hundreds of workers scurried about inside the mine and on the 

surface, and dozens of buildings were being constructed, renovated and enlarged to 

handle the flood of ore being extracted. 31 There was uniform agreement among writers, 

contemporaneous and later, that the opening of Consolidated Virginia’s stopes to the 

public (at least the journalistic public) was an event of extraordinary revelation. 

Once Lord turned his attention to financial matters again, in particular stock 

prices, his mood changed. In 1870, he reported Consolidated Virginia stock sold for $15 

per share, and after the discovery was announced in 1873 it rose to $115 per share in 

November 1874 and then quadrupled to $610 per share by the end of 1874. It rose nearly 

another $100 in early 1875. Given the outstanding shares the value of Consolidated 

Virginia was put at $75 to $76 million, more than the value of all the ores ever extracted 

from the mine. Its companion mine, California, saw its stock rise to $780 per share to 

make it worth $84 million, also more than it ever produced in ores. The total value of 

mining stock traded in San Francisco in 1874 may have reached several hundred million 

dollars. Even with the greatest of bonanzas underway, stock prices had once again 

entered a fantasy world. Lord concluded that “many mines were not worth a dollar 

intrinsically, and all were overvalued” In his view that included Consolidated Virginia 

and California. Money being spent to speculate in stocks and drive up prices was money 

not available for capital improvement, which was the Comstock’s urgent need. Lord 

further observed that “blind confidence was changed first to doubt and then to alarm 

within the same week. Stock prices tumbled. Consolidated Virginia and California, as 

powerful a cash machine as they were, witnessed a decline from $700 to $497 for the 

former and $780 to $280. It is worth noting that California had not yet officially started 

production. But other mining-company stocks dropped through the floor as well, some by 

30 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 311, citing Don DeQuille, The Big Bonanza, and the 

Superintendent’s Report, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, 31 December 1874, as some of his 

sources. The figures probably refer to measurements from the surface of the property. DeQuille and others 

stated that they had been encouraging development of these properties for years, but such remarks are 

somewhat gratuitous in that locating these veins in an underground that was scores of square miles in size 

required the patience and skill of long-time miners like Fair and Mackay. 

31 



18 

as much as 200 percent. As Lord had repeatedly warned his reader, estimating or 

forecasting production ahead of actual mining and milling the ore was hazardous and 

foolish. 32 Investments should be based on proven reverses rather than hyperbolic 

predictions. He rightly pointed that it did not matter how volatile stock prices were in the 

case of Consolidated Virginia and California, for even though speculators and investors 

may have lost money gambling in the companies’ stocks the mine themselves were 

producing the richest ores and the highest profits ever. 33 The principals and other 

investors were paid huge dividends. Unfortunately for the rest of the Comstock the end 

was already at hand. One can applaud Lord’s (and at times Smith’s and DeQuille’s) 

verbal spanking of irresponsible speculators and uninformed investors, but even if the 

mining community had undergone a sudden conversion toward prudence and scrutiny 

where would they have put their money? Stock trading then as now was not necessarily 

related to the business at hand. It is not clear that had the stock-market crowd followed a 

different path they would have made a difference in the eventual outcome of Comstock 

mining. Perhaps a more rational approach could have improved profitability, reduced 

waste and corruption, broadened the pool of those who shared in the huge payouts and 

even extended the life of the Comstock (one of Lord’s assertions), but how such an 

approach could have been pursued especially in an age of laissez-faire economics was 

never laid out even by the critics themselves. It was assumed perhaps naïvely that people 

inherently desired to behave in less wasteful pursuits to optimize their own self-interest. 

In the real world that was not the case. 

32 


33 


THE COMSTOCK [F] 

1 

Chapter 6 


Third Stage 1875-1880, Final Stage 1880-1885 

As the year 1875 opened, the Comstock appeared to be re-energized. If the first half of 

the 1870’s belonged to Belcher and Crown Point, the second half belonged to 

Consolidated Virginia and California. The latter’s holdings were so vast that sunny 

predictions of inexhaustible supplies seemed the only natural and rational position to 

take. After the pause of 1874 the value of bullion in Story County rose in 1875 by 16 

percent to $26 million. Tonnage, which had risen by 10 percent in 1874, increased by less 

than 5 percent in 1875 to 558,000. That meant, of course, the per-ton figure had gone up 

from $42 in 1874 to $47 in 1875. The latter figure was comparable to that reported in 

1873. These changes were not spectacular when measured against the doubling of bullion 

values between 1872 and 1873 but nonetheless important as indicators of the resumption 

of growth in output. Behind the gross numbers for tonnage and bullion, however, was the 

most startling story: Belcher and Crown Point had lost their leadership role as their output 

plummeted by one-half and one-third respectively. By contrast Consolidated Virginia 

vaulted into first with nearly a three-fold increase in tonnage (169,000) and a five-fold 

increase in bullion ($16.9 million). A ton of ore from Consolidated Virginia yielded 

about $100 in bullion. Never before had the dollar value of a ton of ore in the course of a 

year reached $100. Assays inside the mines were often reported to be in the hundreds of 

dollars per ton, and such assays had been reported in the press and other publications in 

the past but had never been realized once the ores were processed. The average for the 

Comstock between 1867 and 1885 was $36 per ton while the median was $25 per ton. In 

previous bonanzas such as Belcher the ratio was as high as $60 to $65 per ton. 

Consolidated Virginia’s achievement had converted fantasies about the “gigantic scale” 

(in the words of the State Mineralogist) of the Comstock’s ore reserves into realities. 1 

And reports from Consolidated Virginia’s companion mine, California, only affirmed 

what many were coming to accept as the new gospel – the ore bodies grew richer as the 

depths increased. 

FIGURE 1 

BULLION OWNERSHIP WITH QUARTERLY YIELDS, 1875 

Mine or Mill 1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q Totals % % 

Yield Yield Yield Yield Tons Value Yield Tons Yield 

Consolidated Virginia $96.81 $89.68 $102.60 $119.66 169,065 $16,916,006 $100.06 30.3 65.0 

Ophir 26.24 28.02 43.60 45.72 46,682 1,682,990 36.05 8.4 6.5 

Belcher 26.11 21.66 31.19 33.03 123,780 3,383,874 27.34 22.2 13.0 

Imperial 20.00 27.14 3,127 82,006 26.23 0.6 0.3 

Justice 23.14 729 16,866 23.14 0.1 0.1 

Crown Point 21.04 20.63 20.18 17.01 155,361 3,101,604 19.96 27.8 11.9 

Andes 18.75 876 16,425 18.75 0.2 0.1 

Hale & Norcross 16.57 17.47 5,797 98,722 17.03 1.1 0.4 

Chollar Potosi 17.10 19.14 14.93 16.43 18,850 317,383 16.84 3.4 1.2 

Yellow Jacket 16.00 761 12,176 16.00 0.1 0.1 

1 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist…1875 and 1876” in Appendix to Journals of Senate and the 

Assembly, 2 vols., 8 th Legislative Session, 1877, 1:120 (1875).


2 

Vivian 15.72 1,488 23,397 15.72 0.3 0.1 

Empire 14.02 13.00 13.00 12.78 11,090 146,960 13.25 2.0 0.6 

Express Mill [T] 15.22 9.50 4,400 56,679 12.88 0.8 0.2 

Woodville 12.50 1,296 16,200 12.50 0.2 0.1 

Bowers 11.38 11.67 11.33 955 10,950 11.47 0.2 0.1 

Railroad Mill [T] 15.25 8.00 11.00 12,800 134,700 10.52 2.3 0.5 

Stevenson, C. C. [T] 5.19 5.00 1,200 6,100 5.08 0.2 0.0 

Calculated Totals $42.69 $43.55 $55.02 $46.05 558,257 $26,023,038 $46.61 100.2 100.2 

Recorded Total 558,256 $26,023,037 

Sources: The County Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story County. in Special Collections, Library, 

University of Nevada, Reno. T identified as tailings mill. Percentage rounding to one-tenth reduces some 

figures to zero. 

When production statistics are examined firm by firm, a less rosy and a more 

troubling future may be discerned. The number of firms with assessable bullion during 

the year remained small at 14. Nine firms paid taxes in the first quarter, seven in the 

second quarter, nine again in the third quarter and 11 in the fourth quarter. Tonnage and 

value rose between the first and second quarters; tonnage fell in the third while value 

continued to rise; and both tonnage and value fell in the fourth quarter. The October fire 

clearly had some impact on operations during the fourth quarter. The fire, confined 

mainly to Virginia City, destroyed buildings and facilities on the surface and timbering in 

several shafts, but most of the underground facilities were untouched. The ore was kept in 

the ground until the shafts could be repaired sufficiently to move the ore out of the mines 

and into the mills. The fire was certainly a major disruption but not a permanent one. It 

was encouraging that the fire did not bring Comstock production to a standstill, and it 

was equally encouraging that the bonanza on the northern end, now concentrated in 

Consolidated Virginia but rapidly being expanded to California and perhaps eventually 

even to include Ophir, was as big as it was. On the southern end the bonanzas appeared to 

be absolutely waning. Consolidated Virginia sprang to the top with only 30 percent of the 

ore but 65 percent of the bullion as yields came in at more than $100 per ton. Second on 

the list in per-ton yields was Ophir, which had been among the marginal producers for 

several years. In tonnage and bullion both Belcher and Crown Point far surpassed Ophir 

but their yields had fallen to $27 and $20 per ton respectively, the lowest since 1870. 

Belcher’s quarterly figures were more encouraging than Crown Point’s. The former 

yields had fallen and then recovered during the course of the year whereas the latter’s had 

steadily fallen. Without Consolidated Virginia’s yield of $100 per ton the average for the 

other operations would be $23 per ton and the median would be $17 per ton. These were 

not figures that could be predictive of long-term growth. But clearly it was difficult to 

look ahead and not to factor in the events surrounding Consolidated Virginia and 

California. In spite of the damage from the fire to the mine the yields from Consolidated 

Virginia were extraordinary: $97 per ton in the first quarter, $90 in the second, $103 in 

the third and $120 in the fourth. No operation had achieved such productivity. Success at 

Consolidated Virginia reinforced the expectations that greater wealth would be found in 

deeper ground in a matter of time and with a sufficient application of capital and 

technology. 2 

2 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist...1875 and 1876” in Appendix to Journals of Senate and 

Assembly, 3 vols., 8 th Legislative Session, 1877, 1:200-201, 208-209 (1875). Supplemental data found in 

Bullion Records, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, Oct 1873-Nov 1875, NC99/1/3/2, and Dec


3 

In the final two quarters of 1875, based on information provided by the bullion 

owners, the yield in dollars per ton of ore was $51 whereas the cost per ton to extract, 

transport and refine that ore was $25. 3 This was a healthy gross profit margin even if cost 

data were not verifiable. When data from Consolidated Virginia are stripped out of the 

bullion and cost figures, a somewhat different picture emerges. One point to observe is 

that although the fire may surely have boosted Consolidated Virginia’s costs (surface 

buildings damaged or destroyed and its shaft filled with dirt to 

prevent an interior fire) between the third and fourth quarter, the 

overall operations may have suffered much less if at all. In the 

third quarter mines produced ores worth $55 per ton at a cost of 

$23 per ton. Gross profits of $32 per ton was significantly 

influenced by the performance at Consolidated Virginia, which 

with bullion receipts of $102 per ton and mining and milling 

expenses of $28 per ton realized gross profits of $74 per ton. 

Illustration 1: John 

Mackay 

When Consolidated Virginia’s data are removed from the 

calculations, the other Comstock firms received on average $24 

per ton at a cost of $21 per ton for a modest gross profit of $$3 per 

ton. Of this group Ophir, which ranked fourth in tonnage, had the highest gross profits of 

$24 per ton followed by Belcher, which ranked third in tonnage, with $6 to $7 per ton 

gross profits. Among the worst performers was Chollar Potosi, which reported a loss of 

$24 per ton on a few thousand tons. Crown Point, second in tonnage, just barely broke 

even with receipts and costs running at about $20 per ton. 

The fire of October 1875 could have closed down the Comstock if it had ignited 

the interiors of the mines. It did not. While property losses on the surface were large, 

such losses inside the mines were small. Most severely affected among the producing 

mines were those like Ophir and Consolidated Virginia on the northern branch, where the 

fire began. Mines on the southern branch were unaffected for the most part. Total tonnage 

fell by 11 percent compared to the third quarter mainly because tonnage at Consolidated 

Virginia and Ophir were off by nearly half. Per-ton yields also declined to an average of 

$46 (from $55) while per-ton costs, not surprisingly, rose to $28 (from $23). Belcher 

became the largest producer in tonnage with a modest rise in per-ton income from $30 to 

$33. In contrast Crown Point with the second highest tonnage saw yields continue to 

decrease from $20 to $17 per ton. Belcher’s gross profits more than doubled to $13 per 

ton. Next door, Crown Point now officially dropped into the red with operating losses of 

more than $3 per ton. Chollar Potosi, much closer to the fire, actually witnessed a drop in 

operating losses from $23 per ton to $8 per ton. The big question: how did Consolidated 

Virginia perform? The upper part of the shaft had to be repaired and the housing, cables 

and other equipment had to be replaced. But Consolidated Virginia could maintain 

1875-Nov 1878, NC99/1/3/4, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno. 

3 

The Mineralogist’s Legislative Reports of company operations for 1873-1876 did not contain the cost and 

tax data that were included in the assessments rolls maintained by the county assessor and in the Quarterly 

Abstracts submitted to the State Controller. In the aftermath of the October 1875 fire the first complete 

assessment roll for Story County was for the third quarter of 1875. That was possible because the 

registration of data and the payment of taxes for the third quarter were not due until the end of the fourth 

quarter of 1875, more than two months after the fire.


4 

underground operations by using the network of tunnels that connected its operations 

with other mines and shafts. During the quarter the company reported that 27,000 tons of 

ore were lifted and refined at an astonishing per-ton yield of $120. Company costs rose, 

as one might expect, to $62 per ton from $28 the previous quarter, but even so that left a 

gross profit of $57 per ton, down from $74. These were extraordinary numbers by 

historic standards and even more so against the backdrop of a devastating fire. The 

performance of the Comstock absent the Consolidated Virginia data was about the same 

as the third quarter: receipts dropped to $24 from $25 per ton but costs also dropped from 

$21 to $19 per ton. There was understandably exuberance about the speedy recovery of 

the mining sector after the fire, although the underlying patterns observable in the yearly 

data should have advised caution. 4 FIGURE 2 

MIDDLE SECTION, COMSTOCK LODE, BECKER ATLAS, SHEET X 

[BRACKETED FIGURES FROM SURVEYOR'S POINT AT A (GOULD & CURRY), 

CONSOLIDATED VIRGINIA & CALIFORNIA EXHAUSTED AT 1,800' TO 2,000' 

(COMPARED TO HALE & NORCROSS & SAVAGE)] 

4 

The discussion concerning the third and fourth quarters drawn mainly from assessments in The County 

Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story County. in Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, 

Reno. The actual ledgers can be consulted at the Assessor’s Office, Story County Court House, Virginia 

City, Nevada.


5 

During the next two years 1876 and 1877 Comstock production of gold and silver 

achieved its historic highs. In 1876 more than $38 million worth of bullion was registered 

to Comstock companies, and in 1877 a slightly smaller figure of $37 million was 

registered. The first figure represented a 46 percent increase over 1875, and the second 

figure represented less than a 3 percent decline. Twenty-five names of mines, mills or 

individuals appear as taxpayers in the 1876 assessment rolls, the highest such number in 

several years. Half of the names were mining companies, reporting bullion from ores 

produced in their own mines. The other half consisted of bullion from tailings mills. On 

the tailings list were names identified as mills and names identified only as individuals, 

who may well have operated tailings mills. Tailings, as discussed earlier, were ores that 

escaped amalgamation, and to be processed required additional milling beyond ordinary 

operations. The rise in the number of tailings mills in 1876 was most certainly related to 

the unprecedented volume of ore being extracted and processed. The more that was 

available to be milled, the more that was lost in sluices and channels that moved the ores 

from the stamps into the refineries. Compared to the previous year, which set a record for 

Comstock production, about 3 percent of the tonnage was treated in tailings mills. That 

jumped to between 5 and 6 percent in 1876. The actual number of mines reporting 

taxable bullion was one less in 1876 than 1875. Four mines from the 1875 list did not 

show up on the 1876 list while three mines, not new to the Comstock but not on the 1875 

list, appeared in 1876. The newcomer that mattered, of course, was California, the 

property between Consolidated Virginia and Ophir that shared the ore body that made 

Consolidated Virginia the Comstock’s richest mine. Consolidated Virginia and California 

along with Ophir accounted for 55 percent of the ore and 85 percent of the bullion. 

California’s performance in its “official” first year (actually 10 months) almost matched 

Consolidated Virginia’s performance after three years: it had one-fifth of the ore and onethird 

of the bullion compared to Consolidated Virginia’s 23 percent and 44 percent. 

Consolidated Virginia’s per-ton yield rose to $114 in 1876 (up from $100 in 1875), and 

California had a yield of $106 per ton. Ophir was far behind at $34 per ton, a decline of 

several dollars per ton from 1875. Belcher had the second highest tonnage after 

Consolidated Virginia and ahead of California, but it could only muster $21 per ton, the 

lowest since the 1860s. Other former major producers – Chollar Potosi and Crown Point 

– came in under $20 per ton. Three small operations in Gold Hill reported yields between 

$27 and $36 per ton. The annual average yield based on the tax rolls reached $61 per ton, 

the highest ever recorded. If the yields at Consolidated Virginia and California were 

backed out of the calculation, the Comstock average remained in the lower twenties ($23 

per ton). Clearly what drove the Comstock to new highs in registered bullion were 

Consolidated Virginia and California. 5 

On the cost side the picture demands some explanation. A ton of ore cost on 

average about $26 to extract, refine and transport against a return of $61 per ton in 

bullion, as noted above. That left $35 per ton in gross profits. But the data from 

Consolidated Virginia and California strongly influenced those numbers. In cost per ton 

Consolidated Virginia and California ranked third and fourth respectively behind 

5 

Even though the 1877 Mineralogist’s Report contained the 1876 production figures from the tax rolls, it 

did not include the fourth quarter (taxes not due until the end of the first quarter 1877 after the Legislature 

had met and adjourned) and did not include costs. I have used instead the data from the actual assessment 

rolls on microfilm. See above footnote.


6 

Overman and Chollar Potosi. In reality only a few cents separated Overman from 

Consolidated Virginia. California, on the other hand, at $29 per ton was $6 under the top 

three. Both Consolidated Virginia and California had operating costs per ton that were 

higher than the Comstock average. On the other side of the comparative ledger their perton 

return (receipts minus expenses) was double the calculated average for all Comstock 

operations. Again to remove Consolidated Virginia and California from the calculations 

provides a different perspective on the Comstock cost structure. Bullion remittances for 

all the operations minus Consolidated Virginia and California averaged $23 per ton and 

the expenses amounted to $21 per ton with gross profit margins of about $2 per ton, a far 

less impressive figure than $35 per ton. Other former major producers operated at losses. 

Chollar Potosi had a loss of $15 per ton and Crown Point $6 per ton. Belcher had a slight 

profit of between $1 and $2 per ton. Ophir continued to show reasonably good 

profitability at $11 per ton, and Imperial (in Gold Hill) on only 4,300 tons of ore reported 

a favorable difference between receipts and costs of about $17 per ton. Seventeen of the 

assessed operations had ratios of expenses to receipts that exceeded 80 percent and nine 

of them had ratios in which expenses were greater than receipts. The average for all the 

operations was 43 percent. Even with high expenses per ton at Consolidated Virginia and 

California, their ratios of expenses to receipts were the lowest: 27 percent at California 

and 30 percent at Consolidated Virginia. Consolidated Virginia, California and several 

other small mines were profitable in 1876 along with a handful of millers. But the 

bonanzas at Consolidated Virginia and California, as spectacular as they were, remained 

isolated events. 

FIGURE 3 


Mine or Mill 1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q Total % % 

Yield Yield Yield Yield Tons Value Yield Tons Value 


California 155.00 97.00 83.00 126,936 13,400,841 105.57 20.3 35.2 

Imperial (C. C. Stevenson) 14.00 30.42 62.00 4320.35 159,387 36.89 0.7 0.4 

Ophir 40.00 36.00 35.00 24.00 71,095 2,386,891 33.57 11.3 6.3 

Overman 30.29 25.00 1,918 56,169 29.29 0.3 0.2 

Justice 31.00 31.00 26.00 30,730 856,592 27.87 4.9 2.3 

Belcher 26.00 21.00 18.00 16.00 131,223 2,821,076 21.50 20.9 7.4 


Courser, J. C. [T] 22.00 13.00 182 3,375 18.54 0.1 0.0 

Lady Bryan 17.00 225 3,940 17.51 0.1 0.0 

Ames, John [T] 16.00 250 4,225 16.90 0.1 0.1 

Vivian 16.00 673 10,768 16.00 0.1 0.1 

Crown Point 16.00 15.00 13.00 11.00 56,921 905,947 15.92 9.1 2.4 

Watson & Co. [T] 5.00 80 1,200 15.00 0.0 0.0 

Yellow Jacket (C. H. Golding) 13.00 863 11,668 13.52 0.2 0.0 

Jennings, G. N. [T] 14.00 11.00 8.00 13.00 538 7,025 13.06 0.1 0.0 

Empire (C. C. Stevenson) 13.00 2,525 32,850 \13.01 0.4 0.1 

Elholm, Andrew [T] 13.00 9.00 600 7,070 11.78 0.1 0.0 

Omega Mill [T] 13.00 9.00 1,607 15,205 9.46 0.3 0.1 

Express Mill [T] 9.00 9.00 9,833 86,770 8.82 1.6 0.2 

Railroad Mill [T] 7.00 9.00 13,276 112,175 8.45 2.1 0.3


7 

Dickman, E. [T] 8.00 28 224 8.00 0.0 0.0 

Russell Bros [T] 9.00 10.00 8.00 591 4,725 7.99 0.1 0.0 

Partridge Hayes [T] 7.00 149 1,043 7.00 0.0 0.0 

Stevenson, C. C. [T] 5.00 7.00 1,290 6,450 5.00 0.2 0.0 

Calculated Totals 626,874 $38,038,141 60.68 100.3 100.2 

Mean (by company) $26.08 31.45 28.75 14.50 16.44 

Median (by company) $16.00 20.00 15.50 26.83 15.46 

Sources: The County Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story County, in Special Collections, Library, 



The centennial year, 1876, was a triumphal year for the Comstock and for 

Virginia City in particular. After the fire the city had rebuilt quickly, and since the mines 

had escaped interior damage, they resumed operations almost immediately. Journalists, 

officials and visitors wrote glowingly of what was ahead for the Comstock against the 

backdrop of the productivity of Consolidated Virginia and California, the properties of 

what came to be known as The Bonanza Firm.More than once did the pundits predict that 

the Lode could produce as much as $50 million in bullion a year for a decade or more. 6 

As so often happened during flush times, however, the optimism in Virginia City turned 

into a bear trap on the stock market in San Francisco. For 1876 Lord listed about sixdozen 

Comstock companies whose stocks traded that year on the San Francisco 

Exchange. 7 The majority of the companies with stock trades as listed by Lord could be 

matched up with companies with claims (or patents) as shown on maps and surveys of 

Comstock from the period. 8 Of those 11 had bullion declarations. Consolidated Virginia 

with nearly $17 million saw its stock prices drop from $90 in March to $35.50 per share 

in December. Its yield fell from $128 per ton to $95 per ton (still a most handsome 

return) from the first to the fourth quarter as its cost (as reported to the county assessor) 

rose from $24 per ton in the first quarter, to $39 in the second and to $73 in the third 

before falling back to $31 in the fourth. At its companion mine, California, the story was 

similar although of a different magnitude. Per-ton yields dropped from $155 in the 

second quarter (its first full quarter) to $83 in the fourth while per-ton expenses rose from 

$27 to $32 per ton in the same period. Belcher had an annual yield of $22 per ton and an 

annual cost of $20 per ton, but in each quarter yields had dropped and costs had increased 

per ton. The stock had a high price of $40 in March and a low of $8.50 in December. For 

Crown Point it was even worse as yields plummeted and costs skyrocketed during the 

four quarters. Its stock declined from $29 in January to $5.50 in December. The only 

company to end the year with a higher stock price than at any time during the year was 

Overman, and it is not clear why this should have happened. Its stock rose from $53.50 in 

6 

Both Lord and Smith cited articles and reports, which proved to be exaggerated and unfounded as time 

passed. Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 314-321, and Smith, The Comstock Lode, 182-186, 197-199. 

7 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, Table V, 430-432. Smith stated that as many as 135 stocks were 

quoted, although he did not provide a list. The Comstock Lode, 199. 

8 

A popular 1876 publication that has appeared in many Comstock histories was “Graphic Chart of the 

Comstock Mines, by Treadwell, for San Francisco Newsletter, 3 June 1876. On file in Special Collections, 

Library, University of Nevada, Reno, G4352 C6 1876 T7. There was also the later, official survey by the 

team under the direction of Becker and published as Atlas, Atlas Sheet 3. The two surveys were in basic 

agreement concerning the principal mining claims on the Lode itself. The Becker survey covered more of 

the surrounding area (since it included the Washoe District, which was larger than the Comstock Lode, and 

it also distinguished between claims or patents approved and those applied for.


8 

June to $122 in December. It produced about 2,000 tons of ore during the second and 

third quarters at a combined loss of $6 per ton. It is worth noting that several dozen other 

companies had stock transactions, in most cases at lower prices at the end of the year than 

at the beginning, and no ore or bullion registrations. They could have produced ores that 

were sold to millers who processed them and then paid taxes on them. The tailings 

millers on the 1876 assessment rolls accounted for less than 4 per cent of the total ore. 

Three companies – Consolidated Virginia, California and Belcher - paid dividends in 

1876, and many of the rest of the mining companies were imposing assessments rather 

than paying dividends. But the San Francisco bears, led by James Keene, had already 

taken aim on the stocks of Consolidated Virginia and California, and their declining 

prices set the tone for the market. The bears had a more favorable view of California than 

Consolidated Virginia on the grounds that the former was just starting to lift ores from 

levels that had made Consolidated Virginia rich and the latter had observed a diminution 

of ores and yields below the 1,550- or 1,600-foot levels. Although California’s ores were 

somewhat deeper, they were nonetheless an extension of the Consolidated Virginia ore 

body, and presumably California like its companion would by some estimates within a 

year or two also be in contraction. Several companies whose stocks were traded did 

business in Lyon County, adjacent to Story County’s southern boundaries, around Silver 

City, and their assessments, of course, would not appear on Story County’s rolls. As a 

matter of record, however, for the year 1876 Lyon County’s assessment rolls revealed 

almost no ore or bullion production from the mines around Silver City and south of it 

even though stocks in some of the companies located there traded in San Francisco. 9 

Little light can be shed on the dozen or so companies with stock transactions but no 

identifiable Comstock claims. With 300 to 400 claims on the various surveys as well as 

changes in names and titles some errors can be expected. Moreover there is no assurance 

that despite his diligence Lord correctly copied from the stock-reporting services that he 

used the names of the companies under which the stocks were issued. As the speculators 

in San Francisco declared the Comstock vulnerable, the citizens of Story County and 

particularly Virginia City enjoyed one of the most prosperous years in their short history, 

perhaps the most prosperous ever. Thousands were employed in the mines, albeit most of 

them in the two bonanza mines; new construction was in evidence along the city streets 

and in the surrounding hillsides; throngs of citizens mixed with conveyances of every sort 

and description that filled the city streets; the mood by numerous accounts was upbeat 

and high spirited. 

By any historic standard 1877 was another banner year on the Comstock. 

Tonnage rose by 1 to 3 percent (two sets of figures exist), and bullion fell slightly by 

about 3 percent. The per-ton yield also fell to $58 (give or take a few cents), down from 

9 

My figures for 1876 come directly from the assessment rolls in The County Records Microfilm Project, 

ST 67, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno. State Mineralogists Report covering only 

three of the four quarters in 1876 listed one company, Silver City Mining, with 100 tons worth about 

$2,300. Silver City appeared on the aforementioned surveys but not as a company trading stock at least 

under that name compiled by Lord. Lyon had a substantial quantity of bullion from tailings, and that was 

not unusual since the county had a large concentration of tailings from amalgamation mills. The 

Mineralogist did not list the tailings production by mill. “Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist...1875 

and 1876” in Appendix to Journals of Senate and Assembly, 2 vols., 8 th Session of the Legislature of the 

State of Nevada, 1877, 218-219, 222-223 (1876) and Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, Table V, 430- 

432.


9 

$61 the previous year. Taken together the two years 1876 and 1877 saw ore production 

worth about $76 million or about 30 percent of the total known bullion product of the 

Comstock. The devil, of course, was hidden in the details. 

California rocketed ahead of Consolidated Virginia with a record 214,000 tons 

worth $19 million. The yield was between $88 and $89 per ton, not a record for the 

bonanza mines but extraordinary nonetheless. The per-ton yield of between $89 and $90 

at Consolidated Virginia actually beat California’s yield, but compared to the previous 

year Consolidated Virginia’s return in bullion per ton dropped more than California’s. On 

the cost side California’s per-ton expenses fell by 7 percent from $29 to $27, while 

Consolidated Virginia’s fell by 14 percent from $35 to $30 per ton. Consolidated 

Virginia’s overall costs remained higher than California’s as it had the previous year. On 

a quarterly basis both mines had mixed results in terms of yields. California’s returns in 

bullion was $110 per ton in the first quarter, followed by two declining quarters - $92 in 

the second and $74, the lowest to date, in the third – and finally ending with a recovery 

up to $82. Consolidated Virginia’s pattern was different: a first quarter figure of $73 per 

ton, probably the lowest or among the lowest in three years, was followed by a rise to $95 

and then to $106 in the second and third quarters with a decline to $78 in the final 

quarter, about where it had begun in the first quarter. In terms of costs California 

continued to do better with quarterly per-ton costs ranging between $25 and $30 

compared to Consolidated Virginia’s $26 to $35. It is well known, of course, that after 

paying out more than one million dollars per month in dividends Consolidated Virginia 

suspended such payments for four months in 1877. For the market bears and perhaps for 

many other close observers there was little doubt what was happening. Consolidated 

Virginia had peaked, and unless new discoveries were made at much greater depths the 

Comstock’s greatest mine would fade into oblivion. And California, even though it broke 

several records in 1877 and in particular paid nearly $15 million in dividends, would 

eventually follow the course of its companion. Stocks prices certainly reflected these 

eventualities. The high price for Consolidated Virginia stock in 1877 was set in January 

at $55 and the low in November at less than $22. California fared no better: $55 was its 

high and $23 its low. 10 FIGURE 4 


Mine or Mill 1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q Total Total Total % % 

Yield Yield Yield Yield Tons Value Yield Tons Value 


California 110.00 92.00 74.00 82.00 213,682 18,893,843 88.42 33.7 51.0 

Overman 26.00 283 7,453 26.35 0.1 0.0 

Ophir 18.00 29.00 21.00 37.00 6,164 158,016 25.63 1.0 0.4 

Belcher 28.00 23.00 24.00 15.00 16,147 413,742 25.62 2.6 1.1 

Justice 20.00 13.00 17.00 16.00 127,378 2,338,057 18.36 20.1 6.3 

Crown Point 18.00 4,185 76,120 18.19 0.7 0.2 


10 

Yearly and quarterly data from The County Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story County, Special 

Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno, and stock prices from Lord, Comstock Mining and 

Miners, Table V, 433.


10 

Andres 15.00 936 14,040 15.00 0.2 0.1 

Mariposa Mill [T] 15.00 14.00 15.00 9,056 134,136 14.81 1.4 0.4 

Stevenson, C. C.[T] 13.00 14.00 3,830 55,802 14.57 0.6 0.2 

Imperial 14.00 2,997 41,958 14.00 0.5 0.1 

Empire (C. C. Stevenson) 13.00 3,968 55,274 13.93 0.6 0.2 

Trojan 9.00 11.00 3,003 33,842 11.27 0.5 0.1 

Omega Mill [T] 8.00 11.00 9.00 35,537 361,051 10.16 5.6 1.0 

Railroad Mill [T] 9.00 11.00 7,692 77,991 10.14 1.2 0.2 

Jennings, G. N. [T] 10.00 8.00 1,090 10,546 9.68 0.2 0.1 

Express Mill [T] 9.00 9.00 11.00 9.00 10,177 95,825 9.42 1.6 0.3 

Partridge Hayes [T] 9.00 3,686 33,184 9.00 0.6 0.1 

Bassett Bros [T] 10.00 281 2,181 7.76 0.1 0.0 

Calculated Totals 633,866 $37,040,901 $58.44 100.3 100.3 

Mean (by company) $31.30 27.58 $26.23 $24.93 $22.43 

Median (by company) $18.00 14.00 $15.00 $15.00 $14.69 

Sources: The County Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story County, in Special Collections, Library, 



But the Comstock’s malaise was greater than was revealed in the deteriorating 

finances at Consolidated Virginia and California. Twenty companies appeared on Story 

County’s assessment rolls for 1877, and again as in 1876 close to half of the reporting 

operations were tailings mills. he mean bullion value for all operations was $58 per ton, 

the median was only $15 per ton. Remove Consolidated Virginia and Consolidated from 

the calculation, and the mean falls to $16 per ton and the median to $14 per ton. Among 

the well-known, well-established mining operations Belcher recorded an 88 percent 

decline in ore production to 16,000 tons although yields rose about 20 percent to $25 per 

ton. Two other mines – Ophir and Overman - with reasonably high yields of between $25 

and $26 per ton reported sharp declines in ore output by as much as 90 percent. The other 

major mines – Chollar Potosi, Crown Point, Justice and Imperial – had yields between 

$15 and $20 per ton. One interesting piece of data was that Justice, a Gold Hill mine on 

the southern branch, accounted for a fifth of the tonnage and if Consolidated Virginia and 

California were excluded for half of the tonnage among the remaining operations. Its 

yield was $17 per ton for a total of $2.3 million or the third highest bullion total. But 

Justice declared that its costs were almost equal to its receipts. Consolidated Virginia and 

California, of course, had costs of under $30 per ton and gross profits of $60 per ton. The 

average cost per ton for all operations was $23 per ton against the average return of $58 

per ton. The two bonanza mines clearly pushed up the Comstock-wide gross profits. 

Without Consolidated Virginia and California the average cost was $17 per ton against 

the average receipt of $16 per ton for a loss of $1 per ton. Even though Justice had a 

calculated loss of about 15 cents per ton, the performance of the other mining operations, 

based on similar calculations, was even less positive. Belcher claimed a huge loss of $15 

per ton while Chollar Potosi and Crown Point claimed smaller losses of between $5 and 

$6 per ton. Ophir had a profit of $6 to $7 per ton on 6,000 tons, which represented a 

decline of more than 90 percent from the previous year. It was not clear where the next


11 

discoveries would occur to sustain ore production at the lofty levels set in 1876 and 

1877. 11 By 1877 the geological configuration of the Comstock Lode and the surrounding 

ground was far better understood than a decade before when Baron von Richthofen and 

others had made their predictions. Recurrent cycles of bonanzas and borrascas every few 

years had, quite naturally, inspired hope that the cycles would continue as the companies 

probed more deeply. The new twist, of course, was that the main core of the Comstock 

Lode had been squeezed out of existence at the 1,000-foot level, and the new discoveries 

below the 1,000-foot level had occurred in an eastward shift, that is, away from the 

footwall toward the hanging wall. The angular nature of the ore-bearing quartz vein 

posed a conundrum: what direction would the Lode take as the explorations breached the 

2,000-foot level and below. Miners knew where they had been and what they had found, 

but they knew far less about where they were going. To many it was inconceivable that 

the richness of the Comstock would simply cease, for as the previous 15 years had amply 

demonstrated the Comstock had reinvented itself repeatedly. The State Mineralogist 

summarized the history of Comstock bonanzas with details about location, size and value 

in his 1877 Legislative Report by quoting a long passage from what he described without 

a full citation the Mining Review. 12 

Ophir and Mexican: surface discovery extending 500 feet underground; width of 

ore body 15 feet; cubical content 112,000 tons; value $22 million. 

Gould & Curry: surface discovery extending 500 feet; width 15 feet; length 500 

feet; cubical content 190,000 tons; value $37.5 million. 

Savage: continuation of Gould & Curry but less rich; ore extending to the bottom 

of the mine, now 2,300 feet. 

Hale & Norcross: strike at depth of 450 feet [550-foot level] extending to 1,200- 

foot level; width 10 feet; length 200 feet; cubical content 75,000 tons; value $5 million. 

Chollar Potosi: strike at depth of 500 feet extending 1,700 feet with few 

interruptions; cubical content 1,500,000 tons; value $22 million. 

Gold Hill: surface discovery extending 500 feet; cubical content 300,000 tons; 

value $10 million. 

Yellow Jacket: surface discovery extending 700 feet; ore body poor and 

unprofitable; value $5 million. 

Kentuck: 300 feet long; 20 feet wide; 400 feet deep [approximately 600-foot level 

to 1,300-foot level with intervening barren space]; 100,000 tons; value $10 million. 

Crown Point and Belcher: discovery at 1,400-foot level extending downward 600 

feet; Belcher still producing; cubical content 1,500,000 tons; value $50 million. 

Consolidated Virginia & California: still developing; discovery through drifting 

eastward at the 1,500 foot level; ore body extends above and below drift; length 700 feet; 

height 600 feet; width 100 feet; in two years value $30 million; expected total value $140 

million. 13 

11 

Assessment Rolls in The County Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story County, Special Collections, 


12 

Not clear from his report what the Mining Review was. 

13 


Assembly, 2 vols., 8 th Legislative Session, 1877, 1:120-121.


12 

It was obvious from these summaries (as I have noted several times) that the 

Comstock’s great ore bodies were not contiguous or uniform across the Lode. More of 

these ore bodies populated the area between the surface and the 1,000-foot level than 

below the 1,000-foot level even though the latter were far richer. Experience had taught 

miners that vast stretches of the Lode and the related areas were barren or uneconomical. 

Some of the comments were puzzling. In the case of Chollar Potosi working “without 

interruption” down 1,700 feet was misleading because almost no profitable ores had been 

found below the 700-foot level even though the main shaft and its connecting incline had 

reached the 1,700-foot level. Indeed when the Mineralogist was collecting the data the 

mine was actually losing about $2 per ton on every ton of ore converted to bullion. Even 

though the superintendent expressed the hope that a significant ore body was in the 

“neighborhood”, the prospects were bleak. From some of the estimated dimensions of the 

ore bodies – hundreds of thousands of cubic feet – one can begin to appreciate the 

grounds for continuing optimism about the future of the Comstock. It is doubtful that the 

Mineralogists quoted these passages to raise alarms but rather he did so to allay fears that 

had begun to surface in 1876 over the long-term future of Consolidated Virginia and the 

failure despite renewed activity to locate new bodies between the 1,000- and 1,500-foot 

levels and below. 

If the unraveling of the latest Comstock bonanza began in 1877, it gathered speed 

in 1878. Ore tonnage dropped 40 percent to 386,000 tons and bullion income 45 percent 

to $21 million. The yield remained historically high at $53 per ton, due mainly to the 

productivity of Consolidated Virginia and California. These bonanza mines represented 

68 percent of the tonnage and 93 percent of the bullion. Their dominance continued, 

although with a less spectacular imprint. Consolidated Virginia had a yield of $64 per 

ton, down nearly 30 percent from 1877, and California at $80 per ton suffered only a 10 

percent decrease. Costs per ton actually fell by 20 percent to $24 at Consolidated Virginia 

and by a much smaller 4 percent to $26 at California. Unmistakably the growth in 

production at both bonanza mines had stopped and reversed. This was the second year of 

downturns at Consolidated Virginia and the first at California. The possibility existed 

especially at California that the reversals were temporary, except the news from 

Consolidated Virginia more or less affirmed what the data indicated. California might yet 

surprise the pundits and the markets, although the evidence for a turn-around was hardly 

compelling. The companies’ stock sold for as low as $6 to $7 per share during the course 

of the year. 14 

In 1878 eight mines and seven mills reported taxable bullion for a total of 15, one 

of the smallest in recent years. A fifth of the tonnage belonged to the tailings mills with 

90 percent of the bullion product from two mills – Mariposa and Omega – both of which 

were owned by The Firm – Mackay, Fair et al. In addition The Firm owned or controlled 

Ophir, which only registered 1,300 tons but at a yield of $92 per ton. In short the 

remaining operations not a part of Mackey-Fair’s combine produced about 49,000 tons 

worth about $665,000 or $14 per ton, which was not sufficient to cover their costs of $17 

14 




13 

per ton. Belcher had disappeared from the assessment rolls, and Chollar Potosi and 

Crown Point between had about 6,500 tons that yielded about $16.50 per ton at a cost of 

$23 per ton. Except for Consolidated Virginia and California, which paid dividends of 

$1.4 million and $7.0 million respectively, all the Comstock in operation, those 

producing and those not producing any taxable ores, had to impose assessments on their 

stockholders or issue more stock in order to raise capital to stay in business. 15 

FIGURE 5 

MIDDLE SECTION, COMSTOCK LODE, BECKER ATLAS SHEET X 

[BRACKETED FIGURES FROM SURVEYOR'S POINT AT A (GOULD & CURRY), 

CALIFORNIA EXHAUSTED AT 1,800' OPHIR (ORIGINAL DIGGINGS) AT 600', MEXICAN 

BARREN, UNION SMALL PATCH AT 2,600'] 

15 


Library, University of Nevada, Reno. See Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 433-435 for stock prices of 

all the companies that traded on the San Francisco Exchange. Dividend payments by the bonanza mines 

show up in their Annual Reports for 1878. For Consolidated Virginia see 9 January 1879, NC99/1/5/1, p. 

47, and for California 8 January 1879, NC99/1/5/6, p. 21 in Special Collections, Library, University of 

Nevada, Reno.


14 

As the curtain descended slowly but relentlessly on the Comstock drama, now 

two decades old, some continued to hold out hope for a new bonanza. The most 

successful Comstock miners – Mackay and Fair – turned their attention to Ophir, which 

they added to their holdings in 1877. During the bonanza at Consolidated Virginia and 

California Ophir had remained in the hands of William Sharon even though some of its 

underground works had connected into The Firm operations at California and had served 

as a conduit for various functions in the restoration of the two mines. After the 

acquisition of Ophir a vein of ore (named the Hardy Vein after Superintendent William 

Hardy) was located between the 1,700- and 1,900-foot levels. It lay in a fissure and 

sloped downward from west to east toward the hanging wall. What excited the 

discoverers, according to Grant Smith, was that configuration was not unlike that which 

led to the Consolidated Virginia bonanza. 16 The 1878 California Mine Annual Report 

made reference to a “joint Ophir and California cross-cut” that ran from Ophir into 

California on a line corresponding to the location of the Hardy Vein in order to test 

whether it extended “south and upward” into the California mine. It did not, of course. 

Furthermore the Annual Report made clear that on both the Ophir side and the California 

side it proved difficult at these depths to prevent the loss of ore simply “from the caving 

of the ground and the crushing of the timbers.” 17 In 1878 Ophir ore came in at an average 

$92 per ton, but that calculation can be misleading. Ophir only reported bullion in three 

of the four quarters. For the year it had total tonnage of less than 1,300 tons. In the first 

quarter the per-ton yield was $120 on less than 100 tons, and by the fourth quarter the 

per-ton yield had dropped to $80 on less than 900 tons. More telling, however, was the 

cost per-ton. In 1878 it reached $159 per ton. It was possible, as past experience had 

shown, that such outlays were necessary in the early stage of a potential bonanza and 

would be justified in the following years. In 1879 output rose to nearly 20,000 tons. Perton 

yields dropped to about $64 but so too did per-ton costs to about $57. That left an 

operating profit of about $7 per ton. Unfortunately profitability was short-lived. By the 

fourth quarter 1879 expenses surpassed receipts, and that trend continued into 1880. The 

ore body was limited in scope and expensive to extract. The hope of making a new strike 

at 2,000 feet in Ophir or in the two former bonanza mines to the south had faded by 

1880. 18 As the bonanza years of the early and middle 1870s receded, the Comstock 

entered a period of free-fall unlike anything experienced before. Between 1877 and 1881 

tonnage fell 83 percent from 634,000 to 109,000 while the value of bullion from the ore 

fell even more by 96 percent. In a matter of four to five years the Comstock had slid to 

levels not experienced since the early 1860s. Story County, long the leader in ore and 

bullion production, had never witnessed a year when its share had dropped below 50 

percent of the totals for all the counties, and in 1881 while it remained first it was no 

longer the dominate player with 27 percent of total tonnage and only 17 percent of total 

16 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 213. Some of references that I have found concerning this discovery do not 

agree fully with what Smith described in pp. 213-215. 

17 

Annual Report, Ophir Mine, 16 January 1878, NC99/1/5/6, p. 17, in Special Collections, Library, 

University of Nevada, Reno. 

18 




15 

bullion. This downturn had a ring of finality to it. It was both rapid and severe. In 1878 

tonnage fell 39 percent and bullion 45 percent; in 1879 41 percent and 35 percent; in 

1880 18 percent and 43 percent and finally in 1881 42 percent and 66 percent. On a perton 

basis the figures were more startling: from $58 per ton in 1878 to $13 per ton in 1881. 

There was not even any pretense of profitability in these numbers. It is important to 

underscore that during these four years Consolidated Virginia and California continued to 

be the leading producers even as their own operations were in contraction. No other 

operating mine or no newly-discovered mine appeared in the role of savior of the 

Comstock. In the spring of 1881 a fire in Consolidated Virginia closed both Consolidated 

Virginia and California more or less permanently, and with no other emerging bonanzas 

the Comstock saw the sharpest declines ever in tonnage and bullion. The ore produced in 

1881 on average lost for its owners $7 per ton. 19 

The mining and investing community could not have found any encouragement in 

the fact that the State Mineralogist issued his last report to the 9 th Session of the State 

Legislature in 1879. It was his last because the position was abolished as a cost-saving 

effort by a state government whose revenues, so closely tied to taxes on mining proceeds, 

were rapidly evaporating. His 1879 report that covered the two-year period, 1877-1878, 

had a strong historic flavor in that he wrote enthusiastically about past successes on the 

Comstock and across the State and rather more guardedly about future prospects. He 

noted that in 20 years (since 1859 presumably) $350 million in gold and silver had been 

produced, and two-thirds of that since 1871. He also noted that 1877 was a record year 

for mining in Nevada. He cited a figure of $51 million in gold and silver, a figure that 

was higher by several million dollars than the Controller’s total of $47 million. In this 

regard the Mineralogist duly noted without apparent concern that in the following year 

1878 total bullion had declined to $35 million (a drop of one-third). In his view the 

supply of ore was “without limit”. 20 As the succeeding years will demonstrate “without 

limit” proved to be untenable. His summaries of individual mines accentuated both the 

positive and the negative. It was becoming more costly to mine a ton of ore as the depths 

increased, and although many capital projects required assessments against the 

stockholders the potential results were thought to justify the investments in their minds. 

The new Requa Shaft (known as Combination Shaft on various surveys), in his words “a 

model of engineering skill and design,” built by Chollar Potosi, Hale & Norcross and 

Savage Mining Companies, eastern toward the hanging wall from the original 

outcroppings, had reached 2,400 feet (between 2,500- and 2,600-foot level) at a cost of 

$1 million. It had four compartments. One was assigned to pumping equipment, and the 

other three to lifting ore. The influx of water at the lowest levels required the pumps to 

remove nearly 100,000 gallons of water per day in order for the work to proceed. It was 

envisioned that the flooding, which had plagued these mines for years, would be more or 

less permanently solved. A huge tank was to be built at the bottom of the shaft to collect 

the water that could then to be pumped to the surface or drained into the Surto Tunnel. 

19 



20 


Assembly, 9 th Legislative Session, 1879, 5. The discrepancy between his figure and the Controller’s totals 

cannot be explained.


16 

The Mineralogist did not predict what would be found. But he was as in the past 

sanguine. 

The completion of this pumping system will form a new era in the history 

of the flooded mines. It will lessen the extreme heat of the lower levels by 

a more thorough ventilation; it will remove the water at present so great as 

to interfere with the workings; it will insure the mines against any future 

repetition of the flood. It will make prospecting more easy [sic], 

developments more valuable, labor more beneficial and thorough. The 

successful completion…will be one of the greatest engineering triumphs 

of the Comstock. 21 

Indeed, the shaft was completed, the connection was made and the mines were (more or 

less) drained, but despite the triumphal accomplishment no ore was found. Over the next 

half-dozen years the three mines lifted in combination several tens of thousands of tons of 

ore that generally returned less in bullion than it cost to extract and refine. 

The Mineralogist devoted as much attention to the Sutro Tunnel as any other 

event during the final two years that his report covered. This project, to build a tunnel for 

drainage and other services from the present-day location of the town of Sutro four to 

five miles underground at increasing depths until it connected with the Comstock in the 

Savage Mine at the 1640-foot level. More will be introduced concerning the tunnel and 

its creator and promoter, Adolphe Sutro, in the following chapter. When the connection 

was made after almost a decade of planning and building, the drainage of the Comstock 

began not through pumps and compressors but through gravity. The water flowed 

downhill through the tunnel into a s mall stream that connected with the Carson River 

about 20,000 feet to the east. This was as daring, controversial and expensive a project 

ever undertaken on the Comstock. As one can readily observe, the main drawback was 

that it opened far too late. It may well have functioned as Sutro envisioned it had it been 

built more quickly. Sutro like many others believed that vast reservoir of ore resided at 

the depths that the tunnel would serve directly as well as at greater depths through a 

network of tunnels and pumps that would move the water into the main tunnel. The 

Mineralogist wrote his account of the tunnel in an upbeat tone. The operation of the 

tunnel, he estimated, would permit the extraction of low-grade ores, estimated to be 

worth between $50 and $500 million dollars and would offer savings for deep mining of 

$3 million per year. 22 Neither of these along with many other hoped-for results was 

realized even though the tunnel proved that the primary goal of draining million of 

gallons of water per day was possible. 

In the final years covered in this study, 1881 to 1885, efforts to restore and 

expand the Comstock continued but generally failed. Tonnage actually rose in each year 

after 1881: 5 percent in 1882, 27 percent in 1883, 32 percent in 1884 and 24 percent in 

1885. From 110,000 tons in 1881 to 239,000 tons in 1885 the increase was 119 percent. 

21 


Assembly, 9 th Legislative Session, 1879, 133. 

22 


Assembly, Legislative Session, 1879, 84-85.


17 

The value of the bullion derived from the ore told a different story. Since the tonnage 

rose each year the value of the bullion would also be expected to rise. In 1882 it grew by 

14 percent, in 1883 by 21 percent, in 1884 by 28 percent and finally in 1885 by 14 

percent. Overall it doubled between 1881 and 1885 from $1.5 million to $3.0 million. But 

the yield per ton actually fell during the period. In 1882 it rose from $13 per ton to $15 

per ton and then fell to $14 in 1883, $13 in 1884 and in the final year $12. On costs, as 

reported by the firms, they exceeded receipts in every year by as much as 10 percent and 

by as little as 1 percent. For all intents and purposes the Comstock was operating in 

permanent red ink. There were some interesting individual stories. Consolidated Virginia 

and California were almost completely out of picture. These mines accounted for no more 

than a few thousand tons of below average ores. Other Virginia City mines such as Ophir, 

Hale & Norcross, Savage, Chollar Potosi (specifically Potosi) and even Gould & Curry 

might have combined totals in the thousands or tens of thousands of tons, but their perton 

yields often fell below the aforementioned annual averages. The notable operations 

were in Gold Hill on the Lode’s southern branch. The quartet of mines (Yellow Jacket, 

Kentuck, Crown Point, Belcher), which were so instrumental in launching the bonanza 

years of the early 1870s, was producing again. Their recovery was not due to new 

discoveries but rather to reworking old stopes. 

Their profit margins, however, were dangerously thin or nonexistent. Between 

1881 and 1884 (1885 is excluded because the assessment rolls are difficult to untangle) 

these four mines reported about 346,000 tons or two-thirds of the total tonnage from all 

the operations. Their bullion was valued at $5.1 million. Discouragingly it cost $5.2 

million to extract and process the ore. In 1881 receipts exceeded costs by approximately 

43 cents per ton, in 1882 by 48 cents and in 1883 by 3 cents. In 1884 costs outpaced 

receipts by 49 cents per ton. Although these figures must be treated as estimates since the 

actual receipts and expenses of any of these mines cannot be independently verified, they 

reveal nonetheless the risk that the Comstock now posed. Without new, large, rich 

discoveries working old seams and stopes was a venture in diminishing utility. They 

could not be made profitable enough to reestablish the Comstock to its former glory. 23 

When Joseph Tingley added his Epilogue to a new edition of Grant Smith’s History of 

the Comstock Lode in 1997, he wrote that even with better technologies and greater 

resources every effort to recover the Comstock had more or less failed. 24 

23 


Library, University of Nevada, Reno. Even though problems were encountered in organizing the 

assessment data for 1885, there is no indication that the ratio between revenues and costs underwent any 

significant reversal among the producing mines, in particular the Gold Hill quartet. 

24 

Smith, History of the Comstock Lode, 307.

THE COMSTOCK [G] 

1 

Chapter 7 

The Business Of Mining: 

Claims & Counterclaims, Miners’ Codes, Costly Litigation 

Analysis of the emergence of mining on the Comstock in the first quarter century of its 

history demonstrates not only how cyclical mining was but also how corporate it became. 

A prospector with a few clothes and tools and a mule or two crisscrossing streams and 

valleys in search of ores may well have launched the Comstock era, but he gained little of 

the wealth that the Lode yielded up. As lode mining replaced placer mining, large firms 

with officers, managers, accountants, stockholders and hundreds of employees came to 

dominate the industry. Small operations did not completely disappear, but they occupied 

a minor niche. This had happened as well in California a decade earlier and across 

Spanish America centuries before. In the last instance despite heavy state intervention 

success in mining depended on grand entrepreneurs like Antonio López de Quiroga in 

Peru and Pedro Romero de Terreros in Mexico. 1 Despite its egalitarian roots mining in 

the New World evolved into large-scale operations that gave the industry a visibly 

oligopolistic if not monopolistic character. By probing the rather extensive archives of 

company records as well as legislative reports, newspaper articles and local histories one 

can draw a fairly detailed picture of how well companies organized and managed their 

resources in order to conquer the Comstock and perhaps advance some explanations why 

some companies performed better than others. 

Thousands of people poured first into the Nevada section of the Utah Territory as 

news of ore discoveries spread across the west and beyond. They came to a region that 

had few political institutions or public officials. In a matter of months the entire 

Comstock Lode and beyond had been claimed. Any contemporary map of the Comstock 

mining claims will show that the Lode and the region adjacent to it were divided up 

among hundreds of claimants. One would assume from these maps that ore existed 

everywhere when in fact the ore was confined primarily to a ledge that started on the 

north end of Virginia City and continued for several miles through Virginia City and into 

the hamlet known as Gold Hill. Some ore deposits were found south of Gold Hill and in a 

few other locations east of the Lode, but they never became important mining sites. With 

so many claimants and so few procedures in place to monitor their activities disputes over 

boundaries and titles were common and sometimes deadly. In addition to claim jumpers 

and location errors there was the simple matter that few if any of the earliest miners, who 

were making these claims, understood how the ore was distributed through the Comstock. 

Several years would pass before the engineers and geologists were finally able to come 

up with a reasonably accurate map of the topography and geology of the Comstock. If the 

ore been evenly distributed at all depths along the Comstock, the task of managing the 

Comstock might have been made easier. Certainly more claimants would have enjoyed 

some benefits. But these ore bodies, wrote Grant Smith “were thinly scattered through the 

wide Lode [up to 1,000 feet] ‘like plums in a charily pudding’, as [John] Mackay 

expressed it, and nearly all of them were found in the wide upper section and along or 

1 

Peter Bakewell, Silver and Entrepreneurship in Seventeenth-Century Potosí, The Life and Times of 

Antonio López de Quiroga (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1988) and Edith 

Couturier, The Silver King, The Remarkable Life of the Count of Regla in Colonial Mexico (Albuquerque, 

NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2003).


2 

near the east wall [away from Mt Davidson].” 2 The upshot of the peculiar formation of 

the Comstock Lode along with the obvious disorder that arose out of so many claim 

seekers and claim jumpers was endless litigation. Consuming millions of dollars in legal 

fees Smith blamed his own profession: lawyers who “flocked” to the Comstock “like 

buzzards after carrion and engaged in an orgy of litigation over mining claims, much of it 

incubated in blackmail and reeking with perjury.” 3 The other great observer of the 

Comstock era was Eliot Lord, whose well-regarded Comstock Mining and Miners 

devoted two chapters to the litigation issues. He found that the 12 most important 

companies prior to 1867 were involved in 245 suits, 168 in which they were plaintiffs and 

77 in which they were defendants. Many of these suits had to do with claim jumpers, and 

claim jumping had to do with how boundary lines were drawn and how far those lines 

extended relative to the dips and turns of the ore ledge underground. Many of the rules 

governing the apportionment of ore fields were by tradition drawn up by the miners 

themselves, and the rules for Gold Hill and Virginia City, the two principal Comstock 

districts, were no better or worse than the rules of other districts. Lord was not impressed 

by this argument for local control and responsibility. He summarily dismissed it as 

“vague, inadequate, and blundering.” They protected the “working miner” as much as 

“the speculator and the sluggard”, and they ignored several centuries of mining legal 

experience in colonial Spanish America. 4 Twenty years after the initial clams had been 

declared, lawsuits over rightful ownership were still being launched. It should not be 

ignored, of course, that while the scores of lawsuits and counter-suits were costly in 

money and time, they did not ever really threaten to shut down the Comstock. A colossal 

nuisance, no doubt, but not much more than that. 

At the time of the California gold rush no federal mining code existed, and few 

were of the opinion that such a code was needed. Indeed a decade later, as the Comstock 

was becoming America’s new “gold rush”, still no code had been enacted. Comstock 

land and the wealth that it contained belonged to the public domain, for which the 

national government was the responsible agent. What was adopted in California and then 

in Nevada in the absence of formal national regulations was the “doctrine of prior 

appropriation”. What this meant with respect to mineral (and water) rights was that the 

discoverers or “locators” of valuable mineral deposits had the right to exploit them if 

done so in a diligent and timely manner. To give substance to this doctrine miners created 

their own mining districts and wrote their own rules governing the discovery, possession 

and exploitation of the minerals within their districts. They were also known to have 

written into their mining codes regulations concerning business and personal conduct. 

This approach fit the nineteenth-century ideal of self-governing localities but did not 

always work well. Drafting appropriate legislation was far less interesting and 

remunerative than searching for ore. Besides no matter how serious-minded local 

officials tried to be the claimants on the Comstock and in other camps were still 

technically trespassers on federal lands, and as such their claims could be declared 

invalid. This was especially troublesome to mining companies whose titles to properties, 

either purchased from original locators or reclaimed from abandoned sites, could be 

2 


3 


4 



3 

called into question. As mining companies assumed control of ore production and in the 

process enriched their officers and stockholders, they became targets for lawsuits. 

Anyone with a whiff of a claim over or near a profitable ore body had little to lose by 

filing a lawsuit. Local codes and procedures were simply inadequate for the task. This led 

Lord to conclude that local codes drawn up by local claimants were “[i]napplicable, 

inadequate and rudely framed” and while the codes might have been useful had they been 

enforced properly, they were in fact ignored with regularity. He described this adventure 

in self-government “as a concession to some imagined necessity for a formal prelude to 

their foray upon the ledges – a sop, as it were, to an invisible dragon of legal fiction 

guarding the golden fleece.” 5 

In 1865 and 1866 at the behest of Nevada Senator William Stewart the Congress 

enacted legislation that dealt with some of the unresolved legal questions. Stewart was 

also a Comstock lawyer whose clients were prominent mining companies. The 1865 Act, 

known as “Law of Possession”, addressed the issue of trespass in areas like the 

Comstock. The Act declared whenever state or federal litigation occurred over possession 

of property, once part of the public domain, it “shall [not] be affected by the fact that the 

paramount title to the lands in which such mines lie is in the United States, but each case 

shall be adjudged by the law of possession.” 6 The importance of this provision was that 

the local codes, drawn up by the miners themselves, would determine possession of a 

claim so long as the codes were adhered to in locating the claims. A company could lose 

its right of possession but only if the facts relative to the locating of a claim required that 

company’s rights be terminated. For a site to be disputed was not in and of itself 

sufficient grounds to disqualify a company’s claim. A year later Congress passed 

additional mining legislation, known as the 1866 Lode Act and drawn up as well by 

Stewart. One provision, extraordinarily important to the mining companies, exempted 

lands containing minerals from federal public auctions. Rather these lands and their 

minerals could be acquired through private sales. Some Congressmen tried to gut this 

article so that mining companies would be forced to bid for land that they wished to 

develop. Public auctions on lands thought to be rich in minerals could push up prices far 

beyond what companies wanted to pay and in the past had paid. 7 It is not clear that in 

post-Civil-War America where the business of mining was viewed as instrumental to the 

recovery of the economy that the public-auction approach ever had much chance of 

success against the corporate interests championed by congressmen like Stewart. 

Equally important to Comstock miners were the provisions of the 1866 Lode Act 

that established how claims should be organized. Later legislation, The 1870 Placer Act 

and The General Mining Law of 1872, addressed further the matter of mining claims. 

Mining regulations from the earliest years in Spanish America sought to limit how much 

of a vein a single person could claim. Local mining codes in California and now in 

Nevada included the same limitations. But drawing a boundary on the surface, as was 

done in placer mining, did not necessarily describe the course of the vein underground. 

The crucial measure was the length of the claim along the vein. In federal legislation the 

5 


6 

Act of 27 February 1865, Chapter 64, Section 9, 13, Statute 441. Available on-line. 

7 

The 1866 Lode Law is discussed by Earl Hill, Esq., under the title “A Brief History of the Nevada Law of 

Mining” on the following web page, www.library.lp.findlaw.com, dated.7/21/2003, 3.


4 

length was fixed at 200 feet. The width was not fixed, however. Under the so-called 

“apex” or “extra-lateral” doctrine the claimant was entitled to follow the dips and spurs of 

a vein underground wherever they went so long as they did not cross either end of the 

200-foot boundaries and the apex of the vein was within his claim. One change in the 

1872 law was that if any additional veins were discovered within an existing claim they 

fell under the original claim (so long as the previously noted restrictions were met). This 

was important because the locator was limited to a single claim along a identifiable vein, 

and if a second vein appeared within his boundaries he could not claim it without this 

provision. Another change in the 1872 law was that the word “valuable” was inserted 

before mineral deposits in the opening sentence to distinguish between deposits that had 

value and those that did not. Increasingly the quality of the ore came to play a role in 

whether or not claims would be validated. Federal legislation broke no new ground. In 

general it simply legitimized prevailing local rules along with all the problems that those 

rules had created. With respect to quartz or lode mining federal legislation embraced the 

basic provisions of the Comstock mining codes, not a surprising development given 

Stewart’s authorship. 8 

Untangling the claims and counterclaims in the Comstock’s early years is not 

directly germane to this study. The litigation that these property disputes spawned, 

however, became an integral part of the Comstock’s economic life. Although the volume 

of lawsuits declined over time, as court rulings and private dealings served to impose 

recognizable boundaries on Comstock mining properties, the invocation of a lawsuit 

remained the weapon of aggrieved claimants as well as scheming opportunists. At times 

it was difficult to separate the legitimate claims from the fraudulent ones simply because 

legal documentation (deeds, transfers, conveyances) was unclear and incomplete. One 

such case was known as Kinney et al. vs. Consolidated Virginia and California Mining 

Companies (the Mackay-Fair-Flood-O’Brien behemoth). After more than a decade of 

controversy that predated the actual incorporation of Consolidated Virginia and 

California Judge Lorenzo Sawyer of the United States Ninth Judicial Circuit (district of 

California) issued a ruling against Kinney and in favor of Consolidated Virginia and 

California that also carried a warning. 

To conclude, then, after a thorough examination of this case, having gone 

through the entire testimony from beginning to end, and having read all 

the material parts, two or more times over, not relying on the abstract of 

counsel, I think I understand it, and the more thoroughly I examine and 

comprehend it, the better satisfied I am, that this case is utterly barren of 

any equities to sustain the claim set forth in the bill. 

And then after summarizing the defects in the petition by Kinney and his attorneys – 

who, he acknowledged, argued with “zeal” and “ability” – Judge Sawyer wrote: 

This case I presume will go to the Supreme Court. 

8 

The 1870 Placer Act and The General Mining Law of 1872 are discussed in the previously cited web site, 

www.library.lp.findlaw.com, dated.7/21/2003, 4-6. See also Joseph Tingley, Mining Districts of Nevada, 

2 nd ed. (Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology Report 47, Mackay School of Mines, University of Nevada, 

Reno, 1998) for additional discussion of legal foundations for Nevada mining districts.


5 

The amount involved – complainants aver, that twenty millions of dollars 

have been extracted from the premises of which they pray an account – is 

such that if the parties have any confidence in their claim, they will be 

very likely to carry it further. 

Despite his diligence he closed with the observation that every jurist understood: the 

record could be read differently from how he read it. 

I am very glad to know that there is such a tribunal to correct my errors, if 

I have fallen into any. If I have made any mistakes, it is certainly 

unintentional. I have endeavored to get to the merits of this case, to the 

bottom – to the “bed-rock” – to use a mining phrase appropriate to the 

occasion….The Supreme Court tries the case de novo without any regard 

to my decision or rulings, and it will give such judgment as the law and 

evidence appear to that Court to require. 9 

In cases like this the evidence could be a combination of verbal and documentary 

evidence. Judicial (written) records dated from the early 1860s, when Nevada was a 

territory and Kinney and other property owners were parties to several suits over claims 

and boundaries before the Story County First District Court. They were included because 

both Consolidated Virginia and California were created out of these properties plus 

several adjacent properties. The original claims, however, may have been based on 

paroles, that is, spoken agreement (after the French verb to speak), rather than written 

deeds. Sawyer made note of the “parol” custom. “In the case of 420 Mining Company 

against the Bullion Mining Company (3 Sawyer 658-9), I held that a parol partition 

followed by possession acquiesced in in accordance with the parol partition, is a valid 

contract of partition at all in a mining claim.” Since Sawyer was convinced that prior 

partitions had occurred by way of parols and more importantly had been acquiesced in, 

the Court would have to accept the parols as valid. “Any other ruling upon parol 

transfers, followed by possession, would disturb many old and highly valuable titles on 

the Comstock Lode. There was no necessity then for a deed at the time, if there was an 

actual transfer of the possession, and an occupation in pursuit thereof acquiesced in.” 10 

The key was the acquiescence on the part of the parties and in a general sense of the 

mining community at large. The problem with parols was that transfers could be 

accomplished without conveyances ever being recorded. Written records were obviously 

preferred, and indeed when miners established their districts and wrote their codes, they 

often included a provision that urged the recording of the transactions in the Deed Book. 

9 

The Court’s ruling plus the documentation is available in a folder of documents entitled Legal Suits, 

NC99/4/2, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno. The above quotes appear in “Opinion 

of the Hon. Lorenzo Sawyer, Judge of the United States Circuit Court, delivered in open Court, on 

Thursday, Nov. 1 st , A. D. 1877”, concerning case of Kinney et al. vs. The Consolidated Virginia Mining 

Company et al. 39-40. It is not clear that the case was appealed or if appealed a review was granted by the 

Supreme Court. What is clear is that Consolidated Virginia and California did not lose the contested 

property or pay the sum demanded by the plaintiffs. 

10 

The parol in question here involved Kinney himself, and since it had been granted and accepted, it could 

not be dismissed because it was a verbal contract “Opinion of L. Sawyer”, Legal Suits, NC99/4/2, 39, 

Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno.


6 

But many parols were never so recorded, and judges had to approach the matter 

pragmatically, since any disavowal of the parol system would hardly moderate the 

wrangling over claims. Three-fourths of the original Comstock titles, according to 

Sawyer, were verbal transfers, although such a number is hard to verify. Californians had 

abandoned the contentious parol system after the mining boom subsided. Since early 

Nevada miners, mainly from California, were working in an environment without much 

civil government, they naturally reverted to a procedure that they had known in 

California. As the riches of the Comstock became more and more obvious, staking a 

claim as quickly as possible was paramount. Parole, so widely used in California’s Gold 

Rush, filled a legal void. The Kinney case also raised the issue of opportunism. Parol 

conveyances aside the Circuit Court file revealed that in an earlier case (1865) between 

Kinney and Central #2 Mining Company (one of the properties folded into the new 

California Mining Company) Kinney had gone to court over the same plot of land, about 

10 feet by 20 feet, and had lost. Kinney may well have known that he was skating on thin 

ice because in one of his final court filings he reminded the court that he was among the 

Comstock’s original locators, and while fame and fortune had eluded him (as had his 

memory), he deserved to be rewarded if only symbolically for his efforts. A decade later 

when that piece of land was part of a multi-million dollar bonanza mine his plea went 

unheeded again. 11 

When a Californian J. Ross Brown, soon to be the United States Commissioner of 

Mines visited the Comstock in the summer of 1860, he declared that the rush to stake out 

every square inch of the Lode had resulted “in a mess of confusion” 12 The mess occurred 

even though from the earliest days as prospectors proceeded northward from the Carson 

River into the Virginia Range they seemingly understood the need to create a elementary 

legal and civil framework to manage their disputes and protect their claims. To his end 

they met in January 1858 at Carson City to organize a mining district known as 

Columbia. Columbia had a short life because, as miners pushed further north into ground 

around Silver City, Gold Hill and Virginia City, they set about creating new districts to 

deal with local circumstances. By the end of the summer 1859, after the discovery of the 

quartz vein that came to be known as the Ophir Diggings, the Comstock had two districts: 

Gold Hill on the southern branch of the Lode and Virginia on the northern branch. 13 Deed 

Books or Record Books, as they were called in the documents, were opened in both Gold 

Hill and Virginia City. Since the Gold Hill was organized before Virginia claims such as 

the Ophir Diggings (in Virginia City rather than Gold Hill) were originally recorded in 

the Gold Hill Record Book and then at a later date re-recorded in the Virginia District 

11 

The Kinney file contained a long brief that included copies of decisions from earlier trials. Copies and 

summaries of the 1865 trial may be found in attachments to “Opinion of L. Sawyer”, Legal Suits, 

NC99/4/2, 456-457 in NC99/4/2, 39, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno. 

12 

At least according to Lord, Comstock Mining and Mines, 52, who found this phrase in an article or 

pamphlet entitled “A Peep of Washoe”. 

13 

Some confusion exists over the establishment of these districts. The original districts were American 

Flats, Gold Hill and Virginia. Sometimes these districts plus several others were known jointly as the 

Comstock District. Joseph Tingley declares that Virginia was the first district, but I have not been able to 

verify that. Gold Hill organized on 11 June 1859, and indirect evidence suggests that Virginia organized a 

few weeks later. There is no doubt that from the summer of 1859 claims, deeds, transfers, etc were entered 

into what were called Record Books maintained by each district. See Tingley, Mining Districts, also on-line 

through the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology.


7 

Record Book. 14 The mere existence of mining districts and deed books did not constitute 

sufficient order and authority to avoid the mess that Brown lamented during this visit. 

While mining districts could lay down certain rules and regulations that all miners agreed 

to abide by, the confusion arose in the field where the procedures by which claims were 

laid out were hardly precise and reliable. Even if one ignored the chicanery that ensued 

over claims and boundaries, one was still confronted with rather primitive techniques for 

staking a claim, marking the boundaries and giving notification. Whatever procedures 

were enacted, they depended for enforcement on the claimants themselves whose own 

self-interest could override any adherence to the rules and regulations. 

A mining code was first approved in Gold Hill on 11 June 1859 and is worth 

further examination. There was nothing unique about the code. Its provisions reflected 

customs and traditions practiced in other mining regions. With respect to lode mining the 

most important features were: a quartz claim could not exceed 300 feet in length to 

include “depths and spurs”; each claimant was entitled to one additional claim on all 

veins so discovered; retaining a claim required work equal to $15 per share within 90 

days; registering a claim should be completed in 30 days; and no person shall hold more 

than one claim along a vein [with the exception of the aforementioned bonus]. The Gold 

Hill miners revised their code on 4 March 1860. The single-claim provision was 

reiterated, but the length of the claim was reduced to 200 feet to include all dips, angles 

and spurs. Quartz claims had to be registered in five days, and they were identified by a 

stake at each end “where the ledge is visible” with the names of the locators and the 

number of feet. Where the ledge was not visible, the stake with relevant information 

should be as close as possible to the ledge. A claimant had to show that work was done 

for at least three days per month or in the amount of $50. 15 During a meeting of Virginia 

District miners on 14 September 1859 they too ratified a code that embraced some of the 

provisions of the June version of the Gold Hill code but also contained changes that 

would appear later in an amended Gold Hill code. It is not clear whether the Virginia 

District was revising a prior code, and if a prior code existed whether or not it preceded 

the initial Gold Hill code. In the September version of the Virginia code the length of the 

quartz claim was fixed at 200 feet. The right to an additional claim remained. Stakes with 

appropriate information on the parallel end lines was required. To legitimize the claim it 

had to show work for 3 days a month or a yield of $10 in a month, and if the owners 

could show $40 he was exempt from working the claim for six months. All claims had to 

be registered 10 days after they had been located. 16 

14 

See Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 59 and footnotes 2 and 3. A document attached to a court file 

concerning the incorporation of Consolidated Virginia and California in the 1870s refers to a claim, 

originally recorded in Gold Hill and then re-recorded in the Virginia District in October 1859: “Virginia 

City Utah Territory October 12 th 1859. In accord with the mining laws recently passed the undersigned for 

themselves and the other owners hereby re-record three hundred feet of mining at Ophir Diggings located 

as follows….” NC99/4/1/3, 4, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno. 

15 

Copy of the Minutes of the Gold Hill Miners, NC99/4/1/1, Special Collections, Library, University of 

Nevada, Reno. Also Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 42-44. 

16 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 91-92. I have not found an original version of the Virginia District 

code. Plats and Surveys do exist among Carson County Records, according to James, The Roar and the 

Silence, footnote 28. I have not seen these documents.


8 

Writing the rules and then applying them were two different and not always 

complementary activities. The codes, even in the hands of angels, were insufficient in 

their written form to anticipate and settle all the issues that could arise among claimants. 

Whether any authority could have written a satisfactory code remains an open question. 

Lord believed that Spanish colonial mining law was superior to the law emerging in the 

American West because it provided for more scrutiny and care in the staking and 

registering of a claim. He was quick to point out the flaws in the Spanish colonial system, 

but he left no doubt that in the absence of a similar approach the Comstock had created 

for itself a legal mess. Lord’s knowledge of the Spanish colonial code was largely based 

on his reading of the Los comentarios de las ordenanzas de minas…, published by the 

Mexican Creole jurist, Francisco Javier Gamboa in 1761. This is not the place to discuss 

the pros and cons of Gamboa’s famous work, but let it suffice to say that Lord, the 

staunch laissez-faire advocate, was using Gamboa to argue for stricter central authority in 

the enactment and administration of mining-property codes. It is worth pointing out that 

the laws contained in Gamboa’s commentaries had evolved over two centuries since the 

silver discoveries at Zacatecas in Mexico and Potosí in Peru (Bolivia today). In the first 

decades of the colonial industry, for the same reason - absence of formal governmental 

institutions - as in Nevada, disputed claims abounded. Unlike the United States political 

system, Spanish colonial institutions and officials were the political extension of the royal 

government. By the middle of the eighteenth century, when Gamboa wrote the 

Comentarios, the codes and practices governing mining operations were well established 

and understood, although disputes continued to percolate into the public forum until the 

end of the colonial period. What drove the mining ordinances was the Crown’s 

determination to regulate the business and to protect its interests, especially its financial 

interest, in that business. The Nevada miners might have benefited from more central 

authority and governmental intervention but hardly on the level practiced in eighteenthcentury 

Mexico. Lord’s diagnosis of the cause of the “mess of confusion” was probably 

correct, but his remedy of more governmental inspection and control, if ever enacted, was 

probably unacceptable to the majority of Nevadans and westerners. 17 

For Lord confusion began the day after the Gold Hill miners had approved their 

code. The claim of Peter O’Reilly and Patrick McLaughlin (the so-called Ophir 

Diggings) that had pushed the miners to assemble in Gold Hill came to include Henry 

Comstock and Emanuel Penrod, who had bullied their way into a partnership. The claim 

measured 1,500 feet (300 feet x 4 locators plus a bonus 300 feet for discovery) along the 

ledge or the outcropping of the vein from the point near where O’Reilly and McLaughlin 

had made their discovery. According to Lord, while the measurement was certainly 

within the spirit of the code, the locators failed to follow through. There was no evidence 

that the stakes with the appropriate information on measurement and ownership were 

placed on the end lines, and the claim had ever been registered. It was possible of course 

that the stakes were properly placed but then discarded or stolen and the claim was 

17 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 52-55. Gamboa, Comentarios a las Ordenanzas de Minas… 

(Madrid, 1761).Gamboa wrote the book to highlight what he and others thought was a Mexican mining 

recession or depression and to advocate a larger role for merchants in owning and operating mining 

companies. Technically they were forbidden to do so, but in fact they were deeply involved in mining and 

entrepreneurs like Antonio López de Quiroga and Antonio Romano de Terreros were merchants before 

they became miners. The production downturn was a modest affair, one of many in the eighteenth century.


9 

properly registered but lost. Claimants were known to remove and replace stakes in order 

to get the best possible piece of ground, and of course competing claimants were known 

to engage in nefarious behavior. And since the “public officials” were the miners 

themselves and the “public offices” were the shops and saloons of the camps, records 

could easily disappear. Within days other claims were made north and south of the 

O’Reilly-McLaughlin-Comstock-Penrod claim, and many of those claims were 

improperly measured or registered and even worse occupied or impinged upon land that 

had been stake earlier, not as quartz claims but as hill or ravine claims that were 

measured in square feet rather than in length. 18 

Except for the first few months after the Gold Hill miners approved their initial 

codes the 200-foot limit on the length of the claim was in effect. If several locators were 

working together, they could each claim 200 feet without interruption. Many initial 

claims were sold to mining company who would legally acquire all the claims of the 

original discovers. The width did not need to be prescribed on the assumption that the 

locator would be entitled to the width of the vein whatever that was within the confines of 

the end lines. Where to place the end lines could be a problem because the outcroppings – 

the surface manifestations of the underground veins - did not always move in straight 

lines. Should the measurement of 200 feet (by rope) follow the contour of the 

outcroppings or be laid down in a straight line from the first stake to the second stake? 

With all staked measurements, of course, there were risks of the stakes being changed, 

removed or hidden and the measurements being in error. The width of claims proved to 

even more troublesome. In the early months claimants had little knowledge of the shape 

and behavior of the Lode below the surface. Much debated was the question of whether 

the Lode consisted of a single ledge of ores and other non-mineral-bearing substances 

(rock, porphyry, clay, etc.) or several distinct ledges? If a single ledge, then the various 

outcroppings and parallel veins geologically belonged to one structure. If, on the other 

hand, the Lode consisted of several independent substructures the outcroppings and veins 

could have several sources. At 500 feet the answer was manifest. The Lode was a single 

v-shaped ledge - wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. The outcroppings and veins 

rising from the wedge were in effect connected, even though they were surrounded and 

separated by matter that contained little or no ore. In brief, what this meant was that many 

claims from the earliest months were invalid because the original legal locator of a plot 

200 or 300 feet long was entitled to the full width of the plot, as measured from the 

footwall to than hanging wall (west to east). In some cases the width reached as much as 

1,000 feet. In the rush to claim as much of the Comstock as fast as possible, many sideby-side 

claims of 200 or 300 feet in length had been registered. Even before the singleledge 

theory was finally adopted many overlapping claims had to be settled. Not only did 

18 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 52-55. Various publications summarized Spanish-American mining 

laws, but Lord was particularly interested in Francisco Xavier Gamboa’s Comentarios a las Ordenanzas de 

Minas…, published in Madrid in 1761.Gamboa was a Creole jurist who was asked to review the codes in 

terms of a depressed mining economy in mid-eighteenth-century Mexico. It is held to be a solid evaluation 

of the legal code, although Gamboa himself recommended changes that would have benefited the merchant 

class for which he served as an advocate. Clearly Lord was impressed with work of Gamboa and the 

effectiveness of the colonial mining code, and while he did not recommend that the code be adapted to 

Nevada he did believe that there were lessons to be learned by studying the way in which the Mexican had 

evolved.


10 

side-by-side quartz miners argue over the width of claims, but they also had to deal with 

the claims of placer miners who may have registered or staked on the surface in square 

feet part of a hillside or a ravine. That miners and governments were less conscientious 

about the distribution of property along the Comstock than a retrospective view might 

suggest was needed, they were both ill prepared to institute more orderly procedures. For 

the miners time needed to work out better procedures was time taken away from the task 

at hand, and for governments a laissez-faire approach was a natural response until 

circumstances demanded something else. 19 

Despite the litigious character of many mining camps, miners devised their own 

strategies to resolve disputes over clams. Some in the tradition of western lore were 

settled at the poker tables and in the city streets, but since these activities were seldom 

recorded in official documents, except perhaps for personal testimonies in later court 

proceedings, the number is simply a matter of speculation. A common strategy was for 

disputing claimants to set up partnerships, as O’Reilly & McLaughlin and Comstock & 

Penrod had, so that work on the claim could proceed without further delay. This quartet 

may have earned as much as $100,000 in the remainder of 1859 before they began to sell 

off their shares. O’Reilly may have held out the longest and eventually realized $40,000 

for his share. By the spring of 1860 the Ophir Mining Company, organized by San 

Francisco investors, had assumed control of the vein, which had by now reached 1,400 

feet. None of the original locators was involved in the new company, but several of those 

who had bought their shares were members of the new company. How many of these 

“arranged” partnerships succeeded to the same degree is not known. The fact was that 

within a year after the first discoveries many original locators, unprepared for the 

financial, technological and managerial burdens imposed by quartz mining, either sold 

their shares or abandoned their claims. The first phase and perhaps the most colorful in 

the history of the Comstock had come to an end shortly after it had begun. 20 

The preoccupation with Comstock litigation by contemporaries and historians is 

understandable. Vast sums spent by some of the Comstock’s most colorful entrepreneurs 

made for good reading. The fascination as well as the dismay for journalists and 

historians of the Comstock arose from the numbers themselves. Smith stated that nine 

companies were involved in 359 suits of which one half were filed against adjacent 

claim-holders 21 Although their figures cannot be compared, Lord cited the “district court” 

records to show that until 1867 a dozen companies with important Comstock claims were 

involved in 245 suits. These companies were aggressive plaintiffs in that they initiated 

168 suits or 69 percent of the total. Five companies - Ophir (28), Yellow Jacket (24), 

Savage (22), Gould & Curry (20) and Overman (18) – initiated 112 lawsuits or 67 percent 

of the total plaintiff cases. These same companies were defendants in 36 suits or 47 

percent of that category. The ratio of plaintiff/defendant suit was three to one. Three 

19 

Several different sources can be consulted concerning the ledge theory. Smith presents a readable 

summary in Chapter 9, The Comstock Lode. A more technical discussion appeared in George Becker’s 

monograph, “A Summary of the Geology of the Comstock Lode and the Washoe District” in Geology of 

the Comstock Lode and the Washoe District (Washington: Department of the Interior, United States 

Geological Survey, 1882), 314-319. 

20 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 15-19. 

21 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 66, although no source was cited.


11 

companies – Chollar (7 vs. 10), Potosi (7 vs. 8) and Hale & Norcross (2 vs. 7) - found 

themselves to be defendants more often than plaintiffs. What was not revealed in these 

figures was how many times the same companies were involved in suits against each 

other. Without citing precise figures Lord averred that the heavy plaintiff activity 

concerned suits of “ejectment [sic]…to dispossess ‘jumpers’ or to quiet title.” The list 

would have been longer, he speculated, except other companies had “nothing worth 

wrangling for” even though their rights were no “less questionable.” The most litigious 

companies had claims of “recognized value” and yet they also had among the strongest 

titles to be recorded in those hectic first years, and yet their “trustees made unusual 

exertions to secure the most perfect titles possible.” 22 District codes, laudable though they 

be as a reaffirmation of the American individualistic spirit, simply made the chaos worse. 

The “Interminable Litigation”, the chapter in which Lord discussed these matters, arose 

from a long delayed construction of a “well framed National or State code.” For him, and 

perhaps him alone, a devout disciple of laissez-faire economics, the democratic spirit 

embodied in the miners’ district councils was excessive and often counterproductive. 

Lord even suggested that all the early claims that came under the purview of the district 

councils should be renounced and they should be reassigned on the basis of a more 

rational set of rules and regulations. Some centralizing order, as Spanish-American 

mining evidenced, would serve the region and the industry well. 23 

A more sanguine although still critical view came from Smith, a lawyer by 

training, who thought that the situation was less bleak than Lord’s critique implied. In 

some circumstances such as the smaller Gold Hill claims where “their stopes and other 

mine workings were constantly joined, the owners worked together harmoniously, often 

using each other’s shafts…the only mines along the Lode not involved in a welter of 

litigation….” 24 In the second half of the first decade and the in the second and third 

decades cooperation was patently evident as mining companies whose ore bodies never 

materialized or were exhausted but whose underground infrastructure - shafts, ventilation 

and drainage systems and tunnels – could assist adjoining operations made deals to do so. 

In the early years, however, competition and animosity were far more fashionable than 

cooperation and harmony. And often lost in the discussion is that many of the companies 

pursuing lawsuits had the resources to do so, no matter how expensive, inefficient and 

unnecessary they may have been. The mitigation in “to sue or be sued” outlook came not 

because there was a wave of altruism swept across the Comstock. In his 1865 Legislative 

Mining Survey the Surveyor-General, who characterized the legal scene as “a Kilkenny 

cat fight,” estimated that a fifth of the Comstock’s ore production through 1865 was eaten 

up in legal fees and courts costs. He further observed that the litigation phase simply 

“exhausted” itself. 25 Stockholders had seen assessments replace their dividends, and the 

22 


23 


24 


25 

“Annual Report of the Surveyor-General of the State of Nevada for the Year 1865” in Senate Journal 

and Appendix, 3 rd Legislative Session (1867), 28. His estimate more or less agreed with figures proposed by 

Lord and Smith. Of the $40 to $45 million in output a fifth would have amounted to $8 to $9 million. Lord 

cited the Surveyor-General and a figure of $9 million, and Smith, without citing his source, said between 

$9 and $10 million were spent. Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 172, and Smith, The Comstock Lode, 

70.


12 

downturn in production in 1864 accompanied by a run on Comstock stocks at the San 

Francisco Exchange had emptied the companies’ coffers. Lawsuits were no longer had 

much appeal. Not only were many companies, some of the largest, close to bankruptcy 

but they also lacked targets. Perhaps at an inordinate and unnecessary cost the boundaries 

got fixed and the disputes got settled. The claims that show up in Comstock surveys and 

maps to be published over the next two decades will vary little from how the Comstock 

looked in the mid-1860s. 

Smith observed that among the hundreds of suits filed (many of which were never 

litigated) only four achieved high profile status. The four were Ophir vs. Burning 

Moscow, Gould & Curry vs. North Potosi, Chollar vs. Potosi and Yellow Jacket vs. 

Princess and Union. 26 Two of these, Chollar vs. Potosi and Ophir vs. Burning Moscow, 

surely reached the level of absurdity. Chollar and Potosi had side-by-side claims, each 

1,400 feet in length and 400 feet in width. Potosi first found ore in 1861 that dipped into 

Chollar and then Chollar found ore that dipped into Potosi. Chollar won the first suit and 

Potosi the second, although both decisions were confusing and tainted. After spending 

four years in litigation, which, according to Smith, “shook the Comstock to its 

foundations” and cost an estimated $1.3 million the two companies agreed to merge in 

1865. 27 In Ophir vs. Burning Moscow there may have been an opportunity early to avoid 

a dispute. In the fall of 1859 Melville Atwood, a quartz miner from Grass Valley 

California, notified the Ophir owners that the footwall along Mt Davidson would turn to 

the east and so too would the Lode. While the outcroppings appeared to dip to the west 

where the company had concentrated its operations these surface features should be seen 

as only temporary. He advised Ophir to buy up a small claim held by Burning Moscow to 

the west along the footwall to forestall the possibility that as the footwall turned east 

Burning Moscow could contest Ophir’s claim to that part of the Lode. But Ophir ignored 

his advice. In 1865 after four years of litigation and an expenditure of $800,000 to 

$1,000,000 a settlement was reached, although to the very last moment the parties 

wrangled over the details. Ophir agreed to pay $70,000 for 800 feet that then had a 

market value of $50,000. 28 If $8 to 10 million dollars were spent on lawsuits in the early 

1860s, then a fourth or fifth of the total was consumed in these two cases. Whatever the 

26 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 70. One can follow both the legal and political ramifications of these lawsuits 

in Russell Elliott, Servant Power, A Political Biography of Senator William M. Stewart (Reno, NV: 

University of Nevada Press, Nevada Studies in History and Political Science, # 18, 1983), Chapter 2. Elliott 

wrote that Stewart “was a central figure in the Comstock legal wars, which climaxed with the case of the 

Chollar Mining Company against Potosi Mining Company….It was the basis, also, of the quarrel between 

Judge John W. North, which began as a difference of legal opinion and ended as a political contest that 

brought Stewart into the United States Senate and ended North’s career in Nevada.” (21). Elliott relied 

heavily on Eliot Lord’s rendering of the dispute between Chollar and Potosi Mining Companies. 

27 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 88. See also “Annual Report of the Surveyor-General…1865” in State 

Journal and Appendix, 3 rd Legislative Session (1867), 28 

28 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 65-67; Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 177-178. The $1 million figure 

is from the “Annual Report of the Surveyor-General...1866” in State Journal and Appendix, 3 rd Legislative 

Session (1867), 28. In the Ophir-Burning Moscow case Lord complained that “No further commentary is 

needed to disclose the folly of the laws which allowed a locator to follow the dips, spurs, and angles of the 

ledges anywhere.” [177] “Peculiar” is how Smith described American mining law that allowed one 

claimant to follow his dip even as it “penetrated” under an adjoining claim. Laws in other countries allowed 

for vertical side boundaries that prevented a claimant from entering adjacent property unless he purchased 

it. [66].


13 

actual total legal costs in the wake of the discoveries they do not appear in retrospect to 

add much value to the business of mining and processing the ore. 

The extravagance of the companies’ judicial skirmishes, even if they had some 

positive consequences in settling boundary disputes, was part of a general pattern of 

financial misdirection and mismanagement. Historically mining fortunes could be 

destroyed almost as quickly as they were made. They were particularly vulnerable in the 

earliest years. On the Comstock, for example, Gould & Curry hardly exhibited a sober 

and frugal attitude toward finances. Gould & Curry was the merged claims originally 

located by Alva Gould and Abraham Curry. A group of San Franciscans organized the 

company on June 1860 with a length of 1,200, and all became rich. In 1862 through its D 

Street tunnel somewhere about 40 feet below the surface Gould & Curry uncovered the 

richest deposit yet. Its stock price rose from $500 per share to $1,050 per share and 

finally to $2,500 per share. It probably produced about $14 million worth of ore up to 

1865, and of that amount it paid out nearly $4 million in dividends. In 1864 it allotted 

$1.5 million to construct a new mill. The timing could not have been worse because the 

ore grades dropped to less than $15 per ton, and within a year or so the ore bodies 

disappeared completely. The mill with 80 stamps to crush the ores and 40 pans for 

amalgamating the ore and mercury had capacity that exceeded what the mine could 

produce. Even Smith recognized (with less virulence than Lord was capable of) that this 

“was a showy period; wealth was expected to make a display.” 29 Such lavishness was not 

unique to the Comstock or to Gould & Curry. For Gould & Curry the cost of 27 lawsuits 

during this litigious period may not have posed a short-term financial burden since the 

mine had ores yielding as much as $50 to $100 a ton. When the litigation craze came to 

an end a few years later, it was not because the company ran out of money but because it 

ran out of profitable ore. If it had practiced greater thrift, could it have extended its life 

and at the same time could it have satisfied its stockholders? Perhaps, but even it had 

managed both it could not have changed the ultimate outcome. A more intriguing 

question is what would the company have done with its surplus if it had been more frugal 

and less lavish? Numerous options come to mind from investing in other mining 

properties to donating to many needy causes. There was no economic incentive to change 

course or conserve capital since underlying all “gold and silver rushes” was the 

presumption, reinforced by popular and expert opinion, that the bonanzas might never 

end. Of course it was always possible the newly enriched stockholders and owners found 

many ways to make worthy investments, just not in Nevada. What may appear to be 

rational or irrational in retrospect may simply miss the point. Vast sums of money earned 

from mining were spent in ways that may defy common sense or fiscal probity but not 

necessarily economic choice. 

29 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 84-86.

THE COMSTOCK [H] 

1 

Chapter 8 


Challenges of Deep-Lode Mining, Working Bonanzas at Belcher & Crown Point 

As the Comstock shifted from placer mining to lode mining, miners had no manuals or 

maps to consult on how to proceed. Some had experiences as quartz miners in California 

or elsewhere, and some had training in fields of science and engineering that were related 

to mining. They could apply the knowledge that they brought with them, but they had to 

move quickly and decisively beyond that fairly limited information base if they were to 

succeed. To be successful in exploiting the Comstock’s riches they had to become quick 

learners and risk takers. The Comstock hid its valuable minerals in places and under 

circumstances that could not be divined from the surface markings. So many stories can 

be told about the Comstock, and even though the financial shenanigans have often 

supplied so much of the material for its modern histories, the retrieval of the ore may well 

be the Lode’s real story. These became the deepest mines in America with tunnels, drifts, 

upraises and winzes that covered hundreds of miles. The deeper mines, the higher the 

temperatures, the greater the risk of flooding from scalding water and the poorer the 

ventilation. Perhaps the most remarkable underground accomplishment was the Sutro 

Tunnel, a four-mile-long tunnel from the Lode to the Carson River through Six Mile 

Cañon to drain the mines as well as to extract any ores found during its construction. No 

less impressive were the erection of huge mills with giant machines for refining the ores, 

the construction of roads and rails across steep, rugged terrain and the installation of a 

system to supply potable water from the Sierras. But the first order of business was to 

find and extract the ores. 

By the middle of the 1860s surveys and maps of Comstock began to appear in 

print. The configuration of claims and boundaries along and around the Comstock Lode 

certainly looked different from 1859 and 1860. The consolidation of mining claims had 

accompanied the arrival of mining companies. The first (documented) official inquiry of 

the State’s mining industry appeared as part of Surveyor-General S. H. Marlette’s report 

to the 3 rd Legislative Session in 1867. 1 He had compiled as comprehensive a list as 

possible of mining and milling operations throughout the state along with other 

information on roads, water resources and related geographic and topological concerns. 

Much of the report focused on the Comstock and the mining and milling operations that 

had been set up in Story County and surrounding counties. It is worth recalling at this 

stage that the Comstock Lode was a quartz formation with outcroppings along the base of 

Mt Davidson from the northern edge of Virginia City to the southern edge of Gold Hill, a 

distance of several miles. At both ends the Lode forked and eventually terminated. 

Underground the quartz formations angled from the footwall at the base of Mt Davidson 

eastward toward an edge known as the hanging wall. The distance that the Lode angled 

away from the footwall toward the hanging wall was as much as 1,000 feet. The Lode 

may have had a surface area of more than a million square feet, but the surface area of the 

productive mines was only a fraction of that total figure. And yet mining claims were 

staked across the entire Lode and beyond for many miles on the assumption that the 

region was filled with quartz formations. A few of these outlying properties produced 

1 

Beginning in 1867, the Legislature would meet in January every two years.


2 

profitable ores, but most of them occupied barren ground. The Lode was located in Story 

County except perhaps for a small section that spilled over into Lyon County at Silver 

City south of Gold Hill. The terminus on the southern end was a matter of dispute. Two 

Tables appear in Marlette’s report: a Table, entitled “Mines on the Comstock Lode”, 

identified all the mining properties from the northern end (in Virginia City) and to the 

southern end (in Gold Hill) all within Story County; an accompanying Table, entitled 

“Tabular List of Mills Crushing Ore from Mines on the Comstock Lode During the Year 

1866”, identified the mills not only in Story County but in adjacent counties since 

Comstock mines sent ores to mills in Lyon and Ormsby Counties to the south and 

Washoe County to the west. The mill data will be treated later in this chapter. 

In 1866 the Surveyor-General assembled a list of 43 mines on the Comstock 

Lode. His list included the length in feet along the Lode that each company or miner 

claimed. The average length was 513 feet, but the median was only 210 feet. A 

distribution by frequency shows that 17 claims or 40 percent had 100 feet or less, 12 

claims or 28 percent had between 101 and 500 feet, 7 claims or 16 percent had 501 to 

1,000 feet and another 7 had 1,001 feet or more. The longest claims belonged to 

Baltimore American (2,600 feet) and North American (2,000), both on the upper branch 

of the southern tip. The next longest claim of 1,959 feet was Sierra Nevada on the 

northern end, although the Surveyor-General’s footnote indicated that it was originally 

3,000 feet. At the core of the Comstock (in Virginia City proper) the following mines had 

claims of significant lengths: Chollar Potosi with 1,434 feet, Ophir 1,400 and Gould & 

Curry 1,200. The remaining claims in both Virginia City and Gold Hill fell between 10 

feet (Plato) and 1,000 feet (Utah). Some of the smallest claims (under 100 feet) were 

located in the northern part of Gold Hill between Virginia City’s border and Gold Hill’s 

Yellow Jacket on the southern end. Disputed claims were also noted. Gould & Curry 

claimed Best & Belcher’s 222 feet while at the same time Best & Belcher and Sides 

claimed 279 feet of Gould & Curry (222 feet and 57 feet respectively). The Surveyor- 

General also thought the claims of Baltimore American and Overman (1,200) were 

doubtful. (He may have meant to include North American as well.) The total of all 43 

claims was more than 22,000 feet. A crucial statistic - width - was not given. 2 

While the Surveyor-General could identify 43 mining properties, he could only 

account for 22 producing mines among the 43. That they were not productive in 1865 

or1866 did not mean that they had not been productive or would not become productive. 

When one recalls that hundreds of claims existed on and around the Comstock, one soon 

realizes that at a time Comstock registered about $12 million in bullion two-dozen mines 

made that possible. Should this have troubled the mining or investing community? Five 

years after the initial discoveries the grand forecasts from pundits to speculators had little 

grounding in reality. It was improbable that the Comstock was at risk of being closed 

down soon, but it was becoming less and less probable that under Story County lay a vast 

uniform body of gold and silver ore. The two most productive mines in terms of bullion 

per ton were of medium size and contiguous properties in Virginia City’s center: Hale & 

2 

“Annual Report of the Surveyor-General…1866” in State Journal and Appendix, 3 rd Legislative Session 

(1867), Tables are inserts between p. 21 and p. 25 and between p. 26 and p. 29. See p. 29 for a reference to 

North American.


3 

Norcross at $46 per ton and Savage at $45 per ton. 3 The majority of productive mines 

were producing ores that had yields that were not even half as large as those figures. 

Although not yet fully apparent the consolidation that had occurred since 1860 would 

simply intensify in the coming years. 

How miners went about their business was a subject of interest to various state 

officials but especially to the State Mineralogist. Richard Stretch was appointed to the 

position in 1864-1865. From 1865 through 1870 Asa White served as Mineralogist (by 

appointment), and he and his successor, Henry Whitehill, who was elected rather than 

appointed, provided the Legislature (as discussed earlier) with long reports, county by 

county, on mining conditions as well as general demographic and economic conditions. 

Beginning with the 4 th Legislative Session in 1869, (covering two previous years, 1867 

and 1868) the State Mineralogist rather than the State Surveyor-General reported to the 

Legislature on mining operations. This continued until 1879 when the 9 th Legislative 

Session abolished the office of the State Mineralogist as a cost-costing measure. In his 

first report, White, formerly a member of the team of geologists and surveyors under 

Clarence King of the States Geological Service, described Story County as a “broken and 

barren” territory that just happened to contain the Comstock Lode, a “universal 

notoriety”. He described the topography and the geology much of which had been 

worked in the previous years by various investigators. The vein was contained in a fissure 

that ran three miles from 5,800 feet in Gold Hill to 6,200 feet in Virginia City. It was 

located between sienite (syenite, also known as silica-poor granite), a plutonic igneous 

rock on the west side of the Lode toward Mt Davidson and propylite, a crystalline 

igneous rock on the east side away from Mt Davidson. The propylite (which miners also 

called porphyry) lay against the Lode for its entire length, and from the surface it dipped 

45 degrees to the west (toward Mt Davidson), gradually became vertical and then at 

about 400 feet dipped 45 degrees to the east. In some mines, Overman for example, the 

eastward dip was 70 degrees. The propylite was not regular in its formation – alternating 

between nearly vertical to nearly horizontal – and could change its direction suddenly. On 

the surface the fissure that contained the vein was measured as 500 feet in width, but 

underground the walls appeared to be “constantly approaching and receding [toward and 

from each other] without regularity.” The structure of the fissure on the southern end was 

different from the northern branch. At the time that report was written more was known 

about the underground structure on the southern Lode because more discoveries had been 

made there. Also the miners had not explored much beyond the 500- to 800-foot level so 

that the structural changes at 1,000 feet and below still awaited them. White observed, as 

had others, that the richest underground deposits lay against the east wall but that 

between 400 and 800 feet the size and number of these bodies decreased. Worrisome to 

White and the mining companies was the fact that so much of the vein was barren of 

profitable ores after 100 to 200 feet across the entire Lode. So extensive were these 

barren areas, wrote White, “that constant explorations are necessary to sustain the supply 

of ore…at heavy cost.” 4 

3 

“Annual Report of the Surveyor-General…1866,” in Senate Journal and Appendix, 3 rd Legislative Session 

(1867), Table following p. 21. 

4 

White’s appointment as State Mineralogist took effect 1 March 1869, even though he presented his first 

biennial report to the Legislature that met between 4 January and 4 March 1869. “Biennial Report of the 

State Mineralogist of the State of Nevada for the Years 1867 and 1868” in Senate Journal and Appendix, 4 th


4 

Although output had increased between 1865 and 1869, when White rendered his 

report to the Legislature’s biennial session, it had been a difficult period for many 

companies. The ore bodies with major outcroppings, of which there were about a half 

dozen, had been mainly exhausted. What was both puzzling and disconcerting to the 

miners were the long stretches of barrenness as they probed the ground below shallow ore 

bodies. Bonanzas found since 1859 had proved to be rich but of short duration. White 

reported that companies were pursuing two different strategies, both with some success. 

Shallower levels, thought to have been “worked out”, were being rehabilitated and were 

yielding some low grade but modestly profitable ores. The second strategy was to deepen 

the search. Not entirely certain or clear how to proceed below 500 feet companies were 

dropping shafts from various surface locations in hopes of reconnecting with mineralbearing 

sections of the Lode that for all intents and purposes was being squeezed out 500 

feet and below. Shafts were being driven to 800 feet, 1,000 feet and even 1,200 feet in an 

effort to relocate the vein. Eventually this approach began to pay off. The largely barren 

ground between 500 and 1,000 feet resulted from a shift in the Lode to the east toward 

the hanging wall. As the shafts grew deeper and the tunnels longer, miners faced 

numerous and constant challenges in building the underground infrastructure. Rock 

formations changed, ranging from very hard (known as “country” rock and similar to 

what constituted the footwall) to soft, sugary porphyry, and interspersed with clay. It was 

not uncommon for a superintendent’s weekly report on the progress inside the mine to 

describe on one day how miners were working in hard rock and on the next day how they 

were working in porphyry or clay. With experience miners became more adept at 

“reading” the rock structure with respect to location of ore, although their expectations 

were not always borne out. On the positive side, as the miners invaded the ground 

between 500 and 1,000 feet, they encountered less water than they had above 500 feet, 

but on the downside they had to contend with temperatures of 100 to 110 degrees. 5 

Puzzling though the Lode was for miners in the middle 1860s sufficient quantities of ore 

were being found or lifted to make the search worth the investment and the risk. It would 

be incorrect to assume that extractable ores ceased to exist below 500 feet (or 

thereabouts); rather extractable ores on the scale of the earliest bonanzas more or less 

terminated until the miners had made a necessary eastward shift in their explorations to 

locate the next bonanzas. 

Reports by mining-company superintendents to their stockholders and quoted 

liberally by White illustrate what had to be done in the search for ore, a search that had 

no assurance of success. At Chollar Potosi Isaac Requa informed his directors and 

stockholders (June, 1868) that for the previous year work had been concentrated at 352 

feet “from the surface.” 6 The area being worked was about 270 feet in length northeast to 

Legislative Session (1869), 22-23. 

5 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist...1867 and 1868” in Senate Journal and Appendix 4 th 


6 

Where work was being carried out underground can be confusing. Sometimes, as in this example, the 

reference was to the distance from the surface. In other examples the reference could be to a specific level, 

such as the 350-foot level, based on a measurement from a surface point (known as A) on top of Gould & 

Curry’s mine. Since the Lode dropped by about 400 feet from Virginia City to Gold Hill, miners in the 

latter camp had several hundred fewer feet to work through in order to reach a comparable Gould & Curry


5 

southwest and about 70 feet wide east to west. Equally important was the fact that from 

point where the rail had been installed at 352 feet the ore body extended up (not down) 

over 100 feet. As Comstock miners were quickly learning from experience, a body of ore 

did not always have uniform grades. The body described by Requa was richest in the 

center and less so on the edges. It was mined for 10 months and then abandoned in 

February 1867. From here to the southern boundary the company had 600 feet of 

unexplored ground. A drift to the southern boundary was cut, and cross-drifts about 140 

long were also cut at various intervals. Unfortunately very little millable ore was found in 

this large quartz structure. The vertical shaft was extended until it was more than 800 feet 

below the surface where it crossed a vein about 3-foot thick. The vein dropped for about 

40 feet and then disappeared. At the 850-foot level 700 test drillings were made with no 

positive results. The vertical shaft was dropped another 100 feet and from there an incline 

shaft was cut to the 1,000-foot level and then to the 1,100-foot level. Between the 850- 

and 1,100-foot levels the company had almost 250 feet of ground to prospect. His 

summary for the year (to June 1868) was that almost 5,500 feet of drifts and winzes had 

been cut and more than 500 feet had been added to the vertical and inclines shafts. 

“Without seeming to predict what may lie in the unexplored section to the east,” Requa 

was optimistic that the signs (without actually specifying them) pointed to major deposits 

at the depths now being explored. 7 Sadly Chollar Potosi would find nothing at the 1,000- 

foot or 1,100 feet level or lower. In the course of a year after its only major ore body had 

been exhausted a few hundred feet from the surface, Chollar Potosi would add thousands 

of feet of underground works with barely anything to show for it. 

Chollar Potosi’s neighbor, three properties to the north, Gould & Curry, did not 

fare much better. Its Bonner Shaft had reached 910 feet “from its mouth” or 1,100 feet 

“below the outcroppings” (the difference being explained by taking into account the 

grade from where the outcroppings were to where the shaft had been built). Most of the 

explorations during 1867 had occurred around the fourth station between the 400- and 

500-foot levels. Drifts measuring hundreds of feet were constructed along the length and 

the width of the claim at this station quartz material through mixtures “of quartz and 

porphyry, without ore.” At deeper stations, the fifth and the sixth (at approximately 500 

to 600 feet below the surface), Louis Janin jr., the superintendent, wrote: “No sign of ore 

was met with” and no trace of ore was found. Despite these less than promising prospects 

the company planned to explore the lower reaches much as they had explored the area 

level: the 500-foot level at Gould & Curry was about 100 feet from the surface in Gold Hill. At 352 feet 

below the surface, as Requa reported, the level as measured from Gould & Curry would only be a few feet 

less. Unfortunately it is not always clear from the reports whether the reference is to distance from the 

surface or to the level in feet as measur4ed at Gould & Curry. I have tried to maintain as much precision as 

I can when these references are used. When I refer to a level number hyphenated with foot, such as 500- 

foot level, I am referring to the measurement from the Gould & Curry Point A. When I use 500 feet, I am 

referring to the distance from the surface (often I add “from the surface”). The problem is that the sources 

that I have consulted, such as company records or Smith and Eliot or even the Territorial Enterprise, have 

to be interpreted at times as to whether the reference is from Point A or from the surface. The maps and 

surveys in Becker, Atlas, usually include both numbers, the Point A number appearing in brackets. 

7 


Legislative Session (1869), 25-26.


6 

around the fourth station. What would eventually become obvious was that Gould & 

Curry was basically barren below 500 feet. 8 

FIGURE 1 

VIEW INSIDE COMSTOCK MINE 

White had good news to report from the southern end of the Comstock Lode. It 

had rich, abundant ores between the 500- and 900-foot levels (200 to 500 feet under the 

surface) and even richer deposits yet to be discovered between 1,000 and 2,000-foot 

levels. For the year ending 1868 Crown Point’s Superintendent T. G. Taylor reported that 

the ore at 500-foot level “pinched out in porphyry: 76 feet above and 33 feet below that 

level. But then at the 600-foot level about 150 feet from the shaft the workers cut through 

clay to find a new ore body. It was as narrow as three inches and as wide as 14 feet and 

resided between the 500- and 700-foot levels. This was known as the “west body”, and a 

few months later the “east body” was discovered between the 600-foot and 800-foot 

levels. In addition at the 800-foot level two seams about four feet thick of valuable ore 

were found between the east and west bodies. Taylor indicated that the extent of the 

discovery at the 800-foot level had not been fully ascertained. Actually this ore body 

would dip away into the adjoining property, Kentuck, and what Taylor did not yet know 

was that 200 feet deeper Crown Point would open a true bonanza. Whereas the reports of 

the companies above referred to the construction of long, expensive tunnels from their 

main shafts through largely barren ground between 500 and 1,000 feet, Crown Point by 

contrast found ore in almost every direction from the main shaft. Despite the knowledge 

gained about the structure of the Lode in a decade of mining finding the next bonanza 

was almost as much the work of the wizard as the expert. 9 

White summed up the structure of the Comstock, as then understood having 

reached depths of 1,000 feet. First the country rock of the west wall dipped with 

8 



9 


Legislative Session (1869), 24-25. Other Gold Hill mines were also reporting favorable discoveries below 

the 1,000-foot level. Imperial had ore that yielded about $40 per ton, and Yellow Jacket was lifting ore 

from a vein about 40 feet thick on the Lode eastern wall. A less favorable sign was that Imperial had also 

discovered a huge underground pool of water. (p. 31)


7 

regularity at an angle of 45 degrees. Some low-grade ore lay against that wall. Second the 

propylite rock of the east wall dipped first 45 degrees to the east, and then at 400 feet 

became vertical and finally it turned eastward at 45 degree with the fissure at that point 

being about 125 feet wide between the west and east walls. It was now generally 

understood, according to White that the great ore bodies, if they existed, would be found 

along the east wall, sometimes with and sometimes without clay linings. Third the 

surface, while it had some rich outcroppings, was actually “split and covered” from rock 

slides and other seismic activities over time so that the outcroppings were episodic and 

would disappear into nearly barren quartz ground below. Finally he noted that the 

composition of the vein changed from the surface to the depths now being worked. Gold 

was more abundant on the surface then silver and then for 200 to 300 feet it virtually 

disappeared. At the depths discussed in the reports of the companies both gold and silver 

were becoming abundant again. 10 

After considering and summarizing various company reports White added an 

interesting comment concerning a new discovery. He reported that “about a mile and a 

half or a little more east of Virginia City” (more precisely east of Gold Hill) “a ledge 

crops out in places and is parallel with the Comstock.” The most important mine was 

Occidental (which appears on later surveys and maps), and the ores both gold and silver 

yields profits of $6 to $8 per ton. To find an ore ledge that far away from the Comstock 

Lode was what many Comstockians had dreamed of if not begged for. The venture came 

to naught. Occidental (which included a mill) will appear in the public record from time 

to time, but the potential of a second ledge soon passed from public view. 11 

The reserved but modestly upbeat evaluation of White in 1869 assumed more 

positive tones at the hand of the new mineralogist, Henry R. Whitehill, a Republican first 

elected to the office in 1871. And for good reason. Whitehill could legitimately record 

that the Comstock had given birth since 1869 to several true bonanzas, unlike anything 

experienced before. And this simply brightened the prospects for the future. Following a 

format developed by his predecessor Whitehill described general economic and 

demographic conditions county by county before turning his attention to the state of 

mining. Most counties had some mining, but Story County was certainly the heart of 

Nevada’s mining sector. Even the counties surrounding Story benefited from the 

Comstock mines. His description of deep Comstock geology was understandably more 

detailed than White’s because more was known by the time he was writing. When he was 

preparing his report, presumably in late 1872, some mines had already reached 1,700 

feet. He likened the fissure to a channel filled with ore bodies shaped like eggshells and 

while they were not continuous they could still be massive wherever they were found. He 

explained that during the volcanic period in which the Lode was formed hundreds of 

vents within the fissure spewed forth “solfataras”, hot vapors and sulfurous gases that 

eventually filled the area with metal-bearing quartz. Other events combined to introduce 

10 



11 


Legislative Session (1869), 32. These comments were contained in a section dealing with “Diagrams of the 

Mines….” White underscored the importance of the surveys being prepared by Clarence King with the 

assistance of White’s predecessor, Richard Stretch.


8 

metallic materials and then to solidify and crush the quartz. The solfatara process 

eventually came to a close. That miners had encountered hot water at the lower depth 

suggested that “at no very great depth, a considerable temperature is still maintained… 

but…only a faint relic of a once intense action.” The western (foot) wall dipped to the 

east, as others had reported, but at varying angles of 35 to 53 degrees, according to 

Whitehill. The east wall (hanging), although ill defined in structure, dipped west for 

several hundred feet and then both walls dipped east at 45 degrees. The space between 

the two walls collapses to a few feet and expands to several hundred feet. In these spaces, 

of course, resided the ore bodies. The fissure that contained the vein consisted of billions 

of cubic feet, and although much of it was barren of ore still tens of millions of cubic feet 

of ores. 12 Whitehall made note of the fact that the earliest shafts were driven through the 

outcroppings near the footwall on the assumption that the vein below inclined toward the 

west. That was true for several hundred feet after which the vein dipped east, as noted 

earlier. At about 400 or 500 feet these shafts ran into the west wall that was hard sienite 

rock and actually below the vein at that level. (Sienite [syenite] is a hard, crystalline rock, 

allied with granite and composed mainly of hornblende and feldspar with or without 

quartz.) The presence of the sienite was convincing evidence to the miners that the 

structure was different from the soft material that had surrounded the ore veins closer to 

the surface. Within a few years Ophir Mining Company ran out of profitable ore under 

the original outcroppings on the Lode’s western slope. At 300 feet the vein began to grow 

narrower and shorter and soon disappeared into worthless porphyry. 13 But even before the 

demise of Ophir’s bonanza the Gould & Curry Company, a half-dozen properties to the 

south of Ophir, had made a discovery that would shape the future of Comstock mining. 

Gold & Curry under its new San Francisco-based owners, who were unimpressed with 

poor results and limited prospects at its western outcroppings, decided to move 1,000 feet 

away from the west wall. At about 100 feet below the surface the new Gould & Curry ran 

into a rich ore body. What they had dug was more of an adit or tunnel rather than a shaft. 

It was driven into the side of the eastern slope of the Comstock Lode, but like rest of the 

companies it too eventually had to drop a vertical shaft. Many of these early shafts were 

sunk along D Street in Virginia City itself. Gould & Curry’s discovery of an ore body 

along the eastern slope had long-term implications for accessing and exploring the Lode 

as well as how the city grew. The future lay not in further explorations of the western 

slope but in expanded explorations of the eastern slope. 14 

The Comstock underground grew into a honeycomb of horizontal and vertical 

structure. How many miles of shafts, tunnels, drifts, winzes, etc. were eventually 

constructed will probably never be accurately known, but surely the total was in the 

hundreds. Even as the miners became better acquainted with the Lode basic outline, they 

could not predict very well the location of the profitable ores. Thus, much of the 

underground system was built for exploration rather than exploitation of the ore bodies. 

12 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist...1871 and 1872” in Appendix to Journal of the Senate, 6 th 

Legislative Session (1873), 122, 124-125. 

13 


14 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist...1871 and 1872” in Appendix to Journal of the Senate, 6 th 

Legislative Session (1873), 124-125; Smith, The Comstock Lode, 84.


9 

And that of course raised the cost of deep, underground mining. Once ore bodies were 

located even at the shallower depths of several hundred feet their size and composition 

posed immediate problems. The ore as well as the surrounding materials such as 

porphyry and clay could be soft and incapable of carrying the weight of the ground above 

these giant cavities. In Spanish America natural pillars fashioned from the ore bodies 

themselves were common. On the Comstock the workings were so large that natural 

supports failed. So too did early wooden props. Timbers spliced together to hold up the 

ceilings or hold back the walls were bent or crushed under the weight. The invention of 

the square-set framing system by the German engineer and California miner, Philipp 

Deidesheimer in 1860 more or less saved the day for Comstock mining. These were 

squares of timbers, approximately 6 feet by 6 feet that could be placed on top of each 

other or side by side for any reasonable distance. This system was introduced in the Ophir 

Mine and soon spread to other mines. The arrangement of the frames helped to spread the 

weight across the entire structure. 15 Even the square-set system could fail, and companies 

had to be vigilant in how the frames were constructed both as the depth of the shafts and 

the size of the cavities increased. Supporting the ever-deepening shafts posed problems 

that the square-set frames could not solve. Since shafts passed through soft ground, that 

ground could cause the shafts to expand and contract to such a degree that hoisting 

operations had to be stopped until repairs could be made. Some shafts were so 

inappropriately located or badly constructed that they had to be abandoned and replaced. 

FIGURE 2 

BURLEIGH DRILL 

[DEBATE ABOUT WHEN FIRST INTRODUCED; WIDE-SPREAD USE BY THE MID-1870S. 

MODIFICATIONS OVER TIME. OPERATED WITH COMPRESSED-AIR UNIT] 

By the 1870s, however, Comstock mining benefited from other late-nineteenthcentury 

technological revolution. Such improvements as Cornish Pumps, Burleigh Drills, 

wire ropes, metal hoisting cages and of course dynamite all entered the miners’ arsenal 

for conquering the depths of the Comstock. The engines that drove the cages in the shafts 

or pumps in the mines reached horsepower of several thousand, and each required scores 

of cords of pine and fir each day. These engine also operated the compressors that drove 

the power drill that could triple the amount of rock and ore to be excavated in a single 

15 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 89-90; Smith, The Comstock Lode, 23-24.


10 

days. 16 All of this came at some cost, not only to purchase the equipment but also to 

install, operate and maintain it. Without mechanization deep mining along the Comstock 

would have developed more slowly if at all. An attribute of the technological and 

industrial revolution in late-nineteenth-century America was that bigger and faster 

machines were simply a matter of time and application. In his 1875 legislative report 

included a reprint from the Virginia Enterprise with the heading of “Going for the 

Bottomless Pit”. The Savage Mining Company had ordered steel-wire ropes from John A. 

Reehling’s Sons in Trenton, New Jersey, and engines to raise and lower the rope from 

Booth and Company of the Union Iron Works in San Francisco in order to reach the 

4000-foot level, twice the depth that current machinery was servicing. Other mining 

companies – Crown Point, Hale & Norcross, Consolidated Virginia and Ophir – were 

also preparing to launch similar assaults with bigger and faster machines. 

Notwithstanding the fact that barren ground characterized much of what was being 

explored at the 2,000-foot level, even for the bonanza mines, the Virginia Enterprise 

could not resist a rhetorical flourish: these companies “will at once plunge down into the 

great unknown ‘depths profound,’ in which lie hidden the silver roots of the Comstock.” 17 

Over time through trial and error miners had developed certain underground 

procedures for opening, managing and securing underground operations. Nothing could 

be done to neutralize absolutely the risks. Whitehall was impressed with some of the 

efficiencies that had evolved. Extractions were easier if ores lay above the tunnel. An 

upraise could be dig to the wall of ore above and then as workers cut their way through 

the wall they could drop the ore and the residue onto the floor or into cars below. The 

cars were then placed on a platform, usually surrounded by a cage and lifted to the 

surface. From there the cars were directed to ore bins or to waste dumps. The cars could 

carry up to a ton of ore or waste. Tunnels connected to the shafts every few hundred feet 

and usually tunnels were designated in the foreman’s journals or the company’s account 

by their depths such as the “1,000-foot level” or the 1,500-foot level”. The tunnels 

themselves could snake for hundreds of feet underground, and tunnels on different levels 

were connected by upraises and winzes. Some tunnels were abandoned because they 

lacked profitable ore or encountered unstable ground, while others in use for years were 

routinely retimbered, enlarged and refurbished to accommodate more workers and 

machines. In addition, of course, other tunnels had to be dug to provide air and remove 

water. Water, often very hot water, was a constant threat. It often lurked behind a clay 

wall that separated ore bodies or marked the terminus of a vein and could be breeched in 

the course of following the vein. Greater depths meant higher temperatures (110-120 o F), 

and tons of ice had to be transported to the lowest levels every day and administered to 

the workers. This is but a general description of the Comstock’s underground city. More 

will be revealed as we examine individual companies. The business of mining, deep 

mining as it were in the case of the Comstock, involved construction and maintenance on 

a grand scale in order to extract the wealth that was being sought. 

16 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 335-337, especially footnote 3; Smith, The Comstock Lode, 46. 

17 


Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session (1875), 124.


11 

Above ground another mechanized world was emerging. The heart of it was in the 

municipality of Virginia City, the seat of government and commerce, and for a while one 

of Nevada’s largest cities. In addition to offices, stores and homes, though, Virginia City 

was becoming an industrial city. Ore had to be processed and treated before it became 

gold and silver bullion. Two basic processes existed: smelting in which the impurities 

were cooked away and amalgamation in which mercury was combined with the ore to 

drawn out the metals. Bartolomé de Medina had invented amalgamation in Mexico in the 

middle of the sixteenth century. The composition of New World ores including those 

found in Nevada made amalgamation the preferred refining method. By the nineteenth 

century the mill or refinery had evolved from a simple operation that had the appearance 

of an outdoor patio to a mechanized process inside what was a factory. As the boom 

unfolded along the Comstock companies spent millions in building ever-larger mills to 

process what was thought to be a never-ending supply of ore. Some contained the latest 

technology imported from European mining centers. Mills were scattered throughout the 

county and in the adjoining counties. But within the boundaries of the city itself some of 

the largest and most mechanized would be built. The ore had to ground and treated before 

being combined with the mercury and other chemicals. After being “amalgamated” for a 

period of time the mercury had to be evaporated (cooked off), the metals fashioned into 

ingots and prepared for shipment to the mint. Photographs from the last quarter of the 

nineteenth century reveal a city in the mountain desert with a fashionable opera house, 

grand mansions and huge mills. Like an Escher print the structure has a flow from the 

harshness and severity of the underground natural world to the triumph of progress and 

order above ground. 

While mining was the engine that drove the local economy, commerce, finance 

and transportation were fuel lines that feed the engine. The Comstock was virtually 

inaccessible until roads and then a railroad were constructed. Almost everything had to be 

imported: timber for the mines, water for the mills, food for the citizens, finery to dress 

the opera-goers and capital to find and process the ores. Mining centers throughout Latin 

American had a similar hustle and bustle arising from a less than permanent foundation. 

Story County, as more than one public official had reported, had nothing to recommend it 

for settlement, not even a supply of water except for the Truckee River on its northern 

edge. One could have said the same thing about Potosí in Bolivia and Zacatecas in 

Mexico. Location made travel and transportation to and from the Comstock unpredictable 

until the Geiger Road was finished and perhaps more importantly the Virginia & Truckee 

Railroad. With nothing being produced locally everything to maintain the life and 

business of the city and county had to be imported. Even the water was piped in from 

higher ranges around Lake Tahoe. The completion of V&T Railroad, known as the 

“crookedest railway in the United States”, that first connected Virginia City with Carson 

City and later with Reno was hailed as both a technological triumph and an economic 

necessity. Although it cost about $100,000 a mile to build, financed largely by Story and 

Lyon County bonds and mining company contributions, V&TRR soon justified its cost at 

least with respect to local commerce. The tracks apparently on some days handled 

between 30 and 40 trips per day, but that seems high for an everyday occurrence given 

the technology. Certainly the route was well used. Trains might carry as much as 1,000 

tons of ore from the Comstock to the mills and mints and as much as 5,000 cords of wood


12 

to the city. The trains also featured luxury accommodations for travelers and visitors, 

such as President Ulysses S Grant in 1878. 18 Some nearby counties lacked huge ore 

deposits and the instant wealth that they engendered, but if they had land that could be 

farmed or other natural resources such as forests that could be harvested they too could 

participate in the Comstock boom. 

The decade of the 1860s chalked up some major discoveries, but none of these 

had the makings of a true bonanza. Close to $90 million worth of ore had been pulled out 

of the Comstock with the mines on the center of the Comstock – Chollar Potosi, Savage 

and Gould & Curry – having produced about half of the total. Some sections of the Lode 

had high-yielding ores, say $30 per ton and above, but much of what had been assayed 

was of moderate or poor quality. Although mining officials and stock speculators 

continued to portray the Comstock in the most positive terms – that rich ore bodies were 

within reach – the decade was one of many unfulfilled promises. Extraction costs were on 

the rise, and reduction costs even with more efficient mills remained high. The great 

blank underground spaces were hardly encouraging. (And companies’ extravagances plus 

speculators’ manipulations only further clouded the financial viability of Comstock 

mining.) The Comstock could become a footnote rather than a headline in Western 

mining history. 

A major discovery on the Lode’s southern end kept the Comstock in the 

headlines. It was in Gold Hill where the early placer miners had been so active. As 

prospectors had tramped around Gold Cañon, north of Silver City, they had recognized 

the possibility that a “yellow hill” about “60 feet in height and nearly 500 feet long” in 

the upper Gold Cañon might be worth investigating. The “yellow hill” was not lost on 

James Finney, a long-time prospector who despite his bluster was as skilled a placer 

miner as anyone. In January 1859, Finney and his friends began to prospect on the hill, 

and they found gold worth about 15 cents a pan, “a fair prospect”. They made placer 

claims of 50 feet long and 400 feet across, and they named the area Gold Hill. Days later 

another group including Henry Comstock laid claim to adjoining land. In the spring after 

the snow had receded the placer miners had discovered a quartz vein about 10 feet below 

the surface. This can be treated as the “official” discovery of the Comstock Lode, 

although writers over the years have offered variations on the theme of who discovered 

“what and where”. This quartz discovery on the Comstock’s lower end in contrast to the 

quartz discovery on the upper end in June, discussed earlier, was that the Gold Hill 

discovery remained a placer claim. In any event these discoveries by placer miners that 

yielded about $20 per day were soon overshadowed by events on the Comstock’s upper 

end. 19 As we enter the Comstock’s second decade the action will return to the southern 

end with the bonanzas at Belcher and Crown Point, two neighboring mines. 

18 


Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session (1875), 80. 

19 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 2-5, 13-14. As is well known, Finney’s nickname “Old Virginny” for his 

home state of Virginia, became the basis for the place names of Virginia Hills and Virginia City, and 

Comstock, who apparently spent a lot of time riding a bedraggled mule around the countryside, will lend 

his name to the lode for reasons that were barely connected to mining at all. Regardless of how names got 

attached, Comstock mining to be understood got its start on the southern end of the lode in Gold Hill.


13 

The southern end had not been devoid of activity in the 1860s. The Imperial mine 

had opened on a Gold Hill quartz claim in 1859, and for a few years it produced about 

$2.5 to $3.0 million dollars. In the early 1860s small to moderate ore bodies, more or less 

above 500 feet, had been exploited at Belcher, Crown Point, Kentuck, Yellow Jacket and 

one or two other properties. Belcher’s operations began in 1863 and Crown Point’s in 

1864, and as operating mines they would continue with a few interruptions until 1884 

(and beyond). But it was the discovery of a large and rich ore body, shared by the two 

claims, from the 1,000- to the 1,500-foot levels in 1870 that saved the Comstock from a 

premature death. Up to 1870 Belcher had worked a small vein of ore several hundred feet 

below the surface and worth about $2 million, while Crown Point had worked two 

different bodies (which it shared with Yellow Jacket on the north) worth about $4 

million. Over the life of these two mines from the mid-1860s to the mid-1880s we can 

estimate the total tonnage from Belcher was in excess of 800,000 tons worth about $35 

million and from Crown Point over 900,000 worth about $29. 20 The yields per ton were 

calculated at $44 per ton for Belcher and $32 per ton for Crown Point. If we look at the 

most productive years – 1871-1875 – Belcher’s per-ton yield was $55 on 547,000 tons 

worth $30 million and Crown Point’s per-ton yield was $39 on 638,000 tons worth $25 

million. Prior to 1871 Belcher was regarded as virtually worthless having produced very 

little profitable ore. Crown Point in contract had shown more promise yielding up several 

million dollars in bullion. After 1875, while both continued to register bullion through 

1884, Belcher’s yield per ton fell to $22 on slightly more than a total of 200,000 tons and 

Crown Point’s yield dropped more sharply to $14 on similar tonnage. 

At the aforementioned per-ton yields Belcher and Crown Point made money for 

their stockholders. From 1870 and 1878 Belcher paid out $14.9 million or 47 percent in 

dividends and Crown Point $5.3 million or 20 percent. As the dividends suggest Belcher 

was a far more productive mine than Crown Point. For the four best years Belcher’s ore 

had a string of extraordinarily high yields: 1871 with $65 per ton; 1872 with $58; 1873 

with $70; and 1874 with $55. In 1875 the boom was done as per ton years fell $27 where 

it would languished for another decade. Crown Point had more tons but less valuable 

ores, although dividend payments were still substantial: 1871 with $32 per ton; 1872 with 

$41; 1873 with $59; and 1874 with $40. In 1875 the yield dropped to $20 per ton, but 

then had a brief recovery to $55 per ton on one-third of the volume of the previous halfdecade. 

But the downward spiral resumed in 1877, and by 1884 yields settled in at about 

$12 per ton 21 . 

20 

My total estimates will differ somewhat from others quoted in various published works because I have 

used different sources and have chosen a longer time period. My sources for 1871 through 1884 are from 

the Story County Assessment Records. From 1876 through 1884 on microfilm in The County Records 

Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story County, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno. For 

1871 through 1875 I have relied on the Mineralogist’s Reports found in the Appendices to Journals of 

Senate and Assembly for Legislative Sessions 6 (1873), 7 (1875) & 8 (1877). For the years prior to 1871 I 

have used data found in Grant Smith’s Notebooks, NC229, Binder 1, Special Collections, Library, 

University of Nevada at Reno. Smith estimates from 1859-1882 are Belcher 738,000 tons worth $34 

million ($46 per ton) and Crown Point 843,000 tons worth $30 million ($35 per ton). Smith, The Comstock 

Lode, 310-311. I have discussed these sources in previous chapters. 

21 

These yields were computed from the Mineralogist’s Reports cited above.


14 

FIGURE 3 

CHALLENGE, CONFIDENCE, EMPIRE-IMPERIAL MINING OPERATIONS 

[GOLD HILL, BARREN AFTER 1,000' (SURVEYOR'S POINT)] 

As discussed in the previous chapter the per-ton-yield figures were only half of 

the equation. The other half was per-ton costs, which in many cases equaled or exceeded 

yields. Cost data are harder to verify, and yet for some companies such as Belcher and 

Crown Point several different sources can be compared to try to arrive at a reasonably 

sound estimate. Since both companies paid handsome dividends – a total of nearly $24 

million on output worth about $58 million – they realized surpluses (receipts greater than 

expenses) at least during their bonanza years. What can be said as a general observation – 

and not particularly original – is that costs relative to receipts were high at the beginning 

of the bonanza in the early 1870s, fell sharply during the middle years when both mines 

came into their own, and then rose again during the late 1870s and early 1880s (and in 

fact during some years surpassed receipts). From the third quarter 1875 through the 

fourth quarter 1884 (without any interruption) Belcher costs were only $1.83 per ton less 

than its receipts and Crown Point costs were $1.41 per ton more than receipts. Since their 

bonanzas came to an end in late 1875 or early 1776, these figures do not represent the 

highly profitable years during the first half of the 1870s. Five surviving quarterly 

Abstract Statements, submitted by Story County to the State Controller, indicate how 

successful these mines wee from 1871 to 1875. At Belcher after a losing first quarter 

1871, per-ton yields rose and per-ton costs fell in each of the remaining four quarters. 

The best of these five quarters was the first quarter 1874 when yields reached $65 per ton 

and costs came in at $22 per on, a difference of $43 per ton. In the same five quarters 

Crown Point’s performance was less impressive, in particular during the first quarter 

1874 when it actually posted a $2 loss per ton, but still undeniably strong. Its best quarter 

was the first quarter 1872 when it achieved $54 per ton in receipts versus $24 per ton in


15 

expenses for a difference of $30 per ton. Crown Point’s costs remained in the mid 

twenties, but its yields declined into the mid thirties so that in terms of the ratio between 

receipts and costs Crown Point was less valuable than Belcher. A comparison of financial 

statement for slightly different period – the calendar year 1873 and the fiscal year June 

1873-May 1874 – reveal mining and milling costs that did not differ significantly. 

Belcher removed 155,000 tons that cost $8.51 per ton to mine and $12.10 to mill 

compared to Crown Point that removed 140,000 at $9.24 per ton to mine $11.85 to mill. 

The difference between the two operations lay in what they mined and milled. Belcher 

produced more gold – 53 percent of the total bullion – than Crown Point – 42 percent. 

The average yield of an ounce of gold and silver bullion was $2.57 at Belcher and $2.17 

at Crown Point. Comstock gold was generally less fine than gold from other region like 

California and its silver was purer. Any mine that could produce more gold than silver 

gained an advantage in terms of yields, costs and profits. 22 

The ore bodies that Belcher and Crown Point shared and developed on the Lode’s 

southern end were in Smith’s mind “ideal”. They existed between 1,000 and 1,500 feet 

underground (between 1,450-foot and 1,950-foot levels). The length of the vein (across 

both properties) was nearly 800 feet, and at its widest the vein was 120 feet. Smith 

described the lay of the ore body between 1,200 and 1,300 feet “like a fish with two flat 

tails, one branch continuing down the footwall, the other descending at a slighter dip.” By 

and large the ore was easily accessible, and lacking other base metals it was highly 

uniform in value. It took four years to extract the ore in this vein. At the outset of the 

bonanzas, as was true so frequently on the Comstock, hopes flew high. Crown Point’s 

Superintendent, S. L. Jones, wrote in his (May) 1874 report after three years in which 

nearly $20 million worth of bullion had been hoisted “in my judgment, there is more ore 

in sight in the mine today than there was at the time [May 1873] of the last annual 

report.” Along side of the justifiable optimism – these were indeed very rich mines – was 

a sober note from Rossiter Raymond, a respected mining engineer who, as quoted by 

Smith, wrote in 1873: “Whoever believes that these mines have now at last entered upon 

solid and continuous body, extending indefinitely in depth, and precluding for the future 

the necessity of explorations, will find himself mistaken.” as the companies sunk deeper 

shafts, their costs rose, their assessments increased and their profits vanished. Those 

underground cavities where the stopes were the thickest grew so large as the ores were 

being extracted that millions of feet of timber had to be installed to prevent interior 

collapse. After labor the highest 1873-1874 expense in both mines was the purchase of 

timber – almost a half million dollars for the two mines combined. By 1875 bullion yields 

had fallen by more than 50 percent, and more threatening was the evaporation of the 

margins (that is, gross profits) between receipts and costs. No ore was found below 1,600 

feet even though their shafts had reached the equivalent of 3,000 feet. 23 

22 


Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session (1875). Crown Point’s accounts appear on pp. 106-112 and Belcher’s on 

pp.114-118. 

23 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 137-138. These depths measured from Gould & Curry were approximately 

from the 1,450-foot level to the 1,950-foot level. Smith reproduced a map with the fish tail from Becker, 

“Longitudinal Vertical Projection of the Comstock Lode…,” Atlas, Sheet VII, in which the depth were 

given in both feet from the surface and feet as measured from Gould & Curry. Raymond’s quotes by Smith 

was from his 1873 “U. S. Mines and Mining Report”, no page given. Smith also reproduced a composite (p.


16 

The bonanza at Belcher and Crown Point came after one of the “darkest” years in 

the history of the Comstock. 24 In 1870 all the mines were in trouble. At the 500-foot level 

ores had given out along the Comstock, and although several mines had reached the 

1,000-foot level the prospects were not encouraging. From 1865 to 1870 Belcher had 

produced about 0.5 percent of the Comstock ore whereas Crown Point had produced 

between 8 and 9 percent and ranked sixth behind Savage, Yellow Jacket, Chollar Potosi, 

Kentuck and Hale & Norcross. Gould & Curry, the previous high flyer, witnessed the 

disappearance of the vein at the 500-foot level as the east and west walls permanently 

pinched together. Similarly at the 1,000-foot level Yellow Jacket, Hale & Norcross and 

Savage experienced the same pinching effect with the result that had less profitable ores 

and more underground flooding. And on top of these developments came the fire of 1869 

on the southern end of the Comstock Lode that closed down part or all of the operations 

from Crown Point through Kentuck into Yellow Jacket. From 1865 to 1869 these three 

mines had produced more than a third of the ore on the Comstock. By 1869 all three of 

these mines plus a flooded Belcher to the south of Crown Point had come under the 

control of the flamboyant entrepreneur and politician, William Sharon and his associates. 

The loss of their best mines brought their Comstock Empire (which included mines, 

mills, a bank and a railroad) to the verge of collapse. In late 1870 Crown Point’s 

superintendent, J. P. Jones, an Englishman who was both politician and miner with a 

penchant for risk-taking (no one “better fitted to lead a forlorn hope”, wrote Lord) 

entered promising ground about 200 feet from the Belcher line, and because the seam lay 

against the angled footwall Jones assumed that it would extend south and eventually 

cross the boundary into Belcher property. Since Sharon et al. had controlling but not 

majority interest in these mines, Jones and Alvinza Hayward, one of Sharon’s business 

associates, began to buy up Crown Point stock. They eventually won control of Crown 

Point, much to the surprise and chagrin of Sharon. In response to their betrayal and to 

forestall any further losses Sharon began to accumulate Belcher stock that he did not 

already own. The two parties finally agreed to end the warfare and to reach a settlement. 

Sharon sold all his Crown Point stock to Jones and Hayward, and they in turn sold all of 

their Belcher stock to Sharon. The transaction, it was said, involved millions of dollars. It 

turned out to be a high-priced paper transfer that benefited both sides. 25 

In the decade before the bonanza at Belcher and Crown Point, the latter mine had 

enjoyed greater success than the former. Crown Point had produced ore that had a value 

10 times greater than its total assessments and had paid some dividends. Belcher, on the 

other hand, had assessment that were 2.5 times greater than its production and paid no 

dividends. When the Crown Point superintendent, T. G. Taylor, issued his report in May 

1868, he acknowledged that the fiscal year (June 1867-May 1868) was one of 

uncertainty. To begin with, a “body of ore” at the 500-foot level (about 100 feet 

underground) gave out unexpectedly after an initial success. In the normal procedure of 

working up and down from the main tunnel carved out at 500 feet, the workers had 

276) of several longitudinal vertical projections (Sheets X-XII) from Becker, Atlas. 

24 


25 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 122-123, 126-131. Some of the data were found in Smith’s Notebooks, 

NC229, Binder 1, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. Quotes from Lord’s 

Comstock Mining and Miners will be found in pp. 280-282.


17 

followed the vein up 76 feet and down 33 feet only to terminate in worthless porphyry. 

About 6,730 tons of ore worth more than $220,000 had been removed. This part of the 

vein was thought to be richer, and that expectation had been noted enthusiastically in the 

previous report. Not all was lost, however. At the 600-foot level over 100 feet from the 

shaft in an eastward direction workers found dry quartz and a new ore deposit. It was as 

narrow as three inches and as wide as 14 feet, and it had been pursued to the 700-foot 

level and slightly beyond. Already 7,000 tons of ores had been extracted, worth between 

$225,000 and $250,000. Following that discovery another ore body was found at 700 

feet, about 200 feet from the shaft, once again in an eastward direction. The seam was 

worked up to the 600-foot level with varying widths of two feet to 19 feet before it 

ceased. It was at the time of the report being followed down to 800 feet where more work 

remained to be done before its full value could be ascertained. Between the 600-foot and 

800-foot levels workers ran into additional seams that measured about four feet wide. The 

disappointments at 500 feet were soon compensated for at the deeper levels. This report 

captured how quixotic the business of mining was. Ground that looked promising could 

become a dead-end, and ground that appeared to have limited prospects could lead to 

good deposits. Some of the ore between the 600-foot and 800-foot levels had 

extraordinary in-mine assays of $296 per ton, but the average yield was only about $33 

per ton, higher than the average for the Comstock but nowhere near any record. Crown 

Point ore worth $866,000 had been reduced at several mills during the fiscal year noted 

above. The calendar-year figures for 1867 and 1868 respectively will differ from the 

fiscal-year figures. They show that Crown Point produced nearly $1 million worth of ore 

in 1867 and over $1 million the next year. More telling perhaps was the fact that its 

stockholders were assessed $150,000 but earned dividends of $625,000. The excavations 

at the 800-foot and then at the 900-foot levels continued to yield good ores into 1869 

when, as discussed earlier, the fire of April 1869 closed down Yellow Jacket, Kentuck 

and Crown Point. In 1869 Crown Point produced $106,000 worth of ore but also assessed 

its stockholders $150,000. Needless to say its dividends ceased. 26 At this point no one 

could have anticipated that Crown Point’s future was to glow even more brightly. 

The big strike came on November 1870 at the 1,100 feet below ground (about 

1,450-foot level). The Mineralogist portrayed it as “the largest body of pay ore ever 

found in the Comstock lode….” In comparison to earlier discoveries it was indeed huge. 

It lay about 375 to 400 feet north of the southern boundary with Belcher, extended from 

the 900 feet to 1,300 feet, and reached widths of 125 feet. The value per ton was about 

$45, about double the per-ton average for all companies across the whole period 1865- 

1885. The Mineralogist was mildly disturbed that the superintendents of both Crown 

Point and Belcher had not yet filed any reports, and therefore further details were 

scarce. 27 Several months after the Mineralogist had presented his report (and his 

criticism) to the Legislature Crown Point’s superintendent, J. P Jones, prepared a report 

for company stockholders. He acknowledged that he had not submitted any reports since 

26 


Legislative Session (1869), 24-25. See also production data in Smith’s Notebooks, NC229, Binder 1, 


27 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist...1871 and 1872” in Appendix to Journal of Senate, 6 th 

Legislative Session (1873),3 132.


18 

1 May 1870 in large part because “Crown Point was yielding nothing”. He reminded the 

stockholders that the prospects were bleak: 

There was no ore in sight of sufficient high grade to pay the 

cost of extraction and reduction. Nor was there any where 

in the mine any indication of a coming ore-body. The 

Company’s mill was leased at a very moderate monthly 

rental of $1,000. The future prospects of the Company 

never looked as unpromising. 

The fire had ruined most of the underground works to the north of the main shaft, but it 

did not stop operations to repair and extend the shaft and to explore ground to the east 

and south of the shaft. This had resulted in the aforementioned discovery at the 1,100- 

foot level. A drift following quartz seams had been cut for a long distance of 800 feet due 

east. The seams, however, were barren and ended up in porphyry. It was decided then to 

drive a new tunnel to the south at a point in the drift that was 360 feet from the shaft and 

101 feet from the northern boundary. At about 240 feet a clay wall, running diagonally 

northeast by southwest, was pierced. At this juncture as the drift was turned eastward, it 

passed through some “soft whitish quartz, containing occasional spots of ore” and then 

for the next 10 feet through porphyry that was “somewhat decomposed and resembling 

soapstone in appearance”. 28 This was in fact the west wall of an ore body that “consisted 

of boulders encased in cement”, had a width of 1 foot and a yield of $40 per ton, wrote 

Jones. Following the vein in a southeastward direction for about 38 feet, it grew in width 

to 14 feet, 20 feet and finally to 84 feet. The drift was driven to the southern boundary 

where it entered the property of Belcher. Crown Point’s had a future after all. 29 

As was often the case the ore body resided across several levels in a wedge shape. 

Jones explained in considerable detail the work at each level and the quality of the ore. 

He then summarized these details: 

the vein at 900 feet [from surface] or the “upper edge or apex” was 80 feet in 

length with an average width of 9 feet and a value of $28 per ton; 

at 1,000 feet it was 300 feet in length and on average 45 feet wide with a per-ton 

yield of $32; 

at 1,100 feet its length was 255 feet and its average width 58 feet and a yield of 

$38 per ton; 

at 1,200 feet it ran for 310 feet and averaged a width of 70 feet and yield $45 per 

ton; 

28 

Some of these phrases in an altered form appear in Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 282. 

29 

Typescript, “Crown Point Bonanza (Report of the Superintendent J. P. Jones, May 1 st , 1873, on the 

operation of the three years preceding)”, NC85/2, 1. A copy of the original document was typed at a later, 

unspecified date and deposited in the Crown Point company archives. It was more detailed than what 

appeared in Smith, Lord and other commentators. This was the report that preceded the annual report which 

the Mineralogist quoted from in his 1875 Legislative Report: “Biennial Report of the State 

Mineralogist...1873 and 1874” Appendix to Journals of Senate and Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session 

(1875), 103-112.


19 

finally at 1,300, the best level thus far, the length was 360 feet, the average width 

90 feet and the per-ton yield $75. 

As it dropped from level to level it grew in length and breadth, and that meant of course 

exceedingly favorable extraction costs. Jones estimated that at 1,300 feet more than $4 

million worth of bullion had been extracted and another $10 million may be awaiting 

extraction. 30 It was hoped and perhaps assumed that this great wedge would continue 

downward indefinitely. It did not. It ended between 1,500 and 1,600 feet. There were 

further explorations and investments but no evidence that future discoveries could be 

expected. The ground itself lacked what miners had come to regard as potential signs of 

yet-to-be-discovered deposits. 31 

Because of Crown Point’s discovery in 1870 the focus of attention for 

explorations became the 1,500-foot level all across the Comstock. Only a handful of 

explorations proved profitable and most ventures lost money, but for better or for worse 

the search helped to revive the sagging local mining economy. Crown Point was 

obviously a beneficiary, and for four year it made money. By Comstock standards that 

was a reasonably lengthy bonanza. But despite great profitability it was not exempt from 

the limitations in the vicinity of the 2,000-foot level that characterized this cycle of 

bonanzas in the 1870s. In 1875 costs jumped to nearly twice its revenues, and while 

Crown Point remained active until 1885 (and beyond), it operated in the red for most of 

the second decade. What Crown Point found at 1,100 feet (1,450-foot level) was an 

“immense chimney”, the phrase that Jones used in his 1873 report. Jones explained in the 

report how the chimney was exploited in the first two years. Only one-seventh of the ore 

had been removed from 900 to 1000 feet with the remainder being held in reserve in case 

revenue was needed to deal with cave-ins or other disruptions deeper in the mine. Fourfifth 

of the ore had been removed between 1,000 and 1,100 feet, and three-fourth between 

1,100 and 1,200 feet. Only one-fourth had been extracted from area between 1,200 and 

1,300 (to May 1873). Jones said some ore existed above 900 feet, although the wedge 

was at its narrowest at the top. With ground below 1,300 remaining to be mined Jones 

speculated what might be found. Since this wedge was actually made up of several 

chimneys separated mainly by walls of porphyry or clay, Jones speculated the chimneys 

would eventually unite into a single ore body of great depth and width and of course of 

great richness. It did eventually unite, not, as Jones had hoped, to launch a new, grand 

bonanza but to signal the termination of the vein. 32 

In the final pages of his 1873 report Jones added more details about the impact of 

discovery and exploitation of the chimneys. He described the post-fire operation as 

prospecting, and when the discovery was made in 1870, the company had to make a 

30 

See footnote above, pp. 5-6. 

31 

I believe that the depths given in the foregoing summary from the Superintendent’s Report are measured 

from the surface and not from the Gould & Curry Point A. I have compared them to data in Becker, 

“Longitudinal Vertical Projection of the Comstock Lode…,” Atlas, Sheets 7 & 11, and they fit more 

convincingly with calculations from the surface than from Gould & Curry Point A. I am not absolutely 

certain about this interpretation, and unfortunately the reports by the Superintendent and the Mineralogist 

were not helpful. 

32 

See footnote 29, above, pp. 6-7.


20 

substantial investment to mine the body. Crown Point’s shaft was small, and the hoisting 

and ventilating systems were inadequate. The shaft was enlarged down to 1,100 feet, and 

three hoisting cages were installed in the shaft. Swelling of the ground around the shaft 

caused the timbering to push inward. Removing two more feet of soil around the shaft 

eliminated that problem. Most of the shaft was retimbered. Not only were the engines for 

the hoisting cages new but also all the underground equipment – drills, compressors, 

pumps, fans – was new. Only then did a prospecting mine become an operating mine. 33 

A year later, 1874, a new superintendent S. L. [instead of J. P.] Jones made a 

much longer report, part of which was reproduced (verbatim) in the Mineralogist’s 1875 

Legislative Report. It included not only descriptive material but also accounts on 

revenues, costs and profits. Based on Jones’s details the mineralogist concluded that 

Crown Point had been “worked with skill and economy, and no management of a mine in 

this district has ever given better satisfaction to the stockholders.” And reading Jones’s 

report can clearly leave that impression. It is filled with references to new buildings, 

bigger machines and perceived efficiencies. In general he referred to the year (May 1873 

to May 1874) as one of considerable “dead works”, which in mining parlance meant 

maintenance and repair. Several thousand feet of new timbering had been installed in the 

main shaft, the loading and unloading compartments at each level and in the tunnels 

themselves. Several thousand feet more of new drifts, raises, winzes and crosscuts had 

been dug. A large and much improved carpenter and machine shop had been constructed 

at the top of the shaft. The water supply, mainly for fire prevention, had been improved. 

Jones was especially proud of the new hoisting facilities, which would soon be ready to 

operate. After describing such things as the number of anchor bolts (two to two and onequarter 

inches) and the size and strength of the hoisting reel, he compared the old and 

new hoisting capabilities. Under the current system the car and the rope combined 

weighed 11,000 pounds. To hoist 500 tons of ore per day, a goal of the company, 250 

trips with two tons of ore per trip would be required. Under the new system with a bigger 

car and stronger rope with a combined weight of 18,000 pounds 500 tons could be 

hoisted in 42 trips at 12 tons per trip. Fewer trips, it was anticipated, meant savings of 

tens of thousands of dollars per year. The cost of the new machinery plus freight and 

installation was estimated to be $50,000. Jones concluded that within several years the 

new machinery would pay for itself based on predicted savings. But in fact during the 

year fewer than 400 tons on average were lifted each day, and the number 500 appeared 

to be an unrealizable goal. The assumed savings to pay off the capital improvements and 

to enhance the bottom line did not materialize to the degree predicted by Jones. 34 

Even though some goals were not realized by the end of the fiscal year, 

production and revenue figures between May 1873 and May 1873 bore out Jones’s 

upbeat assessment. Crown Point clearly made a handsome profit. His figures showed that 

on 140,000 tons of ore the company realized a yield of $7.1 to 7.4 million or about $52 

per ton. [Numbers in report do not always agree so I have used approximations.] Because 

the company carried over a cash balance of $1.9 million on 1 May 1873 and had other 

33 

See footnote 29, above, pp. 7-8. 

34 


Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session (1875), 103-105.


21 

receipts from 1873 to 1874, total revenues equaled $9.3 million. Based strictly on the 

value of the bullion extraction costs of $1.5 million including extensions, repairs, 

operations plus new machinery (which probably should have been amortized) and 

reduction costs of $1.6 million including expenses and repairs at its own mill, Rhode 

Island, and contracts with 10 other mills the total was about $3.1 million or $21 per ton. 

The “gross operating” profits were about $4.0 to 4.3 million or about $30 per ton. The 

company reported another $400,000 in administrative, legal, assay and freight charges so 

that profits were reduced to between $3.5 and 4.0 million. The company paid dividends 

of $5.3, an amount greater than the surplus for the year. The cash on hand made up the 

difference. Thus at the end of 1873-1874 fiscal year Crown Point still had on hand a half 

million dollars. 35 

On the basis of mining operations in 1873-1874 it was not hard to be optimistic 

and generous about the future. The hopes, however, would be dashed. The wedge or 

chimney that seemed unending quit at the 2,000-foot level or about 1,600 to 1,700 feet 

underground. To keep the company going for the next few years assessments had to be 

re-instituted, but an ore body that might have justified the expense was never found. In 

August 1875 a letter from Jones to the President of Crown Point, J. D. Fry, revealed how 

quickly the prospects had deteriorated. At 1,700 feet after pushing the drift 160 feet east 

it was still in hard rock with temperatures reaching 120 degrees. Workers were being 

furloughed and expenses cut because the ore grades were so low - from $4 to 10 per ton – 

that the value of the bullion did not cover the costs. Even though the wedge had given out 

in early 1876 Jones and his engineers remained preoccupied with trying to figure out 

where it might reappear. They had driven as deep as 2,000 feet. Three drifts – north, 

south and east – were being dug in hopes of intercepting a continuation of the wedge 

from above or of finding a new vein. Actually quartz was found at 2,000 feet, but it was 

even lower in grade, $2 to 4 per ton, than what was found at 1,700 feet. The new problem 

was water, extremely hot water. Behind the porphyry were not deposits of ore, as was 

often the case, but pools of water. The main pumps did not extend beyond 1,700 feet, and 

special pumps had to be installed at 2,000 feet to remove the water to 1,700 feet before 

the main pumps could be activated. And the temperature of the water adversely affected 

the interior ambiance throughout the mine. A year later in 1877 the water problem had 

been solved by making a connection with Belcher, but while the tunnels were dry, the 

rock was hard and more importantly the ore was absent! Not even enough ore was being 

produced to keep the mill (Rhode Island) running, and it had been leased for $1,500 a 

month to Mackay and Fair’s Pacific Mill and Mining Company. And the Story County 

commissioners were contemplating a lien on the company’s property in lieu of unpaid 

taxes, although the taxes were eventually paid. This was not the end of mining at Crown 

Point. It continued to register ores until 1885 but in amounts that were a fraction of its 

earlier success. It certainly ceased making money and paying dividends. 36 

35 


Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session (1875), 106-112. 

36 

Crown Point Gold and Silver Mining Company Letterpress Book, Feb 1875-Jul 1877, NC85/3, Special 

Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. Information cited from following: Letter from S. L. 

Jones, Supt., to J. D. Fry, Pres., 20 Aug 1875, recto 68 (page in Letterpress); Letter from S. L. Jones, Supt., 

to C. E. Eliot, Sec., 8 April 1876, recto 137, verso 139; Letters from W. P. Holmes to F. B. Taylor & Co, 19 

July 1877, recto 294 and S. L. Jones, Supt., to Col. P. L. Weller or Miller, Pres., 19 July 1877, recto 274-


22 

The Belcher Mine on Crown Point’s southern boundary shared the ore bodies 

described above. Indeed in 1873 the Crown Point directors agreed to accept a payment of 

$275,000 from Belcher because the latter had crossed the boundary and extracted ore 

from Crown Point’s side. The agreement called for a payment of $137,500 in gold and a 

note for the remainder payable in 60 days at a rather usurious rate of 1 percent per month. 

The Crown Point accounts showed the receipt of $2,750 in interest from Belcher, the 

amount equal to two months at 1 percent per month. Apparently the boundary was clearly 

enough marked to avoid future disputes. And in the course of the next few years Belcher 

would in fact out-produce Crown Point. Already noted was how control of Crown Point 

passed from Sharon to Jones and Hayward and control of Belcher from Hayward to 

Sharon. In the end Sharon, as the principal owner of Belcher, would realize a somewhat 

larger fortune than Haywood, the principal owner of Crown Point. It was almost 

axiomatic in mining societies that fortunes were made to be lost. They were lost because 

owners did not know when to abandon unproductive works and because they could also 

spend endless hours speculating in stocks. Serious investors who seldom speculated made 

and lost fortunes; and serious speculators who could be serious investors also made and 

lost fortunes. Buying up cheap mining stocks even if done with speculation in mind could 

actually have positive results if the purchasers made some effort to recover the mines. In 

short the role of speculation in mining (like speculation in “dot.coms”) did not 

necessarily spell disaster for the business of mining. In the case of Crown Point and, as 

we shall see, in Belcher and other mines what happened at the site away from the stock 

markets was the more important consideration. 37 

Because they shared an ore body the work in Belcher to find and exploit the ore 

will not be so different from what we have described in Crown Point. In the 1860s 

Belcher’s output could not even pay for its assessments. Belcher barely figured in the 

Mineralogist’s Reports before 1871. At the 1,000 feet (1,400-foot level according to 

Gould & Curry) after the strike in Crown Point a vein about 400 feet long and 100 feet 

wide was found in Belcher. Its full depth was not yet known, but it was thought to be 

several hundred feet. In early 1871 Belcher’s main works were at 100 to 200 feet 

underground (400-foot level) in an ore body probably discovered in the early 1860s. 

275 [folios not numbered correctly, pages also torn out]. The distances discussed in these letters appears to 

be feet from the surface rather than feet from Gould & Curry Point A. Such an interpretation would 

coincide with figures shown in Becker, “Longitudinal Vertical Projection of the Comstock Lode…,” Atlas, 

Sheets VII & IX. A comment about Letterpresses. Scores of Letterpress Books for mining companies 

survive in varying conditions. Instructions for copying a single-sheet letter or as many as 10 to 20 single 

sheets were given on the fly page of the letterpress book. La Belle Copying Book and Ink was one 

company that sold these copying devices. Basically after the letter was written and allowed to dry for a few 

minutes, it was placed on a heavy “pasteboard” written-side up. A leaf of the copying paper was placed 

over the ink-written letter (La Belle also provided the ink) and then rubbed “rather hard with the ends of 

your fingers on the copying paper.” Apparently the ink for the original “seeped” through the copying paper 

to create a copy of the original. The letterpress books sold by Le Belle had from 300 to 1,000 pages. By 

using a Copying Press provided by the vendor more than one letter could be copied at a time. Most of the 

letterpress books in Special Collections were 300 to 500 pages, which cost $2.75 to $4.25 each. A half pint 

of ink was included. 

37 

General discussion of Belcher in Smith, The Comstock Lode, 126-140; negotiations between Belcher and 

Crown Point in Crown Point Gold and Silver Mining Company, Minutes, Special Meeting, San Francisco, 

17 December 1873, NC85/1, Record, 1859-May 1874, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada 

at Reno.


23 

Activity was also underway 700 to 800 feet underground (between 1,100- and 1,200-foot 

levels). Before the discoveries at Crown Point on the northern border the strategy in 

Belcher was to explore in a southern direction. After Crown Point’s discoveries, 

however, the northern side of the Belcher claim looked more promising. At the end of 

January 1871 with the discovery of a 2-foot seam at these deeper levels ore samples 

jumped from $7 to $30 per ton to about $100 per ton. By September 1871 the work along 

the northern border was paying off. At times yields were as high as $75 per ton. This was 

reflected in company accounts that showed that bullion received from the mint and 

expenses to operate the mine had risen from a few thousand dollars per month earlier in 

the year to tens of thousands. The problem at the lower depths was water, although the 

former superintendent, Thomas Bowen, was confident that it could be successfully 

controlled. But the matter was still under debate and had not yet been resolved to 

everyone’s satisfaction. Bowen’s successor, W. P. Smith, believed that without a 

resolution the mine could not operate at an optimal level. A shaft had been dropped 800 

feet but was still several hundred feet above the ore body for purposes of hoisting water. 

Other proposals were to construct a new shaft over the ore body or to construct an incline 

shaft to connect the ore body with the existing shaft. Smith did not believe a suitable 

location for a new shaft had been found. Sharon, who remained the company’s dominant 

force, concluded that an incline shaft could be built more cheaply and quickly than 

cutting a new shaft. An incline shaft was planned from approximately the 700-foot level 

of the current shaft at an angle of 36 0 for 700 feet in order to reach the level of the ore 

body about 1,100 feet underground where a drift of at least 150 feet and perhaps as much 

as 500 feet would be constructed to intercept the ore. Smith estimated that the incline 

shaft could be completed in eight months (May 1872). In addition Smith proposed 

retimbering 400 feet of the existing shaft and purchasing and installing new machinery 

for hoisting the ore along the incline and through the shaft. By the time of the 

Mineralogist’s Report in 1873, the superintendent’s recommendations had been 

implemented and Belcher was becoming the biggest and richest operation on the 

Comstock. The Mineralogist was impressed with the skill of the effort and the “neatness” 

of the operation. He even urged Belcher’s neighbors to “imitate” its model. 38 

Plans for accessing new ore bodies did not always proceed smoothly. By June 

1872 the incline had been driven 418 feet from a point 850 feet underground. New 

machines had to be installed, and that combined with the hardness of the rock slowed 

progress in sinking the incline. The original timetable could not be met. When the work 

reached 1,000 feet underground drifts were started in order to tap into the wall of ore 

(about 1,100 feet underground), and when the wall was penetrated the body of ore was 

said to be 65 to 70 feet in width, and far richer than expected. In addition to rich ore, 

however, the miners found unbearable working conditions. Because of the intensity of 

heat and the poorness of ventilation workers became exhausted after several hours and 

had to be replaced by a new shift. Hiring, training and managing a larger labor pool plus 

38 

Letters from T. W. Bowen, Supt., to W. C. Kibble, Sec, 20 January 1871, recto 4; 24 January 1871, recto 

4; 30 January 1871, recto 13; 19 Mar 1871, recto 66; Letter from T. W. Bowen to J. D. Fry, Pres., 25 Feb 

1871, recto 41 & 42; Letters from W. H. Smith to J. D. Fry, Pres., 7 Sep 1871, rectos 199 & 200 with 

accounts attached; 11 Sep 1871, rectos 201 & 200 in Belcher Silver Mining Company, Gold Hill, Letters, 

NC92, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. “Biennial Report of the State 

Mineralogist...1871 and 1872” in Appendix to Journal of Senate, 6 th Legislative Session (1873), 132.


24 

frequent shift changes affected adversely the efficiency of the operation. And of course in 

order to work the wall of ore that was several hundred feet in depth the incline had to be 

extended and more drifts had to be opened with the attendant problems of heat and 

ventilation. (Shafts were more effective at circulating air than inclines or drifts.) In 

addition draining Belcher turned out to be complicated and cumbersome because the 

water had to be piped through a drift that passed through Crown Point to Yellow Jacket’s 

shaft where it was hoisted to the surface. These were not permanent obstacles; rather they 

slowed progress, cost money and demanded attention. What distinguished the ore body 

residing in Belcher from that residing in Crown Point was the presence of gold. The time 

lost and the expense required, though greater than expected, soon paled in significance as 

ore yields reached historic highs. In 1872, when most of the letters and reports containing 

the foregoing information were written, extraction costs ranged from $17 to $24 per ton 

in three of the four quarters while total costs (including transportation and reduction) per 

ton ranged from $27 to $37 per ton. At the same time given it gold content the ore was so 

rich even with those cost it yielded bullion worth between $50 and $60 per ton. And as 

the obstacles were overcome with new drainage pumps and ventilation shafts the cost of 

extracting the ore declined. In one quarter during its most productive year 1874 

extractions costs were reported to be under $10 per ton as the yield reached $65 per ton. 

These figures suggest that the operation of the mine became more efficient in spite of the 

need to construct and maintain a complex underground system. As the depths grew, 

however, there was some foreboding. The angles of the veins were shifting unexpectedly, 

not in accord with the surveys, and although not yet recognized for what it was it would 

become the beginning of the end. The ore body had a limit, and that limit had been 

reached in 1874. 39 

In his 1875 biennial report (covering the two previous years) the State 

Mineralogist could barely contain his enthusiasm. He believed that Belcher was the most 

productive mine in the history of world, and that it surpassed even Potosí, Spanish 

America’s legendary Andean mine. What impressed him was that Belcher produced 

almost as much as Potosí (in dollar values), but Potosí’s production came from over 

2,000 mines and 32 veins, not from a single mine and ore body. (The comparison was 

somewhat overdrawn because Potosí’s production was more concentrated than these 

numbers suggest.) By 1873 Belcher had built four stations 100 feet apart between 1,000 

and 1,400 feet. They produced a total of 156,000 tons of ore. The station at 1,300 feet 

was the most productive with 38 percent of the total followed by 26 percent from each 

station at 1,000 and 1,200 feet and 10 percent from 1,400 feet. When the Mineralogist 

prepared his report the incline shaft had reached the 1,300 feet and ore from the 1,400 

feet was being removed through a drift connecting with Crown Point and perhaps Yellow 

Jacket. More new equipment was in evidence including a Burleigh air compressor and 

two Burleigh drills. In the mine itself 3,692 lineal feet of drifts and winzes had been 

excavated; 380 feet had been added to the incline; and 4,072 feet of track had been laid 

39 

These points were drawn from handwritten copies of letters sent to company officers and from daily 

progress reports. They were not letterpress copies, although letterpress books exist for the Belcher. Letters 

from W. H. Smith, Supt., to J. D. Fry, Pres., 22 June 1872, p. 35 and 30 June 1872, p. 35, along with notes 

by Smith from daily reports in NC92/1/1, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. 

Quarterly costs from Abstracts Statements in Nevada State Archives. By 1877 extraction costs had risen to 

more than $30 per ton, and the yields in the mid-$20 range could not cover those costs.


25 

and other repairs too numerous to be noted had been finished. Producing ore worth about 

$11 million cost about $4 million. The company paid dividends in the amount of nearly 

$7 million and still had on hand at the end of the fiscal year $1 million in cash. Having 

paid about $1 per share Sharon and his partners realized astronomical returns. 40 

Both Crown Point and Belcher remained active mining sites until 1885. After 

1875 the mines made little or no money, and soon assessments exceeded the value of 

mineral output. The owners achieved some of the greatest depths on the Comstock, at 

least 3,000 vertical feet, without anything to show for it. The wedges that seemed 

unending when first discovered did not continue or reappear at these lower depths. Ore of 

such low grades found that it made more economic or financial sense to leave it in the 

ground than to hoist it. Belcher assay records from 1885 reveal that the value of extracted 

ore occasionally exceeded $20 per ton but generally held around $15 per ton. 41 

Speculation in Belcher stock occurred from time to time, but even the speculators 

eventually knew when enough was enough. The danger signals in what was transpiring at 

both mines in the second half of the 1870s was obscured in part by the even more 

astonishing success of The Firm’s Consolidated Virginia and California mines at the 

other end of the Comstock. 

40 


Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session (1875), 112-118. 

41 

Belcher Silver Mining Company, Record of Assays of Ores Milled, January 1885-Nov 1886, NC92/2, 

Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno.

THE COMSTOCK [I] 

1 

Chapter 9 


Types of Mills, Economics of Milling, Mills Owners & Operations 

Scores of mills were built and rebuilt in Story County and adjacent counties to process 

the 7 to 10 million tons of extracted ores from the Lode between 1865 and 1885. In the 

early 1860s so-called custom or independent millers set up shop on the Comstock. Mine 

owners being preoccupied with establishing their underground operations often lacked 

both the capital to build their own refineries and the skill to operate them. Millers found 

themselves in the envious position of being able to dictate the terms of the contracts even 

though milling capacity soon exceeded demand. Over time, as mining companies became 

better established, they had financial motives to construct their own mills and to bypass 

custom mills. In time milling became an extension of mining operations, and in the 

annual statements of the mining companies the cost of refining ores was treated, like 

costs for extraction, transportation and administration, another cost of doing business. 

The problem for mining companies with their own mills was that they had a shortage of 

milling capacity when their mines entered a highly productive period and conversely they 

had an excess of milling capacity when expansion in output turned to contraction, Both 

could be costly in that inadequate capacity could lead to investment in plant and 

equipment that may not be justified over the long term and idle capacity could lead to 

higher fixed costs and lower returns on capital. Both theoretically could dilute profits and 

threaten dividends. Since mining companies could not predict with certainty how much 

refining capacity that they would need a year or two later they constantly ran the risk of 

having too much or too little milling capacity. One strategy to moderate the risk was for 

mining to create stand-alone milling companies that were not strictly dependent on the 

output of their own mines. Ideally an independent milling company set up by a mining 

company could offer in-house milling services for all the mines that the company owned 

and custom milling for those companies that lacked mills with the hope of smoothing out 

fluctuations in production that even the best mining operations could not avoid. But there 

is a somewhat more nefarious reason was behind these undertakings. The mining 

companies had discovered that by divorcing milling from mining operations they stood to 

profit from both businesses. (Railroads, of course, followed a similar tack in creating 

railroad construction companies separate from the railroads themselves.) Milling 

companies were usually organized as partnerships among the founders or principals or as 

corporations with the founders as the major stockholders and a few other associates or 

friends as minor stockholders. If milling-company stocks traded on the San Francisco 

Exchange they attracted little attention. Even though they could be profitable, they 

depended for their financial success on the state or health of the mining industry and 

more particularly on the mines in which their principals had a role. As stand-alone 

companies they probably had little appeal at the stock traders. Moreover, it is not clear 

that the founders of the milling companies really wanted to share milling profits with an 

investor public or needed an investor class to finance their operations. Despite the 

rationale that independent mills could secure their financial footing by shopping around 

for business from all mining companies, the best performing milling companies were 

associated with highly productive mining operations. When the mines were on the 

upswing, the mills made money, and conversely when the mines in contraction, the mills


2 

were sold or abandoned. In the end milling remained tightly linked to the health or state 

of mining. What the creation of large quasi-independent milling companies succeeded in 

doing was pushing down milling costs without destroying their potential profitability. 

Truly independent mills in the mold of the original custom mills did not disappear but 

were moved to the periphery of the milling business. 

FIGURE 1 

MAP ASSEMBLED BY NEVADA NATURAL RESOURCES DEPARTMENT 

SHOWING MILL SITES IN COMSTOCK REGION 

[PART OF TOXIC CLEANUP PROJECT]


3 

It is useful to present a modest discussion of milling technology, as it had evolved 

by the second half of the nineteenth century, before tackling the financial issues involved 

in milling operations. Spanish colonial miners soon discovered that much of the silver ore 

that they extracted from underground could not be smelted economically. Smelting 

worked best when silver ore contained a base metal like lead. The lead acted as a flux. 

Under high temperatures the lead and silver particles fused, and then again since lead had 

a lower melting point intense heat would be applied to separate the silver and the lead. 

These were often referred to as high-grade silver ores because the natural presence of the 

lead flux made “cooking” the ore economical and efficient and resulted in silver of high 

quality (fineness and purity). The great discoveries at Zacatecas and Potosí contained 

silver ores in combination with other minerals that did not readily lend themselves to 

smelting because of the cost of purchasing flux, firewood or charcoal and other 

ingredients. These less smeltable ores came to predominate, and without a different 

technology for recovering the silver the grand camps of Zacatecas and Potosí would have 

had a much-diminished mining history. As unsmeltable ores piled up around the 

entrances to the mines and near the smelting facilities the search for alternate refining 

techniques became intense. The prize went to Bartolomé de Medina, a Spaniard who was 

working in Mexico. He developed an ore-reduction technology based upon amalgamating 

the ore with mercury or quicksilver rather than smelting it. Although used since ancient 

times amalgamation had few practitioners. In the method that Medina fashioned the ore 

after being pulverized and washed was incorporated with mercury in an open, walled 

space that resembled a patio. In Spanish America Medina’s technology became known as 

the patio process. Over a period of many weeks or several months of stirring the soup 

silver (and gold) amalgamated with the mercury. The amalgamated ingredients were 

removed from the patio and transferred to a small furnace where the heat would 

evaporate the mercury and leave the silver. Over time other minerals were added to the 

mixture to speed up amalgamation along with adaptations to the furnaces to try to capture 

the evaporating mercury, but the basic technology remained unchanged into the nineteen 

century. Spanish colonial miners and millers proved to resistant to major innovations that 

some mining professional recommended in part because of the cost to alter their plant and 

equipment and in part because of the familiarity and predictability with the existing 

techniques. As would be true of refiners on the Comstock and in other Western mining 

camps, some refiners in Spanish America proved to be more skilled than others in 

pulverizing the ores, incorporating the mercury and isolating the silver. It was also true 

that the quality of the mercury mattered (imported Spanish mercury was superior to local 

Andean mercury) as well as the type of ore (Mexican ores tended to be richer than 

Peruvian ores). When western mining established itself, miners and millers embraced 

amalgamation but chafed at the inefficiencies that the Spanish-American system 

entailed. 1 

Since mining was new to Western United State, the opportunity existed for miners 

and millers to innovate. Milling operations were frequently discussed in local newspapers 

and scientific journals, but documents concerning operations seldom show up in company 

1 

Numerous sources could be cited relative to Spanish American mining and milling. A good overview is 

Peter Bakewell,, “Mining in Colonial Spanish America,” in Leslie Bethell, ed., The Cambridge History of 

Latin America, The Colonial Period, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 2: 113-119.


4 

archives. Part of the explanation for the absence of documentary evidence is that, as more 

and more milling operations were spun off into private companies, mining companies 

were under no statutory requirement to report on milling operations except to report what 

they paid for milling their ores. In the early years there was considerable interest in the 

founding and building of the mills because it was less than clear how or where the 

Comstock’s ores would be processed. Once the initial flurry of activity relating to the 

construction of the plant and the design of the equipment ended toward the middle of the 

1860s many decisions about the most efficient methods for reducing the ores had become 

standardized. The Comstock would witness the erection of newer mills or the renovation 

of older mills with ever-increasing capacity into the middle of the 1870s with much less 

debate and experimentation concerning milling techniques because the procedures and 

protocols were fairly well understood. From the earliest days, as noted above, Comstock 

miners knew that their ores could not be efficiently smelted. They turned instead to 

reduction through the patio process, but they were dismayed at the time required to 

complete the operation. The search was for a way to speed up amalgamation of the silver 

and mercury. Eliot Lord correctly observed that colonial Mexican miners had developed 

techniques for shortening the time required to complete the amalgamation that involved 

grinding the ore as finely as possible, adding mercury, salt and water until it became a 

“pasty” mixture called pulp, transferring it to a copper kettle where is was boiled, stirred 

and tested for four hours or more and finally after amalgamation had been determined to 

have occurred removing it to large basins or vats of water that washed away the slime or 

residue and left the amalgam. While these and other techniques were known to late 

colonial miners, they were not widely accepted because of the cost of the equipment or 

the scarcity of the ingredients. By the nineteenth century, however, many Mexican mills 

had introduced these modifications. 2 What held back colonial Mexican millers was not 

relevant to late nineteenth century Comstock milling. Almost every aspect of the 

amalgamation process was open to modification and improvement. From the material and 

mechanization of the batteries and the stamps to the size and number of the amalgamating 

pans, from the addition of agitators to the collection of slimes every step was scrutinized 

to see how the processing of ore could save time and money. Both Lord and DeQuille 

consider the contributions of early millers like Almarin Paul, Israel Knox and Henry 

Brevoort and various superintendents who proved to be ingenious at applying and 

reworking the new ideas. 3 What converged from the efforts of these tinkerers and 

experimenters was something called (almost generically) the Washoe Process. In short it 

transformed the patio process of many weeks into a mechanized process of a few days. 

When Mackay and Fair under the corporation known as Pacific Mill and Mining built 

(and rebuilt) their new mills – Consolidated and California – in Virginia City between 

1874 and 1876, they employed the Washoe Process only on a grander scale than any 

other miller had. It is worth noting that Eliot Lord’s Comstock Mining and Miners 

included illustrations of mills, their interiors and their mechanics that are well worth 

studying. A set of 10 drawings of the interior of the Gould & Curry mill is especially 

2 

See Lord’s discussion of these improvements based upon his reading of Francisco Gamboa, Comentarios 

a las Ordenanzas de Minas…. Eliot used the Heathfield translation. These references will found in vol. 2, 

pp. 200-203. There are several monographs on the history of ore reduction in colonial and modern Mexico. 

One of the most thorough (in Spanish) on the developments summarized by Eliot is Modesto Bargalló, La 

minería y la metalurgía en la América española durante la época colonial (Mexico, 1955). 

3 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 82-89; DeQuille, History of Comstock Lode, 74-79.


5 

noteworthy (between pp. 126 and 127). These illustrate the scope of the mill and the 

extent of mechanization that had infused the milling business only a few years after the 

discoveries. One can imagine that if drawings of the Mackay and Fair’s mills had been 

rendered a decade later the result would even have been grander. 

The Surveyor-General’s 1866 report offered an extensive inventory of Comstock 

milling facilities and operations 4 . It included names of owners, locations of mills, 

construction costs, tax assessments and numerous details about capacity, equipment 

supplies, etc. In the four counties – Story, 

Lyon, Ormsby and Washoe – surrounding the 

Comstock there were total of 77 mills. Story 

had the most with 33 mills or 43 percent; 

Lyon was second with 27 or 35 percent; 

Washoe had 9 or 12 percent; and Ormsby had 

8 or 10 percent. The total cost to build these 

77 mills, based on data given to the Surveyor- 

General, was $5 million for an average cost of 

about $65,000 per mill. Story County 

accounted for $2 million or 40 percent and 

Illustration 1: Eureka Mill, Lyon County 

Lyon for $1.4 million or 28 percent. Story was the only county that reported tax 

assessments on mill properties, and they amounted to $954,000, a figure that was not the 

tax collected but the proportion of the value of the property (about 48 percent) against 

which property taxes were levied. Gould & Curry’s mill, located in Seven Mile Cañon 

about two miles from its mine under Virginia City, probably was the most expensive mill 

to have been built up to that time with a price tag of $380,000. The least expensive was 

Monitor near Dayton in Lyon County at $6,000. These 77 mills had 1,400 stamps for 

crushing ore for an average of 18 stamps per mill. Again Gould & Curry’s mill headed 

the list with 80 stamps, and Monitor plus several other small mills had only five stamps. 

The cost of construction per stamp was comparable in the largest and smallest mills: 

$4,750 at Gould & Curry versus $5,000 at Monitor. The 77 mills could process about 

65,000 tons of ore monthly or 750,000 tons yearly. That was between two and three times 

more than the output of ore to be milled in 1866. The zeal to build milling facilities 

derived from the same economic fantasy that fed the drive to claim and exploit every acre 

of the Comstock. 

4 


(1867), Tables are inserts between p. 21 and p. 25 with notes about the mills on pp. 25-26. The following 

discussion is based on data and calculations from these Tables. In addition to his survey of plant and 

equipment Surveyor-General Marlette asked a few mining companies to provide him with financial data on 

milling operations. When mining companies used outside millers or organized their own independent 

milling companies to reduce their ores, their own mining accounts revealed very little about the cost of 

reduction. Except for small quantities of ore sold each year by miners to millers the amalgamated or refined 

ore remained the possession of the mining companies. Mining-company accounts normally showed how 

much the reduction cost per ton and not much else. Few milling accounts have survived if they ever 

existed, even when mining companies, whose records do survive, built and managed the mills themselves. 

Thus, inquiries such as those conducted by the Surveyor-General in 1866 offer a glimpse into a less wellunderstood 

economic sphere.


6 

One of the most grandly publicized of the early mills was constructed for Gould 

& Curry. In 1861 Gould & Curry undertook the construction of a small mill in the 

vicinity of Seven Mile Cañon, but then over the next two years as output from the mine 

grew it enlarged and refurbished the mill at a cost (allegedly) of nearly $900,000. The 

reduction process that had been installed proved to be so inefficient that the new 

superintendent, Charles Bonner, discarded it in 1864. Then another reconstruction was 

ordered at a cost of more than a half million dollars. 5 By 1865, when Louis Janin jr. had 

replaced Bonner as superintendent, Gould & Curry had spent more than $1.5 million on 

the construction and reconstruction of this mill. In the 1866 survey the mill was estimated 

to have cost $385,000, a figure that does not match up with any of the figures just cited. 

In any event after the second remolding to install a “more traditional patio” process and 

now under Janin’s leadership the efficiency of the mill improved. In 1865 the Gould & 

Curry mill reduced nearly 32,000 tons at $12.93 per ton. This was a spectacular 

turnaround that began in November 1864. Before that it was alleged to have cost up to 

$50 per ton to refine Gould & Curry’s ore in its own mill, and because of the high cost 

most of its ore was sent to custom mills, which charged on average $26 per ton. Gould & 

Curry could no longer afford the extravagance in outlays for mill construction and ore 

reduction because the per-ton yields of its ores had dropped from extraordinarily high 

levels of $70 to $100 to $30. 6 

In the same report with his survey the Surveyor-General published detailed 

financial data provided to him by Janin. He wrote that the “admirable system of accounts 

of expenditures adapted in the Gould & Curry and Savage office, is worthy of all 

commendation, and it is to be hoped, will be adopted by other companies.” 7 

Unfortunately, while the efforts of Superintendent Janin and his staff represented an 

improvement over some earlier financial reporting, the excerpts that appeared in the 

Survey-General’s report have figures that do not always add up. Still Janin’s statement 

can be a useful point to start the analysis of milling operations. Gould & Curry finances 

showed that the mine produced 62,425 tons of ore with an average yield of $28.64 per 

ton. 8 Although he did not provide a total-dollar value, a simple calculation - tonnage x 

yield – would result in a bullion value of $1.8 million. Even with expanded milling 

capacity, perhaps the largest of any Comstock mill, Gould & Curry assigned some ores to 

custom mills. Sixty-five percent or 40,432 tons were “worked” at the company’s new 

mill and 28 percent or 17,680 tons at custom mills. A portion of the total, 4,313 tons or 7 

percent was unaccounted for. Janin made no reference to the disposition of the missing 

ore, whether it was set aside for later processing, was sold to other millers or was simply 

too inferior to be milled and was scrapped. If per-ton yield were calculated more strictly 

on the basis of 58,000 tons rather than 63,000 tons, it would rise to $33. Unfortunately 

5 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 125. Lord cited Annual Reports from 1861 through 1864 plus 

newspaper reports. Smith, The Comstock Lode, 85. 

6 


7 


(1867), 30. 

8 

It was described as 3 rd class ore without any further details. Ores could be classified in terms of their 

chemistry and purity but seldom were they classified as just noted in the superintendent’s reports. It would 

appear based on yields per ton that a 3 rd -class ore had an average of slightly above average yield compared 

to all Comstock ores.


7 

the excerpted version of the Janin report contained no figures that would detail the cost to 

Gould & Curry of having ores reduced at customs mills. Of the 40,432 tons crushed at 

Gould & Curry’s mill 36,001 tons or 88 percent were actually amalgamated. The 

remaining 12 percent or about 6,000 tons were lost 

in what were called “slimes and moisture in the 

ore”. The slimes were not necessary lost 

permanently; they could become tailings that 

required further refining to unlock the minerals in 

them. It was an accepted practice to assay the ore in 

its “wet” and crushed form and then to assay it 

again in its “dry” and amalgamated form. For Gould 

& Curry the wet assays came in at nearly $44 per 

Illustration 2: Santiago Mill, Ormsby County 

ton and the dry assays at $33 per ton. The $33-perton 

figure matched up with the figure above, 

although the bases from which the calculations were made were different. The “so-called 

“loss” of about 75 percent from the wet to the dry was about average for the Comstock. 

But the breakdown between gold at 30 percent ($364,000) and silver 70 percent 

($825,000) was somewhat below what other mines were reporting. This ratio will 

fluctuate from mine to mine and from area to area. 9 

The matter of “slimes” was a continuing concern to Comstock millers. As the ore 

was pulverized either by breakers or crushers, it was mixed with water into what Mark 

Twain called a “creamy paste”. As this paste moved from the stamps into the 

amalgamation pans the water was drained off as slimes into wooden troughs and 

eventually into nearby pools or ravines. The slimes contained mud, rock, other metals and 

nuggets of gold and silver. Procedures for screening out the nuggets with course blankets, 

fine screens and other such gadgets did not totally succeed, and at the end of the trough 

slimes hardened into tailings. Tailings could be reworked to extract their minerals, 

although the reworking could be expensive and unpredictable. Working the slimes was 

not ennobling work, according to Twain. “Of all the recreations in the world, screening 

tailings on a hot day, with a long-handled shovel, is the most undesirable.” Twain 

asserted that about a third of the ore containing gold and silver floated away in the slimes, 

and that was in fact the same figure that miners and miller used when estimating how 

much would be lost between the wet and dry assay. Since the dry assay was taken from 

the cake of metal that emerged from the amalgamation, whatever metal was recovered 

from slimes was considered to be a bonus. Some mining companies in addition to their 

reduction mills built tailings mills, and some independent millers specialized in 

processing tailings. Janin did not recount how the tailings were handled, and the 

accounts, which he presented, made no reference to them. It was certain, though, that the 

tailings from the operations at Gould & Curry’s were not ignored. Piles of tailings all 

over the Comstock region served legitimate business enterprises such as tailings mills 

and, as Twain reminded his readers, inspired hucksters (even today): “I have seen men 

hunt over a pile of nearly worthless quartz for an hour, and at last find a little piece as 

large as a filbert, which was rich in gold and silver – and this was reserved for a fire- 

9 


(1867), 33.


8 

assay! Of course the fire-assay would demonstrate that a ton of rock would yield 

hundreds of dollars—and on such assay many an utterly worthless mine was sold.” In 

addition inferior ores could be scrapped and end up with the slimes. Although as much as 

a third of the ore may have ended up in tailings dumps, the quantity of tailings actually 

recovered and registered (for tax purposes) remained a fraction of the gold and silver 

amalgamated form the ore and presented to the mint. 10 

Based on Janin’s figures the cost for the Gould & Curry mill to reduce more than 

40,000 tons of ore was $12.27 per ton. 11 

Janin stated that milling costs both at the 

company mill and at the custom mills 

averaged $13.30 per ton. It appears that the 

company milling was slightly less costly 

than custom milling. Beginning in the 

second half of the 1860s many of the local 

Illustration 3: Gould & Curry Mill, Story County 

mills came under the ownership or the 

control of William Sharon. His plan was to 

break the stranglehold of the independent millers and yet to make money milling ores 

from mines that he owned or controlled as well as from other mines. Although precise 

data on milling rates at custom mills in the early 1860s is seldom revealed in the 

surviving sources, the data after Sharon invoked his plan indicate that rates had fallen to 

about $15 per ton. Once Sharon’s plan proved successful other entrepreneurs began to 

emulate it, and that put rates under additional downward pressure. It would appear that 

both Gould & Curry’s mill as well as the custom millers came in at the low range of 

milling rates. At Gould & Curry’s mill of the nearly $500,000 in milling costs, 61 percent 

was for supplies and materials, 32 percent for labor and 7 percent for hauling. In a more 

detailed schedule Janin broke down refining costs into seven categories and then further 

divided each category into seven subsections, as shown in Figure 1 by dollars and cents 

per ton (functions in left-most column arranged by percentage): 

FIGURE 2 

MILLING COSTS PER TON BY CATEGORY, GOULD & CURRY, 1867 

Category Labor Wood Castings Copper Salt Mercury Sundries Total 

Power $0.5888 $3.9784 $0.1249 $4.61 (38%) 

Amalgamation $0.7681 $0.0465 $0.5936 $0.4350 $0.2706 $0.8659 $0.1096 $3.09 (25%) 

Repairs $0.8410 $0.6941 $1.51 (12%) 

Batteries $0.6598 $0.2085 $0.1096 $0.98 (8%) 

Hauling $0.9000 $0.90 (7%) 

Foreman, etc. $0.7133 $0.71 (6%) 

Breakers $$0.4132 $0.333 $0.45 (4%) 

Totals $3.9042 $4.0249 $0.8021 $0.4350 $0.2706 $0.8659 $1.9648 $12.27 

32% 33% 7% 4% 2% 7% 16% 101% 

Note: Batteries were stamps for crushing ores; foreman plus watchman and laborers – not clear how 

laborers in this column different from other laborers; breakers assigned to break up ore chunks in 

10 

Mark Twain [Samuel Clemens], Roughing It (New York: Penguin Books, 1981 [Reprint of 1872 

edition]), 36. Almost no information on how the tailings mills were constructed or operated has shown up 

in he original sources that I have studied. 

11 


(1867), 34. The Table in the text is a rearrangement of Janin’s data as given in his report. The percentages 

are mine.


9 

amalgamation pans; copper actually sulphate of copper; bottom row of percentages does not add up to 

100% because of rounding up. Total Column rounded up. There is a tiny mistake in the summing of items 

for the function amalgamation - $3.0893 instead of $3.0896.] 


The arrangement of milling expenses is not in and of itself surprising. Power, 

typically a major operating cost, consumed $4.61 per ton or 38 percent of the total. The 

major component of power was the purchase of wood ($3.99 of the $4.61.) and the 

remainder, slightly more than 60 cents per ton, was spent on labor and supplies. Since 

wood powered nearly all the machinery used in Comstock mining, it was in constant 

demand. In the mills firewood was needed primarily to drive the breakers and stamps that 

crushed the ore. Some firewood was needed during the amalgamation itself, but it was 

accounted for separately. If the cost of firewood for amalgamating were combined with 

the cost of firewood for crushing (and a few other minor tasks) firewood purchases 

comprised a third of milling-component costs. Timber was harvested as far away as Lake 

Tahoe and then hauled (or “floated) to the Comstock. In the Surveyor-General’s mill 

survey Gould & Curry stated that it averaged 20 cords of wood per day (several times the 

average for all mills), and while Gould & Curry did not report the cost per cord, other 

mills reported that they paid between $13 and $16 a cord. Despite some discrepancies 

between the Surveyor-General’s survey and Janin’s accounts, it is possible to estimate 

that timber purchases cost Gould & Curry between $100,000 and $150,000 per year. The 

mill under normal operations may have used between 7,000 and 8,000 cords of wood to 

power the crushers, mixers, steamers and other machines in reducing the ore. 

Electrification did not arrive until late in the nineteenth century, long after the 

Comstock’s zenith, and the figures from Gould & Curry’s timber accounts reveal why 

logging became one of the ancillary industries to grow up around the Comstock and why 

some mining and milling entrepreneurs started or bought their own operations: to add to 

the bottom line as well as to assure a ready supply. 

The next most costly item behind power was amalgamation at $3.09 or 25 percent 

of the total. Outlays expressed in percentages for the components were as follows: 

mercury (28 percent), labor (25 percent), castings (19 percent), sulphate of copper (14 

percent), salt (9 percent), sundries (4 percent) and wood (2 percent). Not surprising 

mercury was the most costly item. Amalgamation was less efficient without salt and 

copper so that if these three ingredients were summed they would constitute more than 

half (51 percent) of the total costs. Labor represented about a quarter of the total and 

purchases of replacements for castings on machines about a fifth. Miscellaneous supplies 

came in at 4 percent and firewood at 2 percent. This did not include the preparation of the 

ore – “breakers” and “batteries” for crushing and pulverizing the ore – and if preparation 

and amalgamation were combined they would add up to $3.63 per ton, which was still 

less than the overall power costs. The cost of the central ingredient, mercury, was only 87 

cents per ton or 7 percent of the total component cost at Gould & Curry. Since mercury 

could be recovered from batch to batch and was seldom totally lost (unlike firewood) a 

far smaller portion of the component costs was tied up in mercury than wood. Indeed 

labor, just behind firewood, was a much bigger component cost than mercury. Of course 

how much mercury could be recovered varied from mill to mill, and where efficiencies 

were rare or modest mercury could become a much larger expense.


10 

After accounting for power, amalgamation and preparation the remaining costs 

concerned repairs (12 percent), transportation (7 percent) and salaried personnel like 

foremen and watchmen (6 percent). With respect to repairs the major component was 

labor, which was billed at 84 cents per ton or 55 percent of total repairs. Hauling was 

simply listed at 90 cents per ton for “sundries”, and the personnel item was an expense 

that could not be included under any other category. Although one might wish for greater 

specificity in each category or component, one comes away from the report with a fairly 

clear understanding of how costs were spread across a milling operation. As important as 

mercury was, and in the opinion of some as costly as mercury was, it did not rank at the 

top of the list. Rather the cost of firewood to power the machines consumed $4.03 per ton 

and the cost of labor, a smaller component in milling than in mining, nonetheless ranked 

behind cost of power at $3.90 per ton or 32 percent. In a nation that was quickly 

industrializing and in an industry that was the beneficiary of that industrializing the role 

of power to drive more and increasingly complex machinery and the role of labor will 

loom large in how the Comstock industry confronted the cost structure. If the milling 

costs reported by Janin to Surveyor-General in the second half of the 1860s, they were, it 

would appear, as much as half the milling rates of the custom mills in the first half of he 

1860s according to undocumented estimates. 

On the basis of Janin’s figures for ore extracted and then processed in Gould & 

Curry’s mill the results appear to be positive. Of the 40,432 tons crushed at the mill 

36,001 tons (11 percent loss) were actually submitted to amalgamation to yield $1.2 

million in bullion, $825,000 in silver and $364,000 in gold. To extract the total crushed 

tonnage cost an estimated $7.86 per ton or $318,000. 12 As noted above, to refine that 

tonnage cost $12.27 per ton or $496,005. Janin did break it down into three categories: 

$301,751 or 61 percent for on materials, $157,865 or 32 percent on labor and $36,389 or 

7 percent for transportation. The ratio of mining to refining costs of $1 to $1.50 per ton 

was not out of line with what other companies reported in the second half for the 1860s 

and later. Even without considering the ore processed at custom mills the company had a 

gross profit of nearly $400,000. Obviously some costs that modern accounting rules 

would require have not been included, but the figure just cited could be treated as gross 

operating profits. The company was reported to have paid a dividend of $250,000, 

substantial but not spectacular in mining lore. 13 

At the time of the survey most of the large mining companies owned and operated 

their own mills, and like Gould & Curry they also used independent millers. The third leg 

in the milling complex in addition to custom mills and company mills was a separate 

milling business under the ownership of the principals of the mining companies, the socalled 

Sharon model. At the vanguard of the newly-emerging mining and milling 

corporate structure was a more shadowy Comstock personality, the San Franciscan 

12 

Janin’s extraction costs were based on 62,425 tons, not just the 40,032 tons submitted to Gould & 

Curry’s mill, so it cannot be determined if $7.86 was an appropriate estimate for extraction costs of the 

smaller volume. It is not possible to compute extraction costs except for total tonnage. 

13 


(1867), 31-34. Dividend figures from Grant Smith Notebooks, NC229, Binder 1, Special Collections, 

Library, University of Nevada at Reno. In addition to Gould & Curry Savage reported that to mill 9,700 

tons in the two mills (Atchison and Minnesota) that it owned in Washoe County cost $12.04 per ton, close


11 

financier, William Ralston. He had invested in and made money from several large 

mining ventures: Gould & Curry, Ophir and Mexican to name a few. As the shafts of 

these mines closed in on the 500-foot level they began to flood out. In addition Ralston’s 

own agents in Virginia City had mismanaged his properties to the extent that Ralston was 

the victim of theft. To protect his Comstock investments, which underwrote his other 

non-mining investment in San Francisco and across the West, he sent William Sharon to 

Virginia City in 1864. Sharon was frequently described in Napoleonic terms – a small, 

compact man who became by his own dint a towering figure. In the same year Ralston set 

up the Bank of California with Sharon as the chief cashier in Virginia City’s branch. 14 

With Sharon’s arrival to implement Ralston’s strategy the business of mining underwent 

a fundamental change. After an impressively thorough investigation of the Comstock 

mining and milling operations Sharon concluded that the Comstock despite a huge 

volume of water at the bottom of many of the active mining shafts was not washed up. He 

approved loans to mining companies even though in 1864-1865, as ore production and 

stock valuations fell in tandem, the Comstock was experiencing its first financial panic. 

Sharon’s approach was not to rely on one or a few assays but to order many assays in 

different mines. On the basis of these tests he became convinced that rich ores lay under 

the water. 15 Sharon was also convinced that with respect to mining and milling 

extravagance rather than prudence had governed the Comstock operations. Even Lord 

credited Sharon with a new outlook: “where organization was to triumph over anarchy 

and cool calculations of self-interest were to be the only basis of recognized action.” 16 

And the search for order was no more apparent than in the milling sphere. In addition to 

lending to mine owners, Sharon also made loans to millers. But the Comstock was in a 

state of contraction. Borrowers easily fell behind on their bank payments (interest in 

some cases was 2 to 5 percent per month), and when they did, through foreclosure 

proceedings, the Bank of California ended up with the properties. Foreclosure was 

preferred to a forced sale because a forced sale could yield less than a loan’s face value 

and a foreclosure presented the opportunity to try to preserve the investment in plant and 

equipment by operating the mill. It cannot be ascertained with certainty that Ralston and 

Sharon had thought through all the likely scenarios that evolve from foreclosing on mills 

during a contraction. Did they really want to end up owning more capacity than they 

could use? Foreclosures that led to idle operations were money-losers. Milling properties 

deteriorated quickly, according to Lord, because the dyes, pans and shoes, all made from 

iron, became corroded with rust when not in use. 17 That would represent substantial 

capacity at a time when the Comstock was struggling to recover. By 1867 the Bank may 

have owned as many as 17 mills. Whatever the number Ralston and Sharon decided to 

create a milling company called Union Mill and Mining Company, incorporated in 

California with a capitalization of $1.5 million in the form of 15,000 shares. Although the 

to the Gould & Curry figure.. 

14 

While description and analysis of the roles played by Ralston and Sharon were standard fare in most 

Comstock histories, some of the most illuminating details appear in works by the Progressive historian, 

George Lyman. See in particular Ralston’s Ring, 34-35, 38-39. For a typical characterization of Sharon see 


15 

Lyman, Ralston’s Ring, 38-39. Many assays were made as close to the water level as possible. 

16 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 245. This is a fine example of Lord’s devotion to laissez-faire 

principles. 

17 



12 

charter investors include seven individuals, three of the seven – Ralston, Sharon and D. 

O. Mills (longtime colleague of Ralston) became the principals. Seventeen mills were far 

too many to operate economically, and once the company was in place consolidation 

became the order of the day. Acquiring mills along the Carson River where water-power 

was assured was a deliberate strategy to reduce the cost of power. 18 

How Ralston and Sharon carried out their strategy has not, to my knowledge, 

been examined in detail. There was no doubt that Union Mill and Mining became the 

dominant milling operation for Comstock and remained so well into the 1870s. Even 

before the 1867 incorporation according to the Surveyor-General’s mill survey from 1866 

Sharon was listed as owner or agent for eight mills. Ralston’s name did not appear; nor 

did any of the names of the other investors in the soon-to-be-announced Union Mill and 

Mining. But the Ralston crowd owned mines that also owned mines. So surely the eight 

mills only represented a part of the total under the control of the Ralston, Sharon and 

their associates. Even with an incomplete list the mills directly connected to Sharon 

provide some illuminating details. It is worth noting that Sharon’s name appeared in the 

survey in several different ways: Wm. Or W. Sharon Agt. (6), Sharon & Co. (1) and 

Williams & Sharon (1). 19 FIGURE 3 

MILLS LISTING WILLIAM SHARON AS OWNER OR AGENT, 1866 

Mill Names Location-County Date Cost Power- 

HP 

Stamps Crush per 

Month 

Empire State 7 Mile Canyon-Story ND $35,000 Steam-? 15 700 tons 

Pacific Lower Gold Hill-Story 1863 $75,000 Steam- 30 1,300 tons 

80 

Franklin Carson River-Dayton- 1861 $50,000 Water-? 10 500 tons 

Lyon 

Gold Cañon Silver City-Lyon 1861 $40,000 Steam- 15 750 tons 

Reduction 

30 

Illinois Carson River-Dayton- 1864 $30,000 Steam- 20 500 tons 

Lyon 

30 

Swansea Johntown-Lyon 1862 $60,000 Steam- 12 600 tons 

40 

Brunswick Empire-Ormsby 1863 $50,000 Water-? 8 600 tons 

Carson Carson-Ormsby 1862 $25,000 Water-? 10 ? 

Totals $365,000 120 4,950 tons 

Sources: Footnote 13. 

The mills were spread through three counties: two in Story near Virginia City; 

four in Lyon with two along the Carson River; and two in Ormby with both along the 

Carson River. Water-power drove three mills, and a fourth mill, Illinois, while located 

along the Carson River apparently used steam as did the other four. Statistical 

comparisons with Sharon-identified mills and the total survey would not be useful 

because some of the other mills were surely under the control of the Ralston/Sharon 

combine. The properties unmistakably linked to Sharon cost (the original owners) about 

18 

Lyman, Ralston’s Ring, 85-86. 

19 

The Williams of Williams & Sharon could not be identified. The thought occurs that this could be a 

typographical error in that Sharon’s name was William and the entry perhaps should read William Sharon.


13 

$365,000 to build or $46,000 per mill. The most expensive was Pacific at $75,000 and 

the least expensive was Carson at $25,000. Pacific, built in 1863, had 30 stamps, two or 

three times the number at the other mills, and a capacity of 1,200 tons per ton, twice the 

capacity of other mills. That worked out to about $2,500 per stamp. Being located in 

Gold Hill away from any river Pacific was power by 80 horsepower steam engine. In 

terms of cost per stamp Illinois was the cheapest. Built in 1864 at a cost of $30,000, it 

had 20 stamps or $1,500 per stamp. Although on the Carson River it used steam power 

rather than water-power (30 horsepower engine) to operate the stamps with a monthly 

crushing capacity of 500 tons. The most expensive mill was Brunswick. It had the fewest 

stamps (8) at a cost of $6,250 per stamp with total construction costs of $50,000. It could 

crush 600 tons per month and was powered by water from the Carson River. Other 

factors such as the number and size of the amalgamation pans, the number of settlers and 

agitators for combining the ores with the mercury and other chemicals and the weight of 

each stamp had to be considered with respect to a mill’s cost and capacity. Still some of 

the figures cited above square with other information about the cost and capacity of 

Comstock mills. 

Even though the 1866 survey had linked these eight mills directly to Sharon and 

his allies other mills owned by mining companies had also fallen under the control of the 

so-called Bank Crowd in the middle 1860s. They included Ophir, Gould & Curry and 

Yellow Jacket, all of whom had large mills. If the data assembled by the Surveyor- 

General on these three company mills were added to the foregoing mill data, then the 

growing concentration of the milling business in the hands of Ralston and Sharon was be 

far more pronounced. These three company mills with a total of 144 stamps and a 

crushing capacity per month of 7,000 tons cost at least $600,000 to construct or about 

$4,200 per stamp. 20 One can presume that at the time of the Surveyor-General’s 1866 

report as many as 11 mills with between 250 and 300 stamps, a crushing capacity per 

month of 12,000 tons and a price tag of at least $1 million could have fallen under the 

control of Ralston & Sharon. The total crushing capacity of all the mills in the four 

counties was about 60,000 tons per month, and the Bank Crowd may have controlled 

about a fifth of that capacity. Even though some very large mills were outside the control 

of Ralston and Sharon, they had a dominance that cannot be detected through the survey 

and other documents from 1866. 21 As difficult as it is to pin down the exact number of 

mills owned or controlled by Ralston and Sharon in the years preceding the organization 

of the Union Mill and Mining Company in 1867, the trend toward what Grant Smith 

termed “private” milling had begun. Private milling existed along side of private mining, 

and while they had separate corporate identities, they were in fact set up by the mine 

owners who gleaned profits from both enterprises. 22 The objective in creating Union Mill 

and Mining was to consolidate and concentrate milling operations. That meant that some 

20 

There was much conflicting information about the cost to build and rebuild the Ophir and Gould & Curry 

mills, and the figures cited by the Surveyor-General were very much on the low side. Without actual 

company records any resolution of these conflicts remains improbable. 

21 

O’Neale, Rule & Co controlled three or four mills with a total crushing capacity of between 2,000 and 

2,500 tons per month. In addition Crown Point Mining Company, which would eventually come under the 

control of Ralston and Sharon, had at least two mills with a crushing capacity of less than 2,000 tons per 

month. 

22 



14 

of the 17 mills could be sold or abandoned because they were inefficient, and the 

remaining mills, which could set their own rates irrespective of the custom milling rates, 

would not only be fed ores from their own mines but could also solicit business from 

other mining companies. The crucial point was to own enough milling capacity to 

dominate the sector and to restrain competition. Custom mills, of course, had always been 

under private ownership, usually a single proprietor or several partners, and their 

independence from the mine owners was a source of friction. It was their independence 

(which had allowed them to dictate prices in the early years) that the milling tycoons 

wanted to compromise. Although custom mills survived, private milling as envisioned by 

Ralston and Sharon became the standard on the Comstock. 23 

The business of refining had changed noticeably by 1873 when the State 

Mineralogist presented his biennial report to the 6 th Session of the State Legislature. The 

data that he collected was from 1871 and 1872, and in the half-dozen years since the 

Surveyor-General’s survey the Sharon model had taken hold on the Comstock. The state 

had 162 mills with 1,904 stamps and the capacity of 5,183 tons per day. The four 

counties of Story, Lyon, Ormsby and Washoe had a total of 64 mills (40 percent) with 

981 stamps (52 percent) and a daily capacity of 3,043 tons (59 percent). A direct 

comparison with the 1866 survey requires some care because the Mineralogist’s 1873 

report included tailing mills and the 1866 survey did not. It is not known when 

independent tailings mills were first constructed. There is almost no discussion of tailings 

mills in standard published sources. Based on the 1873 Mineralogist’s report at least a 

half-dozen tailings mills had been built in Story and Lyon Counties by 1873. One of 

those mills, Occidental, was described as both a quartz mills and a tailings mill. If we 

exclude tailings mills from the 1873 report (excluding Occidental), we can then compare 

that report with the 1866 survey. The total number of quartz mills for the four counties in 

1873 would fall from 64 to 57, a figure that was 26 percent below the total number of 

mills (77) in 1866. Along with the decline in the number of mills came a 33-percent 

decline in the number of stamps. A decrease in mills and stamps was counterbalanced to 

a degree by an increase of 13 percent in capacity (from 2,072 tons to 2,338 tons – tailings 

capacity not included). After the craze in mill building during the 1860s some mills had 

been abandoned, some may have been converted to tailings operations and some were 

remodeled and upgraded. New mill building did not cease in the 1870s. Several large, 

powerful and efficient mills were constructed in and around Virginia City, mainly in 

connection with mining bonanzas at Crown Point, Belcher, Consolidated Virginia and 

California. Since 1866 the number of mills in Story and Lyon – the two counties most 

densely populated with mills - had declined from 60 to 46 or 12 percent and the number 

of stamps from 1031 to 687 or 33 percent. On the other hand daily capacity had grown 

from 1,484 to 1,704 tons or 15 percent. Even with a decline in the number of mills and 

stamps Lyon and Story Counties still had a third or more of the milling facilities in 

Nevada. 24 

23 

The mill data from “Annual Report of the Surveyor-General…1866” in State Journal and Appendix, 3 rd 

Legislative Session (1867), insert after p. 21. 

24 


Legislative Session (1873), 147. The 1866 data from the footnote above.


15 

Close scrutiny of the 1873 milling data reveals how the Comstock-related milling 

business had changed since 1866. Milling needed water, and the location of so many 

mills along rivers, especially the Carson River, was not an accident. Even though the ore 

had to be hauled 10 to 20 miles from the mines to the mills, that was initially cheaper 

than trying to bring water to the Comstock. The Washoe County mills being the most 

distance were the most vulnerable. In 1866 some of the largest mills yet built were in 

Washoe (City) and Franktown. The former town had two mills (Manhattan and New 

York & Washoe), owned New York & Nevada and New York & Washoe. Each mill had 

24 stamps with a daily capacity of 45 tons at an estimated cost of $100,000 to build in 

1863. In nearby Franktown Ophir Mining had built its mill in 1862 with 72 stamps and a 

capacity of 33 tons per day at a cost of $150,000, although in 1869 the Mineralogists 

declared that it cost over $500,000. 25 Its grandeur did not escape Lord’s attention: 12 

miles (16 miles according to the Surveyor-General) from the mine and covering an acre 

of ground the costly complex boosted not only a mill but also “shops, stables, carriagehouses, 

quarters for workmen, offices, and superintendent’s residence”, all of which 

“constituted a miniature city”. 26 Even with the second highest number of stamps in the 

four counties (only Gould & Curry’s mill, discussed earlier, had more) the capacity – to 

refine ore - was only average for Washoe County mills and for mills in the four 

counties. 27 Meanwhile in 1864 the Ophir Mining built a second mill along the Carson 

River in Lyon County about half the size of the Washoe County facility. Not far from the 

first Ophir Mill in Franktown J. H. Dall had built Washoe Valley Reduction with 60 

stamps and a capacity of 60 tons daily for $140,000. By 1873, wrote the Mineralogist, all 

but one reduction mills in Washoe County were idle and most of those built in the decade 

before had been abandoned or dismantled. The Truckee Mill (not on the Surveyor- 

General list) was still reducing ores, and several tailings mills remained in business. The 

cause of their demise: the Virginia and Truckee Railroad that allowed miners to transport 

their ores more cheaply to the mills to the south of the Lode on the Carson River. Without 

specifying the names or types of mills or commenting on their operational status, the 

Mineralogist noted that Washoe County in 1873 had 5 mills (down from 9 or 45 percent 

in 1866), 84 stamps (down from 261 or 68 percent) and 124-ton per-day capacity (down 

from 308 or 60 percent). For all intents and purposes refining ceased to be a major 

business. Washoe County now had to depend on Reno and Wadsworth, both important 

rail centers, and farming and grazing outside the cities for its economic prosperity. 28 

Ormsby County, which included mainly Carson City, the State Capital, but was 

later incorporated into Douglas County, was like Washoe County some distance from the 

Comstock. Since the Carson River flowed thorough it, it had access to water-power In 

addition, unlike Washoe County, it had direct access to the Comstock mines through the 

Virginia and Truckee Railroad, which opened in late 1869. The number of operating 

25 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist…1867 and 1868” Appendix to Journal of Senate, 4 th 

Legislative Session (1869), 21. Grant Smith cited the same figure without any source in The Comstock 

Lode, 80. 

26 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 122-123. Lord did not give a price tag to build a miniature city. 

27 


(1867), insert after p. 26. 

28 




16 

mills actually dropped from eight to six (a decline of 25 percent) between the Surveyor- 

General’s report in 1866 and the Mineralogist’s report in 1873. At the same time the 

number of stamps increased from 170 in 1866 to 210 (up 24 percent). The explanation for 

this was renovations at Santiago (from 24 to 34 stamps, 42 percent increase) and 

Brunswick (from 8 to 56 stamps, 600 percent increase). During the early years of millconstruction 

frenzy two Comstock mining companies built expensive mills in Ormsby 

County: Mexican built a steam- and water-powered mill for $300,000 in 1863 in the town 

of Empire (under the ownership of Alsop & Company in 1866) and Yellow Jacket built a 

water-powered mill in 1864 for $150,000 in the same town. The 1866 survey reported 

that the eight mills, built between 1860 and 1864, cost a total of $825,000 or slightly 

more than $100,000 apiece on average. With the aforementioned 170 stamps the cost per 

stamp was just under $5,000. By 1866 two of the mills, Brunswick and Carson, had come 

under the control of Ralston and Sharon. It had fewer mills than Washoe in 1866, but the 

level of capitalization was somewhat higher. Whereas Washoe faded Ormsby remained a 

part of the milling complex associated with the Comstock until the end. In 1873 the 

Mineralogist reported that Brunswick, Mexican and Yellow Jacket Mills were then 

processing ore from Crown Point, whose bonanza began in 1871. With more stamps 

Ormsby’s monthly capacity jumped from 7,360 to 15,300 tons, an increase of 107 

percent. This was accounted for in large part because Brunswick’s capacity skyrocketed 

from 20 to 120 daily or 500 percent. In a curious twist Ralston and Sharon had bought the 

Crown Point Mine in the late 1860s, and then lost control of it just as the bonanza began 

in 1871. Who owned the mills, and in particular who owned Brunswick, which was 

currently processing ore from a mine that they no longer owned? The Mineralogist’s 

Report was of little help because it did not list any of the owners of the mills in Ormsby. 

Eliot Lord wrote, however, that Ralston and Sharon after having lost Crown Point were 

further disappointed because they did not secure any contracts for Union Mill and Mining 

to refine Crown Point’s ores. Crown Point had a mill in Gold Hill (Rhode Island) near the 

mine, and that mill surely processed some of the ore. What was not refined there was 

processed at mills owned by Nevada Mill and Mining, which Crown Point’s owners, 

Haywood and Jones, had established in the mold of Union Mill and Mining. If the 

Mineralogist’s information was correct that these Ormsby County mills were fully 

occupied with ores from Crown Point, then Brunswick, Mexican and Yellow Jacket may 

well have belonged to Nevada Mill and Mining. Union Mill and Mining had sold other 

mills, and it may have disposed of Brunswick. Whoever owned the Ormsby’s mills in the 

early 1870s, they were valuable properties as a consequence of the recovery of the Lode’s 

southern end. None of the mills was idle, and none appeared to be processing tailings. 29 

From 1866 to 1873 Lyon County fared better than Washoe but less well than 

Ormsby. Lyon had the highest population of mills in Nevada, but, if only quartz mills 

were counted, then it was second behind Story. Lyon County sat between Story and 

Ormsby, and the availability of water from the American Flats and Carson Rivers made it 

a natural site for mill construction. The Virginia & Truckee Railroad from Virginia City 

to Carson City passed through the heart of Lyon County’s milling district and further 

29 


(1867), insert after p. 21; “Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist...1871 and 1872” in Appendix to 

Journal of Senate, 6 th Legislative Session (1873), 115-117, 132; Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 283- 

284.


17 

enhanced its position. In 1866 there were 27 amalgamation mills in Lyon County with 

395 to 424 stamps in plants that cost between $1.4 and $1.5 million to build, or 

approximately $3,500 per stamp. 30 According to Lyon County’s Assessor, George 

McFadden, who collected the Lyon County data that the Mineralogist incorporated in his 

1873 report, the 24 quartz and tailings mills were located in the following areas: eight in 

Silver City (closest to the Comstock), six along the Carson River (farthest from the 

Comstock), five in Gold Cañon (between Silver City and Dayton), three in Dayton (a few 

miles southeast of Silver City) and two in Spring Valley (west of Dayton). Of the 24 

mills 19 were classified as quartz (amalgamation) mills and five as tailings mills. More 

than half of Lyon County’s milling capacity was from tailings. If all the mills listed in the 

1866 Surveyor-General’s survey were quartz mills (this seems likely) then the county had 

lost eight quartz mills between 1866 and 1873. Over time as the volume of tailings grew 

mills specializing in tailings also increased in number. In 1873 all of Lyon’s tailings mills 

were in operation whereas among the quartz mills five were idle. The Mineralogist’s 

Report did not explain why the mills were idle or how long they had been idle. Two of 

the idle mills were in Gold Cañon, and one each along the Carson River, in Dayton and in 

Spring Valley. The largest of the idle mills was Rock Point Mill (also known as Imperial 

because it was built by Imperial Mining) with 56 stamps and a monthly capacity of 112 

tons. When it was built in 1861 at a cost of $250,000, it was the county’s largest and most 

expensive mill. At the time only the Gould & Curry Mill in Story County and the 

Mexican Mill in Ormsby County cost more to build. In the 1873 Mineralogist’s report the 

number of stamps remained the same at 56, but the capacity of the mill had risen from 90 

tons per day to 112 tons per day. Its stamps were of average size with 16 weighing 600 

pounds and 40 weighing 550 pounds. The Imperial Mining Company had enjoyed some 

success in the early 1860s, but along with many other Gold Hill mines Imperial produced 

little profitable ore after 1868, and that may explain why this large facility was idle in 

1873. Despite the trend toward private milling companies Imperial may have remained a 

mine-linked mill. The other idle mills were of moderate size. Given that nearly a third of 

the quartz mills were not operating and all the tailings mills were, tailings operations had 

obviously grown in importance in Lyon County’s milling business. It was certainly more 

prominent in Lyon County than in any of the other three counties. 

Two points of clarification should be made. That a mill was running with a certain 

capacity did not mean that it was running at full capacity every day. The Mineralogist’s 

report simply indicated what the potential capacity was and not what was being milled 

every day. Furthermore, tailings yielded metals of far less value per ton than 

amalgamation so that the quartz mills with less daily capacity might actually produce 

gold and silver of greater worth. 31 Mills could make profits from tailings, however, and 

since Lyon County had so many quartz mills from the early 1860s, it probably had an 

ample supply of tailings for millers to buy and reprocess. The two largest tailings mills 

were the Carson Valley Mill along the Carson River and the Birdsail & Co. mill in 

Dayton, which could process up to 300 tons daily. The remaining three mills were 

smaller with a capacity of 25 to 50 tons. The largest of the operating quartz mills was 

30 



31 

If Lyon County Assessment Rolls have survived, and I assume that many have although I have not 

consulted them, the relationship between quartz and tailings mills could be studied in greater detail.


18 

Eureka on the Carson River with 60 stamps and a capacity of 120 tons (compared for 

example to the idle Imperial with 50 stamps and a 112-ton capacity. Built in 1861 for 

$100,000, its owners in 1866 were Hurd, Wheeler & Dunker. It cannot be verified that 

they built the mill in 1861 or still owned it in 1873. It had been enlarged since 1866 when 

it was of average size with 20 stamps and a daily capacity of 22 tons. Even though it was 

6.5 miles from the Comstock mines, it had access to the Carson River to power a large 

turbine and was close to the Virginia & Truckee railroad. According to the 1873 report 

Eureka was an operating mill, but the report made no reference as to who owned it or 

whose ore was being processed. Some of the other quartz mills noted by the County 

Assessor served mainly Lyon County mines: Dayton Mine-Atlanta Mill; Buckeye Mine- 

Horn and Hope Mills; and Cook & Geyer Mine-Franklin Mine. Only the Franklin Mill 

appeared on the 1866 survey with Sharon as its owner. Several other mines were 

described as flooded or abandoned. The remaining amalgamation mills, like Eureka, 

listed by the Surveyor-General were not identified with any mines. Five of those mills – 

Devil’s Gate, Bacon, Trench, Kelsey and Sacramento – will end up in the stable of mills 

owned or controlled by The Firm through the Pacific Mill and Mining Company to 

process ores from Consolidated Virginia and California Mines. 32 

For Story County the 1873 Mineralogist’s report added an important component. 

It had information on size and location of the mills, but it also included information on 

which mines the mills served. Story had a total of 29 mills only three of which processed 

tailings. Occidental was classified as a dual quartz and tailings mill. Eight mills (28 

percent), none of which were tailings mills, were idle, about the same proportion as in 

Lyon County. Among the amalgamation mills the average number of stamps per mill was 

13 and the average capacity was 37 tons per day or 1,100 tons a month. Story’s averagesized 

mill tended to be smaller in terms of number of stamps and overall capacity when 

compared to the average in Lyon and Ormsby but especially in Ormsby. Eight (28 

percent) mills were located in Lower Gold Hill, six (21 percent) in Gold Cañon (further 

south where the boundary between Story and Lyon Counties was located), five (17 

percent) each in 6-Mile and 7-Mile Cañons (east of Virginia City) and the remaining five 

(17 percent) in Virginia City (3), Silver Star (1) and Cedar Hill (1). Pacific (Gold Cañon) 

had the most stamps with 30 and a capacity of 70 tons per day or 2,100 tons per month 

while Petaluma (Lower Gold Hill) had 6 fewer stamps but the highest capacity of 75 tons 

per day or 2,100 tons per month. The three mills in Virginia City proper – Hoosier State, 

Nevada and Sierra Nevada – had more than the average number of stamps but only 

slightly more than the average capacity. Although the capacity of the tailings mills was 

not given, they seemed to play a smaller role in Story County’s milling business. Two 

tailings mills – Park & Bowie, Nos. 1 & 2 – were in 6 Mile Cañon, and the other, 

Occidental, was located in Silver Star. Half of the County’s mills listed in 1873 inventory 

appeared in the earlier 1866 survey. Among the largest (25 stamps and 50-ton per-day 

capacity) was Rhode Island, built at a cost of $100,000 in 1862 by Crown Point Mining 

Company. When Sharon and Ralston took control of Crown Point, they probably took 

control of Rhode Island. It is unclear if it became a property of the Union Mill and 

Mining Company because when the rivals of Sharon and Ralston won control of Crown 

32 


Legislative Session (1873), 100.


19 

Point in the early 1870s they apparently also came into possession of Rhode Island. 

Between 1866 and 1873 the capacity of Rhode Island was not increased so that its 50- 

ton-daily capacity remained the standard. Most of the mills on both inventories had 

undergone some enlargement and improvement. Both Pacific and Petaluma increased the 

number of stamps and their capacity after 1866. Several mills reduced the number of 

stamps but increased capacity. Although the total number of mills had declined from 33 

in 1866 to 27 in 1873 or 18 percent, excluding tailings mills, and the number of stamps 

had fallen from 607 to 399 or 34 percent, capacity had risen 18 percent. Like Lyon 

County Story had idle amalgamation mills – seven of the 27 or 26 percent. They 

accounted for a quarter of the daily capacity. The reason for their idleness was not 

recorded. Four of the seven dated from the early 1860s, and age may have made them 

less competitive. Despite the bonanzas on the Comstock’s southern end Story County 

could still be saddled with milling overcapacity. Several of the idle mills, however, will 

be reactivated during the great bonanza that was just beginning on the northern end. 33 

In the early 1870s the output of four mines – Crown Point, Chollar Potosi, Savage 

and Belcher – dominated the milling business in Story County. Twelve of the 27 quartz 

mills with more than half of the stamps and daily capacity were engaged in processing 

ores from these mines. Among the operating mills this was to 72 percent of the stamps 

and 68 percent of the capacity. Four Story County mills – Ione (a small “croppings” 

mill), Petaluma, Sapphire and Rhode Island - with 69 stamps (17 percent) and 180-tons 

per-day capacity (18 percent) were processing ores from Crown Point, which the 

Mineralogist described as “the most valuable silver mine in the world”. These four mills, 

however, constituted a minor contingent of Crown Point’s milling facilities. The bulk of 

the ore was shipped to three mills – Brunswick, Mexican and Yellow Jacket – on the 

Carson River in Ormsby County. 34 Their combined capacity was 345 tons per day, almost 

twice the volume of the Story County mills. The largest of the Story County contingent 

was Petaluma with a capacity of 75 tons that was equal to the capacity of Yellow Jacket, 

which ranked third on the list of Ormsby mills. It is possible, of course, that mills in Lyon 

County also processed Crown Point ore, although none was so identified. As noted 

earlier, the new owners of Crown Point set up their own private milling company, 

Nevada Mill and Mining, but what cannot be documented yet is which of these mills 

were folded into the Nevada operation. Three other Story County mills – Winfield, Landy 

and Nevada – with a total of 60 stamps and 150-tons capacity per day (4,500 tons per 

month) milled ores for Chollar Potosi Mining Company, and three other mills – Atlas, 

Hoosier State and Evans – with 38 stamps and 93 per-ton per-day capacity (2,800 tons 

per month) worked ores for Savage Mining Company. It was not stated whether these 

mills belonged to a milling combine under the control of the mine owners or were 

independent, custom mills. In the case of Savage the Mineralogists did state that except 

for a small quantity Savage’s ores were processed at customs mills. Savage owned two 

mills – Atchison and Minnesota – in Washoe County, both built in the early 1860s, and 

one of them (name of mill not given in report) processed about 1,000 tons. Low yields 

33 


(1867), insert after p. 21; “Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist...1871 and 1872” Appendix to Journal 

of Senate, 6 th Legislative Session (1873), 138. 

34 




20 

from Savage ores made the cost of transportation to Washoe prohibitive. A fourth mine, 

Belcher, at the onset of its bonanza, sent some of its ores to Pacific, the second largest 

Story mill, and a Sharon-Ralston property. Presumably other mills owned by Sharon and 

Ralston in Story and other counties could have been enlisted to mill the rising quantity of 

ore from Belcher. By the 1870’s large and powerful milling combines had emerged along 

side of large and power mining combines. 35 

When the Mineralogist’s Report (1875) filed his 1875 report with the 7 th Biennial 

Legislature, it contained no mill surveys and very little general information about milling. 

It was regrettable that he did not provide a more detailed review of milling operations in 

Story and the surrounding counties at a point when the Comstock was about to enter its 

most flourishing period. In Lyon County he noted that most of the processing was 

tailings, a pattern that we observed in the 1873 report. Without naming the two tailings 

mills he reported that they had the combined capacity of 1,350 tons per day, more than 

twice what had been reported two years earlier. In Story County, he advised, there was 

insufficient milling to handle the upsurge in ore production mainly from Consolidated 

Virginia and California mines. He included some milling details concerning operations at 

Crown Point, Belcher and a few others mines, but he devoted most of milling report to 

the evolving milling behemoth in connection with Consolidated Virginia and California, 

a topic to be looked at closely in the next chapter. The bulk of his report, however, 

focused on mining rather than milling, which in everyone’s mind was on the verge of 

fulfilling the promise often made for the Comstock. 36 

The published accounts of Crown Point’s mining and milling operations for the 

fiscal year 1873-1874 offer details on the cost of preparing and processing the ores. 37 For 

the fiscal year 1873-1874 11 mills were required to process slightly more than 140,000 

tons of ore. 38 Figure 3 lists pertinent information about the mills. Eight of the 11 mills 

were included on the Survey-General’s 1866 Report and nine of the 11 were included in 

the Mineralogist’s 1873 report. The two mills that did not appear on earlier inventories 

were Morgan and Sherman: the former was near Carson City in Ormsby County and 

Sherman was on the southern edge of Story County. More than a quarter of the ore was 

processed at Brunswick in Ormsby County. Behind Brunswick were two other Ormsby 

County mills, Mexican (19 percent) and Morgan (18 percent). These three accounted for 

64 percent of the refined ore. In fourth place (11 percent) was Crown Point’s own mill, 

Rhode Island, built a decade before. The remaining seven mills handled a quarter of the 

ore. The yields ranged from a high of $67 per ton at Hoosier State Mill on 376 tons, the 

smallest quantity of ore processed by any of the mills, to a low of $35 per ton at Sherman 

Mill on 449 tons, the next smallest quantity. The average yield was $51 per ton, a figure 

35 


Legislative Session (1873), 131-132, 134-136, 138. 

36 


Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session (1875), 91-101, passim. 

37 

The Superintendent’s Report covered the period May 1873-April 1874. Excerpts and summaries are 

found as a port of the “Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist...1873 and 1874” in Appendix to Journals 

of Senate and Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session (1875), 106-112. 

38 

Ore that was described as “ore worked” or as “working ores” usually meant ore that had been put through 

the refining process from crushing to amalgamating. Worked ore could be less than the volume of ore 

extracted from the mine and shipped to the mill.


21 

that characterized the yields of the four largest refiners (noted above). At this point the 

accounts require some interpolation. The milling costs at Rhode Island were included 

along with the general mining accounts, and the inclusion of milling accounts within the 

mine’s financial accounting suggests that the mill was still a property of the mining 

company. The refining costs of the other mills, some or perhaps all of which may have 

been properties of Nevada Mill and Mining, were listed under a single entry called 

crushing. 39 The mining company spent $1.5 million to process 124,000 tons (the 

difference between the total of 140,000 and Rhode Island’s share of 16,000). The per-ton 

cost was $11.99 per ton. Rates at individual mills were not recorded. If $12 per ton was 

more or less the standard, it amounted to about a quarter of the average per-ton yield in 

bullion of $51. Add the $12 per-ton refining cost to the $9 per ton mining cost for a total 

of $21 to $22, leaving a surplus of nearly $30 per ton. 

Refining costs at Rhode Island Mill appear to be somewhat lower per-ton than the 

calculated average. For the 16,000 tons processed at Rhode Island the cost including 

more than $1,000 for mill improvement was $174,000. Some other costs such as haulage 

and assays may not have been fully accounted for under entries for Rhode Island. In any 

event the per-ton rate there was $11 ($10.84), slightly lower than the rate for the other 10 

mills. The breakdown (less precise than for an earlier discussion of Gould & Curry) is as 

follows: mercury, chemicals etc. - $66,602 or 39 percent; labor - $45,659 or 26 percent; 

wood - $28,987 or 17 percent; machines & castings - $23,003 or 13 percent; and water - 

$8,400 or 5 percent. Clearly mercury and the other ingredients necessary for 

amalgamation had jumped to the top of the cost structure. Two factors can be cited. First 

the demand for mercury had risen in step with increasing tonnage of ore to be processed, 

and that led to higher mercury prices. Further, the richer the ore the more “new” mercury 

had to be incorporated with each batch – in short more mercury was lost. In the case of 

Rhode Island mercury et al. cost about $4.19 per ton. If that were used as a benchmark 

for all the mills, then more than $550,000 was spent on mercury purchases. The next 

highest cost was labor at about $2.88 per ton. Firewood to power the steam turbine and 

machinery cost $1.81 and $1.44 per ton respectively and water cost slightly more than 50 

cent per ton. Even as milling rates had declined since the early 1860s the allotment of 

those costs had also changed. No doubt part of this arose from the introduction of greater 

efficiencies in the preparing and processing of the ores, but the most notable change arose 

from the heavy, constant demand for mercury without which the Comstock’s success 

would have been greatly limited. 40 

Not much on milling appeared in subsequent reports by the Mineralogist, and 

with the abolition of the office in 1879 public reports on mining and milling on the 

Comstock and in Nevada almost ceased entirely. Some new mills were built and some 

39 

I have deduced that if the volume of ores refined at Rhode Island is subtracted from the total of ores 

processed, the difference is the amount listed as crushed but excluding Rhode Island. In order to estimate 

the cost of refining at the other mills the figure for “crushing” only refers to the refining of the ore outside 

of the Rhode Island Mill. The per-ton cost reached by dividing the total crushed figure by the tonnage 

delivered to the mills except Rhode Island is within a few cents of the per-ton refining cost stated for all the 

mills in the accounts. It is not clear why the per-ton cost was presented in this way without more detail. 

40 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist...1873 and 1874” Appendix to Journals of Senate and 

Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session (1875), 107. The percentage calculations are mine.


22 

old ones refurbished during the boom years of the middle 1870s, but as the boom faded, 

many mills, new, old and remodeled, were abandoned. The mills that continued to have 

some business were the tailings mills because as the output of ore from underground fell, 

the tailings were seen as potentially profitable especially as the techniques for recovering 

minerals from them were being improved. The state of the mines rather than the mills 

remained the principal interest of the official investigators. 

FIGURE 4 

MILLS REFINING OF CROWN POINT ORES, 1873-1874 

Mill County Tons Bullion Value ($) Per-Ton Yield ($) % Tons 

Brunswick Ormsby 37,620 $1,910,659 $50.79 26.85 

Mexican Ormsby 26,333 1,366,538 51.89 18.79 

Morgan Ormsby ? 25,480 1,280,062 50.23 18.18 

Rhode Island Story 16,044 850,362 53.00 11.45 

Petaluma Story 12,333 624,544 50.64 8.80 

Pioneer Lyon 10,486 522,080 49.78 7.48 

Atlas Story 7,490 386,122 51.54 5.35 

Sapphire Story 1,804 84,637 46.90 1.29 

Devil's Gate Lyon 1,713 75,829 44.25 1.22 

Sherman Story/Lyon ? 449 15,858 35.22 0.32 

Hoosier State Story 376 25,048 66.70 0.27 

Totals 140,128 $7,141,739 $50.97 100.00 

Sources: Footnote 37.


1 

Chapter 9 


Types of Mills, Economics of Milling, Mills Owners & Operations 

Scores of mills were built and rebuilt in Story County and adjacent counties to process 

the 7 to 10 million tons of extracted ores from the Lode between 1865 and 1885. In the 

early 1860s so-called custom or independent millers set up shop on the Comstock. Mine 

owners being preoccupied with establishing their underground operations often lacked 

both the capital to build their own refineries and the skill to operate them. Millers found 

themselves in the envious position of being able to dictate the terms of the contracts even 

though milling capacity soon exceeded demand. Over time, as mining companies became 

better established, they had financial motives to construct their own mills and to bypass 

custom mills. In time milling became an extension of mining operations, and in the 

annual statements of the mining companies the cost of refining ores was treated, like 

costs for extraction, transportation and administration, another cost of doing business. 

The problem for mining companies with their own mills was that they had a shortage of 

milling capacity when their mines entered a highly productive period and conversely they 

had an excess of milling capacity when expansion in output turned to contraction, Both 

could be costly in that inadequate capacity could lead to investment in plant and 

equipment that may not be justified over the long term and idle capacity could lead to 

higher fixed costs and lower returns on capital. Both theoretically could dilute profits and 

threaten dividends. Since mining companies could not predict with certainty how much 

refining capacity that they would need a year or two later they constantly ran the risk of 

having too much or too little milling capacity. One strategy to moderate the risk was for 

mining to create stand-alone milling companies that were not strictly dependent on the 

output of their own mines. Ideally an independent milling company set up by a mining 

company could offer in-house milling services for all the mines that the company owned 

and custom milling for those companies that lacked mills with the hope of smoothing out 

fluctuations in production that even the best mining operations could not avoid. But there 

is a somewhat more nefarious reason was behind these undertakings. The mining 

companies had discovered that by divorcing milling from mining operations they stood to 

profit from both businesses. (Railroads, of course, followed a similar tack in creating 

railroad construction companies separate from the railroads themselves.) Milling 

companies were usually organized as partnerships among the founders or principals or as 

corporations with the founders as the major stockholders and a few other associates or 

friends as minor stockholders. If milling-company stocks traded on the San Francisco 

Exchange they attracted little attention. Even though they could be profitable, they 

depended for their financial success on the state or health of the mining industry and 

more particularly on the mines in which their principals had a role. As stand-alone 

companies they probably had little appeal at the stock traders. Moreover, it is not clear 

that the founders of the milling companies really wanted to share milling profits with an 

investor public or needed an investor class to finance their operations. Despite the 

rationale that independent mills could secure their financial footing by shopping around 

for business from all mining companies, the best performing milling companies were 

associated with highly productive mining operations. When the mines were on the 

upswing, the mills made money, and conversely when the mines in contraction, the mills


2 

were sold or abandoned. In the end milling remained tightly linked to the health or state 

of mining. What the creation of large quasi-independent milling companies succeeded in 

doing was pushing down milling costs without destroying their potential profitability. 

Truly independent mills in the mold of the original custom mills did not disappear but 

were moved to the periphery of the milling business. 

FIGURE 1 

MAP ASSEMBLED BY NEVADA NATURAL RESOURCES DEPARTMENT 

SHOWING MILL SITES IN COMSTOCK REGION 

[PART OF TOXIC CLEANUP PROJECT]


3 

It is useful to present a modest discussion of milling technology, as it had evolved 

by the second half of the nineteenth century, before tackling the financial issues involved 

in milling operations. Spanish colonial miners soon discovered that much of the silver ore 

that they extracted from underground could not be smelted economically. Smelting 

worked best when silver ore contained a base metal like lead. The lead acted as a flux. 

Under high temperatures the lead and silver particles fused, and then again since lead had 

a lower melting point intense heat would be applied to separate the silver and the lead. 

These were often referred to as high-grade silver ores because the natural presence of the 

lead flux made “cooking” the ore economical and efficient and resulted in silver of high 

quality (fineness and purity). The great discoveries at Zacatecas and Potosí contained 

silver ores in combination with other minerals that did not readily lend themselves to 

smelting because of the cost of purchasing flux, firewood or charcoal and other 

ingredients. These less smeltable ores came to predominate, and without a different 

technology for recovering the silver the grand camps of Zacatecas and Potosí would have 

had a much-diminished mining history. As unsmeltable ores piled up around the 

entrances to the mines and near the smelting facilities the search for alternate refining 

techniques became intense. The prize went to Bartolomé de Medina, a Spaniard who was 

working in Mexico. He developed an ore-reduction technology based upon amalgamating 

the ore with mercury or quicksilver rather than smelting it. Although used since ancient 

times amalgamation had few practitioners. In the method that Medina fashioned the ore 

after being pulverized and washed was incorporated with mercury in an open, walled 

space that resembled a patio. In Spanish America Medina’s technology became known as 

the patio process. Over a period of many weeks or several months of stirring the soup 

silver (and gold) amalgamated with the mercury. The amalgamated ingredients were 

removed from the patio and transferred to a small furnace where the heat would 

evaporate the mercury and leave the silver. Over time other minerals were added to the 

mixture to speed up amalgamation along with adaptations to the furnaces to try to capture 

the evaporating mercury, but the basic technology remained unchanged into the nineteen 

century. Spanish colonial miners and millers proved to resistant to major innovations that 

some mining professional recommended in part because of the cost to alter their plant and 

equipment and in part because of the familiarity and predictability with the existing 

techniques. As would be true of refiners on the Comstock and in other Western mining 

camps, some refiners in Spanish America proved to be more skilled than others in 

pulverizing the ores, incorporating the mercury and isolating the silver. It was also true 

that the quality of the mercury mattered (imported Spanish mercury was superior to local 

Andean mercury) as well as the type of ore (Mexican ores tended to be richer than 

Peruvian ores). When western mining established itself, miners and millers embraced 

amalgamation but chafed at the inefficiencies that the Spanish-American system 

entailed. 1 

Since mining was new to Western United State, the opportunity existed for miners 

and millers to innovate. Milling operations were frequently discussed in local newspapers 

and scientific journals, but documents concerning operations seldom show up in company 

1 

Numerous sources could be cited relative to Spanish American mining and milling. A good overview is 

Peter Bakewell,, “Mining in Colonial Spanish America,” in Leslie Bethell, ed., The Cambridge History of 

Latin America, The Colonial Period, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 2: 113-119.


4 

archives. Part of the explanation for the absence of documentary evidence is that, as more 

and more milling operations were spun off into private companies, mining companies 

were under no statutory requirement to report on milling operations except to report what 

they paid for milling their ores. In the early years there was considerable interest in the 

founding and building of the mills because it was less than clear how or where the 

Comstock’s ores would be processed. Once the initial flurry of activity relating to the 

construction of the plant and the design of the equipment ended toward the middle of the 

1860s many decisions about the most efficient methods for reducing the ores had become 

standardized. The Comstock would witness the erection of newer mills or the renovation 

of older mills with ever-increasing capacity into the middle of the 1870s with much less 

debate and experimentation concerning milling techniques because the procedures and 

protocols were fairly well understood. From the earliest days, as noted above, Comstock 

miners knew that their ores could not be efficiently smelted. They turned instead to 

reduction through the patio process, but they were dismayed at the time required to 

complete the operation. The search was for a way to speed up amalgamation of the silver 

and mercury. Eliot Lord correctly observed that colonial Mexican miners had developed 

techniques for shortening the time required to complete the amalgamation that involved 

grinding the ore as finely as possible, adding mercury, salt and water until it became a 

“pasty” mixture called pulp, transferring it to a copper kettle where is was boiled, stirred 

and tested for four hours or more and finally after amalgamation had been determined to 

have occurred removing it to large basins or vats of water that washed away the slime or 

residue and left the amalgam. While these and other techniques were known to late 

colonial miners, they were not widely accepted because of the cost of the equipment or 

the scarcity of the ingredients. By the nineteenth century, however, many Mexican mills 

had introduced these modifications. 2 What held back colonial Mexican millers was not 

relevant to late nineteenth century Comstock milling. Almost every aspect of the 

amalgamation process was open to modification and improvement. From the material and 

mechanization of the batteries and the stamps to the size and number of the amalgamating 

pans, from the addition of agitators to the collection of slimes every step was scrutinized 

to see how the processing of ore could save time and money. Both Lord and DeQuille 

consider the contributions of early millers like Almarin Paul, Israel Knox and Henry 

Brevoort and various superintendents who proved to be ingenious at applying and 

reworking the new ideas. 3 What converged from the efforts of these tinkerers and 

experimenters was something called (almost generically) the Washoe Process. In short it 

transformed the patio process of many weeks into a mechanized process of a few days. 

When Mackay and Fair under the corporation known as Pacific Mill and Mining built 

(and rebuilt) their new mills – Consolidated and California – in Virginia City between 

1874 and 1876, they employed the Washoe Process only on a grander scale than any 

other miller had. It is worth noting that Eliot Lord’s Comstock Mining and Miners 

included illustrations of mills, their interiors and their mechanics that are well worth 

studying. A set of 10 drawings of the interior of the Gould & Curry mill is especially 

2 

See Lord’s discussion of these improvements based upon his reading of Francisco Gamboa, Comentarios 

a las Ordenanzas de Minas…. Eliot used the Heathfield translation. These references will found in vol. 2, 

pp. 200-203. There are several monographs on the history of ore reduction in colonial and modern Mexico. 

One of the most thorough (in Spanish) on the developments summarized by Eliot is Modesto Bargalló, La 

minería y la metalurgía en la América española durante la época colonial (Mexico, 1955). 

3 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 82-89; DeQuille, History of Comstock Lode, 74-79.


5 

noteworthy (between pp. 126 and 127). These illustrate the scope of the mill and the 

extent of mechanization that had infused the milling business only a few years after the 

discoveries. One can imagine that if drawings of the Mackay and Fair’s mills had been 

rendered a decade later the result would even have been grander. 

The Surveyor-General’s 1866 report offered an extensive inventory of Comstock 

milling facilities and operations 4 . It included names of owners, locations of mills, 

construction costs, tax assessments and numerous details about capacity, equipment 

supplies, etc. In the four counties – Story, 

Lyon, Ormsby and Washoe – surrounding the 

Comstock there were total of 77 mills. Story 

had the most with 33 mills or 43 percent; 

Lyon was second with 27 or 35 percent; 

Washoe had 9 or 12 percent; and Ormsby had 

8 or 10 percent. The total cost to build these 

77 mills, based on data given to the Surveyor- 

General, was $5 million for an average cost of 

about $65,000 per mill. Story County 

accounted for $2 million or 40 percent and 

Illustration 1: Eureka Mill, Lyon County 

Lyon for $1.4 million or 28 percent. Story was the only county that reported tax 

assessments on mill properties, and they amounted to $954,000, a figure that was not the 

tax collected but the proportion of the value of the property (about 48 percent) against 

which property taxes were levied. Gould & Curry’s mill, located in Seven Mile Cañon 

about two miles from its mine under Virginia City, probably was the most expensive mill 

to have been built up to that time with a price tag of $380,000. The least expensive was 

Monitor near Dayton in Lyon County at $6,000. These 77 mills had 1,400 stamps for 

crushing ore for an average of 18 stamps per mill. Again Gould & Curry’s mill headed 

the list with 80 stamps, and Monitor plus several other small mills had only five stamps. 

The cost of construction per stamp was comparable in the largest and smallest mills: 

$4,750 at Gould & Curry versus $5,000 at Monitor. The 77 mills could process about 

65,000 tons of ore monthly or 750,000 tons yearly. That was between two and three times 

more than the output of ore to be milled in 1866. The zeal to build milling facilities 

derived from the same economic fantasy that fed the drive to claim and exploit every acre 

of the Comstock. 

4 


(1867), Tables are inserts between p. 21 and p. 25 with notes about the mills on pp. 25-26. The following 

discussion is based on data and calculations from these Tables. In addition to his survey of plant and 

equipment Surveyor-General Marlette asked a few mining companies to provide him with financial data on 

milling operations. When mining companies used outside millers or organized their own independent 

milling companies to reduce their ores, their own mining accounts revealed very little about the cost of 

reduction. Except for small quantities of ore sold each year by miners to millers the amalgamated or refined 

ore remained the possession of the mining companies. Mining-company accounts normally showed how 

much the reduction cost per ton and not much else. Few milling accounts have survived if they ever 

existed, even when mining companies, whose records do survive, built and managed the mills themselves. 

Thus, inquiries such as those conducted by the Surveyor-General in 1866 offer a glimpse into a less wellunderstood 

economic sphere.


6 

One of the most grandly publicized of the early mills was constructed for Gould 

& Curry. In 1861 Gould & Curry undertook the construction of a small mill in the 

vicinity of Seven Mile Cañon, but then over the next two years as output from the mine 

grew it enlarged and refurbished the mill at a cost (allegedly) of nearly $900,000. The 

reduction process that had been installed proved to be so inefficient that the new 

superintendent, Charles Bonner, discarded it in 1864. Then another reconstruction was 

ordered at a cost of more than a half million dollars. 5 By 1865, when Louis Janin jr. had 

replaced Bonner as superintendent, Gould & Curry had spent more than $1.5 million on 

the construction and reconstruction of this mill. In the 1866 survey the mill was estimated 

to have cost $385,000, a figure that does not match up with any of the figures just cited. 

In any event after the second remolding to install a “more traditional patio” process and 

now under Janin’s leadership the efficiency of the mill improved. In 1865 the Gould & 

Curry mill reduced nearly 32,000 tons at $12.93 per ton. This was a spectacular 

turnaround that began in November 1864. Before that it was alleged to have cost up to 

$50 per ton to refine Gould & Curry’s ore in its own mill, and because of the high cost 

most of its ore was sent to custom mills, which charged on average $26 per ton. Gould & 

Curry could no longer afford the extravagance in outlays for mill construction and ore 

reduction because the per-ton yields of its ores had dropped from extraordinarily high 

levels of $70 to $100 to $30. 6 

In the same report with his survey the Surveyor-General published detailed 

financial data provided to him by Janin. He wrote that the “admirable system of accounts 

of expenditures adapted in the Gould & Curry and Savage office, is worthy of all 

commendation, and it is to be hoped, will be adopted by other companies.” 7 

Unfortunately, while the efforts of Superintendent Janin and his staff represented an 

improvement over some earlier financial reporting, the excerpts that appeared in the 

Survey-General’s report have figures that do not always add up. Still Janin’s statement 

can be a useful point to start the analysis of milling operations. Gould & Curry finances 

showed that the mine produced 62,425 tons of ore with an average yield of $28.64 per 

ton. 8 Although he did not provide a total-dollar value, a simple calculation - tonnage x 

yield – would result in a bullion value of $1.8 million. Even with expanded milling 

capacity, perhaps the largest of any Comstock mill, Gould & Curry assigned some ores to 

custom mills. Sixty-five percent or 40,432 tons were “worked” at the company’s new 

mill and 28 percent or 17,680 tons at custom mills. A portion of the total, 4,313 tons or 7 

percent was unaccounted for. Janin made no reference to the disposition of the missing 

ore, whether it was set aside for later processing, was sold to other millers or was simply 

too inferior to be milled and was scrapped. If per-ton yield were calculated more strictly 

on the basis of 58,000 tons rather than 63,000 tons, it would rise to $33. Unfortunately 

5 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 125. Lord cited Annual Reports from 1861 through 1864 plus 

newspaper reports. Smith, The Comstock Lode, 85. 

6 


7 


(1867), 30. 

8 

It was described as 3 rd class ore without any further details. Ores could be classified in terms of their 

chemistry and purity but seldom were they classified as just noted in the superintendent’s reports. It would 

appear based on yields per ton that a 3 rd -class ore had an average of slightly above average yield compared 

to all Comstock ores.


7 

the excerpted version of the Janin report contained no figures that would detail the cost to 

Gould & Curry of having ores reduced at customs mills. Of the 40,432 tons crushed at 

Gould & Curry’s mill 36,001 tons or 88 percent were actually amalgamated. The 

remaining 12 percent or about 6,000 tons were lost 

in what were called “slimes and moisture in the 

ore”. The slimes were not necessary lost 

permanently; they could become tailings that 

required further refining to unlock the minerals in 

them. It was an accepted practice to assay the ore in 

its “wet” and crushed form and then to assay it 

again in its “dry” and amalgamated form. For Gould 

& Curry the wet assays came in at nearly $44 per 

Illustration 2: Santiago Mill, Ormsby County 

ton and the dry assays at $33 per ton. The $33-perton 

figure matched up with the figure above, 

although the bases from which the calculations were made were different. The “so-called 

“loss” of about 75 percent from the wet to the dry was about average for the Comstock. 

But the breakdown between gold at 30 percent ($364,000) and silver 70 percent 

($825,000) was somewhat below what other mines were reporting. This ratio will 

fluctuate from mine to mine and from area to area. 9 

The matter of “slimes” was a continuing concern to Comstock millers. As the ore 

was pulverized either by breakers or crushers, it was mixed with water into what Mark 

Twain called a “creamy paste”. As this paste moved from the stamps into the 

amalgamation pans the water was drained off as slimes into wooden troughs and 

eventually into nearby pools or ravines. The slimes contained mud, rock, other metals and 

nuggets of gold and silver. Procedures for screening out the nuggets with course blankets, 

fine screens and other such gadgets did not totally succeed, and at the end of the trough 

slimes hardened into tailings. Tailings could be reworked to extract their minerals, 

although the reworking could be expensive and unpredictable. Working the slimes was 

not ennobling work, according to Twain. “Of all the recreations in the world, screening 

tailings on a hot day, with a long-handled shovel, is the most undesirable.” Twain 

asserted that about a third of the ore containing gold and silver floated away in the slimes, 

and that was in fact the same figure that miners and miller used when estimating how 

much would be lost between the wet and dry assay. Since the dry assay was taken from 

the cake of metal that emerged from the amalgamation, whatever metal was recovered 

from slimes was considered to be a bonus. Some mining companies in addition to their 

reduction mills built tailings mills, and some independent millers specialized in 

processing tailings. Janin did not recount how the tailings were handled, and the 

accounts, which he presented, made no reference to them. It was certain, though, that the 

tailings from the operations at Gould & Curry’s were not ignored. Piles of tailings all 

over the Comstock region served legitimate business enterprises such as tailings mills 

and, as Twain reminded his readers, inspired hucksters (even today): “I have seen men 

hunt over a pile of nearly worthless quartz for an hour, and at last find a little piece as 

large as a filbert, which was rich in gold and silver – and this was reserved for a fire- 

9 


(1867), 33.


8 

assay! Of course the fire-assay would demonstrate that a ton of rock would yield 

hundreds of dollars—and on such assay many an utterly worthless mine was sold.” In 

addition inferior ores could be scrapped and end up with the slimes. Although as much as 

a third of the ore may have ended up in tailings dumps, the quantity of tailings actually 

recovered and registered (for tax purposes) remained a fraction of the gold and silver 

amalgamated form the ore and presented to the mint. 10 

Based on Janin’s figures the cost for the Gould & Curry mill to reduce more than 

40,000 tons of ore was $12.27 per ton. 11 

Janin stated that milling costs both at the 

company mill and at the custom mills 

averaged $13.30 per ton. It appears that the 

company milling was slightly less costly 

than custom milling. Beginning in the 

second half of the 1860s many of the local 

Illustration 3: Gould & Curry Mill, Story County 

mills came under the ownership or the 

control of William Sharon. His plan was to 

break the stranglehold of the independent millers and yet to make money milling ores 

from mines that he owned or controlled as well as from other mines. Although precise 

data on milling rates at custom mills in the early 1860s is seldom revealed in the 

surviving sources, the data after Sharon invoked his plan indicate that rates had fallen to 

about $15 per ton. Once Sharon’s plan proved successful other entrepreneurs began to 

emulate it, and that put rates under additional downward pressure. It would appear that 

both Gould & Curry’s mill as well as the custom millers came in at the low range of 

milling rates. At Gould & Curry’s mill of the nearly $500,000 in milling costs, 61 percent 

was for supplies and materials, 32 percent for labor and 7 percent for hauling. In a more 

detailed schedule Janin broke down refining costs into seven categories and then further 

divided each category into seven subsections, as shown in Figure 1 by dollars and cents 

per ton (functions in left-most column arranged by percentage): 

FIGURE 2 

MILLING COSTS PER TON BY CATEGORY, GOULD & CURRY, 1867 

Category Labor Wood Castings Copper Salt Mercury Sundries Total 

Power $0.5888 $3.9784 $0.1249 $4.61 (38%) 

Amalgamation $0.7681 $0.0465 $0.5936 $0.4350 $0.2706 $0.8659 $0.1096 $3.09 (25%) 

Repairs $0.8410 $0.6941 $1.51 (12%) 

Batteries $0.6598 $0.2085 $0.1096 $0.98 (8%) 

Hauling $0.9000 $0.90 (7%) 

Foreman, etc. $0.7133 $0.71 (6%) 

Breakers $$0.4132 $0.333 $0.45 (4%) 

Totals $3.9042 $4.0249 $0.8021 $0.4350 $0.2706 $0.8659 $1.9648 $12.27 

32% 33% 7% 4% 2% 7% 16% 101% 

Note: Batteries were stamps for crushing ores; foreman plus watchman and laborers – not clear how 

laborers in this column different from other laborers; breakers assigned to break up ore chunks in 

10 

Mark Twain [Samuel Clemens], Roughing It (New York: Penguin Books, 1981 [Reprint of 1872 

edition]), 36. Almost no information on how the tailings mills were constructed or operated has shown up 

in he original sources that I have studied. 

11 


(1867), 34. The Table in the text is a rearrangement of Janin’s data as given in his report. The percentages 

are mine.


9 

amalgamation pans; copper actually sulphate of copper; bottom row of percentages does not add up to 

100% because of rounding up. Total Column rounded up. There is a tiny mistake in the summing of items 

for the function amalgamation - $3.0893 instead of $3.0896.] 


The arrangement of milling expenses is not in and of itself surprising. Power, 

typically a major operating cost, consumed $4.61 per ton or 38 percent of the total. The 

major component of power was the purchase of wood ($3.99 of the $4.61.) and the 

remainder, slightly more than 60 cents per ton, was spent on labor and supplies. Since 

wood powered nearly all the machinery used in Comstock mining, it was in constant 

demand. In the mills firewood was needed primarily to drive the breakers and stamps that 

crushed the ore. Some firewood was needed during the amalgamation itself, but it was 

accounted for separately. If the cost of firewood for amalgamating were combined with 

the cost of firewood for crushing (and a few other minor tasks) firewood purchases 

comprised a third of milling-component costs. Timber was harvested as far away as Lake 

Tahoe and then hauled (or “floated) to the Comstock. In the Surveyor-General’s mill 

survey Gould & Curry stated that it averaged 20 cords of wood per day (several times the 

average for all mills), and while Gould & Curry did not report the cost per cord, other 

mills reported that they paid between $13 and $16 a cord. Despite some discrepancies 

between the Surveyor-General’s survey and Janin’s accounts, it is possible to estimate 

that timber purchases cost Gould & Curry between $100,000 and $150,000 per year. The 

mill under normal operations may have used between 7,000 and 8,000 cords of wood to 

power the crushers, mixers, steamers and other machines in reducing the ore. 

Electrification did not arrive until late in the nineteenth century, long after the 

Comstock’s zenith, and the figures from Gould & Curry’s timber accounts reveal why 

logging became one of the ancillary industries to grow up around the Comstock and why 

some mining and milling entrepreneurs started or bought their own operations: to add to 

the bottom line as well as to assure a ready supply. 

The next most costly item behind power was amalgamation at $3.09 or 25 percent 

of the total. Outlays expressed in percentages for the components were as follows: 

mercury (28 percent), labor (25 percent), castings (19 percent), sulphate of copper (14 

percent), salt (9 percent), sundries (4 percent) and wood (2 percent). Not surprising 

mercury was the most costly item. Amalgamation was less efficient without salt and 

copper so that if these three ingredients were summed they would constitute more than 

half (51 percent) of the total costs. Labor represented about a quarter of the total and 

purchases of replacements for castings on machines about a fifth. Miscellaneous supplies 

came in at 4 percent and firewood at 2 percent. This did not include the preparation of the 

ore – “breakers” and “batteries” for crushing and pulverizing the ore – and if preparation 

and amalgamation were combined they would add up to $3.63 per ton, which was still 

less than the overall power costs. The cost of the central ingredient, mercury, was only 87 

cents per ton or 7 percent of the total component cost at Gould & Curry. Since mercury 

could be recovered from batch to batch and was seldom totally lost (unlike firewood) a 

far smaller portion of the component costs was tied up in mercury than wood. Indeed 

labor, just behind firewood, was a much bigger component cost than mercury. Of course 

how much mercury could be recovered varied from mill to mill, and where efficiencies 

were rare or modest mercury could become a much larger expense.


10 

After accounting for power, amalgamation and preparation the remaining costs 

concerned repairs (12 percent), transportation (7 percent) and salaried personnel like 

foremen and watchmen (6 percent). With respect to repairs the major component was 

labor, which was billed at 84 cents per ton or 55 percent of total repairs. Hauling was 

simply listed at 90 cents per ton for “sundries”, and the personnel item was an expense 

that could not be included under any other category. Although one might wish for greater 

specificity in each category or component, one comes away from the report with a fairly 

clear understanding of how costs were spread across a milling operation. As important as 

mercury was, and in the opinion of some as costly as mercury was, it did not rank at the 

top of the list. Rather the cost of firewood to power the machines consumed $4.03 per ton 

and the cost of labor, a smaller component in milling than in mining, nonetheless ranked 

behind cost of power at $3.90 per ton or 32 percent. In a nation that was quickly 

industrializing and in an industry that was the beneficiary of that industrializing the role 

of power to drive more and increasingly complex machinery and the role of labor will 

loom large in how the Comstock industry confronted the cost structure. If the milling 

costs reported by Janin to Surveyor-General in the second half of the 1860s, they were, it 

would appear, as much as half the milling rates of the custom mills in the first half of he 

1860s according to undocumented estimates. 

On the basis of Janin’s figures for ore extracted and then processed in Gould & 

Curry’s mill the results appear to be positive. Of the 40,432 tons crushed at the mill 

36,001 tons (11 percent loss) were actually submitted to amalgamation to yield $1.2 

million in bullion, $825,000 in silver and $364,000 in gold. To extract the total crushed 

tonnage cost an estimated $7.86 per ton or $318,000. 12 As noted above, to refine that 

tonnage cost $12.27 per ton or $496,005. Janin did break it down into three categories: 

$301,751 or 61 percent for on materials, $157,865 or 32 percent on labor and $36,389 or 

7 percent for transportation. The ratio of mining to refining costs of $1 to $1.50 per ton 

was not out of line with what other companies reported in the second half for the 1860s 

and later. Even without considering the ore processed at custom mills the company had a 

gross profit of nearly $400,000. Obviously some costs that modern accounting rules 

would require have not been included, but the figure just cited could be treated as gross 

operating profits. The company was reported to have paid a dividend of $250,000, 

substantial but not spectacular in mining lore. 13 

At the time of the survey most of the large mining companies owned and operated 

their own mills, and like Gould & Curry they also used independent millers. The third leg 

in the milling complex in addition to custom mills and company mills was a separate 

milling business under the ownership of the principals of the mining companies, the socalled 

Sharon model. At the vanguard of the newly-emerging mining and milling 

corporate structure was a more shadowy Comstock personality, the San Franciscan 

12 

Janin’s extraction costs were based on 62,425 tons, not just the 40,032 tons submitted to Gould & 

Curry’s mill, so it cannot be determined if $7.86 was an appropriate estimate for extraction costs of the 

smaller volume. It is not possible to compute extraction costs except for total tonnage. 

13 


(1867), 31-34. Dividend figures from Grant Smith Notebooks, NC229, Binder 1, Special Collections, 

Library, University of Nevada at Reno. In addition to Gould & Curry Savage reported that to mill 9,700 

tons in the two mills (Atchison and Minnesota) that it owned in Washoe County cost $12.04 per ton, close


11 

financier, William Ralston. He had invested in and made money from several large 

mining ventures: Gould & Curry, Ophir and Mexican to name a few. As the shafts of 

these mines closed in on the 500-foot level they began to flood out. In addition Ralston’s 

own agents in Virginia City had mismanaged his properties to the extent that Ralston was 

the victim of theft. To protect his Comstock investments, which underwrote his other 

non-mining investment in San Francisco and across the West, he sent William Sharon to 

Virginia City in 1864. Sharon was frequently described in Napoleonic terms – a small, 

compact man who became by his own dint a towering figure. In the same year Ralston set 

up the Bank of California with Sharon as the chief cashier in Virginia City’s branch. 14 

With Sharon’s arrival to implement Ralston’s strategy the business of mining underwent 

a fundamental change. After an impressively thorough investigation of the Comstock 

mining and milling operations Sharon concluded that the Comstock despite a huge 

volume of water at the bottom of many of the active mining shafts was not washed up. He 

approved loans to mining companies even though in 1864-1865, as ore production and 

stock valuations fell in tandem, the Comstock was experiencing its first financial panic. 

Sharon’s approach was not to rely on one or a few assays but to order many assays in 

different mines. On the basis of these tests he became convinced that rich ores lay under 

the water. 15 Sharon was also convinced that with respect to mining and milling 

extravagance rather than prudence had governed the Comstock operations. Even Lord 

credited Sharon with a new outlook: “where organization was to triumph over anarchy 

and cool calculations of self-interest were to be the only basis of recognized action.” 16 

And the search for order was no more apparent than in the milling sphere. In addition to 

lending to mine owners, Sharon also made loans to millers. But the Comstock was in a 

state of contraction. Borrowers easily fell behind on their bank payments (interest in 

some cases was 2 to 5 percent per month), and when they did, through foreclosure 

proceedings, the Bank of California ended up with the properties. Foreclosure was 

preferred to a forced sale because a forced sale could yield less than a loan’s face value 

and a foreclosure presented the opportunity to try to preserve the investment in plant and 

equipment by operating the mill. It cannot be ascertained with certainty that Ralston and 

Sharon had thought through all the likely scenarios that evolve from foreclosing on mills 

during a contraction. Did they really want to end up owning more capacity than they 

could use? Foreclosures that led to idle operations were money-losers. Milling properties 

deteriorated quickly, according to Lord, because the dyes, pans and shoes, all made from 

iron, became corroded with rust when not in use. 17 That would represent substantial 

capacity at a time when the Comstock was struggling to recover. By 1867 the Bank may 

have owned as many as 17 mills. Whatever the number Ralston and Sharon decided to 

create a milling company called Union Mill and Mining Company, incorporated in 

California with a capitalization of $1.5 million in the form of 15,000 shares. Although the 

to the Gould & Curry figure.. 

14 

While description and analysis of the roles played by Ralston and Sharon were standard fare in most 

Comstock histories, some of the most illuminating details appear in works by the Progressive historian, 

George Lyman. See in particular Ralston’s Ring, 34-35, 38-39. For a typical characterization of Sharon see 


15 

Lyman, Ralston’s Ring, 38-39. Many assays were made as close to the water level as possible. 

16 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 245. This is a fine example of Lord’s devotion to laissez-faire 

principles. 

17 



12 

charter investors include seven individuals, three of the seven – Ralston, Sharon and D. 

O. Mills (longtime colleague of Ralston) became the principals. Seventeen mills were far 

too many to operate economically, and once the company was in place consolidation 

became the order of the day. Acquiring mills along the Carson River where water-power 

was assured was a deliberate strategy to reduce the cost of power. 18 

How Ralston and Sharon carried out their strategy has not, to my knowledge, 

been examined in detail. There was no doubt that Union Mill and Mining became the 

dominant milling operation for Comstock and remained so well into the 1870s. Even 

before the 1867 incorporation according to the Surveyor-General’s mill survey from 1866 

Sharon was listed as owner or agent for eight mills. Ralston’s name did not appear; nor 

did any of the names of the other investors in the soon-to-be-announced Union Mill and 

Mining. But the Ralston crowd owned mines that also owned mines. So surely the eight 

mills only represented a part of the total under the control of the Ralston, Sharon and 

their associates. Even with an incomplete list the mills directly connected to Sharon 

provide some illuminating details. It is worth noting that Sharon’s name appeared in the 

survey in several different ways: Wm. Or W. Sharon Agt. (6), Sharon & Co. (1) and 

Williams & Sharon (1). 19 FIGURE 3 

MILLS LISTING WILLIAM SHARON AS OWNER OR AGENT, 1866 

Mill Names Location-County Date Cost Power- 

HP 

Stamps Crush per 

Month 

Empire State 7 Mile Canyon-Story ND $35,000 Steam-? 15 700 tons 

Pacific Lower Gold Hill-Story 1863 $75,000 Steam- 30 1,300 tons 

80 

Franklin Carson River-Dayton- 1861 $50,000 Water-? 10 500 tons 

Lyon 

Gold Cañon Silver City-Lyon 1861 $40,000 Steam- 15 750 tons 

Reduction 

30 

Illinois Carson River-Dayton- 1864 $30,000 Steam- 20 500 tons 

Lyon 

30 

Swansea Johntown-Lyon 1862 $60,000 Steam- 12 600 tons 

40 

Brunswick Empire-Ormsby 1863 $50,000 Water-? 8 600 tons 

Carson Carson-Ormsby 1862 $25,000 Water-? 10 ? 

Totals $365,000 120 4,950 tons 

Sources: Footnote 13. 

The mills were spread through three counties: two in Story near Virginia City; 

four in Lyon with two along the Carson River; and two in Ormby with both along the 

Carson River. Water-power drove three mills, and a fourth mill, Illinois, while located 

along the Carson River apparently used steam as did the other four. Statistical 

comparisons with Sharon-identified mills and the total survey would not be useful 

because some of the other mills were surely under the control of the Ralston/Sharon 

combine. The properties unmistakably linked to Sharon cost (the original owners) about 

18 

Lyman, Ralston’s Ring, 85-86. 

19 

The Williams of Williams & Sharon could not be identified. The thought occurs that this could be a 

typographical error in that Sharon’s name was William and the entry perhaps should read William Sharon.


13 

$365,000 to build or $46,000 per mill. The most expensive was Pacific at $75,000 and 

the least expensive was Carson at $25,000. Pacific, built in 1863, had 30 stamps, two or 

three times the number at the other mills, and a capacity of 1,200 tons per ton, twice the 

capacity of other mills. That worked out to about $2,500 per stamp. Being located in 

Gold Hill away from any river Pacific was power by 80 horsepower steam engine. In 

terms of cost per stamp Illinois was the cheapest. Built in 1864 at a cost of $30,000, it 

had 20 stamps or $1,500 per stamp. Although on the Carson River it used steam power 

rather than water-power (30 horsepower engine) to operate the stamps with a monthly 

crushing capacity of 500 tons. The most expensive mill was Brunswick. It had the fewest 

stamps (8) at a cost of $6,250 per stamp with total construction costs of $50,000. It could 

crush 600 tons per month and was powered by water from the Carson River. Other 

factors such as the number and size of the amalgamation pans, the number of settlers and 

agitators for combining the ores with the mercury and other chemicals and the weight of 

each stamp had to be considered with respect to a mill’s cost and capacity. Still some of 

the figures cited above square with other information about the cost and capacity of 

Comstock mills. 

Even though the 1866 survey had linked these eight mills directly to Sharon and 

his allies other mills owned by mining companies had also fallen under the control of the 

so-called Bank Crowd in the middle 1860s. They included Ophir, Gould & Curry and 

Yellow Jacket, all of whom had large mills. If the data assembled by the Surveyor- 

General on these three company mills were added to the foregoing mill data, then the 

growing concentration of the milling business in the hands of Ralston and Sharon was be 

far more pronounced. These three company mills with a total of 144 stamps and a 

crushing capacity per month of 7,000 tons cost at least $600,000 to construct or about 

$4,200 per stamp. 20 One can presume that at the time of the Surveyor-General’s 1866 

report as many as 11 mills with between 250 and 300 stamps, a crushing capacity per 

month of 12,000 tons and a price tag of at least $1 million could have fallen under the 

control of Ralston & Sharon. The total crushing capacity of all the mills in the four 

counties was about 60,000 tons per month, and the Bank Crowd may have controlled 

about a fifth of that capacity. Even though some very large mills were outside the control 

of Ralston and Sharon, they had a dominance that cannot be detected through the survey 

and other documents from 1866. 21 As difficult as it is to pin down the exact number of 

mills owned or controlled by Ralston and Sharon in the years preceding the organization 

of the Union Mill and Mining Company in 1867, the trend toward what Grant Smith 

termed “private” milling had begun. Private milling existed along side of private mining, 

and while they had separate corporate identities, they were in fact set up by the mine 

owners who gleaned profits from both enterprises. 22 The objective in creating Union Mill 

and Mining was to consolidate and concentrate milling operations. That meant that some 

20 

There was much conflicting information about the cost to build and rebuild the Ophir and Gould & Curry 

mills, and the figures cited by the Surveyor-General were very much on the low side. Without actual 

company records any resolution of these conflicts remains improbable. 

21 

O’Neale, Rule & Co controlled three or four mills with a total crushing capacity of between 2,000 and 

2,500 tons per month. In addition Crown Point Mining Company, which would eventually come under the 

control of Ralston and Sharon, had at least two mills with a crushing capacity of less than 2,000 tons per 

month. 

22 



14 

of the 17 mills could be sold or abandoned because they were inefficient, and the 

remaining mills, which could set their own rates irrespective of the custom milling rates, 

would not only be fed ores from their own mines but could also solicit business from 

other mining companies. The crucial point was to own enough milling capacity to 

dominate the sector and to restrain competition. Custom mills, of course, had always been 

under private ownership, usually a single proprietor or several partners, and their 

independence from the mine owners was a source of friction. It was their independence 

(which had allowed them to dictate prices in the early years) that the milling tycoons 

wanted to compromise. Although custom mills survived, private milling as envisioned by 

Ralston and Sharon became the standard on the Comstock. 23 

The business of refining had changed noticeably by 1873 when the State 

Mineralogist presented his biennial report to the 6 th Session of the State Legislature. The 

data that he collected was from 1871 and 1872, and in the half-dozen years since the 

Surveyor-General’s survey the Sharon model had taken hold on the Comstock. The state 

had 162 mills with 1,904 stamps and the capacity of 5,183 tons per day. The four 

counties of Story, Lyon, Ormsby and Washoe had a total of 64 mills (40 percent) with 

981 stamps (52 percent) and a daily capacity of 3,043 tons (59 percent). A direct 

comparison with the 1866 survey requires some care because the Mineralogist’s 1873 

report included tailing mills and the 1866 survey did not. It is not known when 

independent tailings mills were first constructed. There is almost no discussion of tailings 

mills in standard published sources. Based on the 1873 Mineralogist’s report at least a 

half-dozen tailings mills had been built in Story and Lyon Counties by 1873. One of 

those mills, Occidental, was described as both a quartz mills and a tailings mill. If we 

exclude tailings mills from the 1873 report (excluding Occidental), we can then compare 

that report with the 1866 survey. The total number of quartz mills for the four counties in 

1873 would fall from 64 to 57, a figure that was 26 percent below the total number of 

mills (77) in 1866. Along with the decline in the number of mills came a 33-percent 

decline in the number of stamps. A decrease in mills and stamps was counterbalanced to 

a degree by an increase of 13 percent in capacity (from 2,072 tons to 2,338 tons – tailings 

capacity not included). After the craze in mill building during the 1860s some mills had 

been abandoned, some may have been converted to tailings operations and some were 

remodeled and upgraded. New mill building did not cease in the 1870s. Several large, 

powerful and efficient mills were constructed in and around Virginia City, mainly in 

connection with mining bonanzas at Crown Point, Belcher, Consolidated Virginia and 

California. Since 1866 the number of mills in Story and Lyon – the two counties most 

densely populated with mills - had declined from 60 to 46 or 12 percent and the number 

of stamps from 1031 to 687 or 33 percent. On the other hand daily capacity had grown 

from 1,484 to 1,704 tons or 15 percent. Even with a decline in the number of mills and 

stamps Lyon and Story Counties still had a third or more of the milling facilities in 

Nevada. 24 

23 

The mill data from “Annual Report of the Surveyor-General…1866” in State Journal and Appendix, 3 rd 

Legislative Session (1867), insert after p. 21. 

24 


Legislative Session (1873), 147. The 1866 data from the footnote above.


15 

Close scrutiny of the 1873 milling data reveals how the Comstock-related milling 

business had changed since 1866. Milling needed water, and the location of so many 

mills along rivers, especially the Carson River, was not an accident. Even though the ore 

had to be hauled 10 to 20 miles from the mines to the mills, that was initially cheaper 

than trying to bring water to the Comstock. The Washoe County mills being the most 

distance were the most vulnerable. In 1866 some of the largest mills yet built were in 

Washoe (City) and Franktown. The former town had two mills (Manhattan and New 

York & Washoe), owned New York & Nevada and New York & Washoe. Each mill had 

24 stamps with a daily capacity of 45 tons at an estimated cost of $100,000 to build in 

1863. In nearby Franktown Ophir Mining had built its mill in 1862 with 72 stamps and a 

capacity of 33 tons per day at a cost of $150,000, although in 1869 the Mineralogists 

declared that it cost over $500,000. 25 Its grandeur did not escape Lord’s attention: 12 

miles (16 miles according to the Surveyor-General) from the mine and covering an acre 

of ground the costly complex boosted not only a mill but also “shops, stables, carriagehouses, 

quarters for workmen, offices, and superintendent’s residence”, all of which 

“constituted a miniature city”. 26 Even with the second highest number of stamps in the 

four counties (only Gould & Curry’s mill, discussed earlier, had more) the capacity – to 

refine ore - was only average for Washoe County mills and for mills in the four 

counties. 27 Meanwhile in 1864 the Ophir Mining built a second mill along the Carson 

River in Lyon County about half the size of the Washoe County facility. Not far from the 

first Ophir Mill in Franktown J. H. Dall had built Washoe Valley Reduction with 60 

stamps and a capacity of 60 tons daily for $140,000. By 1873, wrote the Mineralogist, all 

but one reduction mills in Washoe County were idle and most of those built in the decade 

before had been abandoned or dismantled. The Truckee Mill (not on the Surveyor- 

General list) was still reducing ores, and several tailings mills remained in business. The 

cause of their demise: the Virginia and Truckee Railroad that allowed miners to transport 

their ores more cheaply to the mills to the south of the Lode on the Carson River. Without 

specifying the names or types of mills or commenting on their operational status, the 

Mineralogist noted that Washoe County in 1873 had 5 mills (down from 9 or 45 percent 

in 1866), 84 stamps (down from 261 or 68 percent) and 124-ton per-day capacity (down 

from 308 or 60 percent). For all intents and purposes refining ceased to be a major 

business. Washoe County now had to depend on Reno and Wadsworth, both important 

rail centers, and farming and grazing outside the cities for its economic prosperity. 28 

Ormsby County, which included mainly Carson City, the State Capital, but was 

later incorporated into Douglas County, was like Washoe County some distance from the 

Comstock. Since the Carson River flowed thorough it, it had access to water-power In 

addition, unlike Washoe County, it had direct access to the Comstock mines through the 

Virginia and Truckee Railroad, which opened in late 1869. The number of operating 

25 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist…1867 and 1868” Appendix to Journal of Senate, 4 th 

Legislative Session (1869), 21. Grant Smith cited the same figure without any source in The Comstock 

Lode, 80. 

26 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 122-123. Lord did not give a price tag to build a miniature city. 

27 



28 




16 

mills actually dropped from eight to six (a decline of 25 percent) between the Surveyor- 

General’s report in 1866 and the Mineralogist’s report in 1873. At the same time the 

number of stamps increased from 170 in 1866 to 210 (up 24 percent). The explanation for 

this was renovations at Santiago (from 24 to 34 stamps, 42 percent increase) and 

Brunswick (from 8 to 56 stamps, 600 percent increase). During the early years of millconstruction 

frenzy two Comstock mining companies built expensive mills in Ormsby 

County: Mexican built a steam- and water-powered mill for $300,000 in 1863 in the town 

of Empire (under the ownership of Alsop & Company in 1866) and Yellow Jacket built a 

water-powered mill in 1864 for $150,000 in the same town. The 1866 survey reported 

that the eight mills, built between 1860 and 1864, cost a total of $825,000 or slightly 

more than $100,000 apiece on average. With the aforementioned 170 stamps the cost per 

stamp was just under $5,000. By 1866 two of the mills, Brunswick and Carson, had come 

under the control of Ralston and Sharon. It had fewer mills than Washoe in 1866, but the 

level of capitalization was somewhat higher. Whereas Washoe faded Ormsby remained a 

part of the milling complex associated with the Comstock until the end. In 1873 the 

Mineralogist reported that Brunswick, Mexican and Yellow Jacket Mills were then 

processing ore from Crown Point, whose bonanza began in 1871. With more stamps 

Ormsby’s monthly capacity jumped from 7,360 to 15,300 tons, an increase of 107 

percent. This was accounted for in large part because Brunswick’s capacity skyrocketed 

from 20 to 120 daily or 500 percent. In a curious twist Ralston and Sharon had bought the 

Crown Point Mine in the late 1860s, and then lost control of it just as the bonanza began 

in 1871. Who owned the mills, and in particular who owned Brunswick, which was 

currently processing ore from a mine that they no longer owned? The Mineralogist’s 

Report was of little help because it did not list any of the owners of the mills in Ormsby. 

Eliot Lord wrote, however, that Ralston and Sharon after having lost Crown Point were 

further disappointed because they did not secure any contracts for Union Mill and Mining 

to refine Crown Point’s ores. Crown Point had a mill in Gold Hill (Rhode Island) near the 

mine, and that mill surely processed some of the ore. What was not refined there was 

processed at mills owned by Nevada Mill and Mining, which Crown Point’s owners, 

Haywood and Jones, had established in the mold of Union Mill and Mining. If the 

Mineralogist’s information was correct that these Ormsby County mills were fully 

occupied with ores from Crown Point, then Brunswick, Mexican and Yellow Jacket may 

well have belonged to Nevada Mill and Mining. Union Mill and Mining had sold other 

mills, and it may have disposed of Brunswick. Whoever owned the Ormsby’s mills in the 

early 1870s, they were valuable properties as a consequence of the recovery of the Lode’s 

southern end. None of the mills was idle, and none appeared to be processing tailings. 29 

From 1866 to 1873 Lyon County fared better than Washoe but less well than 

Ormsby. Lyon had the highest population of mills in Nevada, but, if only quartz mills 

were counted, then it was second behind Story. Lyon County sat between Story and 

Ormsby, and the availability of water from the American Flats and Carson Rivers made it 

a natural site for mill construction. The Virginia & Truckee Railroad from Virginia City 

to Carson City passed through the heart of Lyon County’s milling district and further 

29 


(1867), insert after p. 21; “Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist...1871 and 1872” in Appendix to 

Journal of Senate, 6 th Legislative Session (1873), 115-117, 132; Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 283- 

284.


17 

enhanced its position. In 1866 there were 27 amalgamation mills in Lyon County with 

395 to 424 stamps in plants that cost between $1.4 and $1.5 million to build, or 

approximately $3,500 per stamp. 30 According to Lyon County’s Assessor, George 

McFadden, who collected the Lyon County data that the Mineralogist incorporated in his 

1873 report, the 24 quartz and tailings mills were located in the following areas: eight in 

Silver City (closest to the Comstock), six along the Carson River (farthest from the 

Comstock), five in Gold Cañon (between Silver City and Dayton), three in Dayton (a few 

miles southeast of Silver City) and two in Spring Valley (west of Dayton). Of the 24 

mills 19 were classified as quartz (amalgamation) mills and five as tailings mills. More 

than half of Lyon County’s milling capacity was from tailings. If all the mills listed in the 

1866 Surveyor-General’s survey were quartz mills (this seems likely) then the county had 

lost eight quartz mills between 1866 and 1873. Over time as the volume of tailings grew 

mills specializing in tailings also increased in number. In 1873 all of Lyon’s tailings mills 

were in operation whereas among the quartz mills five were idle. The Mineralogist’s 

Report did not explain why the mills were idle or how long they had been idle. Two of 

the idle mills were in Gold Cañon, and one each along the Carson River, in Dayton and in 

Spring Valley. The largest of the idle mills was Rock Point Mill (also known as Imperial 

because it was built by Imperial Mining) with 56 stamps and a monthly capacity of 112 

tons. When it was built in 1861 at a cost of $250,000, it was the county’s largest and most 

expensive mill. At the time only the Gould & Curry Mill in Story County and the 

Mexican Mill in Ormsby County cost more to build. In the 1873 Mineralogist’s report the 

number of stamps remained the same at 56, but the capacity of the mill had risen from 90 

tons per day to 112 tons per day. Its stamps were of average size with 16 weighing 600 

pounds and 40 weighing 550 pounds. The Imperial Mining Company had enjoyed some 

success in the early 1860s, but along with many other Gold Hill mines Imperial produced 

little profitable ore after 1868, and that may explain why this large facility was idle in 

1873. Despite the trend toward private milling companies Imperial may have remained a 

mine-linked mill. The other idle mills were of moderate size. Given that nearly a third of 

the quartz mills were not operating and all the tailings mills were, tailings operations had 

obviously grown in importance in Lyon County’s milling business. It was certainly more 

prominent in Lyon County than in any of the other three counties. 

Two points of clarification should be made. That a mill was running with a certain 

capacity did not mean that it was running at full capacity every day. The Mineralogist’s 

report simply indicated what the potential capacity was and not what was being milled 

every day. Furthermore, tailings yielded metals of far less value per ton than 

amalgamation so that the quartz mills with less daily capacity might actually produce 

gold and silver of greater worth. 31 Mills could make profits from tailings, however, and 

since Lyon County had so many quartz mills from the early 1860s, it probably had an 

ample supply of tailings for millers to buy and reprocess. The two largest tailings mills 

were the Carson Valley Mill along the Carson River and the Birdsail & Co. mill in 

Dayton, which could process up to 300 tons daily. The remaining three mills were 

smaller with a capacity of 25 to 50 tons. The largest of the operating quartz mills was 

30 



31 

If Lyon County Assessment Rolls have survived, and I assume that many have although I have not 

consulted them, the relationship between quartz and tailings mills could be studied in greater detail.


18 

Eureka on the Carson River with 60 stamps and a capacity of 120 tons (compared for 

example to the idle Imperial with 50 stamps and a 112-ton capacity. Built in 1861 for 

$100,000, its owners in 1866 were Hurd, Wheeler & Dunker. It cannot be verified that 

they built the mill in 1861 or still owned it in 1873. It had been enlarged since 1866 when 

it was of average size with 20 stamps and a daily capacity of 22 tons. Even though it was 

6.5 miles from the Comstock mines, it had access to the Carson River to power a large 

turbine and was close to the Virginia & Truckee railroad. According to the 1873 report 

Eureka was an operating mill, but the report made no reference as to who owned it or 

whose ore was being processed. Some of the other quartz mills noted by the County 

Assessor served mainly Lyon County mines: Dayton Mine-Atlanta Mill; Buckeye Mine- 

Horn and Hope Mills; and Cook & Geyer Mine-Franklin Mine. Only the Franklin Mill 

appeared on the 1866 survey with Sharon as its owner. Several other mines were 

described as flooded or abandoned. The remaining amalgamation mills, like Eureka, 

listed by the Surveyor-General were not identified with any mines. Five of those mills – 

Devil’s Gate, Bacon, Trench, Kelsey and Sacramento – will end up in the stable of mills 

owned or controlled by The Firm through the Pacific Mill and Mining Company to 

process ores from Consolidated Virginia and California Mines. 32 

For Story County the 1873 Mineralogist’s report added an important component. 

It had information on size and location of the mills, but it also included information on 

which mines the mills served. Story had a total of 29 mills only three of which processed 

tailings. Occidental was classified as a dual quartz and tailings mill. Eight mills (28 

percent), none of which were tailings mills, were idle, about the same proportion as in 

Lyon County. Among the amalgamation mills the average number of stamps per mill was 

13 and the average capacity was 37 tons per day or 1,100 tons a month. Story’s averagesized 

mill tended to be smaller in terms of number of stamps and overall capacity when 

compared to the average in Lyon and Ormsby but especially in Ormsby. Eight (28 

percent) mills were located in Lower Gold Hill, six (21 percent) in Gold Cañon (further 

south where the boundary between Story and Lyon Counties was located), five (17 

percent) each in 6-Mile and 7-Mile Cañons (east of Virginia City) and the remaining five 

(17 percent) in Virginia City (3), Silver Star (1) and Cedar Hill (1). Pacific (Gold Cañon) 

had the most stamps with 30 and a capacity of 70 tons per day or 2,100 tons per month 

while Petaluma (Lower Gold Hill) had 6 fewer stamps but the highest capacity of 75 tons 

per day or 2,100 tons per month. The three mills in Virginia City proper – Hoosier State, 

Nevada and Sierra Nevada – had more than the average number of stamps but only 

slightly more than the average capacity. Although the capacity of the tailings mills was 

not given, they seemed to play a smaller role in Story County’s milling business. Two 

tailings mills – Park & Bowie, Nos. 1 & 2 – were in 6 Mile Cañon, and the other, 

Occidental, was located in Silver Star. Half of the County’s mills listed in 1873 inventory 

appeared in the earlier 1866 survey. Among the largest (25 stamps and 50-ton per-day 

capacity) was Rhode Island, built at a cost of $100,000 in 1862 by Crown Point Mining 

Company. When Sharon and Ralston took control of Crown Point, they probably took 

control of Rhode Island. It is unclear if it became a property of the Union Mill and 

Mining Company because when the rivals of Sharon and Ralston won control of Crown 

32 




19 

Point in the early 1870s they apparently also came into possession of Rhode Island. 

Between 1866 and 1873 the capacity of Rhode Island was not increased so that its 50- 

ton-daily capacity remained the standard. Most of the mills on both inventories had 

undergone some enlargement and improvement. Both Pacific and Petaluma increased the 

number of stamps and their capacity after 1866. Several mills reduced the number of 

stamps but increased capacity. Although the total number of mills had declined from 33 

in 1866 to 27 in 1873 or 18 percent, excluding tailings mills, and the number of stamps 

had fallen from 607 to 399 or 34 percent, capacity had risen 18 percent. Like Lyon 

County Story had idle amalgamation mills – seven of the 27 or 26 percent. They 

accounted for a quarter of the daily capacity. The reason for their idleness was not 

recorded. Four of the seven dated from the early 1860s, and age may have made them 

less competitive. Despite the bonanzas on the Comstock’s southern end Story County 

could still be saddled with milling overcapacity. Several of the idle mills, however, will 

be reactivated during the great bonanza that was just beginning on the northern end. 33 

In the early 1870s the output of four mines – Crown Point, Chollar Potosi, Savage 

and Belcher – dominated the milling business in Story County. Twelve of the 27 quartz 

mills with more than half of the stamps and daily capacity were engaged in processing 

ores from these mines. Among the operating mills this was to 72 percent of the stamps 

and 68 percent of the capacity. Four Story County mills – Ione (a small “croppings” 

mill), Petaluma, Sapphire and Rhode Island - with 69 stamps (17 percent) and 180-tons 

per-day capacity (18 percent) were processing ores from Crown Point, which the 

Mineralogist described as “the most valuable silver mine in the world”. These four mills, 

however, constituted a minor contingent of Crown Point’s milling facilities. The bulk of 

the ore was shipped to three mills – Brunswick, Mexican and Yellow Jacket – on the 

Carson River in Ormsby County. 34 Their combined capacity was 345 tons per day, almost 

twice the volume of the Story County mills. The largest of the Story County contingent 

was Petaluma with a capacity of 75 tons that was equal to the capacity of Yellow Jacket, 

which ranked third on the list of Ormsby mills. It is possible, of course, that mills in Lyon 

County also processed Crown Point ore, although none was so identified. As noted 

earlier, the new owners of Crown Point set up their own private milling company, 

Nevada Mill and Mining, but what cannot be documented yet is which of these mills 

were folded into the Nevada operation. Three other Story County mills – Winfield, Landy 

and Nevada – with a total of 60 stamps and 150-tons capacity per day (4,500 tons per 

month) milled ores for Chollar Potosi Mining Company, and three other mills – Atlas, 

Hoosier State and Evans – with 38 stamps and 93 per-ton per-day capacity (2,800 tons 

per month) worked ores for Savage Mining Company. It was not stated whether these 

mills belonged to a milling combine under the control of the mine owners or were 

independent, custom mills. In the case of Savage the Mineralogists did state that except 

for a small quantity Savage’s ores were processed at customs mills. Savage owned two 

mills – Atchison and Minnesota – in Washoe County, both built in the early 1860s, and 

one of them (name of mill not given in report) processed about 1,000 tons. Low yields 

33 


(1867), insert after p. 21; “Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist...1871 and 1872” Appendix to Journal 

of Senate, 6 th Legislative Session (1873), 138. 

34 




20 

from Savage ores made the cost of transportation to Washoe prohibitive. A fourth mine, 

Belcher, at the onset of its bonanza, sent some of its ores to Pacific, the second largest 

Story mill, and a Sharon-Ralston property. Presumably other mills owned by Sharon and 

Ralston in Story and other counties could have been enlisted to mill the rising quantity of 

ore from Belcher. By the 1870’s large and powerful milling combines had emerged along 

side of large and power mining combines. 35 

When the Mineralogist’s Report (1875) filed his 1875 report with the 7 th Biennial 

Legislature, it contained no mill surveys and very little general information about milling. 

It was regrettable that he did not provide a more detailed review of milling operations in 

Story and the surrounding counties at a point when the Comstock was about to enter its 

most flourishing period. In Lyon County he noted that most of the processing was 

tailings, a pattern that we observed in the 1873 report. Without naming the two tailings 

mills he reported that they had the combined capacity of 1,350 tons per day, more than 

twice what had been reported two years earlier. In Story County, he advised, there was 

insufficient milling to handle the upsurge in ore production mainly from Consolidated 

Virginia and California mines. He included some milling details concerning operations at 

Crown Point, Belcher and a few others mines, but he devoted most of milling report to 

the evolving milling behemoth in connection with Consolidated Virginia and California, 

a topic to be looked at closely in the next chapter. The bulk of his report, however, 

focused on mining rather than milling, which in everyone’s mind was on the verge of 

fulfilling the promise often made for the Comstock. 36 

The published accounts of Crown Point’s mining and milling operations for the 

fiscal year 1873-1874 offer details on the cost of preparing and processing the ores. 37 For 

the fiscal year 1873-1874 11 mills were required to process slightly more than 140,000 

tons of ore. 38 Figure 3 lists pertinent information about the mills. Eight of the 11 mills 

were included on the Survey-General’s 1866 Report and nine of the 11 were included in 

the Mineralogist’s 1873 report. The two mills that did not appear on earlier inventories 

were Morgan and Sherman: the former was near Carson City in Ormsby County and 

Sherman was on the southern edge of Story County. More than a quarter of the ore was 

processed at Brunswick in Ormsby County. Behind Brunswick were two other Ormsby 

County mills, Mexican (19 percent) and Morgan (18 percent). These three accounted for 

64 percent of the refined ore. In fourth place (11 percent) was Crown Point’s own mill, 

Rhode Island, built a decade before. The remaining seven mills handled a quarter of the 

ore. The yields ranged from a high of $67 per ton at Hoosier State Mill on 376 tons, the 

smallest quantity of ore processed by any of the mills, to a low of $35 per ton at Sherman 

Mill on 449 tons, the next smallest quantity. The average yield was $51 per ton, a figure 

35 


Legislative Session (1873), 131-132, 134-136, 138. 

36 


Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session (1875), 91-101, passim. 

37 

The Superintendent’s Report covered the period May 1873-April 1874. Excerpts and summaries are 

found as a port of the “Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist...1873 and 1874” in Appendix to Journals 

of Senate and Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session (1875), 106-112. 

38 

Ore that was described as “ore worked” or as “working ores” usually meant ore that had been put through 

the refining process from crushing to amalgamating. Worked ore could be less than the volume of ore 

extracted from the mine and shipped to the mill.


21 

that characterized the yields of the four largest refiners (noted above). At this point the 

accounts require some interpolation. The milling costs at Rhode Island were included 

along with the general mining accounts, and the inclusion of milling accounts within the 

mine’s financial accounting suggests that the mill was still a property of the mining 

company. The refining costs of the other mills, some or perhaps all of which may have 

been properties of Nevada Mill and Mining, were listed under a single entry called 

crushing. 39 The mining company spent $1.5 million to process 124,000 tons (the 

difference between the total of 140,000 and Rhode Island’s share of 16,000). The per-ton 

cost was $11.99 per ton. Rates at individual mills were not recorded. If $12 per ton was 

more or less the standard, it amounted to about a quarter of the average per-ton yield in 

bullion of $51. Add the $12 per-ton refining cost to the $9 per ton mining cost for a total 

of $21 to $22, leaving a surplus of nearly $30 per ton. 

Refining costs at Rhode Island Mill appear to be somewhat lower per-ton than the 

calculated average. For the 16,000 tons processed at Rhode Island the cost including 

more than $1,000 for mill improvement was $174,000. Some other costs such as haulage 

and assays may not have been fully accounted for under entries for Rhode Island. In any 

event the per-ton rate there was $11 ($10.84), slightly lower than the rate for the other 10 

mills. The breakdown (less precise than for an earlier discussion of Gould & Curry) is as 

follows: mercury, chemicals etc. - $66,602 or 39 percent; labor - $45,659 or 26 percent; 

wood - $28,987 or 17 percent; machines & castings - $23,003 or 13 percent; and water - 

$8,400 or 5 percent. Clearly mercury and the other ingredients necessary for 

amalgamation had jumped to the top of the cost structure. Two factors can be cited. First 

the demand for mercury had risen in step with increasing tonnage of ore to be processed, 

and that led to higher mercury prices. Further, the richer the ore the more “new” mercury 

had to be incorporated with each batch – in short more mercury was lost. In the case of 

Rhode Island mercury et al. cost about $4.19 per ton. If that were used as a benchmark 

for all the mills, then more than $550,000 was spent on mercury purchases. The next 

highest cost was labor at about $2.88 per ton. Firewood to power the steam turbine and 

machinery cost $1.81 and $1.44 per ton respectively and water cost slightly more than 50 

cent per ton. Even as milling rates had declined since the early 1860s the allotment of 

those costs had also changed. No doubt part of this arose from the introduction of greater 

efficiencies in the preparing and processing of the ores, but the most notable change arose 

from the heavy, constant demand for mercury without which the Comstock’s success 

would have been greatly limited. 40 

Not much on milling appeared in subsequent reports by the Mineralogist, and 

with the abolition of the office in 1879 public reports on mining and milling on the 

Comstock and in Nevada almost ceased entirely. Some new mills were built and some 

39 

I have deduced that if the volume of ores refined at Rhode Island is subtracted from the total of ores 

processed, the difference is the amount listed as crushed but excluding Rhode Island. In order to estimate 

the cost of refining at the other mills the figure for “crushing” only refers to the refining of the ore outside 

of the Rhode Island Mill. The per-ton cost reached by dividing the total crushed figure by the tonnage 

delivered to the mills except Rhode Island is within a few cents of the per-ton refining cost stated for all the 

mills in the accounts. It is not clear why the per-ton cost was presented in this way without more detail. 

40 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist...1873 and 1874” Appendix to Journals of Senate and 

Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session (1875), 107. The percentage calculations are mine.


22 

old ones refurbished during the boom years of the middle 1870s, but as the boom faded, 

many mills, new, old and remodeled, were abandoned. The mills that continued to have 

some business were the tailings mills because as the output of ore from underground fell, 

the tailings were seen as potentially profitable especially as the techniques for recovering 

minerals from them were being improved. The state of the mines rather than the mills 

remained the principal interest of the official investigators. 

FIGURE 4 

MILLS REFINING OF CROWN POINT ORES, 1873-1874 

Mill County Tons Bullion Value ($) Per-Ton Yield ($) % Tons 

Brunswick Ormsby 37,620 $1,910,659 $50.79 26.85 

Mexican Ormsby 26,333 1,366,538 51.89 18.79 

Morgan Ormsby ? 25,480 1,280,062 50.23 18.18 

Rhode Island Story 16,044 850,362 53.00 11.45 

Petaluma Story 12,333 624,544 50.64 8.80 

Pioneer Lyon 10,486 522,080 49.78 7.48 

Atlas Story 7,490 386,122 51.54 5.35 

Sapphire Story 1,804 84,637 46.90 1.29 

Devil's Gate Lyon 1,713 75,829 44.25 1.22 

Sherman Story/Lyon ? 449 15,858 35.22 0.32 

Hoosier State Story 376 25,048 66.70 0.27 

Totals 140,128 $7,141,739 $50.97 100.00 

Sources: Footnote 37.

THE COMSTOCK [K] 

1 

Chapter 11 

The Business of Mining: 

The Sutro Tunnel, Ever-Expanding Technological Base 

The “Feats of Labor”, to steal a phrase from Eliot Lord, was no more manifest on the 

Comstock than with the most controversial and colossal project ever undertaken – the 

Sutro Tunnel. 1 It was an underground passage, four miles long, that began on the surface 

in a place called Sutro, to the east of the Comstock, and reached a depth of 1,700 to 1,800 

feet when it connected to the Lode under Virginia City. It was designed with several tasks 

in mind, although drainage was the principal one. As impressive as this “feat of labor” 

was, it highlighted another feat that helped to define the Comstock – the search for and 

the application of new technologies. In any comparative assessment of New World 

mining, one has to be struck by how much mechanization had entered the business of 

mining by the second half of the nineteenth century, especially underground. Spanish 

colonial mining had little mechanization below ground and only some above ground at 

the refineries. The nineteenth century had a much stronger industrial base than previous 

centuries, and the application of that base was evident almost from the beginning at the 

Comstock, both above ground and below. Drills cut away the rock, pumps admitted air 

and drained water and elevators moved workers and ores in and out of the mine. 

Company correspondence referred to searches for better bits and bigger engines to 

accomplish the work. Machines did not replace humans, of course, but they in 

combination with human labor made it possible to be more productive at greater depths 

than ever before. There were limits, imposed by the physical environment, but not by the 

imagination of the entrepreneur. One of those projects of the imagination that almost 

became a fully achieved reality was the Sutro Tunnel. 

The tunnel was the dream and the achievement of Adolph Sutro, whom Grant 

Smith described as “one of the most remarkable men that rose to power on the 

Comstock.” 2 Because so many (including Sutro himself) have written about Sutro and his 

ambitions, I have chosen to confine my analysis to specific matters dealing with finances 

and technologies relating to the Sutro Tunnel rather than the career of Sutro. It is widely 

observed because the tunnel took a decade to build and therefore opened only after the 

Lode’s greatest bonanza had passed, it served as a postscript in the history of the 

Comstock. Even so after numerous setbacks and threatened abandonments the tunnel was 

completed, functioned as it was designed to function and was regarded as a success 

simply because it proved what could be accomplished in an age that combined the power 

of the machine and the capacity of labor. Indeed, one might conclude that the Sutro 

Tunnel was the final act in a drama that had raised the business of mining to 

unprecedented heights. As promoter, designer and entrepreneur, Sutro embraced the 

dreams of many of his compatriots except his dreams were grander and bolder. He has 

been caricatured as essentially a promoter – to the extent that he continually repackaged 

the venture to attract investors he was – but in promoting he was also advancing the 

power of technology. No doubt in the end Comstock companies found other ways to 

drain the Lode, but Sutro still left his mark, much to the chagrin of his many foes. 

1 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, the title of Chapter 17. 

2 



2 

The history of Sutro’s tunnel began shortly after mining on the Comstock began. 

The idea for a tunnel was pitched to the Nevada Legislature [2 nd Session] in 1865. The 

Legislature granted to Sutro an exclusive franchise to build a tunnel from the mouth of 

Webber Cañon in Lyon County to the Comstock at a point about 2,000 feet below the 

Gould & Curry croppings. A federal bill – The Sutro Tunnel Act – followed in 1866. It 

permitted him to buy public land for $1.25 per acre and private land for $5.00 per acre 

over the distance to the Lode. It also stipulated that anyone benefiting from the tunnel had 

to pay a fee to the company. What was not forthcoming in spite of many years of 

petitioning and imploring Congress was a federal loan. And the lack of capital would 

haunt Sutro to the very end of his participation in the tunnel project. 3 

The idea behind the tunnel was not irrational. The primary purpose of the tunnel 

was to drain water from a depth that was well below the levels 

that most of the underground operations had then reached. Sutro 

(and others) believed that mining companies would find richer 

ores the deeper they dug into the Lode. But a few hundred feet 

below the surface water had already become a problem and an 

expense for some mines, and the idea behind Sutro plan was to 

connect to the Lode at a depth sufficiently below the presumed 

location of the yet-to-be-discovered ores to let the water drain 

down and out. This idea was a variation on what Spanish miners 

had learned in Mexico and Peru. They would build an adit or 

tunnel below the vein of ore that they were working to remove 

the water. This was referred to in colonial documents as “dead 

work” because it had no other function except to drain water. 

Illustration 1: Sutro These projects were expensive, time-consuming and often 

Entrance 

abandoned. They were more often built in Mexico than Peru 

because Mexican ores over time proved to be of higher grades 

and therefore of greater yields than Peruvian ores. Adits could in fact pay for themselves. 4 

As efficient as Sutro’s tunnel might have been for diverting water, Sutro had other 

plans for the tunnel. In addition to drainage he envisioned that it could be used to 

transport workers, supplies, ores and even visitors into the interior of the Lode. Since it 

was to be used for more than moving water the interior of the tunnel had to have a system 

of ventilation and illumination, had to be wide and high enough to accommodate rails, 

cars and passengers and had to keep the drainage ditch separate from the rail system. 

Further it was necessary to build the tunnel on a grade to permit the natural flow of water 

and to intersect the Lode at an appropriately effective point. Under these conditions it 

was calculated that the interior of that tunnel would be about 2 million cubic feet. Tens of 

thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of tons of soil, rock and clay (not to mention 

scalding water) would have to be removed to bring the tunnel into existence. This plan 

called for careful engineering as well as long-term financing, compliant laborers and 

3 


4 

For a comparative discussion of colonial Peruvian and Mexican mining, see Garner, “Long-Term Silver 

Mining Trends,” American Historical Review, 93, 929-934.


3 

drilling technology, some of which did not yet exist. As was his nature, Sutro created an 

overly optimistic timetable of two and one half years for the completion of the tunnel. In 

a report to the 3 rd Legislative Session the Surveyor-General thought the timetable was 

“impractical” and estimated that “with vigorous prosecution” five years would be 

needed. 5 It actually took 13 years to complete the tunnel, and not only did the mining 

companies discover the rich ores that Sutro had predicted when the tunnel was launched 

but unfortunately they had removed most of the profitable ores before the tunnel was 

finished. Among his supporters and enemies there was a consensus that such a tunnel, if 

it could be built, would serve the Comstock well, but like so many Comstock projects this 

one became bogged down in financial disputes, technical failures, political intrigues and a 

general dislike and distrust of Sutro within the mining community. Whether or not a 

functioning tunnel during the boom years would have made a significant difference to the 

bottom line for the Comstock mining companies can hardly be tested. The historical 

interest in the Sutro Tunnel is that it got built at all. 

Part of the appeal of the project may have been its monumentality. Big projects 

and big dreams were standard fare on the Comstock. There is no doubt that Sutro like 

many of his contemporaries overstated the prospects and in particular the financial 

prospects of the tunnel. In fact, though, it was completed much in the way that his 

original plan had envisioned. 6 His franchise gave him a claim of land about one mile in 

width. From Webber Cañon the tunnel would be dug through the middle of the claim to 

connect with the Comstock (actually at the Savage Mine to the south of Gould & Curry) 

at between 1,600 and 1,700 feet. The depth of the tunnel would increase, of course, as the 

tunnel made its way under rising surface elevations until it reached the Comstock, a 

distance of 20,000 feet. Given the dual purpose of the tunnel – drainage and 

transportation - it was designed to be 7 feet high, 8 feet wide at the top and slightly wider 

(between 9 and 9.5 feet) at the bottom of the tunnel. Tracks for two railways would be 

laid on the floor of the tunnel along with a properly covered conduit for drainage of 

water. At the Comstock end a connection would be made at no less than 1,800 feet. The 

grade was to be not less than one inch per 100 feet. Sutro understood that time was of the 

essence so he planned to excavate from both directions. To accomplish this he proposed 

the construction of four shafts along the route at 4,000 to 5,000-foot intervals. Once these 

shafts reached their appropriate levels work digging the tunnel could be sped up. The 

shafts could also improve ventilation and facilitate maintenance of the tunnel. This part of 

the project ran into numerous delays and difficulties. The first two shafts were completed, 

and the third and the fourth, the deepest shafts, were abandoned. In the mid-1860s, when 

Sutro devised his plan, he was among those investors who believed that the Lode’s 

richest ores yet lay below the 1,000-foot level, which some companies had already begun 

to explore. It turned out, of course, that the richest ores lay between the 1,200- and 1,700- 

foot levels, and had Sutro been able to complete the tunnel as scheduled by the late 1860s 

or early 1870s these levels could have been connected to the tunnel and drained 

5 


(1867), 24-25. 

6 


(1867), 24-25; Summary of Articles of Agreement between Gould & Curry and Sutro Tunnel Company (26 

Mar 1866) in Folder from Virginia Consolidated Mining Company (29 Mar 1879), NC7/1/6, Special 



4 

accordingly. If ores had discovered below the 1,700-foot level, the tunnel would have 

been less effective. Rich ores at greater depths would have required water to be pumped 

up where the tunnel intersected the Lode. But unbeknownst to Sutro and everyone else 

who speculated about the configuration of the Lode, the richest seams lay slightly above 

where his tunnel and Lode joined and below this level the ores petered out. When the 

tunnel and the Lode were joined, the tunnel project itself had become an anachronism, a 

victim of time, as was true of other monumental projects. By 1878, while a few waterlogged, 

non-producing mines could have benefited from the tunnel, they remained barren 

of ore. Other mining companies were exploring depths below the connecting point, and 

even though management drew up plans to adapt the tunnel to the new underground 

reality, they were abandoned because in the face of continued barrenness costs were 

prohibitive. 

In addition to draining the mines Sutro’s tunnel would also serve as a conduit for 

moving supplies, workers ores to and from the Lode. Being both a visionary and a 

businessman Sutro had concluded that if such a link were opened he would not only earn 

income from drainage and transport but he could also reap greater wealth by owning or 

controlling the mills that could be built at the end of his tunnel. It proved to be, of course, 

unrealistic and unrealizable. Even if the tunnel had been completed according to initial 

and overly optimistic predictable, the flow of material and personnel through a single 

artery could not accommodate the complexity that came to characterize Comstock 

mining. Moving hundreds and at times thousands of workers along with tens of thousands 

of tons of ore, residue and supplies on dual tracks over four miles was an invitation to 

disaster. Already by the mid-1860s the pattern of the infrastructure of the Comstock was 

in place. Mining companies were making larger and larger investments on their own to 

hoist ore, accommodate personal and process ore and had little financial incentive to turn 

such tasks over to a tunnel promoter who failed to keep to his original timetable. That 

plus a general distaste for the bravado and arrogance that Sutro constantly displayed 

landed him far fewer clients than he needed to make the project financially sound. Some 

drainage leases were signed early on but given the delays were soon abandoned. The 

anticipated revenue stream of companies signing such leases dried up, and increasingly, 

to keep the project afloat, Sutro, who never lost faith (at least publicly), had to entice 

investors outside the Comstock to put up the needed capital. That he succeeded over the 

years is itself another oddity in this long sage. The local community virtually ignored 

Sutro and the on-again, off-again tunnel project. As evidence of his confidence, he was 

alleged to have said that after Virginia City was abandoned, “the owls would roost” in the 

tunnel. 7 In his 1879 (and last) legislative report the Mineralogist summarized various 

statistics from the long history of the tunnel and its final connection to the Lode. The 

distance of the Sutro Tunnel to a floor of the Savage Mine (rather than Gould & Curry) 

was 20,018 feet and to the mine’s shaft was 20,489 feet. The first was reached at 11 PM 

on 8 July 1878 when workers from Savage punched a 5-foot hole that joined the mine 

with the tunnel. The shaft was reached two months later. The initial connection was made 

7 


(1867), 24-25; Smith, The Comstock Lode, 110.


5 

at a depth of 1,640 feet. Only two of the tunnel’s vertical shafts (1 and 2) had been sunk 

to their desired depths. Shafts 3 and 4 were abandoned at 456 feet and 674 feet 

respectively, about half the distance anticipated, because of flooding. Interior dimensions 

were close to what the original plan called for. The easiest digging was the first 2,000 

feet; after that it was hard rock. Since digging on the tunnel did not begin until 1870, the 

tunnel took 8 years, 8 months and 19 days. 8 

Sutro hoped, of course, to discover rich ore deposits on the way to the Comstock. 

He found some ore but never enough to help to pay the bill for digging the tunnel. If the 

tunnel had been finished within two or three years after it was launched, it might have 

generated significant income, at least from drainage contracts, as the mining companies 

discovered both rich ore and voluminous water between 1,000 and 1,500 feet. But a fourmile 

tunnel at depths as great as 1,600 feet was not a feat to be easily and quickly 

accomplished, especially when capital to finance the project was in short supply. Sutro’s 

initial financing plan was to ask Comstock miners to sign leases that provided for a 

subscription of $3 million and a schedule of fees for the use of the tunnel. In the Spring 

of 1866 23 local mine owners agreed to the subscription and to pay the fees for drainage 

and other services, if they chose to use them. 9 The leases committed mining companies to 

pay $2 per ton of ore extracted from mines drained by the tunnel. If companies used the 

tunnel to remove rock and other debris they would pay 25 cents per ton-mile and if they 

used it to transport workers they would pay 25 cents per worker. All such payments were 

to be made in gold coin and “not otherwise”. The $3-million subscription was to be 

spread over a ten year period with annual payments of $300,000, of which not less than 

$200,000 was to be in cash. The first payment was due 1 August 1867. 10 The leases 

provided that the subscriptions would only be paid if the tunnel (not yet even started) 

could serve the companies advantageously. That phrase had an opened-ended quality. It 

is not clear exactly how much if any capital was raised locally in 1867 and 1868. If Sutro 

had raised $200,000 or $300,000, as stipulated, he could certainly have begun the tunnel. 

But the tunnel was not started. The leases did not yield what Sutro needed at once – 

money up front. As Comstock interest in Sutro’s tunnel waned, Sutro extended his search 

for investors to San Francisco and the East Coast. Opposed fiercely by William Sharon, 

the titan of the Lode at the time, and caught unexpectedly in a downdraft in Comstock 

production, Sutro lost nearly half of his leases by the spring of 1869. The remainder 

renewed their contracts for a year and apparently agreed to subscribe $600,000, although 

it is no clear how much if any of that was ever received by Sutro. On 29 November 1869 

the certificate of incorporation for the Sutro Tunnel Company authorized the issuance of 

1.2 million shares of stock at $10 per share for a total of $12 million. Sutro’s name was 

not among those listed in the incorporation, but his name was among those who 

8 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist…1877 and 1878,” in Appendix to Journals of Senate and 

Assembly, 9 th Legislative Session (1879), 84-85; Statement of the Condition of the Sutro Tunnel by Pelham 

W. Ames, Sec., Sutro Tunnel Company, 1878, MS-NC3, Bx 1, Nevada Historical Society; Smith, The 

Comstock Lode, 112. 

9 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 108. Not reported how many paid. 

10 

Summary of Articles of Agreement between Gould & Curry and Sutro Tunnel Company (26 Mar 1866) 

in Folder from Virginia Consolidated Mining Company (29 Mar 1879), NC7/1/6, Special Collections, 

Library, University of Nevada, Reno. It is presumed that the agreement between Gould & Curry and Sutro 

Tunnel Company was more or less generic, typical of what other companies agreed to.


6 

transferred the ownership of the Sutro Tunnel to the new corporation. Some capital was 

also raised from the Miners Union. Having raised enough money to launch the project the 

company excavated about 1,800 feet in the first year. This was the easiest section of the 

tunnel to build, and yet the work had barely covered a tenth of the distance. At this point 

the lack of money and formidable technical problems caused Sutro to abandon the 

project, the first of several abandonments. 11 

In the early 1870s the task of raising capital shifted from Nevada and the West to 

Europe. In the absence of local subscriptions, Wall Street investments or federal 

assistance Sutro took his dog-and-pony show abroad. His position was strengthened when 

rich ore deposits were discovered at 1,000 to 1,200 feet, first at Crown Point and then at 

Belcher and other mines. He was quick to remind everyone that he had long said that rich 

ore bodies lay above the tunnel’s proposed depth, and these discoveries proved him right. 

In spite of his clairvoyance or luck further boasting did not win him any new friends or 

subscriptions locally. Sharon’s implacable opposition continued and intensified. Sutro’s 

salvation came by way of a London banking firm, McCalmont Brothers with offices at 15 

Philpot Lane. Their partners were other European investors, Abraham and Isaac 

Seligman. Their association with Sutro over more than a decade was a rocky relationship 

at best. To the bankers Sutro appeared cocky, impulsive and flamboyant, too often a 

loose cannon instead of a serious businessman, and, not surprisingly, Sutro found the 

bankers to be staid, rigid and uninformed. Hundreds of letters and telegrams flew back 

and forth across the Atlantic. Sutro made at least one trip to London, and in 1878 because 

the relationship had grown so acrimonious, he was told in no uncertain terms not to make 

another trip. Sutro was not reluctant to speak his mind, and in one letter he disparaged the 

brothers for their inability to understand the business of mining. In their reply the 

brothers wrote: “We prefer to pass over your remarks as to our ‘shortsightedness and 

blindness’.” 12 

In combing through numerous documents from several archives, one cannot 

always be certain which agreements were signed or scrapped and which revisions were 

accepted or rejected by all the parties. One uncontested point is that although the initial 

McCalmont investment of several hundred thousands dollars was small, it soon grew 

through various refinancing schemes to millions of dollars. The pivotal years were 1873 

and 1874. In 1873 the McCalmont Brothers and the Seligmans were designated the 

“Mortgage Trustees” for the issuance of bonds worth 1.6 million pounds sterling or 

nearly $8 million. As such, they held a lien on the tunnel and other (unspecified) 

properties. Although the documentation of the Sutro tunnel is extensive, it has proven 

difficult to pin down exactly how many bonds were sold and how much money, if any, 

was raised beyond what the bankers and their partners had subscribed by 1873. 

Moreover, the documentary evidence is not very helpful relative to the early financing of 

the Sutro Tunnel. Since the digging had resumed in 1871, certain costs had to be met for 

the tunnel to have added the several thousand feet that it did. These may have been 

covered by money borrowed from the European bankers and investors. There is no 

11 

Bound Volume of Abstract of Titles, 1877, pp. 6, 7, 32, Sutro Tunnel Company, MS-NC3, Bx 4, Nevada 

Historical Society. 

12 

McCalmont Brothers to Adolph Sutro, 3 December 1878, Sutro Tunnel Company, MS-NC3, Bx 1, 

Nevada Historical Society.


7 

indication, however, that the banking house had raised or advanced part or all of $8 

millions. In a draft of a Memorandum of an Agreement between Sutro and McCalmont 

Brothers & Co, revised over a period of several months in late 1873 and early 1874, a 

bond-backed mortgage worth 600,000 pounds or $2.9 million was canceled (without 

explanation) and a second bond-backed mortgage held by McCalmont Brothers worth 

133,000 pounds or $648,000 was rescheduled from 133,000 pounds to 100,000 pounds. 

At the same time McCalmont was permitted to purchase 300,000 shares of company 

stock at a price of $10 (2.05 pounds) per share. Not all the money raised from the sale of 

stock to the brothers would become available to the company. The bankers would retain 

ten shillings or about $2 per share to retire liabilities arising from the 133,000 pounds in 

mortgage bonds, reduced to 100,000 pounds, under the control of the McCalmont 

Brothers. The Sutro Tunnel Company would be charged interest of 4 percent on all the 

money (even that which was retained) used to purchase the 300,000 shares of stock (since 

Sutro had no income with which to pay dividends). The company would pay $6,000 a 

month from December 1873 to October 1874 on half of the 300,000 shares for a total of 

$60,000. And it would pay $3,000 a month from October 1874 until April 1876 on the 

other half. It was presumed that the tunnel would be open and generating revenue by 

1876. At this point, it would appear, the Europeans were on the hook for $2 to 3 million 

in a company that had no earnings. Quite possibly what the Europeans did was to assume 

any and all outstanding debts from previous years. The extent to which the company had 

accumulated debts since the project was launched and then suspended is not known 

precisely, but the work that had been done could hardly have been paid for with lease 

payments or company revenues. That the company had debts was intimated in Sutro’s 

own statement that with this new arrangement the company was not only debt-free but 

also had funds on hand to proceed. 13 

Work on the tunnel did proceed with only a few interruptions for the next halfdozen 

years but with continual wrangling between the company and its financiers. Extant 

financial documents are sparser than necessary to reconstruct a full financial profile of 

Sutro operations after 1873. The tunnel did not open in 1876, as promised, and the 

company repeatedly made demands on the banks to advance more money and to modify 

the terms of the agreements. It appears that the London firm fully expected the tunnel to 

become a paying proposition even as the Comstock entered a post-bonanza cycle. When 

completed in 1878 the tunnel had missed the opportunity to serve the Comstock in the 

way envisioned by Sutro. He quietly sold out and the London bankers were left as the 

principal owners of a project that would not ever generate any significant revenue. The 

new owners could not turn around the company, and finally in 1889, when McCalmont 

foreclosed on the tunnel, it was reorganized as The Comstock Tunnel Company and 

continued in existence until the 1930s. Up to 1885 the tunnel never had enough business 

to pay its bills or satisfy its creditors. It may have cost McCalmont Brothers and its other 

stockholders and investors between $5 and 6 million to complete the tunnel and another 

13 

Drawn from various copies of correspondence between Sutro Tunnel Company and McCalmont 

Brothers, November and December, 1873, Letterpress Book, Sutro Tunnel Company, MS-NC3, Bx 2, 

Nevada Historical Society. See also a working draft of a “Memorandum of Agreement made this [blank] 

1874 Between The Sutro Tunnel Company…and Messrs McCalmont Brothers & Co…,” MS-NC7/1/5, 

Nevada Historical Society. This was not the final agreement, since it was not signed and some text was 

crossed out and new text was penciled in.


8 

$1 to $2 million to manage it. In the 1880s its stock was nearly worthless, although it 

continued to trade. Shrewd to the very end Sutro managed to sell his shares for several 

million dollars in 1879 and took his fortune to San Francisco where he became a 

controversial and colorful real estate developer. While Sutro can be faulted for his 

promotional antics, he did in fact complete a functioning tunnel. Whether or not the 

McCalmont firm were victims of Sutro’s endless sales pitches, they were certainly guilty 

of the lack of due diligence, to use today’s jargon. They had little first-hand knowledge of 

the risks associated with the Comstock. That they continued to support the tunnel under 

Sutro and then after his tenure to manage the tunnel seemed to have but one rationale – to 

try to save what was a less than “quality-grade” investment in the first instance. 14 

The story of the Sutro Tunnel has another side. As intriguing as the financial 

wheeling and dealing were, the fact that the tunnel was completed for the length and at 

the depth in accordance with the basic plan represented a major technical achievement. It 

was a prime example of the convergence of entrepreneurship and technology in the new 

industrial culture of late nineteenth-century America. The technical hurdles were 

numerous, and modifications of and refinements to the plan had to be accommodated. 

Without a new generation of “tools and machines”, however, the project would surely 

have remained a fantasy. Various maps from the Becker Atlas shows that for the first 3.5 

miles the tunnel passed through various types of andesite rocks, mainly what the surveys 

described as “later hornblende andesite” for the first half of the distance and then “augite 

andesite” for the latter half. Along the way it passed through several other lodes before it 

reached the Comstock Lode. They include the “Great Flowery Lode” near Shaft 1 or 

about 2,200 feet from the mouth; the “Coryell Lode” between Shafts 2 and 3 or between 

10,000 and 10,600 feet; the “Occidental Lode” just beyond Coryell or between 11,600 

and 11,700 feet; and “Solferino Lode” between Shafts 3 and 4 or between 14,000 and 

15,500 feet. Some of these Lodes contained vein matter and quartz. Once the tunnel 

reached 17,000 feet it was in the vicinity of the Comstock Lode. The rock type changed 

to various forms of diorite. When Sutro began the project, the geology had not been 

mapped yet. He did not know what he would encounter, and perhaps he had convinced 

himself that despite the lack of specifics he knew enough about the geology and the 

technology to press ahead. In the first few years before the project was shut down for lack 

of money and support, it had reached about 2,000. Once the project was revived in the 

early 1870s the pace picked up. It is important to stress the figures for how many feet 

were dug in any given year included explorations for gold and silver on either side of the 

tunnel itself. It had been Sutro’s hope that he could pay for the pay through the discovery 

of profitable ores in the vicinity of the tunnel. While the tunnel’s path crossed several 

quartz formations before reaching the Comstock Lode, these minor lodes were mainly 

vein matter with few or no profitable ores. From 1871 when construction resumed some 

14 

Lord, writing in the early 1880s after Sutro had sold his stake, put the cost of construction at more than 

$2 million. His figures were based on data from the company’s annual reports and other correspondence. 

Other sources indicate that the total cost (construction, management, loans, etc.) probably reached $5 to $6 

million. It is worth noting that when Lord wrote his Comstock study, he was undecided as to whether the 

Sutro Tunnel was worth the investment. It was not yet clear even to someone as perspicacious as Lord that 

the Comstock had run its course and without new rich deposits the Sutro Tunnel could not repay its 

investors or revitalize the Lode. Comstock Mining and Miners, 342-343, 346-347. See also Smith, The 

Comstock Lode, 115.


9 

of the excavation data include those additional excursions. In 1871 and 1872 3,480 feet 

were dug or about 72 feet per month. The next year (1873) the number jumped to 1,919 

feet or 105 per month. The length had reached 5,394 feet. In 1874 2,682 feet (223 feet per 

month) was added for a total length of 8,079 feet. These advances were largely possible 

because of the installation of six Burleigh drills. Burleighs were among the most 

advanced (and most expensive) drills available. But the drills constituted only part of the 

mechanization of the operation. Air compressors were needed to drive the drills. Along 

with the purchase of new Burleighs the tunnel company bought a new air compressor 

from the Humboldt Company of Germany for installation in Shaft 2 to complement the 

air compressor built by Société Cockerill of Belgium in Shaft 1. In 1875 the monthly gain 

of 312 feet a month or 3,728 feet for the year was the best yet. In 1876, however, 

progress slowed to 261 feet per month or 3,130 feet for the year. By the end of 1876 the 

tunnel had reached almost 15,000 feet, and because it was passing through a quartz 

formation known as the Solferina Lode progress had slowed. The company reported that 

exceptionally hard rock had stymied even the Burleigh drills. In 1877 two Burleighs were 

taken off the compressors in order to improve the efficiency of the remaining drills. In the 

next year and a half (January 1877-July, 1878) the remaining 5,400 feet to access the 

west wall of the Comstock Lode was cut through at depths between 1,600 and 1,700 feet. 

Since the vertical shafts # 3 and #4 had never been completed all the tools and supplies 

had to be conveyed through more than 10,000 feet of the tunnel. Plans were to extend the 

tunnel into Mt Davidson proper at a depth of perhaps 3,600 feet. That, of course, did not 

ever become a reality. 15 

A single connection to the Comstock would have had only minor consequences 

for draining the Lode. The lateral tunnel along the Comstock had to be built to connect 

other mines. Such a tunnel was planned to the same specifications as the main tunnel. 

The southern branch of the lateral tunnel began at 19,715 feet, 400 to 500 feet before the 

tunnel actually broke through to the Savage mine, and was to connect with the Julia 

Mine, a distance of about 1,400 feet. In October and November 1878, nearly 900 feet of 

the southern lateral tunnel had been cut. Julia Mine was under contract to pay $100,000 

of which it had already advanced $40,000. The lateral did reach Julia, but the balance if 

paid was not recorded. Julia may have been drained but still remained unproductive. The 

southern lateral was originally planned to run about 8,500 feet to Alta Mine and the 

northern lateral about 4,500 feet to Union Mine. Much of the equipment for the lateral 

work was contained in Shaft 2, a distance of about 10,000 feet. It was noted that the 

aforementioned compressor to power both Burleigh and Ingersoll drills as well as the 

blower for ventilation and the hoist for moving workers and supplies were all located in 

that shaft. Indeed some of the equipment was located in Shaft 1, which was even farther 

from the site of the work. 16 Although Sutro Tunnel abandoned plans to extend the main 

tunnel into Mt Davidson, it continued sporadically to work on the lateral tunnels until it 

15 


Assembly, 9 th Legislative Session (1879), 81-85. Also information on the progress of the tunnel including 

workers employed, temperatures of air and water, nature of the ground and rock, etc. can be found in 

various correspondence folders with dates of 1867, 1871, 1874-1879 (most prolific for 1878) in Sutro 

Tunnel Company, MS-NC3, Bxs 1-3, Nevada Historical Society. The Mineralogist’s data were collected 

from company reports and interviews, and while they could not be absolutely verified from other 

documentation, they appear to be generally in line with the actual results.


10 

had traversed a substantial part of the length of the Lode. Like the main tunnel the lateral 

tunnels assisted in the drainage of a Lode that had exhausted its wealth. 

As monumental as the Sutro tunnel was, it was not the nation’s only large-scale 

engineering accomplishment. The nation’s longest tunnel was The Hoosac Tunnel, built 

under the Berkshire Mountains in western Massachusetts. The project was launched in 

1851 and after several delays it was completed two decades later in 1875. It was longer 

than Sutro by almost 5,000 feet and bigger with an interior height of 20 feet and a width 

of 24. It cost twice as much to build, not only because of its size but also in part because 

the interior was bricked. At the eastern entrance the summit of the Hoosac Mountain was 

1,429 feet high and on the western entrance it was more than 1,718 high. Sutro was 

somewhat deeper. The Hoosac had three shafts for ventilation and light while Sutro had 

four planned but only two finished. The grade in Hoosac was much greater than in Sutro. 

There were essential differences. The most obvious was that Hoosac was a tunnel with 

light on both ends, whereas Sutro, being a underground tunnel, ended in darkness. 

Hoosac rocks consisted of mica slate, mica schist and milky quartz instead of andesites 

and diorites. There was no indication that Hoosac workers had to contend with scalding 

water and high temperatures to the same degree that Sutro workers did. Both structures 

epitomized bold thinking about overcoming environmental and geological barriers with 

the help, of course, of new technologies. 17 

Key to the construction of both tunnels (as well as very deep underground 

mining) was drilling equipment, in particular the Burleigh drill, which eventually found 

their way to the Comstock. For centuries “tunneling, mining and quarrying” required 

intensive human labor. Pounding and cracking the rock and then inserting a wedge to 

break the rock apart were the accepted techniques. In some cases heating the rock and 

splashing it with cold water could create fissures into which wedges could be driven. The 

use of gunpowder as an explosive in the seventeenth century added another tool, but 

underground explosives from the outset had posed problems. First was cutting the hole 

for the powder, not always an easy task. Additionally, controlling the reaction within the 

area of the blast and then venting it of noxious chemicals were not easily accomplished. It 

has been generally argued, however, that the introduction of powder in Spanish American 

silver mining helped to raise output in many older mines. By the nineteenth century the 

application of explosives underground was better understood and more widely practiced, 

although cutting and extracting the rock with hammers and chisels continued to be the 

workers’ primary tools. Toward the middle of the nineteenth century a Massachusetts 

inventor, Joseph Crouch, fashioned a steam-powered drill that repeatedly slammed into 

the rock until it broke the rock apart, and while it could be used in quarrying, it was too 

bulky to be used in underground tunneling or mining. Steam was fast becoming a source 

of power for many machines, but the residue of steam posed further breathing problems 

for workers already suffering from bad air in confined underground spaces that could be 

16 

Statement of condition by P. W. Ames, Sec., of the Sutro Tunnel Company, 1878, MS-NC3, Bx 1, 

Nevada Historical Society. Also see Smith, The Comstock Lode, 113. 

17 

See www.boudillion.com/hoosac for data on the tunnel. Also data on the Hoosac, Sutro and other long 

American and European tunnels was compiled for the 1880 Census available On-Line at 

www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/1880.htm, United States Census Bureau. Statistics and 

Technology of the Precious Metals, vol. 13, 125, Table XVII.


11 

avoided in open areas. During the construction of Mt Cenis Tunnel between Italy and 

France in the early 1860s the chief engineer, Germaine Sommeiler, and his associates 

replaced steam with compressed air, and rather than steam contaminating the work area 

the air cooled it. But the drill itself, even when driven by air, remained unreliable and 

cumbersome. Thus, in the middle 1860s during the construction of the Hoosac Tunnel 

Charles Burleigh introduced the first pneumatic drill that was easier to use, although it 

could not be quickly set up or moved about. The Burleigh design not only inserted and 

retracted the drill, but they also turned the drill slightly for each new contact with the 

rock. Further improvements of the pneumatic drills made them lighter and simpler and 

above all easier to assemble and move. 18 

The advance in drilling had to be accompanied by an advance in the bits that the 

drills use to break up the rock. Diamonds, of course, being the hardest known mineral, 

would cut any rock such as quartz, which was three levels below diamonds in hardness. 

Egyptians apparently used diamond-pointed drills in their stone quarries. But the first 

“diamond core” drill was invented in France by a French engineer, Rodolphe Leschot, in 

1863 in connection with the Mt Cenis tunnel project. The diamond bit on the end of the 

drill was a “tube or cylinder” with six stones or more distributed between the outside and 

inside circumference of the bit. Later models apparently had more than twice that 

number. Some diamonds were superior to others, although Leschot, since he had been a 

watchmaker, may have used jewel-grade diamonds that were less effective than other 

grades. Leschot device was patented in the United States about the same time that 

Burleigh had invented his device. 19 Diamond bits combined with pneumatic drills came 

along at an opportune time for the Sutro Tunnel in particular and for the deeper and 

deeper probes along the Comstock Lode. Although Sutro, starting in 1874, could have 

acquired more than a half-dozen Burleighs, the Yellow Jacket Mining may have been the 

first company to acquire a Burleigh in 1872. 20 Company accounts (to be discussed later) 

document that some companies purchased diamond bits to be used on their pneumatic 

drills. Within a few years of Yellow Jacket’s purchase diamond bits and pneumatic drills 

had become a part of the basic underground equipment for building tunnels and 

extracting ores. 

Once the main tunnel had reached the Lode at Savage and the lateral tunnel 

branched off to serve other mines, the drainage of the Comstock, as Sutro had envisioned 

it, began in earnest. Water at the level of the tunnel or above it could be easily channeled 

into the Sutro through drainage ditches or pipes. Water below the 1,600-foot level had to 

be pumped up to the tunnel, a more expensive and less convenient operation. In removing 

or controlling water within the mines, according to the Mineralogist, cost mining 

companies about $3 million per year. He assumed that the Sutro Tunnel could greatly 

reduce that cost. The figure cannot be verified, but according to the Sutro pumping 

records the volume of water carried by tunnel once it had reached the Lode averaged 

about a million and a quarter gallons a day. In a progress report from 1878 the figure of 

18 

See www.fofweb.com for article by Rudi Volti, “Pneumatic Drills,” The Facts on File, Encyclopedia of 

Science, Technology, and Society (New York: Facts on File, Inc, 1999, 2003). 

19 

See www.oilhistory.com for discussion of drills and bits by Samuel Pees. 

20 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, illustration between 336 and 337.


12 

1,285,000 was cited as the daily flow. 21 An immediate beneficiary was the Combination 

Shaft and the consortium of three companies, Chollar Potosi, Savage and Hale & 

Norcross, which was building the shaft. It had reached 2,200 feet only to encounter hot 

water that quickly flooded Savage and Hale & Norcross up to the 1,800-foot level. 

Pumping by the companies had little effect in reducing flood levels and was very costly. 

When the connection was made with the Combination Shaft on 30 June 1879, Sutro 

wrote to Ames, the Secretary of the Board, that pumping had begun at 6 AM and the 

water reached the mouth of tunnel at 7:20 AM. The water temperature at the mouth was 

initially 90 degrees and gradually increased to 114 degrees. “Everything works like a 

charm,” wrote Sutro. The heat of the water did not “discommode” any of the tunnel 

machinery or equipment. The water flowed through the tunnel to the Carson River as if 

“it had been going there for years”. The interiors of the shaft and mines were soon made 

dry enough to be worked. To honor the occasion Sutro gave his men the day off and 

ordered that fires would be lit on the ranges around the Comstock that evening to 

celebrate. Unfortunately, celebratory fires on the ranges of the Comstock would not turn 

water into gold or silver. As he praised the performance of his creation, however, he 

already had an eye on the exit from the Comstock. 22 

Since the opening of the tunnel in 1878 Sutro had expressed disappointment at the 

volume of water draining from the Comstock. Since the tunnel’s only business appeared 

to be drainage of water, volume was an indicator of how many mining operations had 

been signed up to use Sutro’s drainage services. Many of the mines on the Lode’s 

southern branch had pipes connecting to the lateral tunnel, and his next effort was to 

accomplish the same on the northern branch. This would double the flow of water, he 

said, and twice the flow meant more mines paying fees to keep their operations dry. 23 In 

the meantime, mining companies could continue their search for new ore bodies at even 

greater depths. And his plans for expansion and improvement did not end there. Surely, 

though, at the same time Sutro knew what the most seasoned observers knew – the boom 

was over, and the Lode was running out of ore. His European backers were certainly 

beginning to show more skepticism. After the initial connection was made in July of 

1878 McCalmont Brothers warned Sutro to concentrate on signing up mining companies 

to use the tunnel as it currently existed in order to generate some income and to abandon 

any plans for expansion and improvement. Writing on 2 July 1878 McCalmont urged 

Sutro “…[to] make the best bargains you can with the Comstock mines…,” although the 

Brothers did agree to some minor improvements for roads and cultivation of alfalfa and 

barley for the animals. “We adhere to existing terms of mortgage due 1891.” 24 A few 

weeks later the Brothers issued a further rebuke. Since the goal had been reached, 

London will provide no further outlays. “We are aware of Mr. Sutro’s ambitious views, 

21 

Reports of Progress of Work, 1878, Sutro Pumping Company, MS-NC3, Bx 1, Nevada Historical 

Society. 

22 


Assembly, 9 th Legislative Session (1879), 85; Letter from A. Sutro, Supt., to P. W. Ames, Sec., Sutro 

Tunnel Company, 30 Jun 1879, MS-NC3, Bx 4, Nevada Historical Society. It is not reported in Sutro’s 

letter how much of the daily flow was from the Combination Shaft. 

23 

Letter from A. Sutro, Supt., to P. W. Ames, Sec., Sutro Tunnel Company, 30 Jun 1879, MS-NC3, Bx 4, 

Nevada Historical Society. 

24 

Copy of Letter from McCalmont Brothers, London, to A. Sutro, 2 Jul 1878, Sutro Tunnel Company,, 

MS-NC3, Bx 1, Miscellaneous Letters, Nevada Historical Society.


13 

necessitating enormous expenditures in the future, such as draining the tunnel, leveling 

the floor, new lines of rails, smoothing sides of the tunnel, extensive drifts, prospecting, 

locomotive power, or wire ropes, etc. etc., all of which, however necessary they may be, 

we can no longer provide.” They intimated that they might not pay the next installment 

due Sutro under the terms of the mortgage on 1 August. 25 A week later they wrote: “We 

can but repeat what we said in our last that if you are unable to make arrangements to 

procure funds from other sources, we see nothing for it but to suspend work, and close up 

pending operations with as little prejudice to all concerned as possible.” 26 Such was the 

nature of the correspondence between Sutro and his backers for a year. The tunnel was 

losing money, and Sutro’s response was for the company to grow its way into prosperity 

while the London firm was set on curtailing expansion, generating revenue and reducing 

indebtedness. In 1879 after 15 years of almost endless warfare Sutro quit. He dissolved 

his association with the company for several million dollars, and a new group took 

control under the direction of the trustee, C. W. Brush. It did not matter who owned the 

tunnel. Its business, so intimately linked to the health of the Lode mining entrepreneurs 

would, like them, end up in bankruptcy. Fewer enterprises meant fewer leases, and fewer 

leases meant fewer receipts despite the tunnel’s success. That anyone would pay as much 

as Sutro was paid remains a mystery (at least to me). 

For the new owners making the tunnel profitable under a worsening economic 

environment was daunting to say the least. In letters and reports from George Sprecht, the 

chief administrator of the Sutro Tunnel Company, to C. W. Brush, a trustee, during 1881 

– the worse year for production in Comstock mining – discussed some strategies for 

doing that. The detailed calculations would have warmed the cockles of every cost 

accountant’s heart. But unfortunately some of the figures are not fully explained and the 

totals cannot always be duplicated. Accountancy had assumed a new importance in 

corporate American, and the Comstock mining industry was no exception, but detailed 

cost statements did not necessarily provide accurate cost information. Part of the problem 

in regard to the Sutro Tunnel Company was that the information was contained in several 

different reports, each of which had a slightly different objective. Sprecht reiterated that 

his amortization plan called for paying $500,000 per year over 10 years to retire the $5 

million mortgage and to accomplish this assumed surpluses from the following revenue 

sources: 40 percent from drainage royalties, 30 percent from transportation contracts, 15 

percent from reduction of ores and 15 percent from opening new mines within the 

tunnel’s own right-a-way. If transportation contracts were to yield $200,000 in surpluses 

to cover their share of the annual mortgage payment, two or three times that amount 

would have to be generated in income to pay expenses before any surpluses could be 

realized. In some of the agreements between the tunnel company and the mining 

companies they included provisions that the transport of ore was $2 per ton, rock and 

waste 25 cents per ton-mile and workers 25 cents per person each way. 27 How much 

25 

Copies of Letters from McCalmont Brothers, London, to A. Sutro and C. W. Brush, 25 Jul 1878, Sutro 

Tunnel Company,, MS-NC3, Bx 1, Miscellaneous Letters, Nevada Historical Society. 

26 

Copy of Letter from McCalmont Brothers, London, to A. Sutro, 30 Jul 1878 Sutro Tunnel Company, 

MS-NC3, Bx 1, Miscellaneous Letters, Nevada Historical Society. 

27 

Articles of Agreement between Sutro Tunnel Company and Consolidated Virginia Mining and California 

Mining Companies, 29 March 1879, Article 12 (p. 27), NC7/1/6, Special Collections, Library, University 

of Nevada, Reno; Articles of Articles of Agreement between Sutro Tunnel Company and Segregate Belcher


14 

haulage business had Sutro rounded up since the opening of the tunnel? No direct 

documentation has been found thus far, but based on some indirect evidence the answer 

appears to almost none. The company did report that between September 1878 and 

December 1880 the tunnel was used to haul on average 116 tons (58 carloads) of rock per 

day. What is not clear is where rock came from - Sutro’s own excavations or mining 

company excavation? If one assumed that all the rock came from paying customers at the 

stipulated rate of 25 cents per ton-mile, the total income would be a measly $10,000 to 

$11,000 dollars, a long way from the hundreds of thousands needed to reach the 

company’s financial goals. 28 

The flurry of activity in 1881 by Sprecht to find new strategies for improving 

revenues appeared to focus mainly on how to make the tunnel more of a transport conduit 

than it had been. The immediate question was whether the mode of transport – muledriven 

trams – should be replaced. To remove the aforementioned 116 tons on average 

per day the company employed six daily trains of 10 cars with three mules and one mule 

driver per train. Without accounting for the cost of the equipment or the wage of the 

driver the report stated that to move a ton of rock cost 5.73 cents per ton-mile (round-trip 

calculated at 10 miles). Mule power was then compared to steam and air (compressed) 

power. At Bald Mountain Mining Company steam cost about 6.1 cents per ton-mile 

without any other specific being offered. Compressed air was estimated at 5.29 cents per 

ton-mile, although that figure was suspect since compressed air could only be used in part 

of the main tunnel and would have to be combined with some other mode in the rest of 

the main tunnel and the lateral tunnels. Sutro had a stable of 72 mules, which had to be 

fed, shod and generally cared for, and while the figures are fuzzy and not always 

reconcilable, the cost of maintaining the mules accounted for perhaps half of the total 

cost of 5.7 cents per ton-mile. The other expenses included lubricating and illuminating 

oils (each train carried seven torches) and repairs of tracks and cars. 29 To replace mules 

with a locomotive powered by steam or air a source of power had to be tapped. The 

preferred source was water. The Lode and the tunnel, of course, had ample water, but the 

flow was apparently inadequate to generate the needed power. At the mouth of the tunnel 

was the Carson River, which could be harnessed to power the steam locomotive system 

that Sprecht leaned toward. In comparing hoisting and hauling costs for Comstock mines 

Sprecht concluded that the average was $2.90 per ton with existing facilities but could be 

reduced to $1.55 per ton with upgraded Sutro operations. Sprecht’s figures included some 

hoisting charges inside the mines since the mines were lifting ore and waste from depths 

below the level of the tunnel itself. His haulage figures also included the costs for 

installing the locomotive system, servicing the mortgage (nearly half the total) and 

operating the tram. Calculated on strictly a per-ton basis, since this was how mining 

Mining Company, 29 March 1879, Article 12, MS-NC3, Bx 1 Sutro Tunnel Company, Nevada Historical 

Society. With respect to ore, if the gold yielded a coin at less than $40, the rate dropped to $1 per ton. 

28 

Letters from George Sprecht to C. W. Brush, Trustee, Sutro Tunnel Company, 5 May 1881 and 5 June 

1881, MS-NC3, Bx 1, Miscellaneous Letters from April 1881, Nevada Historical Society. 

29 

Duplicating the calculations as given in the document proved to be difficult. I have accepted the report’s 

figure of 5.7 cents per ton-mile without being able to verify its accuracy. The aim here is to provide a 

comparative benchmark, and no more. See Letter from George Sprecht to C. W. Brush, Trustee, Sutro 

Tunnel Company, 5 May 1881, MS-NC3, Bx 1, Miscellaneous Letters from April 1881, Nevada Historical 

Society.


15 

companies calculated their hoisting and hauling costs rather than per ton-mile, Sutro 

could save the mining companies on average $1.35 per ton (on paper). 30 

Even as large as the savings might have been (under ideal circumstances), they 

offered little or no incentive for mining companies in 1881. Not only did Sutro lack the 

capital to rehabilitate the tunnel – mule-driven trams remained for decades – but the 

mining companies also lacked the financial means to abandon an old system and embrace 

a new one. Efficiencies in hoisting and hauling could be realized as long as the quantity 

and the quality of the ore continued to decline as rapidly as it had since 1878. By Sutro’s 

own calculation the company would have had to contract to move hundreds of thousands 

of tons to generate the level of income needed to meet various obligations, in particular 

the repayment of the debt, at a time when tonnage had reached the lowest levels in the 

history of the Comstock. Despite a valiant effort to rejuvenate the tunnel business, the 

company could not rejuvenate the Lode and therefore could not rejuvenate itself. 

Underground mining was a constant war with the natural forces on a daily basis. 

With the Sutro Tunnel one could observe the beneficial impact of new technologies in 

taming those natural forces. The fact was that while Sutro “stumbled” toward completion 

mining companies had sunk some of the deepest shafts and built some of the longest 

tunnels in the world with a combination of old and new technologies. Adaptability 

appeared to be the key to success. Although hard to quantify, it comes through in the 

hundreds of pages of daily or weekly reports written by foremen and superintendents. 

References to new machines and techniques were frequent, but much of the content of 

these reports concerned low-tech matters of digging and re-digging, building and 

rebuilding, timbering and re-timbering the interior spaces that the workers and the 

machines needed. Logistical questions always loomed large because the means had to be 

found to move workers, ores, supplies and even machines from the surface to the bottom 

and back to the top or from one part of the mine to another part. Bigger engines, stronger 

cables, larger cages and other technological innovation let shafts operate faster and more 

safely, but even after better technology had been put to work, the shafts themselves, 

mostly constructed from wooden timbers, had to be secured constantly against bulging 

and snapping because of the movement of the earth around them. Mining companies were 

as much in the business of reconstruction as construction. Once a facility had been built it 

had to be serviced, upgraded and at some point replaced. 

By the time the Sutro Tunnel began to drain mines on the northern end of the 

Comstock Lode in 1878, the search for ore had already moved well below the 1,600- to 

1,700-foot level where the linkage occurred. There was the hope, of course, that by 

draining old works above the level of the tunnel new ore deposits would be located and 

that given the network in place they could be easily and profitably accessible. But while 

such discoveries were a possibility, for which some precedent existed, the main focus of 

30 

These conclusions require a “certain faith” in the way Sprecht or his associates computed their costs. 

Theoretically it was possible that under the appropriate reconfiguration of the tunnel it would be cheaper to 

move people and things through the tunnel to the Lode. That ignored, of course, the fact that large sums 

had been invested over the years in other strategies for servicing the mines. See Letter plus 

accompaniments to C. W. Brush, Trustee, The Sutro Tunnel Company, 5 June 1881, MS-NC3, Bx 1, 

Miscellaneous Letter from April 1881, Nevada Historical Society.


16 

the remaining mining companies appeared to be deeper rather than shallower probes. By 

the 1880s mining companies were opening up new work areas 2,000 to 3,000 feet (and 

more) below the surface. Numerous examples from company records could be cited. 

Yellow Jacket, still a William Sharon property, had fallen from among the ranking 

producers after the 1868 fire. It had a claim nearly 1,200 feet long, and in November 

1876 it began the construction of a new shaft between two existing shafts. The shaft to 

the north had served for the exploitation of relatively shallow ores, 100 to 400 feet below 

the surface, which it shared with its northern neighbors Confidence and Challenge. The 

southern shaft, however, built to extract ores shared with Kentuck and Crown Point on its 

southern boundary had reached the 2,400-foot level. The new shaft was pushed to 2,636 

feet by June 1879, and another 400 to 500 feet would be added during the next several 

years before the project was halted. 31 To reach 2,600 feet the company averaged about 80 

feet a month. Divided into fiscal years from July to July progress on the shaft was 

reported as 768 feet in 1877, 780 feet in 1878 and 1,088 feet in 1879. The range was from 

a high of 155 feet in December 1876 to a low of 33 feet in July 1877. During the fiscal 

year ending 1 July 1879 in addition to sinking and timbering the shaft almost 1,100 feet 

other work was underway. Water tanks were constructed at the 1,550- and 2,300-foot 

levels (from surveyor’s point at Gould & Curry) to hold 31.5 tons (7,554 gallons) and 

21.5 tons (5,096 gallons) respectively. Pipes for compressed air were installed from the 

surface to 2,300 feet. At 2,500 feet more than 1,400 feet of drifts were cut during the 

year. Air circulation was always a concern, and with the extended shaft and repairs to 

some of the winzes, ventilation had been improved vastly, all the way to the 2,500-foot 

level. Moreover the creation of two stations adjacent to and connected with the new shaft 

at 2,300 feet and 2,500 feet improved the airflow and lowered the temperature. The total 

volume of air that passed down the new shaft through the repaired passages was 

measured at 34,200 cubic feet per minute. Temperatures now ranged from 66 degree to 

96 degrees Fahrenheit. Perhaps more importantly Yellow Jacket no longer had to depend 

on adjoining mines for ventilation. Two air compressors, a Burleigh and a Warring, 

supported excavating for the shaft and mining of the ore. Both had been used previously 

in the older shaft. Because of the depths new hoisting equipment had to be purchased. An 

order had been placed with Risdon Iron Works for the construction of “a pair of 

horizontal, direct-acting hoisting engines, eight feet stroke by twenty-eight inches 

diameter of cylinder, with complete appurtenances for a first-class hoisting apparatus 

[sic].” The contract called for fabrication and transport of the machines in 125 days at a 

cost of $142,500, one-third to be paid when the work was half done, one-third when the 

machines were shipped and the final third after the engines were in operation. New cables 

also had been ordered from England. They were 3,700 feet long, eight inches wide and 

three-eights of an inch thick, and they were scheduled for delivery in December 1879. In 

the meantime, until the new equipment was installed, the current hoisting machinery was 

being supplemented with a “donkey engine” at 2,300 feet. Rock excavated from below 

this point was lifted by the donkey engine to 2,300 feet where it was then stored. To try to 

hoist from the new depths to the surface with the existing “geared hoisting machinery” 

would be unsafe under the strain necessarily imposed upon it…,” said the company. The 

31 

Grant Smith wrote that the shaft reached 3,080 feet or just below the 3,400-foot level. Smith, The 

Comstock Lode, 280. See also Becker, “Longitudinal Vertical Projection of the Comstock Lode…,” in the 

Atlas, Sheet X.


17 

final matter to be considered was water. About 1,000 tons a month appeared in the shaft 

at the 1,550-foot level where it is stored in a tank and another 300 tons below that level. 

Water raised through the shaft averaged about 300,000 gallons per month. The biggest 

problem, however, was that even though a vein of about 700 feet was found at the 2,500 

feet, it was filled with porphyry and not worth much. All the work for the year had failed 

to produce much ore that would cover the costs of repairing and expanding the mine. The 

mills, owned by Sharon and associates, refined the low-grade ores at a small profit, but 

that did not pay for mine renovations. 32 

The Superintendent’s Annual Report (1878-1879) included figures on Yellow 

Jacket’s finances. The balance sheet showed that the company had receipts and 

disbursements of $446,000. Receipts included no money from mining of ore. Eighty 

percent or $360,000 of the receipts came from assessments against stockholders. Another 

20 percent was the balance carried over from the previous fiscal year (1877-1878). On 

the disbursement side 70 percent or $313,000 of the total outlays ($446,000) was for the 

construction of the new shaft and another 22 percent was cash on hand ($41,000), labor 

in the old works ($31,000) and purchases of mining supplies ($28,000). The breakdown 

for construction of the new shaft was fairly precise. The list below shows total cost for 

each category and the percentage, as calculated by the company (dollars rounded): 

Labor-Miners' Wages $134,319 42.84% 

Machinery-All Foundry Work & Machinery $89,533 28.83% 

Timber-All Wood Work $24,029 7.68% 

Wood-Coal & Fuel $22,083 7.06% 

Iron & Steel-All Hardware $12,842 4.10% 

Powder & Fuse $8,845 2.83% 

Freights-Virginia & Truckee RR-Machinery, supplies $5,260 1.68% 

Water & Ice $4,188 1.34% 

Candles & Oil $3,623 1.15% 

Taxes-State, County, Town $2,694 0.86% 

Construction Engineer-W. H. Patton $2,500 0.79% 

Sundries-Not Specified $1,820 0.58% 

Masonry-Sand, Stone, etc. $843 0.26% 

Total $312,579 100.00% 

The two major expenditures were labor (43 percent) and machinery (29 percent). 

They combined for 72 percent of the total. Two other items of interest were costs for 

timber (7.68 percent) and wood (7.06 percent) – the former for framing a shaft that had 

grown by 1,088 feet ($20 to $25 per foot) and the latter for fuel (plus coal) to power the 

equipment. It is worth noting that W. H. Patton, who had a long career in Comstock 

32 

“Annual Report of the Yellow Jacket Silver Mining Co. for the Year Ending June 30 th , 1879,” with 

accompanying sketches and plans, NC61 and NC61/2, pp. 5-7, Special Collections, Library, University of 

Nevada, Reno. See also Smith, The Comstock Lode, 280-281. Interesting observations by Smith on size of 

pumps, fly-wheels and rod-catchers on pumps and breakdown of the pumps in 1880 from diary of 

Superintendent Thomas G. Taylor. Lord briefly described size and horsepower of engines that drove hoists 



18 

mining, was the consulting engineer at an annual salary of $2,500. The company 

computed the average cost of the shaft per foot between November 1876 and June 1879 

at $374 to reach 2,636 feet. The most impressive gains were in the first three months 

(November 1876-January 1877) when the shaft had reached nearly 440 feet (one sixth of 

the total distance and just under 150 per month) before the advance fell off to more 

modest monthly averages of 80 feet per month. The cost per foot for the fiscal year 1876- 

1877 (only eight months) was $166 per foot to excavate 768 feet. In the next fiscal year 

(1877-1878) outlays rose sharply to nearly $700 per foot or a total of $545,714 to add 

780 feet. Finally in the fiscal year July 1878-June 1879 when 1,088 feet were added the 

cost per foot was $287, a decline of more than 60 percent from the previous year. By any 

measure, at a time of a deepening depression, the expenditure of a million dollars to build 

a new shaft to explore a region one thousand feet below the last profitable ore findings 

was risky if not wasteful. But it was that kind of ambition that had served the Comstock 

well for two decades. It would eventually become clear to speculators and investors alike 

that the richness of the Lode did in fact have a limit. 33 Yellow Jacket did begin to produce 

refinable ores in 1883 and continued to do so through 1885, the end of the period under 

review here. In one or two quarters yields exceeded costs, but in most quarters the ore 

was not valuable enough to cover operating expenses. Yields per tons ran in the range of 

$10 to $25 with the lower yields predominating. It is doubtful hat the new shaft was ever 

paid for with ore from the mine. 

Shafts allowed miners to reach new depths, but once there the work of tunneling 

had to begin. Underground tunneling had many different aspects and components. The 

Atlas assembled by George Becker and his team as a part of the 1882 publication 

Geology of the Comstock Lode and the Washoe District was a tour de force. Ophir was 

one of the earliest quartz mines, and twenty years later (having been own by William 

Sharon and now by John Mackey) with a checkered career it produced some ore but 

mainly consisted of a vast underground network that was still under construction. Ophir 

ended up with a claim about 700 feet long. Its main deposits were relatively shallow. 

They were located between the surface and about 500 feet on the claim’s southern half. 

Four or five different shafts had been constructed to intersect the Lode, which as noted 

earlier, angled toward the east before it was squeezed out completely. Below 500 feet in 

the underground area served by these shafts there was virtually no further tunneling. Hard 

rock had replaced vein matter. To the east toward the hanging wall the company dropped 

the Ophir Shaft, which would eventually reach 2,500 feet. A small deposit of rich ores 

was found between 1,500 and 1,600 feet at approximately the same depth as the 

Consolidated Virginia-California finds of the mid-1870s. It had a limited duration. But it 

spawned new underground projects. Tunneling moved in both directions from the Ophir 

Shaft, which more or less bisected the claim, toward the Mexican Mine on the northern 

boundary and the California Mine on the southern boundary. In the 1879 Annual report 

the Ophir’s President, C. W. Weller, acknowledged that the mine “even in periods of 

great depression …never ceased to be a favorite with the public.” In the current year 

33 

Annual Report of the Yellow Jacket Silver Mining Co. for the Year Ending June 30 th , 1879,” with 


Nevada, Reno. No taxable bullion was recorded for Yellow Jacket in 1880, but some appeared in later 

years. See The County Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story County, Special Collections, Library, 

University of Nevada, Reno.


19 

people “felt” confident about the mine’s future even though most of the construction 

could be appropriately classed as “dead work” that was necessary to find and extract the 

ore. Feeling that the mine had a bright future resulted from the discovery of the so-called 

Hardy Vein about 2,000 feet below the surface. In 1879 it produced about $1.3 million in 

bullion on 20,000 tons at an average yield of $64 per ton. Because the vein was irregular 

it was costly to exploit. Even though the company had paid a small dividend the cost 

came in at about $56 per ton. Nonetheless the President concluded his report with 

conviction that the future prospects were bright and the flow of dividends would 

continue. 34 

To reach these depths the main shaft had to be extended. During the previous year 

the Ophir Shaft had reached 2,200 feet. In 1879 it had been extended 498 feet to a point 

30 feet below the station at 2,500 feet. That would appear to be less than the actual 

distance should be, and the reason was that the shaft was being extended on an incline 

rather than strictly vertically. The tunnel was said to have “passed through” alternating 

“stratas of vein porphyry, birds-eye porphyry and quartz, dipping to the west passed 

through near the 2300 level showing about three feet thick and giving good assays.” At 

2,500 feet the quartz dipped eastward, and it may have been richer than the quartz noted 

above. Large rooms were excavated and timbered at 2,200 and 2,300 feet. Several “bobs” 

had to be replaced, and new tanks and chutes had to be installed. Drainpipes were 

constructed through adjoining mines to Savage where a connection with the Sutro Tunnel 

was made. A new air compressor was attached to the hoisting engine in a configuration 

that saved some money because the compressor could be driven “by the weight of the 

descending cable and giraffe” and then allowed to stand “without motion” when the hoist 

was actually in operation. “The practical result of this…will be to give us over 3000 

cubic feet of air per hour, at a pressure of 80 pounds to the square inch, at no additional 

expense” while simultaneously saving “the wear of the brake machinery heretofore used 

to control the descent of the cable and giraffe.” Finally and perhaps most demanding 

work was to keep the shaft properly timbered. Between 700 and 1,400 feet the ground 

was so unstable that a crew of at least 40 men was required daily to keep it in proper 

condition. 35 

Extensive tunneling was also described in Superintendent W. H. Patton’s 1879 

Report. At 1,600 feet drifts had been constructed both north to the Mexican and Union 

mines (approximately 600 to 700 feet) and south to the California Mine (approximately 

400 to 500 feet) for purposes of ventilation and drainage. Repairing and maintaining 

drifts (of similar length) with same mines at 1,700 was also necessary to protect the air 

and remove the water. Work at 1,900 feet was primarily ore extraction in drifts that 

covered hundreds of feet. According to Becker’s illustration the drift at 1,900 was (by 

1882) a five-sided loop that measured about 1,500 feet. It was located between the Ophir 

Shaft and the California border on the south. In fact, it crossed over the border into 

34 

Annual Report of the Ophir Silver Mining Company, December 1879 (San Francisco: Bunker and Hiester 

Printers, 1879), 5-7, NC56, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno. See assessments in 

The County Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story County, Special Collections, Library, University of 

Nevada, Reno. 

35 

Annual Report Ophir Mining, 1879, 15-17, NC56, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, 

Reno.


20 

California ground, but that mattered little since both Ophir and California had the same 

owner. On the north side of the main shaft a V-shaped drift from 500 to 600 feet in length 

was constructed. At the Mexican border it turned west (creating a V) and eventually 

connected with a winze from the 1,700. The main drift at 2,000 feet measured nearly 

1,500 from the main shaft to California on the south and Mexican on the north. Much of 

the work had been completed prior to 1879. The Mexican and Union Consolidated Mines 

pushed the drift further northward to connect with the Union Shaft. On the south the drift 

continued through California, Consolidated Virginia and Best & Belcher to Gould & 

Curry where it connected to the main shaft. This drift across seven different properties 

greatly improved the ventilation in all the connecting galleries. On the Mexican boundary 

a winze was dropped to the drift at 2,300 feet (a distance of 300 feet) through a drift at 

2,100 feet. A joint (with Mexican) crosscut was run about 300 feet in a western direction. 

Both the winze and the crosscut “passed through alternate streaks of hard porphyry and 

vein matter having a westerly dip, showing some quartz, giving low assays” but also 

improving with depth (thus the apparent reason behind the winze). Because of the 

appearance of water in the crosscut work was suspended as of August 1879 until new 

pumps could be installed. The northeastern drift at 2,100 feet was extended to Mexican 

and connected to the joint Ophir-Mexican winze from 2,000 feet. To the south of the 

main shaft the drift consisted of two parts. A southwesterly drift, beginning in April 

1879, was extended about 150 feet. It ran through the so-called Hardy Vein, and for about 

100 feet good quality ore was found, after which the assays fell sharply. Half way along 

this drift an upraise was constructed to reach the ore above the drift. The other part, 

moving in a northeasterly direction was started in May 1879 and had reached more than 

400 feet. After almost 200 feet of vein matter the drift entered “good milling ore with a 

width of about 3 feet.” This continued for about 100 feet and then gave way to low-grade 

ore. The face of the stope at the terminus of the northeasterly drift looked promising 

again (at the time the report was written). An upraise was constructed in order to connect 

to the drift at 2,000 feet and an east-west crosscut was also under construction. The 

upraise passed through some good ores, but the crosscut found mainly hard rock and vein 

matter. At 2,300, 2,400 and 2,500 feet, in addition to completing or enlarging the stations 

at each level on the main incline some drifts were being started or extended to the north 

and to the south. A fairly long drift at 370 feet was finished from the shaft to the northern 

boundary for a connection with the adjoining Mexican mine. All of this work on the main 

incline shaft and on hundreds if not thousands of feet of drifts, upraises and winzes found 

pockets of good-quality ore, but, as Superintendent Patton himself concluded, the main 

ore vein remained elusive. This was an extraordinarily active year (typical of a Mackay 

venture) in pursuit of the Hardy Vein. Expensive as it was, Patton was happy to report 

that enough millable ore had been lifted to cover the costs, to pay a dividend of $1 per 

share ($10,800) and even to retain a surplus ($134,892). (Typical outcome for Mackay 

ventures, although of late his luck had been running in reverse.) And the future was 

bright because with more of the Hardy Vein above 2,100 feet to be exploited funds would 

be available to push ahead with prospecting in all directions and on all levels. 36 

36 

Annual Report Ophir Mining, 1879, 10-17. NC56, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, 

Reno.


21 

In the Inventory of Property attached to the 1879 Annual Report Patton listed the 

value of buildings, equipment, supplies and merchandise as of 1 December 1879. The 

total value of the property was nearly $350,000. The inventory did not explain how the 

valuations were arrived at, and more than likely they involved a formula based on 

replacement costs. Two items – real estate and buildings – totaled $72,000. The buildings 

included hoisting works, incline and pumping engines, ore dumps, administrative offices, 

work and worker areas and furnishing. Perhaps the most relevant category, given the 

discussion above, was machinery. The list with the valuations is shown below: 

2 hoisting engines, reel & gear, complete $29,000 

1 double incline engine, 2 hydraulic engines attached 75,000 

1 Burleigh air compressor 5,500 

1 Booth air compressor 4,000 

2 double engines, underground, on winzes 2,800 

7 large Ingersoll drills 2,450 

6 small Ingersoll drills 2,000 

5 Burleigh drills 2,000 

1 Baker blower, 2 giraffes, 4 tanks, 6 cages, 38 ore cars 3,600 

1 engine to drive saws 900 

1 large pumping engine 34,500 

Plunger and Cornish pumps, iron bobs, various pipes 17,500 

2 boiler pumps 1,000 

11,262 feet round steel wire cable 18,000 

10,900 feet flat steel cable 12,900 

2,000 feet water pipes, hydrants & hoses 9,500 

10 boilers 18,000 

Blacksmith & machinist tools – lathe, punch, press 6,500 

Total $241,750 

The inventory contained at least 18 drills, with a stated total worth of $6,500. Within the 

group the Burleighs appear to have a somewhat higher valuation at $400 apiece 

compared to the 7 large and 6 small Ingersolls at $325 to $350 each. Two air compressors 

totaled $9,500 with the Burleigh being a third more than the Booth. Two sets of cables 

with a total length of more than 22,000 feet were said to be worth $30,000. These three 

categories added up to $47,000. The largest group consisted of engines, pumps and 

boilers and their attachments such as pipes, tanks, etc. with a total valuation of about 

$195,000. The hoisting engine and the double engine for the incline shaft (described 

above) and their accouterments were set at $104,000, while several pumps with their 

attachments were set at $52,000. The double engine for the incline shaft had the highest 

valuation at $75,000. In addition to buildings and machines the inventory included 

supplies that totaled about $15,000. These included almost 500 cords of wood ($4,828), 

326,303 feet of timber ($5,547), more than 100 gallons of coal, lard and machine oil, 

24,500 tons of Cumberland coal, hundreds of pick and sledge handles and shovels and 

axes and many sundries such a powder, fuses and rails. In the course of the year (1879) 

Ophir extracted 20,000 tons of ore and removed 61,000 tons of rock. The ore yielded 

about $1.2 million in bullion. Ophir’s inventory at year’s end was comparable to


22 

inventories compiled by other mining companies. For example at the end of 1875 in the 

midst of a real bonanza Consolidated Virginia declared its inventory to be worth about 

$400,000, and a year later sharing in the same bonanza California also declared an 

inventory of about $400,000. What is more important than the valuations is the degree to 

which one can judge how important machinery and technology was for these operations. 

Much of mining was still the result of manual labor but greatly aided by pneumatic drills, 

heavy-duty cables and powerful engines. 37 

Ophir’s Balance Sheet for the year revealed more details about financing these 

operations. Most of Ophir’s income (unlike the previously discussed Yellow Jacket) was 

derived from bullion, about $1.3 million of $1.6 million. Other revenues derived from the 

three neighboring mines, Union Consolidated, Mexican and California, paying Ophir 

over $200,000 for material, labor, power and pumping with Mexican, its northern 

neighbor, owing more than $100,000 of the amount. As noted above, Ophir and Mexican 

engaged in several joint projects to extend and connect their drifts, and that would 

account for Mexican’s share. On the expense side the largest item, not surprisingly given 

the extent of tunneling already discussed was labor at a third - $535,000. These figures 

suggest the possibility that over the course of the year Ophir employed several hundred 

workers. Such a number does not seem unrealistic when the range of underground 

construction is considered. More than $400,000 was spent on supplies including 

equipment, although the actual items purchased during 1879 were not specified. These 

purchases, however, were no doubt reflected in the inventory totals cited above. 

Reducing the ore cost $173,000 or $8 to $9 per ton. More than $300,000 was composed 

of stockholder dividends, ore and cash on hand and bullion discounts. The last was 

necessary because the bookkeeping value ascribed to silver was higher than the market 

value. In almost all companies during the 1870s the value of silver per ounce was pegged 

at a certain amount even though the sale of an ounce of silver on the open market would 

yield 10 to 20 percent less than what was entered. Eventually that had to be accounted for 

in the companies’ year-end statements. The remaining $100,000 or so was allocated to 

office expenses, freight, assays, insurance, etc. According to its declarations before Story 

County’s Assessor, the company had direct expenses of $1.1 million with almost a 

million of that devoted to extraction to generate $1.3 million in bullion. That meant that 

the yield per ton of ore was about $64 and the cost per ton was $58. This did not make for 

a highly profitable operation and did explain the relatively low dividend of about $5 per 

ton. 38 The underground work described in the Superintendent’s report and summarized 

above was costly, and they were justified on grounds that the Hardy Vein located at 1,900 

feet would lead to a substantial deposit and hopefully a new bonanza. The Hardy Vein 

petered out, and by the end of 1880 the mining costs per ton were twice the yields per 

ton. The Ophir, which more or less inaugurated quartz mining on the Comstock, would 

also serve as the last hurrah. The Hardy Vein was rich enough to animate the long-held 

hope that new bonanzas lay at greater depths and given the technology could be 

37 


Reno; Annual Report, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, 1875, NC99/1/5/1, 13, and Annual Report, 

California Mining Company, 1876, NC99/1/5/6, 14-15, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, 

Reno. 

38 

Annual Report, Ophir Mining, 1879, 22-23, NC56, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, 

Reno.


23 

successfully and profitably exploited. In fact the dissolution of the Hardy Vein sealed 

once and for all the northern Comstock’s fate. Returns on investments between 1880 and 

1885, the silver anniversary of the discovery of ore, ceased to exist. And with that came 

the end of a remarkable saga that witnessed the conjuncture of ambitious and at times 

reckless entrepreneurs and of widespread application of a changing technology. 

SPECIAL APPENDIX: Elevation map of the Sutro Tunnel, from Becker, Atlas, Sheet 

XI. May appears in four section from the opening in the town of Sutro to the connection 

at the Savage Mine on the Comstock Lode. Each of the four shafts contemplated are 

shown, although Shafts #3 & #4 were abandoned before completion. The tunnel actually 

passed through several lodes before reaching the Comstock. Little ore was found along 

the way, asnd most of the rosk was described by Becker as diabase.

THE COMSTOCK [K] 24


1 

Chapter 11 

The Business of Mining: 

The Sutro Tunnel, Ever-Expanding Technological Base 

The “Feats of Labor”, to steal a phrase from Eliot Lord, was no more manifest on the 

Comstock than with the most controversial and colossal project ever undertaken – the 

Sutro Tunnel. 1 It was an underground passage, four miles long, that began on the surface 

in a place called Sutro, to the east of the Comstock, and reached a depth of 1,700 to 1,800 

feet when it connected to the Lode under Virginia City. It was designed with several tasks 

in mind, although drainage was the principal one. As impressive as this “feat of labor” 

was, it highlighted another feat that helped to define the Comstock – the search for and 

the application of new technologies. In any comparative assessment of New World 

mining, one has to be struck by how much mechanization had entered the business of 

mining by the second half of the nineteenth century, especially underground. Spanish 

colonial mining had little mechanization below ground and only some above ground at 

the refineries. The nineteenth century had a much stronger industrial base than previous 

centuries, and the application of that base was evident almost from the beginning at the 

Comstock, both above ground and below. Drills cut away the rock, pumps admitted air 

and drained water and elevators moved workers and ores in and out of the mine. 

Company correspondence referred to searches for better bits and bigger engines to 

accomplish the work. Machines did not replace humans, of course, but they in 

combination with human labor made it possible to be more productive at greater depths 

than ever before. There were limits, imposed by the physical environment, but not by the 

imagination of the entrepreneur. One of those projects of the imagination that almost 

became a fully achieved reality was the Sutro Tunnel. 

The tunnel was the dream and the achievement of Adolph Sutro, whom Grant 

Smith described as “one of the most remarkable men that rose to power on the 

Comstock.” 2 Because so many (including Sutro himself) have written about Sutro and his 

ambitions, I have chosen to confine my analysis to specific matters dealing with finances 

and technologies relating to the Sutro Tunnel rather than the career of Sutro. It is widely 

observed because the tunnel took a decade to build and therefore opened only after the 

Lode’s greatest bonanza had passed, it served as a postscript in the history of the 

Comstock. Even so after numerous setbacks and threatened abandonments the tunnel was 

completed, functioned as it was designed to function and was regarded as a success 

simply because it proved what could be accomplished in an age that combined the power 

of the machine and the capacity of labor. Indeed, one might conclude that the Sutro 

Tunnel was the final act in a drama that had raised the business of mining to 

unprecedented heights. As promoter, designer and entrepreneur, Sutro embraced the 

dreams of many of his compatriots except his dreams were grander and bolder. He has 

been caricatured as essentially a promoter – to the extent that he continually repackaged 

the venture to attract investors he was – but in promoting he was also advancing the 

power of technology. No doubt in the end Comstock companies found other ways to 

drain the Lode, but Sutro still left his mark, much to the chagrin of his many foes. 

1 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, the title of Chapter 17. 

2 



2 

The history of Sutro’s tunnel began shortly after mining on the Comstock began. 

The idea for a tunnel was pitched to the Nevada Legislature [2 nd Session] in 1865. The 

Legislature granted to Sutro an exclusive franchise to build a tunnel from the mouth of 

Webber Cañon in Lyon County to the Comstock at a point about 2,000 feet below the 

Gould & Curry croppings. A federal bill – The Sutro Tunnel Act – followed in 1866. It 

permitted him to buy public land for $1.25 per acre and private land for $5.00 per acre 

over the distance to the Lode. It also stipulated that anyone benefiting from the tunnel had 

to pay a fee to the company. What was not forthcoming in spite of many years of 

petitioning and imploring Congress was a federal loan. And the lack of capital would 

haunt Sutro to the very end of his participation in the tunnel project. 3 

The idea behind the tunnel was not irrational. The primary purpose of the tunnel 

was to drain water from a depth that was well below the levels 

that most of the underground operations had then reached. Sutro 

(and others) believed that mining companies would find richer 

ores the deeper they dug into the Lode. But a few hundred feet 

below the surface water had already become a problem and an 

expense for some mines, and the idea behind Sutro plan was to 

connect to the Lode at a depth sufficiently below the presumed 

location of the yet-to-be-discovered ores to let the water drain 

down and out. This idea was a variation on what Spanish miners 

had learned in Mexico and Peru. They would build an adit or 

tunnel below the vein of ore that they were working to remove 

the water. This was referred to in colonial documents as “dead 

work” because it had no other function except to drain water. 

Illustration 1: Sutro These projects were expensive, time-consuming and often 

Entrance 

abandoned. They were more often built in Mexico than Peru 

because Mexican ores over time proved to be of higher grades 

and therefore of greater yields than Peruvian ores. Adits could in fact pay for themselves. 4 

As efficient as Sutro’s tunnel might have been for diverting water, Sutro had other 

plans for the tunnel. In addition to drainage he envisioned that it could be used to 

transport workers, supplies, ores and even visitors into the interior of the Lode. Since it 

was to be used for more than moving water the interior of the tunnel had to have a system 

of ventilation and illumination, had to be wide and high enough to accommodate rails, 

cars and passengers and had to keep the drainage ditch separate from the rail system. 

Further it was necessary to build the tunnel on a grade to permit the natural flow of water 

and to intersect the Lode at an appropriately effective point. Under these conditions it 

was calculated that the interior of that tunnel would be about 2 million cubic feet. Tens of 

thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of tons of soil, rock and clay (not to mention 

scalding water) would have to be removed to bring the tunnel into existence. This plan 

called for careful engineering as well as long-term financing, compliant laborers and 

3 


4 

For a comparative discussion of colonial Peruvian and Mexican mining, see Garner, “Long-Term Silver 

Mining Trends,” American Historical Review, 93, 929-934.


3 

drilling technology, some of which did not yet exist. As was his nature, Sutro created an 

overly optimistic timetable of two and one half years for the completion of the tunnel. In 

a report to the 3 rd Legislative Session the Surveyor-General thought the timetable was 

“impractical” and estimated that “with vigorous prosecution” five years would be 

needed. 5 It actually took 13 years to complete the tunnel, and not only did the mining 

companies discover the rich ores that Sutro had predicted when the tunnel was launched 

but unfortunately they had removed most of the profitable ores before the tunnel was 

finished. Among his supporters and enemies there was a consensus that such a tunnel, if 

it could be built, would serve the Comstock well, but like so many Comstock projects this 

one became bogged down in financial disputes, technical failures, political intrigues and a 

general dislike and distrust of Sutro within the mining community. Whether or not a 

functioning tunnel during the boom years would have made a significant difference to the 

bottom line for the Comstock mining companies can hardly be tested. The historical 

interest in the Sutro Tunnel is that it got built at all. 

Part of the appeal of the project may have been its monumentality. Big projects 

and big dreams were standard fare on the Comstock. There is no doubt that Sutro like 

many of his contemporaries overstated the prospects and in particular the financial 

prospects of the tunnel. In fact, though, it was completed much in the way that his 

original plan had envisioned. 6 His franchise gave him a claim of land about one mile in 

width. From Webber Cañon the tunnel would be dug through the middle of the claim to 

connect with the Comstock (actually at the Savage Mine to the south of Gould & Curry) 

at between 1,600 and 1,700 feet. The depth of the tunnel would increase, of course, as the 

tunnel made its way under rising surface elevations until it reached the Comstock, a 

distance of 20,000 feet. Given the dual purpose of the tunnel – drainage and 

transportation - it was designed to be 7 feet high, 8 feet wide at the top and slightly wider 

(between 9 and 9.5 feet) at the bottom of the tunnel. Tracks for two railways would be 

laid on the floor of the tunnel along with a properly covered conduit for drainage of 

water. At the Comstock end a connection would be made at no less than 1,800 feet. The 

grade was to be not less than one inch per 100 feet. Sutro understood that time was of the 

essence so he planned to excavate from both directions. To accomplish this he proposed 

the construction of four shafts along the route at 4,000 to 5,000-foot intervals. Once these 

shafts reached their appropriate levels work digging the tunnel could be sped up. The 

shafts could also improve ventilation and facilitate maintenance of the tunnel. This part of 

the project ran into numerous delays and difficulties. The first two shafts were completed, 

and the third and the fourth, the deepest shafts, were abandoned. In the mid-1860s, when 

Sutro devised his plan, he was among those investors who believed that the Lode’s 

richest ores yet lay below the 1,000-foot level, which some companies had already begun 

to explore. It turned out, of course, that the richest ores lay between the 1,200- and 1,700- 

foot levels, and had Sutro been able to complete the tunnel as scheduled by the late 1860s 

or early 1870s these levels could have been connected to the tunnel and drained 

5 


(1867), 24-25. 

6 


(1867), 24-25; Summary of Articles of Agreement between Gould & Curry and Sutro Tunnel Company (26 

Mar 1866) in Folder from Virginia Consolidated Mining Company (29 Mar 1879), NC7/1/6, Special 



4 

accordingly. If ores had discovered below the 1,700-foot level, the tunnel would have 

been less effective. Rich ores at greater depths would have required water to be pumped 

up where the tunnel intersected the Lode. But unbeknownst to Sutro and everyone else 

who speculated about the configuration of the Lode, the richest seams lay slightly above 

where his tunnel and Lode joined and below this level the ores petered out. When the 

tunnel and the Lode were joined, the tunnel project itself had become an anachronism, a 

victim of time, as was true of other monumental projects. By 1878, while a few waterlogged, 

non-producing mines could have benefited from the tunnel, they remained barren 

of ore. Other mining companies were exploring depths below the connecting point, and 

even though management drew up plans to adapt the tunnel to the new underground 

reality, they were abandoned because in the face of continued barrenness costs were 

prohibitive. 

In addition to draining the mines Sutro’s tunnel would also serve as a conduit for 

moving supplies, workers ores to and from the Lode. Being both a visionary and a 

businessman Sutro had concluded that if such a link were opened he would not only earn 

income from drainage and transport but he could also reap greater wealth by owning or 

controlling the mills that could be built at the end of his tunnel. It proved to be, of course, 

unrealistic and unrealizable. Even if the tunnel had been completed according to initial 

and overly optimistic predictable, the flow of material and personnel through a single 

artery could not accommodate the complexity that came to characterize Comstock 

mining. Moving hundreds and at times thousands of workers along with tens of thousands 

of tons of ore, residue and supplies on dual tracks over four miles was an invitation to 

disaster. Already by the mid-1860s the pattern of the infrastructure of the Comstock was 

in place. Mining companies were making larger and larger investments on their own to 

hoist ore, accommodate personal and process ore and had little financial incentive to turn 

such tasks over to a tunnel promoter who failed to keep to his original timetable. That 

plus a general distaste for the bravado and arrogance that Sutro constantly displayed 

landed him far fewer clients than he needed to make the project financially sound. Some 

drainage leases were signed early on but given the delays were soon abandoned. The 

anticipated revenue stream of companies signing such leases dried up, and increasingly, 

to keep the project afloat, Sutro, who never lost faith (at least publicly), had to entice 

investors outside the Comstock to put up the needed capital. That he succeeded over the 

years is itself another oddity in this long sage. The local community virtually ignored 

Sutro and the on-again, off-again tunnel project. As evidence of his confidence, he was 

alleged to have said that after Virginia City was abandoned, “the owls would roost” in the 

tunnel. 7 In his 1879 (and last) legislative report the Mineralogist summarized various 

statistics from the long history of the tunnel and its final connection to the Lode. The 

distance of the Sutro Tunnel to a floor of the Savage Mine (rather than Gould & Curry) 

was 20,018 feet and to the mine’s shaft was 20,489 feet. The first was reached at 11 PM 

on 8 July 1878 when workers from Savage punched a 5-foot hole that joined the mine 

with the tunnel. The shaft was reached two months later. The initial connection was made 

7 


(1867), 24-25; Smith, The Comstock Lode, 110.


5 

at a depth of 1,640 feet. Only two of the tunnel’s vertical shafts (1 and 2) had been sunk 

to their desired depths. Shafts 3 and 4 were abandoned at 456 feet and 674 feet 

respectively, about half the distance anticipated, because of flooding. Interior dimensions 

were close to what the original plan called for. The easiest digging was the first 2,000 

feet; after that it was hard rock. Since digging on the tunnel did not begin until 1870, the 

tunnel took 8 years, 8 months and 19 days. 8 

Sutro hoped, of course, to discover rich ore deposits on the way to the Comstock. 

He found some ore but never enough to help to pay the bill for digging the tunnel. If the 

tunnel had been finished within two or three years after it was launched, it might have 

generated significant income, at least from drainage contracts, as the mining companies 

discovered both rich ore and voluminous water between 1,000 and 1,500 feet. But a fourmile 

tunnel at depths as great as 1,600 feet was not a feat to be easily and quickly 

accomplished, especially when capital to finance the project was in short supply. Sutro’s 

initial financing plan was to ask Comstock miners to sign leases that provided for a 

subscription of $3 million and a schedule of fees for the use of the tunnel. In the Spring 

of 1866 23 local mine owners agreed to the subscription and to pay the fees for drainage 

and other services, if they chose to use them. 9 The leases committed mining companies to 

pay $2 per ton of ore extracted from mines drained by the tunnel. If companies used the 

tunnel to remove rock and other debris they would pay 25 cents per ton-mile and if they 

used it to transport workers they would pay 25 cents per worker. All such payments were 

to be made in gold coin and “not otherwise”. The $3-million subscription was to be 

spread over a ten year period with annual payments of $300,000, of which not less than 

$200,000 was to be in cash. The first payment was due 1 August 1867. 10 The leases 

provided that the subscriptions would only be paid if the tunnel (not yet even started) 

could serve the companies advantageously. That phrase had an opened-ended quality. It 

is not clear exactly how much if any capital was raised locally in 1867 and 1868. If Sutro 

had raised $200,000 or $300,000, as stipulated, he could certainly have begun the tunnel. 

But the tunnel was not started. The leases did not yield what Sutro needed at once – 

money up front. As Comstock interest in Sutro’s tunnel waned, Sutro extended his search 

for investors to San Francisco and the East Coast. Opposed fiercely by William Sharon, 

the titan of the Lode at the time, and caught unexpectedly in a downdraft in Comstock 

production, Sutro lost nearly half of his leases by the spring of 1869. The remainder 

renewed their contracts for a year and apparently agreed to subscribe $600,000, although 

it is no clear how much if any of that was ever received by Sutro. On 29 November 1869 

the certificate of incorporation for the Sutro Tunnel Company authorized the issuance of 

1.2 million shares of stock at $10 per share for a total of $12 million. Sutro’s name was 

not among those listed in the incorporation, but his name was among those who 

8 


Assembly, 9 th Legislative Session (1879), 84-85; Statement of the Condition of the Sutro Tunnel by Pelham 

W. Ames, Sec., Sutro Tunnel Company, 1878, MS-NC3, Bx 1, Nevada Historical Society; Smith, The 

Comstock Lode, 112. 

9 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 108. Not reported how many paid. 

10 

Summary of Articles of Agreement between Gould & Curry and Sutro Tunnel Company (26 Mar 1866) 

in Folder from Virginia Consolidated Mining Company (29 Mar 1879), NC7/1/6, Special Collections, 

Library, University of Nevada, Reno. It is presumed that the agreement between Gould & Curry and Sutro 

Tunnel Company was more or less generic, typical of what other companies agreed to.


6 

transferred the ownership of the Sutro Tunnel to the new corporation. Some capital was 

also raised from the Miners Union. Having raised enough money to launch the project the 

company excavated about 1,800 feet in the first year. This was the easiest section of the 

tunnel to build, and yet the work had barely covered a tenth of the distance. At this point 

the lack of money and formidable technical problems caused Sutro to abandon the 

project, the first of several abandonments. 11 

In the early 1870s the task of raising capital shifted from Nevada and the West to 

Europe. In the absence of local subscriptions, Wall Street investments or federal 

assistance Sutro took his dog-and-pony show abroad. His position was strengthened when 

rich ore deposits were discovered at 1,000 to 1,200 feet, first at Crown Point and then at 

Belcher and other mines. He was quick to remind everyone that he had long said that rich 

ore bodies lay above the tunnel’s proposed depth, and these discoveries proved him right. 

In spite of his clairvoyance or luck further boasting did not win him any new friends or 

subscriptions locally. Sharon’s implacable opposition continued and intensified. Sutro’s 

salvation came by way of a London banking firm, McCalmont Brothers with offices at 15 

Philpot Lane. Their partners were other European investors, Abraham and Isaac 

Seligman. Their association with Sutro over more than a decade was a rocky relationship 

at best. To the bankers Sutro appeared cocky, impulsive and flamboyant, too often a 

loose cannon instead of a serious businessman, and, not surprisingly, Sutro found the 

bankers to be staid, rigid and uninformed. Hundreds of letters and telegrams flew back 

and forth across the Atlantic. Sutro made at least one trip to London, and in 1878 because 

the relationship had grown so acrimonious, he was told in no uncertain terms not to make 

another trip. Sutro was not reluctant to speak his mind, and in one letter he disparaged the 

brothers for their inability to understand the business of mining. In their reply the 

brothers wrote: “We prefer to pass over your remarks as to our ‘shortsightedness and 

blindness’.” 12 

In combing through numerous documents from several archives, one cannot 

always be certain which agreements were signed or scrapped and which revisions were 

accepted or rejected by all the parties. One uncontested point is that although the initial 

McCalmont investment of several hundred thousands dollars was small, it soon grew 

through various refinancing schemes to millions of dollars. The pivotal years were 1873 

and 1874. In 1873 the McCalmont Brothers and the Seligmans were designated the 

“Mortgage Trustees” for the issuance of bonds worth 1.6 million pounds sterling or 

nearly $8 million. As such, they held a lien on the tunnel and other (unspecified) 

properties. Although the documentation of the Sutro tunnel is extensive, it has proven 

difficult to pin down exactly how many bonds were sold and how much money, if any, 

was raised beyond what the bankers and their partners had subscribed by 1873. 

Moreover, the documentary evidence is not very helpful relative to the early financing of 

the Sutro Tunnel. Since the digging had resumed in 1871, certain costs had to be met for 

the tunnel to have added the several thousand feet that it did. These may have been 

covered by money borrowed from the European bankers and investors. There is no 

11 

Bound Volume of Abstract of Titles, 1877, pp. 6, 7, 32, Sutro Tunnel Company, MS-NC3, Bx 4, Nevada 

Historical Society. 

12 

McCalmont Brothers to Adolph Sutro, 3 December 1878, Sutro Tunnel Company, MS-NC3, Bx 1, 

Nevada Historical Society.


7 

indication, however, that the banking house had raised or advanced part or all of $8 

millions. In a draft of a Memorandum of an Agreement between Sutro and McCalmont 

Brothers & Co, revised over a period of several months in late 1873 and early 1874, a 

bond-backed mortgage worth 600,000 pounds or $2.9 million was canceled (without 

explanation) and a second bond-backed mortgage held by McCalmont Brothers worth 

133,000 pounds or $648,000 was rescheduled from 133,000 pounds to 100,000 pounds. 

At the same time McCalmont was permitted to purchase 300,000 shares of company 

stock at a price of $10 (2.05 pounds) per share. Not all the money raised from the sale of 

stock to the brothers would become available to the company. The bankers would retain 

ten shillings or about $2 per share to retire liabilities arising from the 133,000 pounds in 

mortgage bonds, reduced to 100,000 pounds, under the control of the McCalmont 

Brothers. The Sutro Tunnel Company would be charged interest of 4 percent on all the 

money (even that which was retained) used to purchase the 300,000 shares of stock (since 

Sutro had no income with which to pay dividends). The company would pay $6,000 a 

month from December 1873 to October 1874 on half of the 300,000 shares for a total of 

$60,000. And it would pay $3,000 a month from October 1874 until April 1876 on the 

other half. It was presumed that the tunnel would be open and generating revenue by 

1876. At this point, it would appear, the Europeans were on the hook for $2 to 3 million 

in a company that had no earnings. Quite possibly what the Europeans did was to assume 

any and all outstanding debts from previous years. The extent to which the company had 

accumulated debts since the project was launched and then suspended is not known 

precisely, but the work that had been done could hardly have been paid for with lease 

payments or company revenues. That the company had debts was intimated in Sutro’s 

own statement that with this new arrangement the company was not only debt-free but 

also had funds on hand to proceed. 13 

Work on the tunnel did proceed with only a few interruptions for the next halfdozen 

years but with continual wrangling between the company and its financiers. Extant 

financial documents are sparser than necessary to reconstruct a full financial profile of 

Sutro operations after 1873. The tunnel did not open in 1876, as promised, and the 

company repeatedly made demands on the banks to advance more money and to modify 

the terms of the agreements. It appears that the London firm fully expected the tunnel to 

become a paying proposition even as the Comstock entered a post-bonanza cycle. When 

completed in 1878 the tunnel had missed the opportunity to serve the Comstock in the 

way envisioned by Sutro. He quietly sold out and the London bankers were left as the 

principal owners of a project that would not ever generate any significant revenue. The 

new owners could not turn around the company, and finally in 1889, when McCalmont 

foreclosed on the tunnel, it was reorganized as The Comstock Tunnel Company and 

continued in existence until the 1930s. Up to 1885 the tunnel never had enough business 

to pay its bills or satisfy its creditors. It may have cost McCalmont Brothers and its other 

stockholders and investors between $5 and 6 million to complete the tunnel and another 

13 

Drawn from various copies of correspondence between Sutro Tunnel Company and McCalmont 

Brothers, November and December, 1873, Letterpress Book, Sutro Tunnel Company, MS-NC3, Bx 2, 

Nevada Historical Society. See also a working draft of a “Memorandum of Agreement made this [blank] 

1874 Between The Sutro Tunnel Company…and Messrs McCalmont Brothers & Co…,” MS-NC7/1/5, 

Nevada Historical Society. This was not the final agreement, since it was not signed and some text was 

crossed out and new text was penciled in.


8 

$1 to $2 million to manage it. In the 1880s its stock was nearly worthless, although it 

continued to trade. Shrewd to the very end Sutro managed to sell his shares for several 

million dollars in 1879 and took his fortune to San Francisco where he became a 

controversial and colorful real estate developer. While Sutro can be faulted for his 

promotional antics, he did in fact complete a functioning tunnel. Whether or not the 

McCalmont firm were victims of Sutro’s endless sales pitches, they were certainly guilty 

of the lack of due diligence, to use today’s jargon. They had little first-hand knowledge of 

the risks associated with the Comstock. That they continued to support the tunnel under 

Sutro and then after his tenure to manage the tunnel seemed to have but one rationale – to 

try to save what was a less than “quality-grade” investment in the first instance. 14 

The story of the Sutro Tunnel has another side. As intriguing as the financial 

wheeling and dealing were, the fact that the tunnel was completed for the length and at 

the depth in accordance with the basic plan represented a major technical achievement. It 

was a prime example of the convergence of entrepreneurship and technology in the new 

industrial culture of late nineteenth-century America. The technical hurdles were 

numerous, and modifications of and refinements to the plan had to be accommodated. 

Without a new generation of “tools and machines”, however, the project would surely 

have remained a fantasy. Various maps from the Becker Atlas shows that for the first 3.5 

miles the tunnel passed through various types of andesite rocks, mainly what the surveys 

described as “later hornblende andesite” for the first half of the distance and then “augite 

andesite” for the latter half. Along the way it passed through several other lodes before it 

reached the Comstock Lode. They include the “Great Flowery Lode” near Shaft 1 or 

about 2,200 feet from the mouth; the “Coryell Lode” between Shafts 2 and 3 or between 

10,000 and 10,600 feet; the “Occidental Lode” just beyond Coryell or between 11,600 

and 11,700 feet; and “Solferino Lode” between Shafts 3 and 4 or between 14,000 and 

15,500 feet. Some of these Lodes contained vein matter and quartz. Once the tunnel 

reached 17,000 feet it was in the vicinity of the Comstock Lode. The rock type changed 

to various forms of diorite. When Sutro began the project, the geology had not been 

mapped yet. He did not know what he would encounter, and perhaps he had convinced 

himself that despite the lack of specifics he knew enough about the geology and the 

technology to press ahead. In the first few years before the project was shut down for lack 

of money and support, it had reached about 2,000. Once the project was revived in the 

early 1870s the pace picked up. It is important to stress the figures for how many feet 

were dug in any given year included explorations for gold and silver on either side of the 

tunnel itself. It had been Sutro’s hope that he could pay for the pay through the discovery 

of profitable ores in the vicinity of the tunnel. While the tunnel’s path crossed several 

quartz formations before reaching the Comstock Lode, these minor lodes were mainly 

vein matter with few or no profitable ores. From 1871 when construction resumed some 

14 

Lord, writing in the early 1880s after Sutro had sold his stake, put the cost of construction at more than 

$2 million. His figures were based on data from the company’s annual reports and other correspondence. 

Other sources indicate that the total cost (construction, management, loans, etc.) probably reached $5 to $6 

million. It is worth noting that when Lord wrote his Comstock study, he was undecided as to whether the 

Sutro Tunnel was worth the investment. It was not yet clear even to someone as perspicacious as Lord that 

the Comstock had run its course and without new rich deposits the Sutro Tunnel could not repay its 

investors or revitalize the Lode. Comstock Mining and Miners, 342-343, 346-347. See also Smith, The 

Comstock Lode, 115.


9 

of the excavation data include those additional excursions. In 1871 and 1872 3,480 feet 

were dug or about 72 feet per month. The next year (1873) the number jumped to 1,919 

feet or 105 per month. The length had reached 5,394 feet. In 1874 2,682 feet (223 feet per 

month) was added for a total length of 8,079 feet. These advances were largely possible 

because of the installation of six Burleigh drills. Burleighs were among the most 

advanced (and most expensive) drills available. But the drills constituted only part of the 

mechanization of the operation. Air compressors were needed to drive the drills. Along 

with the purchase of new Burleighs the tunnel company bought a new air compressor 

from the Humboldt Company of Germany for installation in Shaft 2 to complement the 

air compressor built by Société Cockerill of Belgium in Shaft 1. In 1875 the monthly gain 

of 312 feet a month or 3,728 feet for the year was the best yet. In 1876, however, 

progress slowed to 261 feet per month or 3,130 feet for the year. By the end of 1876 the 

tunnel had reached almost 15,000 feet, and because it was passing through a quartz 

formation known as the Solferina Lode progress had slowed. The company reported that 

exceptionally hard rock had stymied even the Burleigh drills. In 1877 two Burleighs were 

taken off the compressors in order to improve the efficiency of the remaining drills. In the 

next year and a half (January 1877-July, 1878) the remaining 5,400 feet to access the 

west wall of the Comstock Lode was cut through at depths between 1,600 and 1,700 feet. 

Since the vertical shafts # 3 and #4 had never been completed all the tools and supplies 

had to be conveyed through more than 10,000 feet of the tunnel. Plans were to extend the 

tunnel into Mt Davidson proper at a depth of perhaps 3,600 feet. That, of course, did not 

ever become a reality. 15 

A single connection to the Comstock would have had only minor consequences 

for draining the Lode. The lateral tunnel along the Comstock had to be built to connect 

other mines. Such a tunnel was planned to the same specifications as the main tunnel. 

The southern branch of the lateral tunnel began at 19,715 feet, 400 to 500 feet before the 

tunnel actually broke through to the Savage mine, and was to connect with the Julia 

Mine, a distance of about 1,400 feet. In October and November 1878, nearly 900 feet of 

the southern lateral tunnel had been cut. Julia Mine was under contract to pay $100,000 

of which it had already advanced $40,000. The lateral did reach Julia, but the balance if 

paid was not recorded. Julia may have been drained but still remained unproductive. The 

southern lateral was originally planned to run about 8,500 feet to Alta Mine and the 

northern lateral about 4,500 feet to Union Mine. Much of the equipment for the lateral 

work was contained in Shaft 2, a distance of about 10,000 feet. It was noted that the 

aforementioned compressor to power both Burleigh and Ingersoll drills as well as the 

blower for ventilation and the hoist for moving workers and supplies were all located in 

that shaft. Indeed some of the equipment was located in Shaft 1, which was even farther 

from the site of the work. 16 Although Sutro Tunnel abandoned plans to extend the main 

tunnel into Mt Davidson, it continued sporadically to work on the lateral tunnels until it 

15 


Assembly, 9 th Legislative Session (1879), 81-85. Also information on the progress of the tunnel including 

workers employed, temperatures of air and water, nature of the ground and rock, etc. can be found in 

various correspondence folders with dates of 1867, 1871, 1874-1879 (most prolific for 1878) in Sutro 

Tunnel Company, MS-NC3, Bxs 1-3, Nevada Historical Society. The Mineralogist’s data were collected 

from company reports and interviews, and while they could not be absolutely verified from other 

documentation, they appear to be generally in line with the actual results.


10 

had traversed a substantial part of the length of the Lode. Like the main tunnel the lateral 

tunnels assisted in the drainage of a Lode that had exhausted its wealth. 

As monumental as the Sutro tunnel was, it was not the nation’s only large-scale 

engineering accomplishment. The nation’s longest tunnel was The Hoosac Tunnel, built 

under the Berkshire Mountains in western Massachusetts. The project was launched in 

1851 and after several delays it was completed two decades later in 1875. It was longer 

than Sutro by almost 5,000 feet and bigger with an interior height of 20 feet and a width 

of 24. It cost twice as much to build, not only because of its size but also in part because 

the interior was bricked. At the eastern entrance the summit of the Hoosac Mountain was 

1,429 feet high and on the western entrance it was more than 1,718 high. Sutro was 

somewhat deeper. The Hoosac had three shafts for ventilation and light while Sutro had 

four planned but only two finished. The grade in Hoosac was much greater than in Sutro. 

There were essential differences. The most obvious was that Hoosac was a tunnel with 

light on both ends, whereas Sutro, being a underground tunnel, ended in darkness. 

Hoosac rocks consisted of mica slate, mica schist and milky quartz instead of andesites 

and diorites. There was no indication that Hoosac workers had to contend with scalding 

water and high temperatures to the same degree that Sutro workers did. Both structures 

epitomized bold thinking about overcoming environmental and geological barriers with 

the help, of course, of new technologies. 17 

Key to the construction of both tunnels (as well as very deep underground 

mining) was drilling equipment, in particular the Burleigh drill, which eventually found 

their way to the Comstock. For centuries “tunneling, mining and quarrying” required 

intensive human labor. Pounding and cracking the rock and then inserting a wedge to 

break the rock apart were the accepted techniques. In some cases heating the rock and 

splashing it with cold water could create fissures into which wedges could be driven. The 

use of gunpowder as an explosive in the seventeenth century added another tool, but 

underground explosives from the outset had posed problems. First was cutting the hole 

for the powder, not always an easy task. Additionally, controlling the reaction within the 

area of the blast and then venting it of noxious chemicals were not easily accomplished. It 

has been generally argued, however, that the introduction of powder in Spanish American 

silver mining helped to raise output in many older mines. By the nineteenth century the 

application of explosives underground was better understood and more widely practiced, 

although cutting and extracting the rock with hammers and chisels continued to be the 

workers’ primary tools. Toward the middle of the nineteenth century a Massachusetts 

inventor, Joseph Crouch, fashioned a steam-powered drill that repeatedly slammed into 

the rock until it broke the rock apart, and while it could be used in quarrying, it was too 

bulky to be used in underground tunneling or mining. Steam was fast becoming a source 

of power for many machines, but the residue of steam posed further breathing problems 

for workers already suffering from bad air in confined underground spaces that could be 

16 

Statement of condition by P. W. Ames, Sec., of the Sutro Tunnel Company, 1878, MS-NC3, Bx 1, 

Nevada Historical Society. Also see Smith, The Comstock Lode, 113. 

17 

See www.boudillion.com/hoosac for data on the tunnel. Also data on the Hoosac, Sutro and other long 

American and European tunnels was compiled for the 1880 Census available On-Line at 

www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/1880.htm, United States Census Bureau. Statistics and 

Technology of the Precious Metals, vol. 13, 125, Table XVII.


11 

avoided in open areas. During the construction of Mt Cenis Tunnel between Italy and 

France in the early 1860s the chief engineer, Germaine Sommeiler, and his associates 

replaced steam with compressed air, and rather than steam contaminating the work area 

the air cooled it. But the drill itself, even when driven by air, remained unreliable and 

cumbersome. Thus, in the middle 1860s during the construction of the Hoosac Tunnel 

Charles Burleigh introduced the first pneumatic drill that was easier to use, although it 

could not be quickly set up or moved about. The Burleigh design not only inserted and 

retracted the drill, but they also turned the drill slightly for each new contact with the 

rock. Further improvements of the pneumatic drills made them lighter and simpler and 

above all easier to assemble and move. 18 

The advance in drilling had to be accompanied by an advance in the bits that the 

drills use to break up the rock. Diamonds, of course, being the hardest known mineral, 

would cut any rock such as quartz, which was three levels below diamonds in hardness. 

Egyptians apparently used diamond-pointed drills in their stone quarries. But the first 

“diamond core” drill was invented in France by a French engineer, Rodolphe Leschot, in 

1863 in connection with the Mt Cenis tunnel project. The diamond bit on the end of the 

drill was a “tube or cylinder” with six stones or more distributed between the outside and 

inside circumference of the bit. Later models apparently had more than twice that 

number. Some diamonds were superior to others, although Leschot, since he had been a 

watchmaker, may have used jewel-grade diamonds that were less effective than other 

grades. Leschot device was patented in the United States about the same time that 

Burleigh had invented his device. 19 Diamond bits combined with pneumatic drills came 

along at an opportune time for the Sutro Tunnel in particular and for the deeper and 

deeper probes along the Comstock Lode. Although Sutro, starting in 1874, could have 

acquired more than a half-dozen Burleighs, the Yellow Jacket Mining may have been the 

first company to acquire a Burleigh in 1872. 20 Company accounts (to be discussed later) 

document that some companies purchased diamond bits to be used on their pneumatic 

drills. Within a few years of Yellow Jacket’s purchase diamond bits and pneumatic drills 

had become a part of the basic underground equipment for building tunnels and 

extracting ores. 

Once the main tunnel had reached the Lode at Savage and the lateral tunnel 

branched off to serve other mines, the drainage of the Comstock, as Sutro had envisioned 

it, began in earnest. Water at the level of the tunnel or above it could be easily channeled 

into the Sutro through drainage ditches or pipes. Water below the 1,600-foot level had to 

be pumped up to the tunnel, a more expensive and less convenient operation. In removing 

or controlling water within the mines, according to the Mineralogist, cost mining 

companies about $3 million per year. He assumed that the Sutro Tunnel could greatly 

reduce that cost. The figure cannot be verified, but according to the Sutro pumping 

records the volume of water carried by tunnel once it had reached the Lode averaged 

about a million and a quarter gallons a day. In a progress report from 1878 the figure of 

18 

See www.fofweb.com for article by Rudi Volti, “Pneumatic Drills,” The Facts on File, Encyclopedia of 

Science, Technology, and Society (New York: Facts on File, Inc, 1999, 2003). 

19 

See www.oilhistory.com for discussion of drills and bits by Samuel Pees. 

20 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, illustration between 336 and 337.


12 

1,285,000 was cited as the daily flow. 21 An immediate beneficiary was the Combination 

Shaft and the consortium of three companies, Chollar Potosi, Savage and Hale & 

Norcross, which was building the shaft. It had reached 2,200 feet only to encounter hot 

water that quickly flooded Savage and Hale & Norcross up to the 1,800-foot level. 

Pumping by the companies had little effect in reducing flood levels and was very costly. 

When the connection was made with the Combination Shaft on 30 June 1879, Sutro 

wrote to Ames, the Secretary of the Board, that pumping had begun at 6 AM and the 

water reached the mouth of tunnel at 7:20 AM. The water temperature at the mouth was 

initially 90 degrees and gradually increased to 114 degrees. “Everything works like a 

charm,” wrote Sutro. The heat of the water did not “discommode” any of the tunnel 

machinery or equipment. The water flowed through the tunnel to the Carson River as if 

“it had been going there for years”. The interiors of the shaft and mines were soon made 

dry enough to be worked. To honor the occasion Sutro gave his men the day off and 

ordered that fires would be lit on the ranges around the Comstock that evening to 

celebrate. Unfortunately, celebratory fires on the ranges of the Comstock would not turn 

water into gold or silver. As he praised the performance of his creation, however, he 

already had an eye on the exit from the Comstock. 22 

Since the opening of the tunnel in 1878 Sutro had expressed disappointment at the 

volume of water draining from the Comstock. Since the tunnel’s only business appeared 

to be drainage of water, volume was an indicator of how many mining operations had 

been signed up to use Sutro’s drainage services. Many of the mines on the Lode’s 

southern branch had pipes connecting to the lateral tunnel, and his next effort was to 

accomplish the same on the northern branch. This would double the flow of water, he 

said, and twice the flow meant more mines paying fees to keep their operations dry. 23 In 

the meantime, mining companies could continue their search for new ore bodies at even 

greater depths. And his plans for expansion and improvement did not end there. Surely, 

though, at the same time Sutro knew what the most seasoned observers knew – the boom 

was over, and the Lode was running out of ore. His European backers were certainly 

beginning to show more skepticism. After the initial connection was made in July of 

1878 McCalmont Brothers warned Sutro to concentrate on signing up mining companies 

to use the tunnel as it currently existed in order to generate some income and to abandon 

any plans for expansion and improvement. Writing on 2 July 1878 McCalmont urged 

Sutro “…[to] make the best bargains you can with the Comstock mines…,” although the 

Brothers did agree to some minor improvements for roads and cultivation of alfalfa and 

barley for the animals. “We adhere to existing terms of mortgage due 1891.” 24 A few 

weeks later the Brothers issued a further rebuke. Since the goal had been reached, 

London will provide no further outlays. “We are aware of Mr. Sutro’s ambitious views, 

21 

Reports of Progress of Work, 1878, Sutro Pumping Company, MS-NC3, Bx 1, Nevada Historical 

Society. 

22 


Assembly, 9 th Legislative Session (1879), 85; Letter from A. Sutro, Supt., to P. W. Ames, Sec., Sutro 

Tunnel Company, 30 Jun 1879, MS-NC3, Bx 4, Nevada Historical Society. It is not reported in Sutro’s 

letter how much of the daily flow was from the Combination Shaft. 

23 

Letter from A. Sutro, Supt., to P. W. Ames, Sec., Sutro Tunnel Company, 30 Jun 1879, MS-NC3, Bx 4, 

Nevada Historical Society. 

24 

Copy of Letter from McCalmont Brothers, London, to A. Sutro, 2 Jul 1878, Sutro Tunnel Company,, 

MS-NC3, Bx 1, Miscellaneous Letters, Nevada Historical Society.


13 

necessitating enormous expenditures in the future, such as draining the tunnel, leveling 

the floor, new lines of rails, smoothing sides of the tunnel, extensive drifts, prospecting, 

locomotive power, or wire ropes, etc. etc., all of which, however necessary they may be, 

we can no longer provide.” They intimated that they might not pay the next installment 

due Sutro under the terms of the mortgage on 1 August. 25 A week later they wrote: “We 

can but repeat what we said in our last that if you are unable to make arrangements to 

procure funds from other sources, we see nothing for it but to suspend work, and close up 

pending operations with as little prejudice to all concerned as possible.” 26 Such was the 

nature of the correspondence between Sutro and his backers for a year. The tunnel was 

losing money, and Sutro’s response was for the company to grow its way into prosperity 

while the London firm was set on curtailing expansion, generating revenue and reducing 

indebtedness. In 1879 after 15 years of almost endless warfare Sutro quit. He dissolved 

his association with the company for several million dollars, and a new group took 

control under the direction of the trustee, C. W. Brush. It did not matter who owned the 

tunnel. Its business, so intimately linked to the health of the Lode mining entrepreneurs 

would, like them, end up in bankruptcy. Fewer enterprises meant fewer leases, and fewer 

leases meant fewer receipts despite the tunnel’s success. That anyone would pay as much 

as Sutro was paid remains a mystery (at least to me). 

For the new owners making the tunnel profitable under a worsening economic 

environment was daunting to say the least. In letters and reports from George Sprecht, the 

chief administrator of the Sutro Tunnel Company, to C. W. Brush, a trustee, during 1881 

– the worse year for production in Comstock mining – discussed some strategies for 

doing that. The detailed calculations would have warmed the cockles of every cost 

accountant’s heart. But unfortunately some of the figures are not fully explained and the 

totals cannot always be duplicated. Accountancy had assumed a new importance in 

corporate American, and the Comstock mining industry was no exception, but detailed 

cost statements did not necessarily provide accurate cost information. Part of the problem 

in regard to the Sutro Tunnel Company was that the information was contained in several 

different reports, each of which had a slightly different objective. Sprecht reiterated that 

his amortization plan called for paying $500,000 per year over 10 years to retire the $5 

million mortgage and to accomplish this assumed surpluses from the following revenue 

sources: 40 percent from drainage royalties, 30 percent from transportation contracts, 15 

percent from reduction of ores and 15 percent from opening new mines within the 

tunnel’s own right-a-way. If transportation contracts were to yield $200,000 in surpluses 

to cover their share of the annual mortgage payment, two or three times that amount 

would have to be generated in income to pay expenses before any surpluses could be 

realized. In some of the agreements between the tunnel company and the mining 

companies they included provisions that the transport of ore was $2 per ton, rock and 

waste 25 cents per ton-mile and workers 25 cents per person each way. 27 How much 

25 

Copies of Letters from McCalmont Brothers, London, to A. Sutro and C. W. Brush, 25 Jul 1878, Sutro 

Tunnel Company,, MS-NC3, Bx 1, Miscellaneous Letters, Nevada Historical Society. 

26 

Copy of Letter from McCalmont Brothers, London, to A. Sutro, 30 Jul 1878 Sutro Tunnel Company, 

MS-NC3, Bx 1, Miscellaneous Letters, Nevada Historical Society. 

27 

Articles of Agreement between Sutro Tunnel Company and Consolidated Virginia Mining and California 

Mining Companies, 29 March 1879, Article 12 (p. 27), NC7/1/6, Special Collections, Library, University 

of Nevada, Reno; Articles of Articles of Agreement between Sutro Tunnel Company and Segregate Belcher


14 

haulage business had Sutro rounded up since the opening of the tunnel? No direct 

documentation has been found thus far, but based on some indirect evidence the answer 

appears to almost none. The company did report that between September 1878 and 

December 1880 the tunnel was used to haul on average 116 tons (58 carloads) of rock per 

day. What is not clear is where rock came from - Sutro’s own excavations or mining 

company excavation? If one assumed that all the rock came from paying customers at the 

stipulated rate of 25 cents per ton-mile, the total income would be a measly $10,000 to 

$11,000 dollars, a long way from the hundreds of thousands needed to reach the 

company’s financial goals. 28 

The flurry of activity in 1881 by Sprecht to find new strategies for improving 

revenues appeared to focus mainly on how to make the tunnel more of a transport conduit 

than it had been. The immediate question was whether the mode of transport – muledriven 

trams – should be replaced. To remove the aforementioned 116 tons on average 

per day the company employed six daily trains of 10 cars with three mules and one mule 

driver per train. Without accounting for the cost of the equipment or the wage of the 

driver the report stated that to move a ton of rock cost 5.73 cents per ton-mile (round-trip 

calculated at 10 miles). Mule power was then compared to steam and air (compressed) 

power. At Bald Mountain Mining Company steam cost about 6.1 cents per ton-mile 

without any other specific being offered. Compressed air was estimated at 5.29 cents per 

ton-mile, although that figure was suspect since compressed air could only be used in part 

of the main tunnel and would have to be combined with some other mode in the rest of 

the main tunnel and the lateral tunnels. Sutro had a stable of 72 mules, which had to be 

fed, shod and generally cared for, and while the figures are fuzzy and not always 

reconcilable, the cost of maintaining the mules accounted for perhaps half of the total 

cost of 5.7 cents per ton-mile. The other expenses included lubricating and illuminating 

oils (each train carried seven torches) and repairs of tracks and cars. 29 To replace mules 

with a locomotive powered by steam or air a source of power had to be tapped. The 

preferred source was water. The Lode and the tunnel, of course, had ample water, but the 

flow was apparently inadequate to generate the needed power. At the mouth of the tunnel 

was the Carson River, which could be harnessed to power the steam locomotive system 

that Sprecht leaned toward. In comparing hoisting and hauling costs for Comstock mines 

Sprecht concluded that the average was $2.90 per ton with existing facilities but could be 

reduced to $1.55 per ton with upgraded Sutro operations. Sprecht’s figures included some 

hoisting charges inside the mines since the mines were lifting ore and waste from depths 

below the level of the tunnel itself. His haulage figures also included the costs for 

installing the locomotive system, servicing the mortgage (nearly half the total) and 

operating the tram. Calculated on strictly a per-ton basis, since this was how mining 

Mining Company, 29 March 1879, Article 12, MS-NC3, Bx 1 Sutro Tunnel Company, Nevada Historical 

Society. With respect to ore, if the gold yielded a coin at less than $40, the rate dropped to $1 per ton. 

28 

Letters from George Sprecht to C. W. Brush, Trustee, Sutro Tunnel Company, 5 May 1881 and 5 June 

1881, MS-NC3, Bx 1, Miscellaneous Letters from April 1881, Nevada Historical Society. 

29 

Duplicating the calculations as given in the document proved to be difficult. I have accepted the report’s 

figure of 5.7 cents per ton-mile without being able to verify its accuracy. The aim here is to provide a 

comparative benchmark, and no more. See Letter from George Sprecht to C. W. Brush, Trustee, Sutro 

Tunnel Company, 5 May 1881, MS-NC3, Bx 1, Miscellaneous Letters from April 1881, Nevada Historical 

Society.


15 

companies calculated their hoisting and hauling costs rather than per ton-mile, Sutro 

could save the mining companies on average $1.35 per ton (on paper). 30 

Even as large as the savings might have been (under ideal circumstances), they 

offered little or no incentive for mining companies in 1881. Not only did Sutro lack the 

capital to rehabilitate the tunnel – mule-driven trams remained for decades – but the 

mining companies also lacked the financial means to abandon an old system and embrace 

a new one. Efficiencies in hoisting and hauling could be realized as long as the quantity 

and the quality of the ore continued to decline as rapidly as it had since 1878. By Sutro’s 

own calculation the company would have had to contract to move hundreds of thousands 

of tons to generate the level of income needed to meet various obligations, in particular 

the repayment of the debt, at a time when tonnage had reached the lowest levels in the 

history of the Comstock. Despite a valiant effort to rejuvenate the tunnel business, the 

company could not rejuvenate the Lode and therefore could not rejuvenate itself. 

Underground mining was a constant war with the natural forces on a daily basis. 

With the Sutro Tunnel one could observe the beneficial impact of new technologies in 

taming those natural forces. The fact was that while Sutro “stumbled” toward completion 

mining companies had sunk some of the deepest shafts and built some of the longest 

tunnels in the world with a combination of old and new technologies. Adaptability 

appeared to be the key to success. Although hard to quantify, it comes through in the 

hundreds of pages of daily or weekly reports written by foremen and superintendents. 

References to new machines and techniques were frequent, but much of the content of 

these reports concerned low-tech matters of digging and re-digging, building and 

rebuilding, timbering and re-timbering the interior spaces that the workers and the 

machines needed. Logistical questions always loomed large because the means had to be 

found to move workers, ores, supplies and even machines from the surface to the bottom 

and back to the top or from one part of the mine to another part. Bigger engines, stronger 

cables, larger cages and other technological innovation let shafts operate faster and more 

safely, but even after better technology had been put to work, the shafts themselves, 

mostly constructed from wooden timbers, had to be secured constantly against bulging 

and snapping because of the movement of the earth around them. Mining companies were 

as much in the business of reconstruction as construction. Once a facility had been built it 

had to be serviced, upgraded and at some point replaced. 

By the time the Sutro Tunnel began to drain mines on the northern end of the 

Comstock Lode in 1878, the search for ore had already moved well below the 1,600- to 

1,700-foot level where the linkage occurred. There was the hope, of course, that by 

draining old works above the level of the tunnel new ore deposits would be located and 

that given the network in place they could be easily and profitably accessible. But while 

such discoveries were a possibility, for which some precedent existed, the main focus of 

30 

These conclusions require a “certain faith” in the way Sprecht or his associates computed their costs. 

Theoretically it was possible that under the appropriate reconfiguration of the tunnel it would be cheaper to 

move people and things through the tunnel to the Lode. That ignored, of course, the fact that large sums 

had been invested over the years in other strategies for servicing the mines. See Letter plus 

accompaniments to C. W. Brush, Trustee, The Sutro Tunnel Company, 5 June 1881, MS-NC3, Bx 1, 

Miscellaneous Letter from April 1881, Nevada Historical Society.


16 

the remaining mining companies appeared to be deeper rather than shallower probes. By 

the 1880s mining companies were opening up new work areas 2,000 to 3,000 feet (and 

more) below the surface. Numerous examples from company records could be cited. 

Yellow Jacket, still a William Sharon property, had fallen from among the ranking 

producers after the 1868 fire. It had a claim nearly 1,200 feet long, and in November 

1876 it began the construction of a new shaft between two existing shafts. The shaft to 

the north had served for the exploitation of relatively shallow ores, 100 to 400 feet below 

the surface, which it shared with its northern neighbors Confidence and Challenge. The 

southern shaft, however, built to extract ores shared with Kentuck and Crown Point on its 

southern boundary had reached the 2,400-foot level. The new shaft was pushed to 2,636 

feet by June 1879, and another 400 to 500 feet would be added during the next several 

years before the project was halted. 31 To reach 2,600 feet the company averaged about 80 

feet a month. Divided into fiscal years from July to July progress on the shaft was 

reported as 768 feet in 1877, 780 feet in 1878 and 1,088 feet in 1879. The range was from 

a high of 155 feet in December 1876 to a low of 33 feet in July 1877. During the fiscal 

year ending 1 July 1879 in addition to sinking and timbering the shaft almost 1,100 feet 

other work was underway. Water tanks were constructed at the 1,550- and 2,300-foot 

levels (from surveyor’s point at Gould & Curry) to hold 31.5 tons (7,554 gallons) and 

21.5 tons (5,096 gallons) respectively. Pipes for compressed air were installed from the 

surface to 2,300 feet. At 2,500 feet more than 1,400 feet of drifts were cut during the 

year. Air circulation was always a concern, and with the extended shaft and repairs to 

some of the winzes, ventilation had been improved vastly, all the way to the 2,500-foot 

level. Moreover the creation of two stations adjacent to and connected with the new shaft 

at 2,300 feet and 2,500 feet improved the airflow and lowered the temperature. The total 

volume of air that passed down the new shaft through the repaired passages was 

measured at 34,200 cubic feet per minute. Temperatures now ranged from 66 degree to 

96 degrees Fahrenheit. Perhaps more importantly Yellow Jacket no longer had to depend 

on adjoining mines for ventilation. Two air compressors, a Burleigh and a Warring, 

supported excavating for the shaft and mining of the ore. Both had been used previously 

in the older shaft. Because of the depths new hoisting equipment had to be purchased. An 

order had been placed with Risdon Iron Works for the construction of “a pair of 

horizontal, direct-acting hoisting engines, eight feet stroke by twenty-eight inches 

diameter of cylinder, with complete appurtenances for a first-class hoisting apparatus 

[sic].” The contract called for fabrication and transport of the machines in 125 days at a 

cost of $142,500, one-third to be paid when the work was half done, one-third when the 

machines were shipped and the final third after the engines were in operation. New cables 

also had been ordered from England. They were 3,700 feet long, eight inches wide and 

three-eights of an inch thick, and they were scheduled for delivery in December 1879. In 

the meantime, until the new equipment was installed, the current hoisting machinery was 

being supplemented with a “donkey engine” at 2,300 feet. Rock excavated from below 

this point was lifted by the donkey engine to 2,300 feet where it was then stored. To try to 

hoist from the new depths to the surface with the existing “geared hoisting machinery” 

would be unsafe under the strain necessarily imposed upon it…,” said the company. The 

31 

Grant Smith wrote that the shaft reached 3,080 feet or just below the 3,400-foot level. Smith, The 

Comstock Lode, 280. See also Becker, “Longitudinal Vertical Projection of the Comstock Lode…,” in the 

Atlas, Sheet X.


17 

final matter to be considered was water. About 1,000 tons a month appeared in the shaft 

at the 1,550-foot level where it is stored in a tank and another 300 tons below that level. 

Water raised through the shaft averaged about 300,000 gallons per month. The biggest 

problem, however, was that even though a vein of about 700 feet was found at the 2,500 

feet, it was filled with porphyry and not worth much. All the work for the year had failed 

to produce much ore that would cover the costs of repairing and expanding the mine. The 

mills, owned by Sharon and associates, refined the low-grade ores at a small profit, but 

that did not pay for mine renovations. 32 

The Superintendent’s Annual Report (1878-1879) included figures on Yellow 

Jacket’s finances. The balance sheet showed that the company had receipts and 

disbursements of $446,000. Receipts included no money from mining of ore. Eighty 

percent or $360,000 of the receipts came from assessments against stockholders. Another 

20 percent was the balance carried over from the previous fiscal year (1877-1878). On 

the disbursement side 70 percent or $313,000 of the total outlays ($446,000) was for the 

construction of the new shaft and another 22 percent was cash on hand ($41,000), labor 

in the old works ($31,000) and purchases of mining supplies ($28,000). The breakdown 

for construction of the new shaft was fairly precise. The list below shows total cost for 

each category and the percentage, as calculated by the company (dollars rounded): 

Labor-Miners' Wages $134,319 42.84% 

Machinery-All Foundry Work & Machinery $89,533 28.83% 

Timber-All Wood Work $24,029 7.68% 

Wood-Coal & Fuel $22,083 7.06% 

Iron & Steel-All Hardware $12,842 4.10% 

Powder & Fuse $8,845 2.83% 

Freights-Virginia & Truckee RR-Machinery, supplies $5,260 1.68% 

Water & Ice $4,188 1.34% 

Candles & Oil $3,623 1.15% 

Taxes-State, County, Town $2,694 0.86% 

Construction Engineer-W. H. Patton $2,500 0.79% 

Sundries-Not Specified $1,820 0.58% 

Masonry-Sand, Stone, etc. $843 0.26% 

Total $312,579 100.00% 

The two major expenditures were labor (43 percent) and machinery (29 percent). 

They combined for 72 percent of the total. Two other items of interest were costs for 

timber (7.68 percent) and wood (7.06 percent) – the former for framing a shaft that had 

grown by 1,088 feet ($20 to $25 per foot) and the latter for fuel (plus coal) to power the 

equipment. It is worth noting that W. H. Patton, who had a long career in Comstock 

32 

“Annual Report of the Yellow Jacket Silver Mining Co. for the Year Ending June 30 th , 1879,” with 


Nevada, Reno. See also Smith, The Comstock Lode, 280-281. Interesting observations by Smith on size of 

pumps, fly-wheels and rod-catchers on pumps and breakdown of the pumps in 1880 from diary of 

Superintendent Thomas G. Taylor. Lord briefly described size and horsepower of engines that drove hoists 



18 

mining, was the consulting engineer at an annual salary of $2,500. The company 

computed the average cost of the shaft per foot between November 1876 and June 1879 

at $374 to reach 2,636 feet. The most impressive gains were in the first three months 

(November 1876-January 1877) when the shaft had reached nearly 440 feet (one sixth of 

the total distance and just under 150 per month) before the advance fell off to more 

modest monthly averages of 80 feet per month. The cost per foot for the fiscal year 1876- 

1877 (only eight months) was $166 per foot to excavate 768 feet. In the next fiscal year 

(1877-1878) outlays rose sharply to nearly $700 per foot or a total of $545,714 to add 

780 feet. Finally in the fiscal year July 1878-June 1879 when 1,088 feet were added the 

cost per foot was $287, a decline of more than 60 percent from the previous year. By any 

measure, at a time of a deepening depression, the expenditure of a million dollars to build 

a new shaft to explore a region one thousand feet below the last profitable ore findings 

was risky if not wasteful. But it was that kind of ambition that had served the Comstock 

well for two decades. It would eventually become clear to speculators and investors alike 

that the richness of the Lode did in fact have a limit. 33 Yellow Jacket did begin to produce 

refinable ores in 1883 and continued to do so through 1885, the end of the period under 

review here. In one or two quarters yields exceeded costs, but in most quarters the ore 

was not valuable enough to cover operating expenses. Yields per tons ran in the range of 

$10 to $25 with the lower yields predominating. It is doubtful hat the new shaft was ever 

paid for with ore from the mine. 

Shafts allowed miners to reach new depths, but once there the work of tunneling 

had to begin. Underground tunneling had many different aspects and components. The 

Atlas assembled by George Becker and his team as a part of the 1882 publication 

Geology of the Comstock Lode and the Washoe District was a tour de force. Ophir was 

one of the earliest quartz mines, and twenty years later (having been own by William 

Sharon and now by John Mackey) with a checkered career it produced some ore but 

mainly consisted of a vast underground network that was still under construction. Ophir 

ended up with a claim about 700 feet long. Its main deposits were relatively shallow. 

They were located between the surface and about 500 feet on the claim’s southern half. 

Four or five different shafts had been constructed to intersect the Lode, which as noted 

earlier, angled toward the east before it was squeezed out completely. Below 500 feet in 

the underground area served by these shafts there was virtually no further tunneling. Hard 

rock had replaced vein matter. To the east toward the hanging wall the company dropped 

the Ophir Shaft, which would eventually reach 2,500 feet. A small deposit of rich ores 

was found between 1,500 and 1,600 feet at approximately the same depth as the 

Consolidated Virginia-California finds of the mid-1870s. It had a limited duration. But it 

spawned new underground projects. Tunneling moved in both directions from the Ophir 

Shaft, which more or less bisected the claim, toward the Mexican Mine on the northern 

boundary and the California Mine on the southern boundary. In the 1879 Annual report 

the Ophir’s President, C. W. Weller, acknowledged that the mine “even in periods of 

great depression …never ceased to be a favorite with the public.” In the current year 

33 

Annual Report of the Yellow Jacket Silver Mining Co. for the Year Ending June 30 th , 1879,” with 


Nevada, Reno. No taxable bullion was recorded for Yellow Jacket in 1880, but some appeared in later 

years. See The County Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story County, Special Collections, Library, 

University of Nevada, Reno.


19 

people “felt” confident about the mine’s future even though most of the construction 

could be appropriately classed as “dead work” that was necessary to find and extract the 

ore. Feeling that the mine had a bright future resulted from the discovery of the so-called 

Hardy Vein about 2,000 feet below the surface. In 1879 it produced about $1.3 million in 

bullion on 20,000 tons at an average yield of $64 per ton. Because the vein was irregular 

it was costly to exploit. Even though the company had paid a small dividend the cost 

came in at about $56 per ton. Nonetheless the President concluded his report with 

conviction that the future prospects were bright and the flow of dividends would 

continue. 34 

To reach these depths the main shaft had to be extended. During the previous year 

the Ophir Shaft had reached 2,200 feet. In 1879 it had been extended 498 feet to a point 

30 feet below the station at 2,500 feet. That would appear to be less than the actual 

distance should be, and the reason was that the shaft was being extended on an incline 

rather than strictly vertically. The tunnel was said to have “passed through” alternating 

“stratas of vein porphyry, birds-eye porphyry and quartz, dipping to the west passed 

through near the 2300 level showing about three feet thick and giving good assays.” At 

2,500 feet the quartz dipped eastward, and it may have been richer than the quartz noted 

above. Large rooms were excavated and timbered at 2,200 and 2,300 feet. Several “bobs” 

had to be replaced, and new tanks and chutes had to be installed. Drainpipes were 

constructed through adjoining mines to Savage where a connection with the Sutro Tunnel 

was made. A new air compressor was attached to the hoisting engine in a configuration 

that saved some money because the compressor could be driven “by the weight of the 

descending cable and giraffe” and then allowed to stand “without motion” when the hoist 

was actually in operation. “The practical result of this…will be to give us over 3000 

cubic feet of air per hour, at a pressure of 80 pounds to the square inch, at no additional 

expense” while simultaneously saving “the wear of the brake machinery heretofore used 

to control the descent of the cable and giraffe.” Finally and perhaps most demanding 

work was to keep the shaft properly timbered. Between 700 and 1,400 feet the ground 

was so unstable that a crew of at least 40 men was required daily to keep it in proper 

condition. 35 

Extensive tunneling was also described in Superintendent W. H. Patton’s 1879 

Report. At 1,600 feet drifts had been constructed both north to the Mexican and Union 

mines (approximately 600 to 700 feet) and south to the California Mine (approximately 

400 to 500 feet) for purposes of ventilation and drainage. Repairing and maintaining 

drifts (of similar length) with same mines at 1,700 was also necessary to protect the air 

and remove the water. Work at 1,900 feet was primarily ore extraction in drifts that 

covered hundreds of feet. According to Becker’s illustration the drift at 1,900 was (by 

1882) a five-sided loop that measured about 1,500 feet. It was located between the Ophir 

Shaft and the California border on the south. In fact, it crossed over the border into 

34 

Annual Report of the Ophir Silver Mining Company, December 1879 (San Francisco: Bunker and Hiester 

Printers, 1879), 5-7, NC56, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno. See assessments in 

The County Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story County, Special Collections, Library, University of 

Nevada, Reno. 

35 


Reno.


20 

California ground, but that mattered little since both Ophir and California had the same 

owner. On the north side of the main shaft a V-shaped drift from 500 to 600 feet in length 

was constructed. At the Mexican border it turned west (creating a V) and eventually 

connected with a winze from the 1,700. The main drift at 2,000 feet measured nearly 

1,500 from the main shaft to California on the south and Mexican on the north. Much of 

the work had been completed prior to 1879. The Mexican and Union Consolidated Mines 

pushed the drift further northward to connect with the Union Shaft. On the south the drift 

continued through California, Consolidated Virginia and Best & Belcher to Gould & 

Curry where it connected to the main shaft. This drift across seven different properties 

greatly improved the ventilation in all the connecting galleries. On the Mexican boundary 

a winze was dropped to the drift at 2,300 feet (a distance of 300 feet) through a drift at 

2,100 feet. A joint (with Mexican) crosscut was run about 300 feet in a western direction. 

Both the winze and the crosscut “passed through alternate streaks of hard porphyry and 

vein matter having a westerly dip, showing some quartz, giving low assays” but also 

improving with depth (thus the apparent reason behind the winze). Because of the 

appearance of water in the crosscut work was suspended as of August 1879 until new 

pumps could be installed. The northeastern drift at 2,100 feet was extended to Mexican 

and connected to the joint Ophir-Mexican winze from 2,000 feet. To the south of the 

main shaft the drift consisted of two parts. A southwesterly drift, beginning in April 

1879, was extended about 150 feet. It ran through the so-called Hardy Vein, and for about 

100 feet good quality ore was found, after which the assays fell sharply. Half way along 

this drift an upraise was constructed to reach the ore above the drift. The other part, 

moving in a northeasterly direction was started in May 1879 and had reached more than 

400 feet. After almost 200 feet of vein matter the drift entered “good milling ore with a 

width of about 3 feet.” This continued for about 100 feet and then gave way to low-grade 

ore. The face of the stope at the terminus of the northeasterly drift looked promising 

again (at the time the report was written). An upraise was constructed in order to connect 

to the drift at 2,000 feet and an east-west crosscut was also under construction. The 

upraise passed through some good ores, but the crosscut found mainly hard rock and vein 

matter. At 2,300, 2,400 and 2,500 feet, in addition to completing or enlarging the stations 

at each level on the main incline some drifts were being started or extended to the north 

and to the south. A fairly long drift at 370 feet was finished from the shaft to the northern 

boundary for a connection with the adjoining Mexican mine. All of this work on the main 

incline shaft and on hundreds if not thousands of feet of drifts, upraises and winzes found 

pockets of good-quality ore, but, as Superintendent Patton himself concluded, the main 

ore vein remained elusive. This was an extraordinarily active year (typical of a Mackay 

venture) in pursuit of the Hardy Vein. Expensive as it was, Patton was happy to report 

that enough millable ore had been lifted to cover the costs, to pay a dividend of $1 per 

share ($10,800) and even to retain a surplus ($134,892). (Typical outcome for Mackay 

ventures, although of late his luck had been running in reverse.) And the future was 

bright because with more of the Hardy Vein above 2,100 feet to be exploited funds would 

be available to push ahead with prospecting in all directions and on all levels. 36 

36 

Annual Report Ophir Mining, 1879, 10-17. NC56, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, 

Reno.


21 

In the Inventory of Property attached to the 1879 Annual Report Patton listed the 

value of buildings, equipment, supplies and merchandise as of 1 December 1879. The 

total value of the property was nearly $350,000. The inventory did not explain how the 

valuations were arrived at, and more than likely they involved a formula based on 

replacement costs. Two items – real estate and buildings – totaled $72,000. The buildings 

included hoisting works, incline and pumping engines, ore dumps, administrative offices, 

work and worker areas and furnishing. Perhaps the most relevant category, given the 

discussion above, was machinery. The list with the valuations is shown below: 

2 hoisting engines, reel & gear, complete $29,000 

1 double incline engine, 2 hydraulic engines attached 75,000 

1 Burleigh air compressor 5,500 

1 Booth air compressor 4,000 

2 double engines, underground, on winzes 2,800 

7 large Ingersoll drills 2,450 

6 small Ingersoll drills 2,000 

5 Burleigh drills 2,000 

1 Baker blower, 2 giraffes, 4 tanks, 6 cages, 38 ore cars 3,600 

1 engine to drive saws 900 

1 large pumping engine 34,500 

Plunger and Cornish pumps, iron bobs, various pipes 17,500 

2 boiler pumps 1,000 

11,262 feet round steel wire cable 18,000 

10,900 feet flat steel cable 12,900 

2,000 feet water pipes, hydrants & hoses 9,500 

10 boilers 18,000 

Blacksmith & machinist tools – lathe, punch, press 6,500 

Total $241,750 

The inventory contained at least 18 drills, with a stated total worth of $6,500. Within the 

group the Burleighs appear to have a somewhat higher valuation at $400 apiece 

compared to the 7 large and 6 small Ingersolls at $325 to $350 each. Two air compressors 

totaled $9,500 with the Burleigh being a third more than the Booth. Two sets of cables 

with a total length of more than 22,000 feet were said to be worth $30,000. These three 

categories added up to $47,000. The largest group consisted of engines, pumps and 

boilers and their attachments such as pipes, tanks, etc. with a total valuation of about 

$195,000. The hoisting engine and the double engine for the incline shaft (described 

above) and their accouterments were set at $104,000, while several pumps with their 

attachments were set at $52,000. The double engine for the incline shaft had the highest 

valuation at $75,000. In addition to buildings and machines the inventory included 

supplies that totaled about $15,000. These included almost 500 cords of wood ($4,828), 

326,303 feet of timber ($5,547), more than 100 gallons of coal, lard and machine oil, 

24,500 tons of Cumberland coal, hundreds of pick and sledge handles and shovels and 

axes and many sundries such a powder, fuses and rails. In the course of the year (1879) 

Ophir extracted 20,000 tons of ore and removed 61,000 tons of rock. The ore yielded 

about $1.2 million in bullion. Ophir’s inventory at year’s end was comparable to


22 

inventories compiled by other mining companies. For example at the end of 1875 in the 

midst of a real bonanza Consolidated Virginia declared its inventory to be worth about 

$400,000, and a year later sharing in the same bonanza California also declared an 

inventory of about $400,000. What is more important than the valuations is the degree to 

which one can judge how important machinery and technology was for these operations. 

Much of mining was still the result of manual labor but greatly aided by pneumatic drills, 

heavy-duty cables and powerful engines. 37 

Ophir’s Balance Sheet for the year revealed more details about financing these 

operations. Most of Ophir’s income (unlike the previously discussed Yellow Jacket) was 

derived from bullion, about $1.3 million of $1.6 million. Other revenues derived from the 

three neighboring mines, Union Consolidated, Mexican and California, paying Ophir 

over $200,000 for material, labor, power and pumping with Mexican, its northern 

neighbor, owing more than $100,000 of the amount. As noted above, Ophir and Mexican 

engaged in several joint projects to extend and connect their drifts, and that would 

account for Mexican’s share. On the expense side the largest item, not surprisingly given 

the extent of tunneling already discussed was labor at a third - $535,000. These figures 

suggest the possibility that over the course of the year Ophir employed several hundred 

workers. Such a number does not seem unrealistic when the range of underground 

construction is considered. More than $400,000 was spent on supplies including 

equipment, although the actual items purchased during 1879 were not specified. These 

purchases, however, were no doubt reflected in the inventory totals cited above. 

Reducing the ore cost $173,000 or $8 to $9 per ton. More than $300,000 was composed 

of stockholder dividends, ore and cash on hand and bullion discounts. The last was 

necessary because the bookkeeping value ascribed to silver was higher than the market 

value. In almost all companies during the 1870s the value of silver per ounce was pegged 

at a certain amount even though the sale of an ounce of silver on the open market would 

yield 10 to 20 percent less than what was entered. Eventually that had to be accounted for 

in the companies’ year-end statements. The remaining $100,000 or so was allocated to 

office expenses, freight, assays, insurance, etc. According to its declarations before Story 

County’s Assessor, the company had direct expenses of $1.1 million with almost a 

million of that devoted to extraction to generate $1.3 million in bullion. That meant that 

the yield per ton of ore was about $64 and the cost per ton was $58. This did not make for 

a highly profitable operation and did explain the relatively low dividend of about $5 per 

ton. 38 The underground work described in the Superintendent’s report and summarized 

above was costly, and they were justified on grounds that the Hardy Vein located at 1,900 

feet would lead to a substantial deposit and hopefully a new bonanza. The Hardy Vein 

petered out, and by the end of 1880 the mining costs per ton were twice the yields per 

ton. The Ophir, which more or less inaugurated quartz mining on the Comstock, would 

also serve as the last hurrah. The Hardy Vein was rich enough to animate the long-held 

hope that new bonanzas lay at greater depths and given the technology could be 

37 


Reno; Annual Report, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, 1875, NC99/1/5/1, 13, and Annual Report, 

California Mining Company, 1876, NC99/1/5/6, 14-15, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, 

Reno. 

38 

Annual Report, Ophir Mining, 1879, 22-23, NC56, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, 

Reno.


23 

successfully and profitably exploited. In fact the dissolution of the Hardy Vein sealed 

once and for all the northern Comstock’s fate. Returns on investments between 1880 and 

1885, the silver anniversary of the discovery of ore, ceased to exist. And with that came 

the end of a remarkable saga that witnessed the conjuncture of ambitious and at times 

reckless entrepreneurs and of widespread application of a changing technology. 

SPECIAL APPENDIX: Elevation map of the Sutro Tunnel, from Becker, Atlas, Sheet 

XI. May appears in four section from the opening in the town of Sutro to the connection 

at the Savage Mine on the Comstock Lode. Each of the four shafts contemplated are 

shown, although Shafts #3 & #4 were abandoned before completion. The tunnel actually 

passed through several lodes before reaching the Comstock. Little ore was found along 

the way, asnd most of the rosk was described by Becker as diabase.

THE COMSTOCK [K] 24

THE COMSTOCK [L] 

1 

Chapter 11 

The Biggest Bonanza: 

Location & Size of Bonanza, The Founders 

The Comstock saga would be incomplete without reexamining the history of the biggest 

and richest strike ever on the Lode and perhaps in the annals of American mining. Two 

mines located almost directly under the center of Virginia City dominated the headlines 

for several years in the mid-1870s. Consolidated Virginia and its companion California 

accounted for three-quarters of all the ore produced between 1865 and 1885. The 

importance of these two properties to the overall history of the Comstock Lode is hard to 

overstate. Without these ore bodies the history of mining on the Comstock would have 

been less spectacular and perhaps no more than a minor event in the history of Western 

mining. 

The individuals who controlled these (and several other mining properties) are 

well known to mining-history enthusiasts. They were a Quartet of Irish-Americans: John 

Mackay, James Fair, James Flood and William O’Brien. All had been active in Comstock 

mining since the mid-1860s and had enjoyed success in opening and rehabilitating other 

mines before Consolidated Virginia and California almost single-handedly rewrote the 

history of the Comstock. Although the properties were incorporated in California as 

mining companies, they were often referred to in the press and among contemporary 

writers as The Firm or The Bonanza Company. The Quartet’s exploits from the earliest 

years have been the subject of many published works. The Comstock had spawned its 

share of colorful, flamboyant personalities, many of whom could be portrayed as rascals 

if not out-and-out thieves. The Quartet was not spared from allegations of outrageous 

behavior, personal and financial, but their flaws paled in significance against their 

accomplishments. Unlike so many of their peers they were acknowledged to be seriousminded 

businessmen with a commitment to, almost an obsession with, having in place 

systems for organizing, financing and managing their operations. The archives of the 

Consolidated Virginia Mining Company and the California Mining Company, among the 

largest of such collections, testify to their skill, daring and foresight. Luck is always part 

of the equation in mining – who knew their mines held the richest ore bodies until they 

were actually located – but then luck required execution, the mantra of The Firm. 

Work had begun in Consolidated Virginia inauspiciously in 1871 and 1872. It had 

been created out of smaller claims – Sides and White & Murphy - none of which had ever 

produced any ore. The State Mineralogist’s summary of activities in 1871-1872 (for his 

1873 report) was a brief 12 lines. New hoisting equipment had been placed in a shaft that 

had reached 525 feet. That shaft was to be extended to 1,200 feet to connect with a drift 

from Gould & Curry (at 1,336-foot level on the survey map). At 525 feet the Lode was 

200 feet wide. Although no ore had been removed, the Mineralogist reported that 

expectations were positive. What encouraged the company to continue was the absence 

of water, which was drained through adits at Ophir and Gould & Curry. The Mineralogist


2 

provided no details on how these draining operations worked. Many other Comstock 

probes may have begun the same way, high expectations with few results. 1 

Two years later (1875), when the Mineralogist made his next report, the situation 

had changed radically. The shaft had reached 1,550 feet, and the bonanza was underway. 

Earlier bonanzas on the southern end at Crown Point and the Belcher had pointed the way 

because Consolidated Virginia’s ore existed at approximately the same level as measured 

from the survey point of the Savage Mine. Of course the hope was that bonanzas would 

be found in all the mines across the Lode at the 1,200- to 1,500-foot levels and lower. 

The Comstock would disappoint again. At these levels there would be only two bonanzas 

– the southern one that was waning and the northern one that was burgeoning at such a 

pace that the dozen lines in the 1873 Report became eight pages in the 1875 Report. Not 

only had the company added 1,000 feet to the shaft, it had also constructed drifts south to 

Gould & Curry and north to Ophir at depths of 1,200, 1,300, 1,400 and 1,500 feet. The 

northern drifts actually passed though “Old California” that will be split off into a newlyincorporated 

company known as California Mining. The massiveness of the ore body 

almost defied description. Again, as Smith and other writers have done, I turn to George 

Becker’s excellent illustration (Figure 1) of the underground workings at Consolidated 

Virginia (and California) in the 1882 Atlas to assist the reader in visualizing the extent of 

both the ore bodies and the mining operations at 1,200 to 1,600 feet underground. To 

begin with, one must orient oneself as if looking down into the underground at locations 

of either underground works or ore bodies. Colored lines (of varying widths) for tunnels, 

drifts, shafts, etc. or for ore bodies are correlated with depth. Two figures indicate the 

depths: distance from the surface (without parentheses) and distance from the surveyor’s 

point at Gould & Curry (with parentheses). In Figure 1 with respect to ore bodies at 

Consolidated Virginia and California the shallowest was maroon at the 1,300-foot level 

(approximately 1,200 feet from the surface) and the deepest was green at the 1,700-foot 

level (approximately 1,600 feet from the surface); in between was biege at the 1,400-foot 

level, yellow at the 1,500-foot level and brown at the 1,600-foot level. There was a small 

block of deeper pink at the 1,800-foot level, and below that there were colored lines but 

no colored blocks. The ore bodies had ended. 2 

In Figure 1 the levels with ore bodies lie on top of each other. Hence, at the 1,400- 

foot-level at the upper end of the colored block one can observe the overlay of the ore 

body at the 1,300-foot level. Following the beige color one can observe that it overlay ore 

bodies at the next two lower levels. Each square is 100 square feet so that the extent of 

these ore bodies, especially at the 1,600-foot level is readily observable. This was typical 

of other ore bodies in other bonanza mines. 3 In mining parlance they were known as 

horses because of their shape. In simple language they were almost like solid walls of 

1 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist of the State of Nevada for the years 1871 and 1872” in 

Appendix to Journal of Senate, 6 th Legislative Session, 1873, 136-137. 

2 

George Becker, Atlas to Accompany the Monograph on the Geology of the Comstock Lode and the 

Washoe District (Washington: Department of the Interior, United States Geological Survey, 1882), Sheet 

15. Smith, The Comstock Lode, 165-171. 

3 

Becker provided illustrations of all mining properties from Utah on the north to Baltimore-American on 

the south, and the extent of the ore bodies can be compared.


3 

ore, hundreds of feet across and deep. Not only were these concentrated ore bodies rich in 

quality but they were also inexpensive to mine once the infrastructure was in place. 

FIGURE 1 

ORE DEPOSITS FOR CONSOLIDATED VIRGINIA AND CALIFORNIA MINES 

FROM GEORGE BECKER, ATLAS, SHEET 16


4 

The underground cavern, shown in Becker’s 1882 mapping, was carved 

out over a period of five to ten years, but the size of workings at the time of the report by 

the Mineralogist in 1875 was considerably smaller. While the main shaft was still under 

construction, explorations were underway at several levels between 1,200 feet and 1,600 

feet through drifts being dug from Gould & Curry through Best & Belcher into 

Consolidated Virginia. Gould & Curry was under the control of William Sharon, an 

acknowledged adversary of the Mackay-Fair crowd. Gould & Curry had yielded little or 

no profitable ore since the earliest years of the Comstock boom. It had, though, an 

extensive tunneling system with airshafts and pumping facilities that allowed for a 

connection with Consolidated Virginia. Sharon granted permission to use his drift and 

shaft because, it was alleged, he wanted to teach the Quartet a lesson – as they were 

unlikely to find any profitable ores, they would not only end up bankrupt but they would 

also have to pay him in the process. 4 However strong his animosities – and he was not 

known for a generous and forgiving nature – such deals were not uncommon around the 

Comstock. For Sharon Gould & Curry had generated little income, and this was an 

opportunity to change that if just briefly. 

The discovery of the massive and rich ore deposit that straddled the boundary of 

Consolidated Virginia and California (but not beyond) resulted after many years of 

fruitless explorations by the owners of the properties that eventually were combined into 

Consolidated Virginia and California and of relentless criticism by the local press of the 

way in which the explorations had been carried out. In the Mineralogist’s 1875 Report he 

quoted a long passage from the Territorial Enterprise concerning the discoveries at 

Consolidated Virginia. The newspaper noted that work had been done near the surface 

“in a line with the Ophir and the outcroppings of the Gould & Curry” with few favorable 

results. The owners of the properties came to the conclusion mistakenly that they held 

barren ground along the ledge from which Ophir and Gould & Curry had realized their 

bonanzas. “Years ago, in these columns, long before there was any Consolidated Virginia 

Company, we [editors of the Territorial Enterprise] urged these small companies to unite 

and sink a large prospecting shaft on E street [sic], east of Piper Opera House, but no 

attention was paid to the suggestion – at least not by the men who owned the ground.” 5 

By the 1870s, however, the eastward shift in the ore-bearing quartz was more widely 

accepted among the active miners than was true a few years earlier. The Territorial 

Enterprise like many other promoters and entrepreneurs believed that what had been 

found in Consolidated Virginia would extend southward through Gould & Curry and 

northward into Union Consolidated. That proved to be unfounded. In 1869 four of the 

properties –Central #2, Kinney, White & Murphy and Sides joined forces to create the 

original Virginia Consolidated Mining Company. Assessments were issued, work 

commenced and results were discouraging. In 1871 Mackay, Fair, O’Brien and Flood 

paid about $50,000 acquire the company’s stock. Both a new shaft and a drift from Gould 

& Curry through Belcher & Best were pursued vigorously. A thin seam was found in 

Best & Belcher at about 1,200 feet, and under Fair’s guidance that seam, which was not 

always easy to follow, led to a vein of ore about seven feet wide with assays of $60 per 

4 


5 


Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session, 1875, 131. According to Eliot Lord the Territorial Enterprise 

“repeatedly” urged the owners to pursue this action in 1867. See Comstock Mining and Miners, 308.


5 

ton at a point less than 200 feet from Belcher & Best in Consolidated Virginia ground. 

Without this discovery the company would have had to request additional assessments to 

keep the work on track. So rich was the initial discovery that company could postpone 

any further assessments and push ahead with the sinking of the shaft, which was 

connected to the drift in October 1873. In following the vein Fair affirmed what many 

had believed, the ledge that contained the ore-bearing quartz had shifted to the east; 

without the vein, however, it would have been difficult to determine where the shift had 

occurred. The cut into the bonanza was made at “1167” feet below the surface or at the 

“1367-foot level” from the surveyor’s point at Gould & Curry. The direction that the drift 

took from Gould & Curry through Belcher & Best was clearly marked in Becker’s Atlas. 

The surprising feature about this bonanza was how far away it was from the Lode. The 

companies had known for some years that the Lode shifted eastward away from Mt 

Davidson, but the prior bonanzas on the southern end had been in the proximity of the 

Lode. This vein was further away from the Lode and closer to the hanging wall. They 

followed the vein, northeastwardly instead of northwestwardly, for several hundred feet, 

and in so doing they found the vein grew in size although not necessarily in quality. In 

Lord’s words this “lid, so to speak, of that wonderful ore-casket, termed commonly the 

Big Bonanza, had been lifted off.” This casket would be several hundred feet deep with 

the richest ores lying near the bottom of the casket. The trip through the drift to the hoist 

in the Gould & Curry shaft was now nearly 1,500 feet. It became imperative to finish the 

Consolidated Virginia Shaft, which was an extension of older shafts, which was to 

terminate at about 1.200 feet (1,300-foot level), even though that would be short of where 

the heart of the bonanza lay. This was necessary not only to expedite the transport of ores 

and workers but also to improve the quality of air. In October, 1873, it reached the 

extension of the Gould & Curry drift that would serve the upper ore galleries under 

construction. At time the vein that Fair had been following was as much as 50 feet thick 

and virtually solid ore of high grade. Newspapers were allowed to follow the progress of 

the work, and while surviving company documents unfortunately are sparse, newspapers 

around the Comstock and in San Francisco filed daily reports on the progress of the 

mine. 6 Since it was determined that the vein continued into the adjoining property a 

second company, California, was created in 1873 from “Old” California plus smaller 

claims. Consolidated Virginia’s ores began to appear in the assessment rolls in the first 

half of 1873, but California’s ores did not appear until the first half of 1876. As so often 

happened in this and other mining camps, as soon as the news of the new bonanza began 

to circulate, former holders of older claims, now assembled under The Firm, began to file 

grievances and lawsuits against in order to try to share in the bonanza. Mackay, Fair et al. 

prevailed against these often bogus legal maneuvers and lost little time in expanding their 

operations. 

By every measure applied to Comstock mining operations the dominance of 

Consolidated Virginia and California clearly stood out. More than 50 mines, mills and 

individuals declared ores to be assessed from the third quarter 1875 through 1884 (1885 

excluded because data incomplete), and they declared 2.9 million tons of ore (almost 6 

6 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 309-311; Smith, The Comstock Lode, 145-158. Some of the 

information in Lord (and perhaps Smith) was taken from various Consolidated Virginia Annual Reports. 

Some of these reports may be found in NC99/1/5/1, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at 

Reno.


6 

billion pounds) of which Consolidated Virginia and California accounted for 1.2 million 

tons or 42 percent. Consolidated Virginia produced slightly more than California: 

624,000 tons versus 588,000 tons. The yield per ton underscored the richness of their ore 

deposits at Consolidated Virginia and at California. The average for all declarations was 

$44 per ton, but at $82 per ton and $80 per ton respectively Consolidated Virginia and 

California clearly skewed the average. Without these record yields it was $18 per ton. 

The Firm’s properties had a yield 4.5 greater than the average of the remaining 

companies. The bullion value of Consolidated Virginia’s ores was $51 million or 40 

percent and California’s ores $47 million or 37 percent. 7 Of the total bullion value of 

$128 million, $30 million or 23 percent came from all the other Comstock operations 

with ores to declare. Consolidated Virginia and California accounted for $98 million or 

77 percent of the total. The magnitude of this bonanza assured the Comstock of a grand 

status in the history of mining. 8 FIGURE 2 

OUTPUT AND COST TOTALS OF CONSOLIDATED VIRGINIA AND 

CALIFORNIA MINING COMPANIES, 1875-1884 

Tons Total Per-Ton Total Value Total Total Per-Ton 

% Value % Cost Cost 

Consolidated Virginia (CVMC) 624,394 21.7 $82.08 $51,252,898 40.1 $18,800,767 $30.11 

California (CMC) 587,504 20.4 79.71 46,830,260 36.7 15,866,842 27.01 

Total (All Companies) 2,879,597 100.0 44.38 127,792,693 100.0 64,278,355 22.32 

Total (without CVMC/CMC) 1,667,699 57.9 $17.81 $29,709,535 23.3 $29,610,746 $17.76 

On the expense side Consolidated Virginia reported costs of $30 per ton and 

California $27 per ton. Their total expense for extraction, transportation and reduction 

(usually not detailed by category) was $34 million. Total costs for all operations were 

reported to be $64 million, and average cost per ton was calculated to be $22 per ton. 

Operating costs at Consolidated Virginia and California were obviously higher than the 

average for all operations. But the difference was in the yield per ton. For each dollar 

spent at Consolidated Virginia and California the mines realized almost three dollars 

($2.90) in bullion. As a group the remaining mines barely broke even: costs of $17.76 per 

ton for yields of $17.81 per ton. Consolidated Virginia and California were not the only 

bonanza mines high yields accompanied by higher than normal costs. In three quarters in 

1872 for which assessment data exist prior to the 1875 fire Belcher had yields of $60 per 

ton and costs of $35 per ton for a gross operating profit of $25 per ton. Crown Point had 

similar yields to but higher costs than Belcher, but even so the spread between revenues 

and costs was between $10 and $20 per ton in gross operating profits. 9 The costliness of 

developing bonanzas mines must be weighed against the potential profits. Another factor, 

7 

Because the market value of silver was 20 to 40 cents lower than the assigned value, total values should 

be discounted by 10 to 15 percent in any given year. 

8 

Data from The County Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story County, Special Collections, Library, 

University of Nevada, Reno. Since bullion accounts kept by Consolidated Virginia and California exist for 

all the years between founding of the mines and their closing, the data in the Assessment Rolls can be 

checked against the companies’ own records. 

9 

See microfilm in The County Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story County, Special Collections, 

Library, University of Nevada, Reno. Data on Belcher and Crown Point from Abstracts of Story County 

Assessment Rolls in the Nevada State Archives.


7 

hard to document, was that The Firm was managed by executives who had a history of 

spending to achieve their goals. Executives of different personalities or with lower yields 

might have held back on purchases of capital goods and taken a less aggressive approach, 

but that was out of character for Mackay, Fair et al. They were not necessarily reckless, 

but they were proactive. 

When the State Mineralogists filed his biennial report in 1875, he was manifestly 

exuberant about the accomplishments at Consolidated Virginia and California. The 

condition of the two mines was a model of orderliness and cleanliness. Furthermore the 

willingness of the owners to invest in new plant and equipment appeared to be 

unbounded. 10 Two years later (1877) the Mineralogist’s exuberance had not waned. His 

report included a description of the vein being worked - 600 feet high (1,200 feet to 1,700 

feet), 100 feet wide (north to south) and at least 700 feet long (west to east toward 

hanging wall – with an estimated yield of more than $140 million in bullion. Not every 

square inch was filled with ore, but most of it was. The yield proved to be an 

exaggeration, but such pronouncements were not uncommon during the height of a 

bonanza. 11 As spectacular as the record was in and of itself, it was portrayed in a way to 

fuel even bolder expectations than may have been warranted. The expectations did not 

escape the notice of the stock-market bears. From time to time, despite the exuberance of 

officials and experts, the bears could sow enough doubt to pummel mining-company 

stocks. The history of the Comstock was probably the bears’ staunchest ally – no bonanza 

had ever lived up to its advanced billing, and this bonanza would be no different. 

Gyrations in stock prices of all active companies became standard fare during bonanza 

periods. The mid-1870s was no exception. The Mineralogist cited rising prices of 

Consolidated Virginia and California stocks as evidence of a new era in the Comstock 

saga. It was true that Consolidated Virginia’s stock had reached $610 per share in 

December of 1874 after a high of $110 per share in July of 1873 and California’s stock 

had sold for $510 per share in December of 1874 even though the mine was not yet 

officially in production. In the early months of 1875 these stocks would reach or exceed 

$700 per share. At this price the combined value of these companies probably exceeded 

the worth of their underground treasures. The stock-market bears would have their way as 

they began to short the stocks, that is, short sellers borrowing stocks at high prices, 

intending to replace them with stock purchased at lower prices and pocketing the 

difference as profit. What heavy short-selling did then (as it does now) was to raise 

doubts about the future viability of the current stock prices. Short sellers could guess 

wrong, of course, and their need to “cover” their shorts meant that they had to enter the 

market and buy the stocks, and that would have the effect of raising the prices of the 

stocks further. In this instance, however, the short sellers succeeded. The stock prices fell 

over the next two years although with considerable volatility. Even the bears could be 

trapped at times because stocks, which appeared to be in a downward spiral, would 

unexpectedly gyrate higher. 12 Prices of stocks in adjoining or nearby mines also enjoyed 

10 


Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session, 1875,130-133 and 140-141. 

11 



12 

Even the owners of the mines would engage in shorting their own company stocks if they wanted to 

acquire more shares at lower prices. The risk was that they could precipitate a downdraft in the price of the


8 

periods of revival and rejuvenation because of their neighboring bonanza mines. What 

ultimately came to bear so heavily on the prices of all mining stocks including 

Consolidated Virginia and California was the failure to replicate their bonanzas anywhere 

else. By the time the Mineralogist issued his next (and last) report in 1879, the bloom was 

off the rose. Not only were Consolidated Virginia and California in trouble, but also 

future prospects for the northern branch had been called into question. After so many 

escapes in the past it took a while to comprehend that losing money this round was the 

final installment. 13 

The Quartet of Mackey, Fair, Flood and O’Brien split their duties as the principals 

in Consolidated Virginia and California as well as other enterprises (including mines) that 

they owned. Mackay and Fair ran the operations from Virginia City while Flood and 

O’Brien managed the finances from San Francisco, which was the home office of these 

California-incorporated companies. From the company accounts the roles of Fair and to a 

lesser degree Flood can be fleshed out whereas the roles of Mackay and especially 

O’Brien remain obscure. None of them served as corporate officers and only Flood had a 

board seat among the majority stockholders. That Mackay and Fair should direct mining 

and milling operations made eminent sense since they had been involved in the Comstock 

since the early 1860s and were among the most knowledgeable and most competent of 

the Comstock mining men. When Consolidated Virginia was reorganized under The 

Quartet in 1871, Fair was named superintendent, a position that he held until 1878. In the 

first two years T. S. Smith and after him (Captain) S. G. Curtis may have been more 

active in supervising the daily operations than Fair, but once the bonanza was confirmed 

in 1873 Fair became the man in charge. 14 And once California was opened he served as 

its superintendent as well. Fair signed most of the correspondence contained in scores of 

letterpress volumes from 1874 through 1878. The handwritten weekly reports (sometimes 

daily) to an officer of the board were generally between three and six pages in length and 

were filled with details on internal mining operations. In addition, the correspondence 

covered purchases of supplies, bids on equipment and general company affairs. The 

contents of the letters could be as technical as the thickness of the hoisting rope or cable 

and as solicitous as the state of a worker’s health. J. M. Taylor, the longtime 

administrator (or clerk) of the Virginia City office, actually wrote the letters as they 

appeared in the letterpress volumes and may have composed the letters based on 

information provided by Fair since Taylor’s signature or initials appeared most frequently 

along side of Fair’s signature. From time to time, especially during Fair’s absence from 

Virginia City, Mackay signed the correspondence. Smith preferred to describe the 

relationship as one in which Fair and Mackay shared the management of the mines, 

although Mackay never officially assumed the title of superintendent. Mackay stuck to 

what he knew best, mining, “legitimate mining” as opposed to the other mining endeavor, 

stock that would dilute their own portfolio or by miscalculating the demand for the stock they would find it 

necessary to cover their shorts and would end up paying more than they had intended to purchase additional 

shares. It has been alleged that James Flood held sizable short positions in Consolidated Virginia and 

California stocks and from time to time lost money to cover his shorts. 

13 

Stock prices at their highs and lows in any given year can be found in Table V from the Appendix in 


14 

There is actually little surviving documentation about their activities prior to 1873. Much of what has 

been written about them came from newspaper and journal reportage.


9 

speculating in stocks. From various reports he spent his days moving about the mines and 

mills under his control. Fair was more likely to represent the public face of The Firm. But 

there was no doubt that these were “hands-on” owners who knew on a daily basis how 

the business was performing. 15 Flood and O’Brien, on the other hand, besides handling 

certain accounts such as mercury purchases and bullion shipments, gave much attention 

to the San Francisco Stock Exchange where they would do battle with the bears and 

speculators who were intent upon doing harm to the company. The Quartet owned the 

majority of the mining stock, and their financial wellness depended in part on managing 

the trading of stock. The task fell mainly to Flood, whose success in protecting his or 

their investments was hardly resounding. He made some missteps that were costly, but on 

the whole, according to Smith, he was honest and diligent in his business dealings. 16 

Mackay’s comment about “legitimate mining” was to downplay the importance of stock 

traders in the actual operations of the mines and mills. On making money Mackay was 

correct to say that his financial success derived from mining and milling ore and not from 

buying and selling stocks. And that was true of the Quartet and other minority 

stockholders for the most part. They made money from the profits and dividends of the 

mining operations and not from the stock manipulations. There is no denying that traders 

could control the financial destiny of many mining companies, but those few that actually 

found rich ore bodies could still make their stockholders wealthy not through stock 

manipulations but through company dividends. 

Both Mackay and Fair had been active in Comstock mining for a decade before 

the success of Consolidated Virginia and California. Mackay had made a small fortune in 

the recovery of the Kentuck mine, and Fair had worked at Ophir and Hale & Norcross 

mines. After a contentious and expensive war by Sharon to gain control of Hale & 

Norcross, Fair convinced Mackay (and Flood and O’Brien) to begin to buy shares of Hale 

& Norcross, which Fair believed had profitable ores but was badly managed. Flood and 

O’Brien purchased enough shares to oust Sharon and his board. Once the Quartet had 

gained control of Hale & Norcross, they refunded the final assessments ordered under 

Sharon’s management and began lifting millable ores. Mackay, the wealthiest of the four, 

owned three-eights of the Hale & Norcross, Flood and O’Brien jointly owned another 

three-eights and Fair owned two-eights. Flood, O’Brien and Fair had to rely on Mackay 

and others to help them finance their shares. As Fair had predicted, Hale & Norcross 

hoisted enough profitable ores between 1869 and 1872 to allow the distribution of 

dividends worth about $800,000. This was the same ore body from which the Savage 

Mine, on the northern boundary, had realized several million dollars worth of ore in the 

late 1860s. It stretched from the 500-foot level to the 1,400-foot level, although the 

quality of the ore at the lower level proved to be streaky. Fair’s experience at Hale & 

Norcross persuaded him that the mines to the north of Hale & Norcross, those properties 

that would eventually become the base for The Firm, could yield profitable ores at 1,000 

feet and below. The success at Crown Point and Belcher to the south of Hale & Norcross 

15 

Many of the most prominent writers such as Eliot Lord, Grant Smith or Dan DeQuille can be consulted 

for details about their lives and activities. Also James, The Roar and the Silence, examines the lives of 

Mackay and Fair and the companies that they founded in Chapter 5. 

16 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 116-117, 178-179, 202-203.


10 

did not dissuade Fair from that view. Indeed their success below 1,000 only reaffirmed 

his conviction. 17 

The so-called gentleman’s agreement by which the Quartet operated Hale & 

Norcross became the basis for their later business ventures. There is no evidence that the 

principals ever signed a contract with respect to responsibilities and duties. The original 

Virginia Consolidated Mining Company was organized in 1867 through the incorporation 

into a single company of several small mining properties of little consequence. The 

owners included prominent Comstock promoters: The plan was to drop a shaft that would 

intersect with the Lode in its eastward slant (toward the hanging wall) at the 1,500-foot 

level. It turned out that this shaft would not have intersected the Lode until 2,000 feet, 

ground that was barren. At 500 feet they decided to run a drift back toward the Lode, but 

found no ore and abandoned the shaft. Even if they had continued to drive the shaft to the 

1,500-foot level and then run a drift toward the Lode, they would have missed the ore 

body, which was in the direction toward the hanging wall. The Lode narrowed at 900 feet 

until its walls touched. Nothing was ever found below that point. What the Mackay-Fair 

team did, as described earlier, was to explore away from the Lode toward the hanging 

wall. And in a “rift” created over millennia by steam, water and pressure, more than 700 

feet away from the Lode at the 1,200-foot level lay the bonanza. It was not where 

conventional wisdom would have put it. In the wake of the failure of the first 

Consolidated Virginia Company the stock had fallen to $1. Under the circumstances the 

Quartet bought at least three-quarters of the outstanding stock for perhaps $100,000, a 

fraction of what they had made from Hale & Norcross. 18 

17 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 146-147; Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 308-309. 

18 


THE COMSTOCK [M] 

1 

Chapter 13 


Consolidated Virginia Launched, Relaunched, Peaked & Diminished, California in 

Bonanza 

The local newspaper, Territorial Enterprise, wrote on 13 May 1873 that reduction of ore 

from Consolidated Virginia began on 12 May 1873. 1 In his 1875 Report the Mineralogist 

gave no specific date but stated that most of the production from 1873 occurred between 

June and December. 2 The company accounts, on the other hand, did not commence until 

October 1873. 3 The first bar of ore (without indicating which metal) from the Mariposa 

Mill was recorded on 18 October 1873 at a value of $3,228.58. Between 18 October and 

3 November (ore mined in October but not processed until November) 40 bars were 

produced for a total value of $124,962.17: 15 bars worth $42,381.36 were reduced at 

Mariposa Mill, 19 bars worth $61,317.64 at Bacon and 6 bars worth $18,363.17 at 

Occidental. 4 By December 1873 a fourth mill, Trench, had been added. In November 

1873 ore worth $250,758.90 was processed, for an increase of 100 percent over October 

and in December 1873 ore worth $272,783.78 was processed for an increase 9 percent 

over November and 118 percent over October. In two and one-half months the mine 

produced $648,504.85 worth of ore. Almost 15,000 tons of ore were hauled to the mills, 

and from that amount 11,000 tons were crushed and amalgamated. In terms of crushed 

ore the mills ranked as follows: Bacon had 34 percent, Occidental 29 percent, Mariposa 

28 percent and Trench 10 percent (percentages rounded up). Bacon, Trench and Mariposa 

had been Quartet properties since the rehabilitation of Hale & Norcross in the early 

1870s. Trench and Occidental received ores that yielded about $50 per ton, while at 

Mariposa they yielded $56 and at Bacon $60 for an overall average of $58. 5 Most of the 

ore in 1873 was extracted from the top of the bonanza at the 1,200-foot level and hoisted 

through the drift and shaft of Gould & Curry. By the autumn of 1873, Consolidated 

Virginia’s main shaft had reached 1,200 feet and would soon become the main channel 

for entering and exiting the mine. In those first three months almost equal quantities of 

gold and silver were reduced from the ores: $316,476.11 in gold and $332,028.74 in 

silver. As the work proceeded, the ratio would change in favor of silver, although gold 

would continue to claim two-fifths or more of the reduced ores. It is worth underscoring 

here that such precise record-keeping became standard for businesses under the control of 

The Firm. Bookkeeping procedures changed over time without, for the most part, 

compromising the quality of the entries. But like all historical documents, The Firm’s 

accounts are not perfect. Bookkeepers and accountants did not always fill all the blanks 

in accord with the printed format of the ledger pages. As a result, some information that 

1 

According to Grant Smith in The Comstock Lode, 152. I did not attempt to verify this citation. 

2 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist…1873 and 1874” Appendix to Journals of Senate and 


3 

Bullion Records, October 1873, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/1/3/1, Special 

Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. 

4 

Bullion Records, October & November, 1873, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/1/3/1, 


5 

These calculations on per-ton yields appear in the Bullion Records and in other files kept by the company. 

They have also been calculated by dividing the value of the bullion by the tonnage of the ore.


2 

would have been useful to know is unavailable. By and large, though, whatever the 

defects and voids, the overall record is of impressive quality. 6 

In 1874 the output of Consolidated Virginia Mine reached $5 million with silver 

accounting for 60 percent of the total. Six mills were needed to process 90,000 tons of 

crushed ore. Their ranking in terms of ore processed was as follows: Trench with 22 

percent, Bacon 21 percent, Occidental 18 percent, Mariposa 16 percent, Sacramento 14 

percent and Kelsey 10 percent. Kelsey joined the milling group in March and Sacramento 

in April 1874. The yields per ton were uniformly similar between $54 and $59 per ton. 

But they had improved during the year, from lows around $40 per ton to a high in the 

mid-$60s. Fair (acting as superintendent) described the progress in the mine on almost a 

daily basis in a series of letters and reports to David Bagley, Secretary of the Company in 

San Francisco. Without giving a specific date the Consolidated Virginia shaft had 

reached 1,550 feet during the year. A new crosscut was opened between Consolidated 

Virginia and California at 1,500 feet. A winze was being sunk from 1,550 feet into the 

ore body. The work on the winze had been slowed because of the hardness of the quartz 

and the seepage of water. The winze had reached a point 80 feet below 1,550 feet, and the 

last 10 feet had an incline (winzes were built on an incline) of 58 degrees, a fairly steep 

tunnel. A “donkey” engine had been installed to move the ore and rock up to the level 

where the shaft was. Ore quality at all levels was described in positive terms. In addition, 

ventilation tunnels were under construction between 1,550 and 1,500 where a drift 

connected with the Gould & Curry Shaft (to the south). Finally the company had 

undertaken the construction of a new shaft, known as the C & C Shaft (Consolidated and 

California) about 1,050 feet east of Consolidated Virginia’s main shaft to provide, it was 

hoped, better access to the ores of both mines at 1,500 feet and below. By the end of 1874 

it had only reached 16 feet. A brief delay had been encountered because an order for 14- 

foot timbers to enclose the shaft had been countermanded (by telegram) and a new order 

for 20-foot timbers had been substituted. The new timbers were expected to be in place 

during the first week of January, 1875. 7 Such was the detail of Fair’s correspondence 

during his long tenure as superintendent of both mining operations. 

In 1875 work at Consolidated Virginia and its satellite California proceeded at a 

vigorous pace and achieved unprecedented results. The ore body, of course, was located 

in the northern part of Consolidated Virginia and in the southern part of the newly 

6 

There is continuous run of Bullion Records from 1873 until 1881. They included monthly totals for each 

mill. The Bullion Records for Consolidated Virginia Mining Company can be found in NC99/1/3/1-5, 

Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. For information on the mill properties see 

Copy of Letter James Fair to Joel Lightner, Secretary of the Board, Hale & Norcross, 12/03/70, NC99/2/1, 

Bx 6. 

7 

Copies of letters from James Fair to David Bagley, Secretary of the Board, from 11/28/74 through 

12/27/74 from Letterpress Books, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/2/3, Bx 6, Special 

Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. One letter was from Fair to Carson & Tahoe Lumber 

Company in Carson City, NV (12/25/74), same citation. As noted in an earlier chapter, the distinction 

between depths measured from the Gould & Curry survey point (used by George Becker) and from the 

surface of the mine was not always clear in the daily reports or company correspondence. In some cases I 

referred to Becker’s Surveys in trying to decide what the proper designation should be; in other cases I just 

had to guess. When I show depths hyphenated with feet I am referring to the survey point; when I use an 

unhyphenated form I am referring to depth from the surface of the mine.


3 

organized California. California did not begin to register ores officially until the spring of 

1876. While separate legal entities, each with its own directors, officers, company 

accounts, bullion records, workers and supplies, the organizational structure and the 

managerial style reflected the fact that they had common founders and principals. The 

letterpress volumes, for example, while differing in details were so similar in format The 

Quartet had created twins with different names and a few different features but 

unmistakably identical in their fundamental structure. The boundary that divided them 

was based on earlier mining claims that had no relationship whatsoever to the 

configuration of the ore bodies 1,200 to 1,500 feet below ground. In Consolidated 

Virginia the ore body began at 1,200 feet and dropped rather sharply to 1,500 feet where 

it flattened out to become California’s ore body, primarily located between 1,500 and 

1,650. Becker’s survey illustrated a massive ore body at the 1,636-foot level that 

extended downward to the 1,773-foot level and from south to north about 800 feet. He 

wrote that the bonanza was “composed of crushed quartz, including fragments of country 

rock, and carried a few hard, narrow, vein-like seams of very rich black ores…while 

nearby the whole mass of ‘sugar quartz’ was impregnated to a moderate extent with 

argentite [type of silver ore] and gold, the latter probably in a free state.” 8 This was not 

the first ore body to be shared by separate claims. Belcher and Crown Point had shared an 

ore body, but two different companies owned the respective claims. As was customary on 

the Comstock, competing but neighboring companies agreed to respect the boundaries 

and to share tunnels and shafts for ventilation, hoisting and drainage. In the case of 

Consolidated Virginia and California the principal owners in both companies were 

Mackay, Fair et al. (who also owned some adjoining mines), and while the corporate 

structure was distinct, the operational structure was almost seamless. 

In January 1875 at 1,500 feet a northern drift from Consolidated Virginia was 

pushed into California through a porphyry “horse” that was several hundred feet high and 

thick. (See Figure 1, Section L, The Biggest Bonanza) The underground heat was severe 

at 1,550 feet, but after the winze between 1,500 and 1,550 feet was completed, the heat 

dissipated. A winze 80 feet below the 1,550-foot level continued to encounter water, and 

steam pumps had to be installed. At this stage neither Fair nor Mackay knew that they 

had reached the bottom of the bonanza at 1,550 to 1,600 and that the quantity of water 

would increase as the quantity of ore decreased. With several years’ worth of ore to be 

worked between 1,200 and 1,600 feet, the eventual exhaustion of the ore body was hardly 

then a matter of concern. At the same time work on the C & C Shaft was continuing. 

Between 3 January and 10 January the depth had doubled from 45 to 75 feet, and by the 

middle of February it had reached almost 200. On the surface the structure housing the C 

& C Shaft (60’ x 68’) had been finished and a hoisting engine had been installed. But 

apparently this engine was temporary because within a few weeks specifications for new 

hoisting machinery in the shaft had been drawn up. And a few months later the 

foundations had been laid for new hoisting and pumping equipment. Nearby a new mill, 

Consolidation, had been opened and “after 12 hours” of processing ore (3 January 1875) 

it was performing well. Hectic though the pace may appear, it was in character for 

Mackay and Fair to keep operations moving ahead on several different fronts with special 

8 

Becker, Geology of the Comstock Lode and the Washoe District (Washington, DC: Department of the 

Interior, United State Geological Survey, 1882) 270. Also see Smith, The Comstock Lode, 167.


4 

attention devoted to investment in plant and equipment needed to maintain the progress. 

This included the purchase of six Brazilian diamonds between three to four carats each 

for the drills, presumably Burleigh or similar drills, although no price was given. 9 

In 1875 the output of Consolidated Virginia grew by 70 percent over the previous 

year to almost $9 million. Silver came in at 55 to 60 percent of the total. Almost 170,000 

tons of crushed ore were processed for a yield per ton of $100. That was five times the 

Comstock average between 1865 and 1885. Over the course of the year eleven different 

mills were enlisted to reduce Consolidated Virginia ores with eight being the monthly 

average. In addition to Bacon, Trench, Kelsey, Mariposa, Occidental and Sacramento, the 

mills now included Brunswick, Consolidated, Devil’s Gate, Hoosier and Morgan. In 

January the six mills from the previous year plus the recently opened Consolidated 

processed more than $1 million worth of ore (nearly 12,000 tons of crushed ore). The 

newest and perhaps the most efficient of the Comstock mills, Consolidated reduced twice 

(3,500 tons versus 1,700) as much ore as Trench, the leading mill in the previous year. 

The volume of crushed ore rose to more than 16,000 tons in March, and an eighth mill – 

Hoosier - was added even as Consolidated was pushed up to more than 6,500 tons that 

month. Different figures have been given for Consolidated’s capacity, but in no month of 

1875 did it process more than 6,900 tons. The demand for milling capacity continued: 

Devil’s Gate was added in May and Brunswick in October. 10 

So much bullion flowed from the mine and its mills that the facilities at the U. S. 

Mint in San Francisco were overwhelmed. In a letter to James Crawford, Superintendent 

of the Mint at Carson City, on 22 May 1875 Fair asked if Consolidated Virginia could 

send its bullion there for minting because the San Francisco Mint was then “flooded” 

with bullion owned by the company. 11 Smaller than San Francisco’s mint and having 

failed to win a larger appropriation from Congress to expand its facilities, Carson City’s 

mint was also working at full capacity. The approval of a bill, introduced by Nevada 

Senator J. P. Jones, to allow the minting of a new “20-cent” silver coin required the 

installation of new dies, a project that was completed by June 1875. (Coin discontinued a 

year later because public complained it was too much like a quarter.) In 1875 Carson City 

had one large press and a recently purchased small coining machine, and yet it managed 

to mint a million dollars more in coins in 1875 than in 1874 ($4.9 versus $3.9). Thus, 

Fair’s letter arrived at a time when the work had been piling up at Carson City’s mint for 

months. 12 During 1875 (until the October fire) Carson City periodically sent “sealed” 

bags of coins to Consolidated Virginia. In late summer nearly 50 bars of gold and silver 

9 

Copies of Letters, James Fair to David Bagley and C. H. Fish, Secretaries of the Board, 01/03/75, 

01/10/75, 01/24/75 and 02/07/75, from Letterpress Books, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, 

NC99/2/3, Bx 6, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. Copy of Letter to Mess. 

Nelson & Dobles [?] of San Francisco, 03/01/75, concerning drills from Letterpress Book, Consolidated 

Virginia Mining Company, NC99/2/3, Bx 6, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. 

10 

Mill data from Bullion Records, 1875, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/1/3/1 and 

NC99/1/3/5, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. 

11 

Copy of Letter from James Fair to J. Crawford, Supt., U. S. Mint, Carson City, 05/22/75, from 

Letterpress Book, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/2/3, Bx 6, Special Collections, Library, 

University of Nevada at Reno. 

12 

Howard Hickson, Mint Mark “CC”, The Story of the United States Mint at Carson City, Nevada (Carson 

City, NV: The Nevada State Museum, 1972), 43-45, 95.


5 

were sent from Consolidated Virginia to Carson City with a request for $150,000 in 

coins, preferably small coins. A few weeks later nine sacks of coins (amount unspecified) 

arrived at Consolidated Virginia’s offices. 13 The urgency for Consolidated Virginia (and 

California) was that wages were paid monthly in gold and silver coins. At the peak of 

The Firm’s mines and the mills employed regularly more than a 1,000 workers and 

hundreds more could be added from their other businesses in and around Virginia City. A 

monthly payroll of $100,000 was not uncommon. Since workers were paid in coin (as 

noted earlier), the mints were under pressure to deliver sufficient coins each month to 

meet The Firm’s payrolls as well as requests from other companies. As stretched as the 

mint facilities were, Congress refused to appropriate money for expansion on the grounds 

that such heavy demand might be temporary, as in fact it turned out to be within a couple 

of years. In the meantime, as long as the bonanzas lasted, th demand for coin was heavy. 

Between January and November 1875 Consolidated Virginia produced on average 

$1.6 million worth of ore and used as many as 10 mills. In November and December the 

number of mills was cut in half as bullion output fell to between $500,000 and $850,000. 

The cause of the reduction was a devastating fire that started around 6 AM on 26 

October, and engulfed a square mile of Virginia City including the hoisting works of 

Ophir and Consolidated Virginia. Five days after the fire, on 31 October 1875, Fair wrote 

Charles Fish, then Secretary of the Consolidated Virginia Mining Company that the fire 

had destroyed surface structures of Consolidated Virginia, although all the engines, he 

believed, had been saved. Typical of his “can-do” attitude he predicted that Consolidated 

Virginia would be back in operation in 60 days. 14 Consolidated Mill was largely 

destroyed, and California Mill, still under construction, was damaged, although the extent 

was not specified. In fact the surviving correspondence immediately after the fire 

provided precious few specific details about damages to or losses of The Firm’s property. 

Within a year new larger mills would be in operation. The fire was helped along because 

so little rain had fallen during 1875, and the wood in the buildings over the shafts was as 

dry as a kindling. The fire swept through the center of the city like a tornado. Grant Smith 

contended that if the fire had entered the shafts the wooden framing used underground 

would have allowed it to burn and smolder for months if not years and re-entry into the 

mines certainly would have been delayed greatly and perhaps denied permanently. 

Mackay and Fair apparently dropped the elevator a few feet in Consolidated Virginia’s 

main shaft and then covered it with dirt and ore. How this was done in the face of a fastmoving 

fire without machines so quickly is not detailed. The plan worked to the extent 

that the interior hoisting equipment was saved from the fire, but other damage occurred 

and had to be repaired. At Ophir, on the other hand, the fire burned down to the 400-foot 

level of the shaft. 15 Neither the new C&C shaft nor the nearby Gould & Curry shaft was 

harmed. Two weeks after the fire Fair wrote Fish that the rebuilding of the surface 

13 

Copies of Letters from James Fair to James Crawford, Supt., U. S. Mint, Carson City, 09/02/75 & 

09/03/75, from Letterpress Book, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/2/5, Bx 6, Special 


14 

Copy of Letter from James Fair to C. H. Fish, Secretary of the Board, 10/31/75, from Letterpress Book, 

Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/2/4, Bx 6, Special Collections, Library, University of 

Nevada at Reno. 

15 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 191-194. I could not account for these activities in any of the company’s 

correspondence that I have seen.


6 

facilities had begun at Consolidated Virginia. C&C escaped the fire, and work continued 

there: the shaft had been sunk nearly 800 feet, the machine housing was nearly completed 

and new large engines, recently installed and tested, performed “splendidly”. Ore was 

being hoisted from the mine through Gould & Curry’s Shaft after the water, which had 

built up after the fire because of the loss of pumping operations, had been drained to only 

4 inches. 16 From that point forward few references to the fire appear in company 

documents. It was almost as if adding up the liabilities was less important than rebuilding 

the assets. By the Spring, 1876, outgoing correspondence concerned ordinary business 

affairs: purchases of equipment, rebate checks for shipping on Virginia & Truckee 

Railroad and requests for bids on supplies. The Consolidated Virginia and California 

complex was poised for its greatest triumph. 

No doubt the fire entailed substantial losses and major disruptions for citizens and 

business, but since the interiors of the mines escaped damage for the most part, the 

impact on mining was minimal. Mining along the Comstock resumed fairly quickly and 

rebuilding around the city began almost immediately. The fact that The Firm owned most 

of the major operations where the burn-out was concentrated probably help to speed up 

the recovery. In the minds of Mackay and Fair there was no doubt what had to be done, 

and as testimony to that conviction Consolidated Virginia was hoisting ore again within 

weeks, and California would come on line a few months later. Consolidated Virginia’s 

1876 output would nearly be double its 1875 output. 17 

In the last two months of 1875 after the fire crushed ore from Consolidated 

Virginia to be milled fell to 3,800 tons in November and then increased modestly to 

6,500 tons in December. The average for the previous 10 months had been about 15,000 

tons per month. By January, 1876, the volume of crushed ore had risen to more than 

16,000 tons and in February and March it reached 23,000 and 25,000 tons respectively, 

the highest recorded during the entire history of Consolidated Virginia. 18 These high 

numbers may have resulted in part because ore from the mine, ready for milling at the 

time of the fire, had to wait for hoisting and milling facilities to replace what had been 

lost. Despite record-breaking figures for the first quarter, 1876, tonnage for the whole 

year fell by 15 percent, from 169,000 crushed tons to 146,000. In the first four months the 

company averaged about 22,000 crushed tons per month and in the remaining months 

about 9,000 tons per month. After any backlog of extractable ores had been processed in 

the first quarter of 1876, the mine’s average monthly production had fallen by more than 

a third. The worst months were June through September and then again December when 

the output was noticeably below the average of 9,000 monthly tons and the median of 

12,000. The mills needed to reduce the mine’s ores dropped from nine in the first quarter 

to two in the last quarter. For three months during the year only one mill was needed. The 

nine mills that processed the mine’s ore in the first quarter included eight of the mills 

from previous years - Bacon, Brunswick, Trench, Hoosier, Mariposa, Morgan, Occidental 

16 

Copy of Letter from James Fair to C. H. Fish, Secretary of the Board, 11/07/75, from Letterpress Book, 

Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/2/4, Bx 6, Special Collections, Library, University of 


17 

Bullion Records, 1875 & 1876, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/1/3/5, Special 


18 

County assessment records tend to confirm what was found in the company’s own bullion records.


7 

and Sacramento – plus California, the company’s newly-opened mill, which had escaped 

serious damage in the fire. Brunswick, which had joined the group in October just before 

the fire, became the workhorse of the 1876 milling operations. In the last three months of 

1875 its volume of crushed ore jumped from 1,100 tons to 3,800 and in 1876 for 11 

months (its association with Consolidated Virginia ended in December 1876) it averaged 

about 4,500 tons per month. It had greater capacity than the other mills but not as great as 

California. In the first three months of 1876 Brunswick reduced 4,900, 4,619 and 5,200 

tons of crushed ore respectively whereas California milled 1,100, 8,363 and 8,902 tons 

respectively. Beginning in April California (the mill) was switched from Consolidated 

Virginia to California (the mine), whose ores officially entered The Firm’s ledgers and 

Story County’s assessments. 19 

The ranking of the mills handling Consolidated Virginia ores during 1876 was as 

follows: Brunswick with 34 percent, Consolidated 14 percent, California 13 percent, 

Trench 9 percent, Bacon 8 percent, Morgan 7 percent, Mariposa and Sacramento at 4 

percent, Kelsey and Occidental at 3 percent (all rounded up). In 1875 six mills received 

and processed Consolidated Virginia ore in 10 of the 12 months with Bacon reducing ore 

every month of the year. In 1876 the majority of the 10 mills were assigned to process 

Consolidated Virginia ore for six or fewer months. Brunswick had the longest tenure with 

11 months, and in July and August it was the only mill refining Consolidated Virginia 

ore. In October Consolidated, which had been destroyed by the fire, resumed milling 

operations. In November only Brunswick and Consolidated milled ore, and in December 

only Consolidated milled ore. Yields per ton remained remarkably high for a mine that 

had been running at near full tilt for two years. Based on dollar value of crushed ore it 

ranged from $90 per ton for ores reduced at Consolidated (mill) to $141 per ton for ores 

reduced at California (mill) - both of which received ore from Consolidated Virginia for 

only one quarter during the year. At Brunswick, which processed more than a third of the 

crushed ore, the yield was $103 per ton. 20 No other Comstock mine was ever as 

productive as Consolidated Virginia. Indeed the “wet” assays made as the ore was 

leaving the mine were still running above $150 per ton. 21 

From 1874 through 1876, as evidence of its success, the company paid out tens of 

millions in dividends. But, as ores were being hoisted and dividends were being granted, 

future prospects were always under review. Since bonanza after bonanza on the 

Comstock eventually faded, Consolidated Virginia was not exempt, especially among the 

market bears. Notwithstanding Mackay’s sincere conviction that mining, not “stockjobbing”, 

was his focus, what he or anyone else connected with the company said or 

implied was subject to intense scrutiny for any sign that the boom was unraveling. As 

19 

Bullion Records, 1875 & 1876, Consolidated Virginia Mining Companies, NC99/1/3/5, Special 


20 

Total ore was another measure of per-ton yields recorded in the company ledgers. It was always 

somewhat higher. For 1876 the average was $120 per ton versus $90 for crushed ore. Crushed ores were 

also called worked ores, and working the ores removed some of the elements or components that boosted 

the assays. Almost all the assays taken in the mine and up to the preparation for amalgamation were higher 

than the assays of the crushed ores. 

21 

Bullion Records, 1876, Consolidated Virginia Mining Companies, NC99/1/3/5, Special Collections, 

Library, University of Nevada at Reno.


8 

noted above, the superintendents, mainly Fair but occasionally Mackay in lieu of Fair, 

and Taylor, the office administrator, in lieu of both Fair and Mackay, sent the corporate 

officers detailed weekly summaries (from time to time bi-weekly) on the state of the 

underground. This information was gathered from their own observations plus the daily 

logs kept by the foremen and shift bosses. In the mine’s annual reports the progress on 

each level would be summarized with appropriate details about the extensions (in feet) of 

drifts, winzes, shafts, etc. Who actually wrote the annual reports is not state precisely, but 

given the rather consistent format and style Taylor’s hand can be assumed. There can be 

no doubt that the data contained in the weekly reports found their way into the annual 

reports, in a condensed form, of course. Exaggeration and exuberance were commonplace 

among mining entrepreneurs. Mackay and Fair were viewed generally as “straightshooters”, 

and yet they like their peers may have engaged in less than accurate portrayals 

of the state of the operations and the prospects for the future. Grant Smith, for one, 

believed that Fair deliberately falsified information in the annual reports of 1875 and 

1876 in order to boost the price of the stock against the bears, which were skeptical on 

how long the bonanza would last. They would be proven wrong at least in the short run. 

For 1875, according to Smith, the annual report said that on the 1550-foot level a drift 

had been driven 320 feet south of the north line and then a winze had been sunk through 

high-grade ore for 147 feet. Without citing any sources Smith claimed that drift had only 

reached 160 feet and the winze 75 feet, and further that water had stopped most of the 

work below 1,550 feet. These remarks about work at 1,550 feet did appear in the annual 

report, but connecting these remarks with one or more of the weekly reports from which 

the annual reports were drawn proved unsuccessful. There were numerous references to 

lateral (east-west) cuts from the north-south drift at 1,550 feet but few to extension of the 

north-south drift. Many of the weekly reports on work at 1,550 feet in 1875 referred to 

rich ores in the lateral cuts and referred to some ores plus, heat, bad ventilation and water 

in work on the connection between 1,550 and 1,600 feet. Smith’s claim may be correct 

but could not be fully corroborated. In the second case, 1876, Smith accusations were less 

precise. He said that Fair spoke of rich ores below 1,550 feet and particularly of “great 

expectations of the 1,650-foot level”. According to the weekly reports in 1876 

considerable work was done between 1,550 and 1,750 feet, and in some instances ores 

from the 1,650-foot level were described favorably. And toward the end of 1876 and in 

1877 the volume of ore hoisted from 1,650 feet was higher than any other level. Smith 

was certainly correct to state that the principals knew that ores below 1,550 or 1,650 feet 

were petering out. 22 What remains unclear is the question: when did the principals realize 

that the ravine was narrowing and running out of ores? 

Even the most experienced miners like John Mackay and James Fair could not 

always predict accurately what was ahead. There were times, of course, when they 

preferred to be less than forthcoming, and there were times when they were simply 

wrong. By the middle 1870s miners had a fairly good understanding of how the Lode was 

structured. The idea of a continuous vein from north to south, reaching ever more deeply, 

had long been abandoned. Rather the Lode had pinched out at about 900 or 1,000 feet, 

22 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 194-196. Hundreds of pages of copies of letters exist in various Letterpress 

Books, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, 1875 and 1876, in NC99/2/3, NC99/2/4, NC99/2/5 and 

NC99/2/6, Bx 6, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno.


9 

and while the Lode and its adjacent ground exhibited much vein matter, the ore bodies 

below 1,000 feet actually showed up as pockets that were scattered more widely with 

increasing depth to the east of the Lode. What Mackay and Fair found between 1,200 and 

1,600 feet was a block of gold and silver ore with a dent in the middle that was 

extraordinarily rich. How deep did it go? No one knew although everyone hoped forever. 

Like their peers Mackay and Fair must have hoped and perhaps expected that as the block 

of ore moved closer and closer to the hanging wall, which set a boundary on its eastward 

advance, was simply the top of deeper riches. Its north and south boundaries were marked 

for the most part, although, as the depths increased, those boundaries could change. 

There were no indicators from the vein matter or from explorations, mainly lateral 

tunnels off long drifts, that pocket of ore that constituted the Consolidated and California 

bonanzas at 1,200 to 1,700 feet extended any further north or south. Cross-cuts west 

toward Mt Davidson below where the Lode pinched off was another possibility as was 

crosscuts east into the remaining distance to the hanging wall. The most promising 

direction was down, and that more or less became the preoccupation as the ores in the 

bonanza mines petered out. 

FIGURE 1 

VERTICAL VIEW OF CONSOLIDATED VIURGINIA AND C&C SHAFTS 

FROM BECKER, ATLAS, SHEET V 

[BLACK AREA, KNOWN AS A HORSE, SHOWS ORE BODY FOR CONSOIDATED VIRGINIA 

AND CALIFORNIA MINING COMPANIES.]


10 

By the end of 1876 problems began to mount as work continued at Consolidated 

Virginia. In a dispatch to the Secretary of the Board Fair made note that the presidential 

election, held several days earlier, had “interfered very much with the working of the 

mine” and hoisting would finally resume on 12 November. All the weekly reports sent by 

Fair to Havens during November and December 1876 portrayed management as 

aggressive and optimistic, although setbacks and obstacles tended to dominate much of 

the reporting. There were the numerous references, some positive and some less so, to 

progress with the C&C Shaft. It had reached 1,650 feet. A new station (18’x40’x12’) was 

described as half completed in November and nearly completed with a functioning “bob 

and tank” pit by the end of the year. Also an ore house atop the shaft, a connection with 

the Virginia and Truckee Railroad and an ore dump were also finished during the final 

two months of 1876. In early November a drift from the shaft westward (toward Mt 

Davidson) had reached 173 feet, and by the end of the year it had reached nearly 600 feet. 

Work had been slower than anticipated because the drift’s path alternated between hard 

rock and soft, treacherous ground. No ore was found in route. Extension of the drift and 

construction of a station were also slowed because of water. At least two inches lay on 

the floor even as the pumps were operating at between 6 and 6.5 strokes per minute. By 

the end of December after more effort than anticipated the C&C Shaft had been sunk to 

1,700 feet, but the presence of water had temporarily stopped work. Water was only part 

of the dilemma facing the managers. Poor ventilation not only created bad air but also 

resulted in intense heat. Because such large quantities of ore were being excavated, 

tunnels quickly become obstructed with rock and residue. In addition because the ground 

shifted as the excavations proceeded the timbers in the tunnels buckled and the walls 

collapsed, and the result was more obstruction. Drifts at 1,400, 1,500 and 1,550 feet were 

partially retimbered during the final months of 1876. The most important drift for 

ventilation and excavation was at 1,550 because it provided a passageway from the ore 

body and the main shaft (Consolidated Virginia) to Gould & Curry’s Shaft. At one point 

the obstructions were so great and the air so bad in the connecting drift that all hoists 

through Gould & Curry had to be halted for at least 10 days (and perhaps longer) to clean 

out the drift. Excavations of Consolidated Virginia ore now extended from 1,200 to 1,700 

feet, and at the lowest level air quality was the worst. The floor at 1,700 feet had little 

natural ventilation, and to compensate for that a new blower was erected at 1,500 feet to 

circulate the air at 1,700 feet through a “double winze “ and a “large air pipe”. In spite of 

these efforts intense heat reduced the amount of time workers could remain at the lowest 

levels. Indeed the heat became so bad that all work had to be suspended at 1,700 feet in 

mid-December. The construction of additional connecting drifts south to the Gould & 

Curry Shaft and east to the C&C Shaft became imperative if work at 1,700 feet and 

below was to progress. While the “ore breasts” on the floors above 1,700 feet continued 

to be “favorable”, they were less so at 1,700 feet and below. Not only was the work 

difficult and slow at these new levels, the ore body itself became irregular. The volume of 

crushed ore rose to 13,400 tons in November from 12,200 tons in October. Two months 

did not make a trend as volume in December receded to 4,600 tons. Consolidated 

Virginia had come to a turning point that could have been read as a more troubled 

future. 23 

23 

Conditions described in various copies of letters from James Fair to A. W. Havens, Secretary of the 

Board, 11/05/76, 11/12/76, 11/19/76, 11/26/76, 12/03/76, 12/10/76, 12/17/76, 12/24/76 and 12/31/76,


11 

In 1877 the decline in output from Consolidated Virginia was evident to all. 

Although total output of nearly $14 million would have been a record for most Comstock 

mining companies, it represented a decline of 17 percent from levels of 1876 and 1875. 

In the first two month only one mill, Consolidated, received ore from Consolidated 

Virginia. This continued a pattern observed in the last two month of the previous year. By 

March Bacon began once again to crush and reduce ores from Consolidated Virginia. In 

the first quarter, then, slightly more than 18,000 tons were processed for a yield of about 

$1.5 million. An upswing began in April as three mills were reducing ores from the mine. 

By the end of the year the number had risen to five mills. For the entire year the total of 

crushed tons of 153,000 exceeded the previous year by almost 5 percent, even though the 

more telling statistic was the value of the ore dropped by the aforementioned 17 percent. 

Unmistakably yields were dropping. Based on yearly averages of crushed ores yields had 

risen from $99 per ton in 1875 to $114 per ton in 1876 and then fallen to $89 per ton in 

1877. They would continue to drop thereafter as the ore body between 1,200 and 1,700 

feet from which the bonanza had sprung was exhausted and no new bodies were found. 

The best month was June, when crushed-ore yields reached $116 per ton, but in July they 

fell to $107 per ton. For the other 10 months in 1877 they were below $100 per ton. The 

seven different mills that processed Consolidated Virginia ores were familiar names 

except for Nevada, which joined the group in November. They were Bacon with 11 

percent, California 54 percent, Consolidated 12 percent, Trench 13 percent, Mariposa less 

than 1 percent, Morgan 7 percent and Nevada 2 percent. California had started up a year 

earlier and had processed Consolidated Virginia ore for several months until its facilities 

were assigned to the new California mine. Nearly a year later the California mill was 

processing ore from both mines. It appears that California got the best ores or could do 

the best job of milling the ores. The yield per crushed ton was $105. Nevada had the 

lowest at $46 per ton. The other mills were generally in the $70 to $80 per-ton range. The 

daily and weekly reports to the company officers tend, especially toward the end of the 

year, to reflect disappointment at not finding good ores below 1,700 or in other parts of 

the levels already being exploited. Consolidated Virginia’s time was running short. 24 

The weekly reports reflect uneven and mixed results for 1877. In January 

management was still concerned with problems that had arisen during the last two 

months of 1876. Work at 1,700 and below had been halted and work on the C&C Shaft 

had been slowed because of the heavy flow of water. At the same time the western drift 

(from the C&C Shaft toward Mt Davidson) at 1,650 had had penetrated a seam with a 

thickness of about 15 feet and wet assays from $36 to $214 per ton. The seam pitched 

about 46 degree to the east, and that raised the inevitable question, it would “pinch out” 

and cease to exist below that level. There was good news at 1,500 feet where the pocket 

of ore had been so extensive and rich. A spur of ore about 27 feet wide was discovered to 

the northeast of the main seam. The two were separated by 10 to 20 feet of very hard 

rock. There was also good news at 1,200 feet. The connecting drift with the Gould & 

Consolidated Virginia Mining Company Letterpress Book, 1 November 1876-31 August 1878, NC99/2/8, 

Bx 6, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. Water was unpredictable, and after 

lamenting the presence of water at 1,700 feet in early November Fair then reported (11/17/76) that the floor 

was clear of water. 

24 

Bullion Records, 1877, Consolidated Virginia Mining Companies, NC99/1/3/5, Special Collections, 



12 

Curry Shaft had been cleared and retimbered so that the improved ventilation allowed for 

more efficient operations at the upper levels. The enlargement and repair of the Gould & 

Curry drift at 1,550 feet had beneficial effects with respect to the flow of air and the 

dissipation of heat. The issues that the weekly reports discussed in the first few weeks of 

the new year will be the main themes for the rest of the year. Even though skepticism 

about sinking the C&C Shaft any deeper was expressed in January 1877 another 100 to 

150 feet was added to the shaft by the end of the year. Workers continued to battle strong 

water flows, hard rock, poor air circulation and intense heat. More importantly, perhaps, 

the ore seam above had disappeared and did not reappear at the new depths. More 

crosscuts, drifts, winzes and upraises were under construction throughout the mine but in 

particular in the lowest levels as the search for ore was a high priority. At the upper levels 

the outlook remained positive. In a report filed on 19 May 1877 Fair summarized the 

progress along with the setbacks: 

At 1,200 and 1,300 feet hundreds of feet of the drifts that connected to the Gould 

& Curry Shaft were being retimbered and enlarged in order to improve ventilation. 

Unstable ground, however, caused frequent cave-ins, which restricted airflow and raised 

temperatures that slowed the work of extracting the ore. 

At 1,400 feet the airflow was satisfactory and the ores was of good quality. 

At 1,500 feet the drift south to the ore body was being reopened in order to 

extract the ore and improve the ventilation. 

At 1,550 feet where some of the best ores were located the southern drift was 

being extended into the ore body with some difficulty because the “very heavy” ground 

could obstruct the passage of air. A winze from 1,550 feet down to an upraise from 1,650 

feet was unfinished because the heat slowed the work. 

At 1,650 the ore breasts were quite favorable with drifts being cut to the east and 

the south through the ore body, although “large rock drills” were required to penetrate the 

quartz. Because of hard rock and high heat, progress was slow. To improve ventilation a 

winze was under construction from 1,650 to 1,750 feet. 

At 1,750 feet a new station was under construction 20 feet from the C&C Shaft 

where a new air compressor was be installed. 25 

The explorations and probes at the lowest levels (1,700 to 2,000 feet) were not on 

the whole encouraging during 1877. Not only was the work stop-and-go because of 

difficult conditions, but it also had failed to uncover any extension of the ore body from 

above. Although the company was still extracting profitable ores, in some cases highly 

profitable ores, from the established upper galleys, it could not easily ignore the signs that 

the quality and quantity of ore were diminishing. In February 1877 Fair wrote Havens 

that the westward drift at 1,650 feet (from the C&C Shaft) had penetrated 108 feet of the 

ore body, 70 feet of good ore and 38 feet of porphyry and quartz. There was considerably 

more ore to be mined before the drift reached the western wall but not without some 

concern. As they worked westward the face of the wall looked less and less favorable 

with lower and lower assays. What had been good- or high-grade ore may turn into low- 

25 

Copy of Letter from James Fair to A. W. Havens, Secretary of the Board, 05/19/78, Consolidated 

Virginia Mining Company Letterpress Book, 1 November 1876-31 August 1878, NC99/2/8, Bx 6, Special 

Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno.


13 

grade ore. 26 A month later Fair could report a winze was being built between 1,500 feet 

and 1,400 feet to exploit a local pocket of profitable ores. 27 In May, 1877, despite earlier 

concerns the western drift at 1,650 feet, now 185 feet in length, was still passing through 

good ore. For the remainder of 1877 the reports by Fair alternated between opening a few 

new promising segments and passing through segments of porphyry and quartz of ore 

yields in the signal digits. Even the yields in the richest galleys had fallen into the $70 to 

$80 range, still extraordinary by Comstock standard but well off the yields of the year 

before. 28 Even though Consolidated Virginia had produced tens of millions of dollars, the 

late-stage work was not free. Even though the reports contained encouraging language 

like “ore breast are fine” and “stopes look good” the magical words “new discovery” or 

“great bonanza” did not appear, and therefore the cost continued to mount. In addition to 

references about quality and quality of ore many of the summaries contained extensive 

references to repairs, maintenance and setbacks as work progressed in the upper and 

lower levels. The company crushed 5 percent more ore in 1877 than in 1876 but at perton 

yields that were 21 percent lower. The overall bullion return was $14 million in 1877 

compared to $17 million the year before. What would be worth knowing is how much of 

the operational costs, as reported by the company, was dedicated to opening new areas as 

opposed to maintaining existing areas where ore was actually being removed. 

Unfortunately the surviving data do not allow such nuanced comparisons. Overall costs 

as a proportion of the value of the bullion rose from 30 percent in 1876 to 33 percent in 

1877. 29 By the end of 1877 the principals and the managers must have realized that the 

prospects were gradually dimming. Excavations and explorations would continue without 

the much anticipated new discoveries. Success at California during 1877 may have 

helped to keep the hope for new discoveries at Consolidated Virginia alive. It may well 

have distracted Consolidated Virginia’s management from taking notice of the signs that 

had accompanied the termination of earlier bonanzas. But perhaps most importantly, as I 

will discuss below, a powerful force in keeping the company on track was that by 

continuing to make money Consolidated Virginia paid dividends and never reverted to 

assessments. 

Consolidated Virginia remained in operation for another three and one-half years 

with generally declining output until a fire in 1881 closed the mine. The trend was not 

26 




27 




28 

Copies of Letter with the following dates – 06/24/77, 09/01/77, 10/06/77, 10/20/77, 12/29/77 – from 

James Fair to A. W. Havens, Secretary of the Board, contain such descriptions. See Consolidated Virginia 

Mining Company Letterpress Book, 1 November 1876-31 August 1878, NC99/2/8, Bx 6, Special 


29 

During the eight quarters of 1876 and 1877 the per-ton cost, as reported by the company to the County 

Assessor, ranged from $25 per ton of crushed ore to $39 per ton except for the third quarter of 1876 when it 

reached $72 per ton. This was a quarter with the lowest volume of crushed ore at 16,000 tons but a high 

per-ton yield of $97. Total costs for extraction, transportation and reduction were typical of other quarters 

at $1.2 million. The cause of skyrocketing per-ton costs lay with the drop in the volume of crushed ore, 

although no specific condition can be cited for why the volume fell. This may simply have been a quarter in 

which more underground work was devoted to building the infrastructure and less to extracting the ore.


14 

reversible. Its annual bullion declarations dropped appreciably from nearly $8 million to 

$1.5 million, and its total tonnage of crushed ore fell from 153,000 in 1877 to 123,000 in 

1878, 60,000 in 1879, 55,000 in 1880 and 6,900 in the first three months of 1881 (or an 

estimated annual figure of 25,000 tons). Rapidly declining yields per crushed ton told the 

story of the decline in even more direct terms. For 1878 yields averaged $65 per ton. 

During the course of the year, however, a significant diminution in tons of ores and yields 

per ton occurred. In the first quarter five to six mills were employed in crushing and 

processing about 21,000 tons per month with yields between $75 per ton and $85 per ton. 

By the last quarter one to three mills were needed to crush and process about 4,000 tons 

per month with bullion yields between $32 and $39 per ton. The California Mill handled 

the most ore - 47 percent – but after June it was not credited with any ore from 

Consolidated Virginia. The other mills were Morgan with 17 percent, Trench with 14 

percent, Brunswick with 12 percent, Bacon with 5 percent, percent and Nevada with 4 

percent. None of the mills had enough reduction business from Consolidated Virginia for 

the full 12 months. Nevada Mill had the shortest tenure of three months, and Morgan and 

Trench had the longest of eight months. Fair’s reports at the beginning of the year were 

optimistic to a degree. Work continued at all levels from 1,200 to 1,850 feet with the best 

ores from 1,650. But the rock at the lower levels was so hard that management was 

searching for ways to try to bypass it in order to continue the probe for the ore seam. In 

addition water slowed progress at all levels. Above 1,500 feet it broke through the walls 

and flooded several drifts. At the lowest level a malfunctioning pump allowed water to 

rise quickly almost 80 feet, and underground work had to be halted until the pump was 

fixed and the water drained. Finally other problems such as intense heat, broken 

machinery and unprofitable ore added to the frustrations and disappointments 

experienced in 1878. It would be a mistake to presume that management was ready to 

abandon Consolidated Virginia even as evidence of crisis mounted. In an almost 

contrarian approach a report written in late August 1878 described how aggressively the 

company was committed to further probes and continuing repairs, which are summarized 

below: 

Above 1,000 feet retimbering and enlarging of main shaft underway (although 

work causing temperatures to rise to 110 degrees). 

At 1,200 feet the station was enlarged and retimbered; at least 115 tons of ore 

were being hoisted from there (intense heat debilitating). 

At 1,300 feet the south drift was enlarged and retimbered for a distance of 362 

feet. 

At 1,400 feet the station was retimbered and the east drift was cleaned out and 

retimbered all the way to the ore stopes. 

At 1,500 feet a southwest drift from a drift connected to C&C Shaft was advanced 

70 feet. 

At 1,550 feet main air gallery leading to Gould & Curry shaft repaired. 

At 1,650 enlarging and retimbering connection from Consolidated Virginia Shaft 

to C&C Shaft. 

At 1,750 feet winze #3 sunk 51 feet through good ore.


15 

At 1,850 feet crosscut # 4 extended from main south drift (passing through hard 

blasting rock); upraise from 1,850 to connect with winze #3 from 1,750; winze from 

1,850 down to crosscut #2 on 1,950. 

At 1,950 feet crosscut #2 from main south drift has reached 151 feet (passing 

through porphyry streaked with clay). 

At 2,050 feet station for C&C Shaft in place; sinking lower continues; west drift 

to be added; winze #3 from 1,950 being advanced. 

There was a downside to all this activity because it created obstacles to proper 

ventilation, which was made worse by the fact the hot and humid surface weather had an 

impact on the underground airflow. As impressive as the work schedule was under less 

than favorable prospects, the most troubling prospect, expressed more than once by Fair 

in these weekly reports, was the failure to find any high-grade ores that were easily 

extracted beyond what had been discovered and exploited. The month-by-month decline 

in per-ton yields underscored the legitimacy of Fair’s concern. Even such skilled and 

experienced managers as Mackay and Fair could do little to reverse the downward 

spiraling fortunes of Consolidated Virginia without a new discovery. 30 

Work continued underground in 1879 even as the yields dropped relentlessly. 

Much of the work was concentrated at the lowest levels, especially between 1,750 and 

2,150 feet. The C&C Shaft served these lower depths in that the main shaft of 

Consolidated Virginia ended at about 1,650 feet. W. H. Patton, who succeeded Fair as 

Superintendent in 1879, wrote Havens in the summer that by extending the south drift at 

1,500 feet they had entered a vein formation that had streaks of quartz, potentially a 

positive sign ore in the area. Considerable work was underway on 1,750 in part because 

that had been the site of the best ores in the past year or so. Work at the lower levels 

continued to be slow and uneven because of heavy water, which they were attempting to 

pump to the newly opened Sutro Tunnel at 1,650. The C&C Shaft had reached between 

2,300 and 2,400 feet, but hard rock and frequent flooding, not ores, were what they 

found. The pumping system was generally able to keep the water levels low, and when 

they were able to explore and expand the drifts, they discovered mainly vein formations 

streaked with quartz and clay rather than ore bodies. 31 About 60,000 tons of crushed ore 

were reduced at the mills. In the first four months the ore was milled at Brunswick with 

52 percent, Trench 39 percent and Morgan 46 percent. After that only the California Mill 

handled the ore from Consolidated Virginia. The accounts indicate that Bacon Mill had 

on hand more than 125,000 tons of ore, but they do not indicate how that ore was 

disposed of. 32 These three mills accounted for 43 percent of the annual total with an 

average yield of $48 per ton of crushed ore. In the next eight months California Mill 

30 

For discussion of these problems see copies of weekly reports from James Fair to A. W. Havens for 

02/09/78, 03/09/78, 03/16/78, 03/23/78, 08/03/78, 08/24/78, 10/26/78 and 11/16/78, copies of which appear 

in Consolidated Virginia Mining Company Letterpress Books, 1 November 1876-31 August 1878, 

NC99/2/8, Bx 6 and 3 August 1878-14 December 1878, NC99/2/11, Bx 7, Special Collections, Library, 


31 

Copy of letter from W. H. Patton to A. W. Havens, Secretary of the Board, 06/07/79, Consolidated 

Virginia Mining Company Letterpress Books, 20 December 1878-August 1886, NC99/2/12, Bx 7, Special 


32 

I have not included it in the yearly totals.


16 

processed the remaining 57 percent with a yield of $38 per ton. Overall the yield per ton 

was $42, a decline of a third since 1878. 

In the final 15 months (1880 through Spring 1881) the yields at Consolidated 

Virginia dropped further. For 1880 the volume of crushed tons fell to 55,000 and the perton 

yield to $32. And in the first five months of 1881 only 6,800 tons were crushed with a 

yield of $21 per ton. If the fire had not closed Consolidated Virginia the exhaustion of the 

profitable ore bodies would have. A report by Superintendent Patton on 14 June 1879 

underscored a precarious future for Consolidated Virginia. The following is a summary 

of his observations: 

Less than 900 tons sent for milling in the past week; 

At 850 feet a drift to link with California in soft ground with water; 

At 1,500 feet southern drift in vein formation with quartz streaks; 

At 1,750 feet pipe being laid south through Best & Belcher and Gould & Curry to 

Savage in order to connect with Sutro Tunnel, now operating, and north through Ophir 

and Mexican Union to transport water into Sutro Tunnel; 

At 1850 feet a joint westward crosscut with California discontinued and new drift 

north and south encountered only vein formation; 

At 2,150 feet southern drift passing through vein formation with streaks of clay 

and quartz; 

Water at the bottom of the C&C Shaft interfered with drilling, and water must be 

lifted to 1,650 feet in order to connect to Sutro Tunnel. 33 

In the remaining years of Consolidated Virginia’s life phrases like vein formation 

or vein matter streaked with clay and quartz were commonplace in the weekly reports. It 

is worth noting, however, as the underground explorations continued without any new 

discoveries to report the mine was still producing ores that exceeded Comstock’s per-ton 

average. Only in the final months did that average fall to the point where it equaled the 

Comstock average. It was hard to give up on Consolidated Virginia until the fire ended 

indecision. 

FIGURE 2 

REFINED ORES FROM CONSOLIDATED VIRGINIA AND CALIFORNIA 

MINES BY MILL, 1873-1881 

Mills CVMC CMC Total % Total % 

Ore-Tons % Bullion $ % Yrs Ore- % Bullion $ % Yrs Ore Bullion $ 

Tons 

Bacon 73,916 9.4 $5,870,140 9.2 6 3,916 1.0 $348,684 0.8 1 77,832 5.7 $6,218,824 5.6 

Brunswick 83,188 10.2 7,690,532 11.8 6 60,032 10.6 5,440,721 11.8 3 143,219 10.4 13,131,25311.8 

California 260,049 31.8 18,547,411 28.5 6 227,512 40.3 15,708,155 34.1 6 487,561 35.3 34,255,56630.8 

Consolidated 97,293 11.9 9,047,676 13.9 4 105,324 18.7 9,667,150 21.0 2 202,617 14.7 18,714,82816.9 

Devil’s Gate 5,842 0.7 508,164 0.8 1 0 0 0 0 0 5,842 0.4 508,164 0.5 

33 

Copy of Letter from W. H. Patton to A. W. Havens, Secretary of the Board, 06/14/79, Consolidated 

Virginia Mining Company Letterpress Books, 20 December 1878-August 1886, NC99/2/12, Bx 7, Special 

Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. Some of this information showed up in the Annual 

Report to the stockholders for 1879. See Superintendent’s Report, 31 December 1879, NC99/1/5/1, Special 



17 

Empire State 0 0 0 0 0 1,926 0.3 166,550 0.4 1 1,926 0.2 166,550 0.2 

Hoosier 14,334 1.8 1,664,685 2.6 2 0 0 0 0 0 14,334 1.1 1,664,685 1.5 

Kelsey 16,440 2.0 1,122,733 1.7 2 0 0 0 0 0 16,440 1.2 1,122,733 1.0 

Mariposa 36,149 4.4 3,064,548 4.7 5 10,471 1.9 863,042 1.9 2 46,620 3.4 3,927,590 3.5 

Mexican 0 0 0 0 0 11,873 2.1 943,523 2.1 1 11,873 0.9 943,523 0.9 

Morgan 58,844 7.2 4,268,121 6.7 5 49,491 8.8 4,453,803 9.6 3 108,335 7.8 8,721,924 7.9 

Nevada 7,957 1.0 544,163 0.8 2 7,096 1.3 598,150 1.3 1 15,053 1.1 1,142,312 1.0 

Occidental 39,146 4.8 2,900,821 4.5 4 24,635 4.4 2,070,439 4.5 3 63,781 4.6 4,971,259 4.5 

Rhode Is 0 0 0 0 0 16,865 3.0 1,394,893 3.1 2 16,865 1.2 1,394,893 1.3 

Sacramento 32,869 4.0 3,030,951 4.6 3 25,263 4.5 2,418,580 5.3 3 58,132 4.2 5,450 4.9 

Trench 91,192 11.2 6,789,020 10.4 7 16,825 3.0 1,700,592 3.7 2 108,017 7.8 8,489,612 7.6 

Winfield 0 0 0 0 0 2,770 0.5 237,935 0.5 1 2,770 0.2 237,935 0.2 

Totals 817,218 100 $65,048,966 100 563,996 100 $46,012,215 100 1,381,214 100 $111,061,181 100 


The Annual Report to the stockholders of Consolidated Virginia for 1879 shows 

despite numerous setbacks and troubling signs the mine was making money. 34 In 1879 it 

had receipts of nearly $3 million of which $2.5 came from bullion income. What is most 

striking about these figures is that the company paid out dividends of $1,350,000 or half 

of the total receipts. Under these circumstances halting the search for new, rich ore bodies 

in light of the many problems with the underground operations hardly seemed justified. 

The simple fact was that the company was making enough money to continue 

prospecting. From the accounts in the Annual Report it is possible to estimate the cost of 

running the mine. Recall from the above description that considerable time, money and 

effort were being devoted to expansion and maintenance while tonnage and yields were 

on the decline. That combination might be a formula for run-away costs. But, in fact, if 

reduction and transportation costs of the ore were excluded, the cost of extraction came in 

at about $10 per ton. If the cost for extracting and hoisting the ore were combined with 

the cost for extracting and hoisting the rock and residue (about 13,000 tons) the cost per 

tons would drop to about $8 per ton. The cost of reduction and other activities added 

another $8 to $10 per ton to the total. The unknown is how much was not spent that 

might have been if the margins had been greater. It helped that yields per ton came in at 

$42 that allowed the company to realize gross profit of nearly $20 per ton, even in the 

final stage of the mine’s life. The company was forced to pare dividends even though it 

was the only company paying any dividends at all. Not even California paid dividends in 

1880. 35 Still a moneymaker the pot to explore, renovate and replace was far less at $20 

per ton than it had been at twice that level. The end took longer at Consolidated Virginia 

than it might have at other mines, but shrinking margins eventually spelled termination. 

34 

The Annual Report contains different sets of accounts, one kept by W. H. Patton in the Virginia City 

Office and the other by A. W. Havens in the San Francisco Office. The fiscal year for the Virginia City 

Office ended 31 December 1878, while the fiscal year for San Francisco ended 7 January 1879. Moreover, 

the manner in which the figures were entered into the journals differed. The accounts are not, therefore, 

directly comparable. 

35 

Annual Report, 1878, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, 15-19, 23-24, NC99/1/5/1, Special 

Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. Mining-cost estimates have been drawn from account 

known as “Actual Cost of Mining”, p. 17. It is not clear how the cost of mining per ton (both extraction and 

reduction) was calculated, for their arithmetic could not be duplicated. My estimates of the cost of mining 

per ton and of the reduction et al. per ton are close to the figures contained in the report.


18 

The California Mining Company, organized in 1873, had a history that shadowed 

Consolidated Virginia’s history. On Consolidated Virginia’s northern boundary 

California was an amalgamation of several older, smaller mines: Old California, Kinney, 

Central and Central #2. The Mineralogist reported in 1875 that little work had been done 

in these mines prior to their consolidation under Mackay, Fair et al. Ore had been 

removed from Old California in connection with prospecting on its boundary with Ophir 

to the north at depths of a few hundred fee, but it “was in bunches and not very rich”, and 

the work was discontinued. When the discoveries were made in Consolidated Virginia, it 

was determined that the ore bodies extended north into adjoining claims that became the 

California Mine. In places the vein was 200 to 400 feet thick and was like a bulge 

between 1,200 and 1,600 feet. Initially the in-mine assays averaged about $600 per ton 

and some as high as $8,000 per ton. Based on these selective assays, the mine was 

predicted to yield up to $100 million dollars worth of ore, twice as much as it actually 

produced. One reason for the urgency to complete the new C&C Shaft was to provide 

access to the ores in California, which lacked its own deep shaft. Since milling capacity 

was at a premium around the Comstock Mackay and Fair advanced the capital to build a 

new mill (under the ownership of Pacific Mill and Mining, which owned all their mills) 

called California Pan Mill. Having escaped the October 1875 fire, it opened for operation 

in January 1876. In volume of crushed ore and dollar value of bullion California was 

second to Consolidated Virginia (564,000 tons versus 817,000 and $46 million versus 

$65 million), but in yield of ore per ton California had a very slight edge of $81.53 versus 

$79.60. 36 The first official registrations from California appeared in April 1876. If ore were 

hoisted from California in the account of Consolidated Virginia prior to the “official” 

declaration, it was registered as such in Consolidated Virginia’s ledgers. In the first 

month 7,600 tons of crushed ore from California were processed at California Pan Mill at 

a yield of $188 per ton worth more than $1.4 million. By summer six mills were 

processing California ores. By the end of the year, however, the number was down to 

four. The mill rankings for 1876 were as follows: California 60 percent, Morgan 14 

percent, Sacramento and Trench each 8 percent, Occidental 6 percent and Bacon 3 

percent. All of these mills received ores from Consolidated Virginia prior to 1876, and 

several of them would again be enlisted in behalf of Consolidated Virginia after 1876. 

Over the life of the mine California the mill California reduced about 40 percent of its ore 

with an average yield of $69 per ton. In the initial month, however, yields from California 

ores at the various mills ranged from a high of $113 per ton (Sacramento) to a low of $90 

to $95 per ton (Bacon, Brunswick, Morgan and Occidental). The average of all the mills 

for nine months (April-December) in 1876 was $105 per ton, and this was two dollars 

more per ton that the yield at Consolidated Virginia for the same period. 37 

In 1877 California’s yields per crushed ton fell to $88 per ton. Twelve mills were 

called into service to process about 214,000 tons. California Mill reduced less than a 

36 


Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session, 1875, 140. Tonnage and bullion figures from Consolidated Virginia and 

California accounts: Bullion Records, NC99/1/3/1, NC99/1/3/5, and NC99/1/3/7, Special Collections, 

Library, University of Nevada at Reno. 

37 

Bullion Records, 1876, NC99/1/3/7, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno.


19 

tenth of the total and none at all after March when it was switched from milling 

California ore to Consolidated Virginia ore. The Consolidated Mill, rebuilt after the fire 

by October 1876, became the principal recipient – more than one third - of California 

ores in 1877. Mill rankings for deliveries of ores from California in 1877 were as follows: 

Consolidated 34 percent, Brunswick with 18 percent, Morgan 10 percent, California 9 

percent, Occidental 6 percent, Rhode Island and Sacramento 5 percent, Mariposa (mainly 

tailings) 4 percent, Trench and Nevada 3 percent, and Empire State and Winfield 1 

percent. Trench reported the highest yields at $104 while Occidental the lowest at $78 per 

ton. Three mills that had not yet shown up on Consolidated Virginia’s list were called 

into service to handle the volume from California. They were Rhode Island, Empire State 

and Winfield. They combined for only 7 percent of the total, and there is no evidence that 

even in later years ores from Consolidated Virginia were ever shipped to them. 38 

In 1878 the milling situation with respect to California ores began to change. Six 

mills processed ore during the first quarter, three to four in the second quarter and only 

one mill in the final two quarters. The tons prepared for processing fell from just under 

20,000 in January to 1,200 in December. Total tons crushed fell 40 percent from previous 

year to 128,000. Consolidated and California shared the honors as the two most active 

mills: Consolidated reduced 25 percent of the ore during just the first four months and 

California reduced 29 percent but during the last six months. In a much sharper contrast, 

however, the yields at the Consolidated Mill were still extraordinarily high at $114 per 

ton, but at the California Mill they had plummeted to only $49 per ton. The other six 

mills, some of which were engaged in the milling of California ore for the first time 

ranged from $73 per ton to $93. The average yield was $79, still high by Comstock 

standards but down 10 percent from the year before. The best month was March at $112 

per ton while the worst month was September at $44 per ton. The yields rebounded by 

the end of the year. California registered $73 per ton, but it only processed 1,200 tons. 39 

In the next two and one-half years the slide at California accompanied the slide at 

Consolidated Virginia. In the spring of 1881 a fire closed down Consolidated Virginia 

and the milling of its ore stopped in May. California ores continued to be milled through 

October. Some believed (perhaps hoped is the word) that the Comstock had a future. In 

fact, the shuttering of the two giants, which had produced in excess of $100 million worth 

of gold and silver and profits of $70, signaled the end of the Comstock’s mining triumph, 

not just temporarily but permanently. 

It is worth following the developments and prospects as described by James Fair 

in the many weekly reports he wrote as superintendent of California (as well as 

Consolidated Virginia). The public assumed that California would be another bonanza, 

perhaps eclipsing the stunning performance of Consolidated Virginia itself. The initial 

enthusiasm led some outsiders to observe that California could produce $100 million 

dollars worth of gold and silver inasmuch as yields of $188 per ton were achieved in 

April 1876. They dropped fairly rapidly, however, to $161 in May, $128 in June and then 

settled into a range of $80 to $110 for the rest of the year. In a long report, dated 16 July 

38 

Bullion Records, 1877, NC99/1/3/7, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. 

39 

Bullion Records, 1878, NC99/1/3/7, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno.


20 

1876, to C. P. Gordon, Secretary of California Mining Company, Fair used such terms as 

“fine” and “excellent” to describe the ore between 1,300 and 1,600 feet. A month later he 

wrote that the ore stopes at 1,600 feet was “very rich”. And these descriptions continued 

to appear in his reports for the next several months even though the yields had already 

fallen. It was more than a year before Fair remarks became more tempered. In 27 October 

1877, for example, he reported that the quality of ore at 1,550 feet had fallen to “medium 

grade”, which had a per-ton yield in the $75 range. 40 

The extraction of ore in California was not by any means trouble-free. The C&C 

Shaft, under construction, was intended to be the main vehicle for hoisting California’s 

ores. As we learned in reports from Consolidated Virginia, water, hard rock and 

ventilation had to be dealt with daily and could singly or collectively bring work to a 

standstill. As Fair was praising the quality of the ore in the summer of 1876, he was also 

acknowledging that water detracted from the hoped-for rapid progress in sinking the 

shaft. By fall the water had decreased but delays were still hampering the work. Finally 

the water had diminished enough by October that a station was opened at 1,650 feet to 

hoist “very rich ores”. Even as the water decreased (for the moment) the rock through 

which the shaft passed (as noted in earlier weekly dispatches from Consolidated Virginia) 

became extremely hard, and shovels had been abandoned for Burleigh Drills. In 

November he reported that the C&C Shaft was running smoothly as far as it was open, 

but little work was being done below 1,650 because of water. Work resumed on C&C 

Shaft, but it had only reached 1,800 feet by the summer of 1877 again because of heavy 

water. The deeper the shaft was sunk, the more essential proper ventilation became. As 

the C&C Shaft closed in on 1,750 feet a new drift had to be started from a winze at 1,650 

feet down to an upraise from 1,750 feet to the Ophir Shaft in order to dissipate the heavy 

air at these levels. In an ironic twist with a plentitude of water in the C&C Shaft and 

adjoining connections the company faced a scarcity of water in the Carson River where 

some of its mills were located. On a report from 6 July 1877 Fair declared that no ore 

cars would be hoisted from 1,550 feet, the core of California’s ore riches, for the next six 

days because the low river levels had slowed milling and in the meantime the ore dumps 

and mill facilities were filled to capacity. (It should also be pointed out this suspension 

coincided with the 4 th of July, which was often celebrated but did not necessarily mean a 

no-work holiday.) In the fall of 1877 water had stopped most of the work below 1,850 

feet in the C&C Shaft, although the shaft operated as designed above that level except for 

occasional equipment failures. At the same time water in the Carson River had increased 

to the point that most of the mills were back in business. Of course, it would turn out that 

very little profitable ore was found below 1,650 or 1,700 feet, even though the company 

continued to invest time and money in controlling water and ventilation. There were 

some ominous items to acknowledge in the fall reports. As the network of tunnels grew 

within the ore bodies and beyond increased efforts had to be devoted to retimbering, 

enlarging and repairing them. Ore quality during the extensive interior maintenance was 

only described as “fair” or “good” rather than “fine” or “excellent”. In one of the longest 

of the 1877 reports – 20 October 1877 – Fair reviewed the work at all levels. The ore 

40 

For example see copies of letters from James Fair to C. P. Gordon, Secretary of the Board, 16 July 1876, 

27 August 1876, 8 October 1876 and 11 March 1877, from Letterpress Book, California Mining Company, 

8 July 1876-22 October 1877, NC99/2/7, Bx 7, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno.


21 

breast at 1,500 and 1,550 feet were described as looking good, but on the northern end 

the quality was only fair. The face of the drift that was being pushed east to connect with 

a northeast drift at 1,600 feet continued to exhibit good ore. At 1,650 feet at least five 

east-west crosscuts under construction or repair alternated between good ore and vein 

matter. Excavations below 1,650 (1,750 to 1,850 feet) were extensive – crosscuts, winzes, 

upraises and chambers – but no ore bodies to report. A week later (27 October 1877) the 

ore from 1,550 feet was now described as medium grade, and more disturbingly the 

“ground was pressing badly and this ore had to be taken out immediately.” In a phrase 

that seldom appeared in Fair’s reports he indicated without qualification that from now 

on work on this level would prove to be more expensive in the future. By the summer of 

1880, a year and a half before the mine closed, the new superintendent, W. H. Patton 

informed C. P. Gordon that they were extracting only about 1,000 tons a week of fairgrade 

ore between 800 and 1,700 feet. Even though the C&C Shaft had reached 2,450 

feet, it ended up in vein formation that included some quartz but no profitable ores. The 

saga of California like its companion Consolidated Virginia despite their enormous riches 

was not unlike that of all Comstock bonanzas. Bonanzas eventually became borrascas. 41 

41 

Information in the above paragraph was drawn from copies of letters from James Fair to C. P. Gordon 

with the following dates: 07/09/76, 07/16/76, 08/27/76, 10/08/76, 11/26/76, 03/11/77, 05/05/77, 07/02/77 

and 10/20/77 from Letterpress Book, California Mining Company, 8 July 1876-22 October 1877, 

NC99/2/7, Bx 6, and 10/27/77 and 06/17/80 from Letterpress Book, California Mining Company, 24 

October 1877-26 April 1881, NC99/2/8, Bx 6, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno.

THE COMSTOCK [N] 

1 

Chapter 14 


Assays Unlimited, Digging & Hoisting the Underground 

Mining companies conducted frequent assays then for the same reasons that they do 

today – to determine the course of the vein and the quality of the ore. 1 With respect to the 

latter point it was important to the companies to know how much gold and silver that a 

seam or body of ore contained. On an almost daily basis a company had to decide how to 

proceed underground - where to dig, what to avoid and how to make the best use of labor 

and equipment. In the 1877 Annual Report of California Mining Company James Fair, as 

superintendent, informed stockholders that the Assay Department had been established as 

a part of the Consolidated Virginia Mining Company in 1875, and during 1877 alone 

40,484 assays had been conducted on ores from both mines. 2 Company assay records 

were not concerned with the final assay, a determination made by the United State Mint 

prior to converting the gold and silver into coins or into bars to be stored. 3 Rather assay 

records functioned as periodic checks in the absence of detailed underground maps. 

Assays could also be misused - to hype a mining stock, for example, when a company 

entered the capital market to raise money for projects not justified by the balance sheets. 

Proper assays could not be done on the fly. They required the equivalent of laboratories 

with furnaces that cooked the samples at very high temperatures (today furnaces operate 

at 1,000 degree). Companies like Consolidated Virginia and California built and staffed 

their laboratories, some of which were actually constructed underground. Assay records 

reveal that dozens of samples could be drawn from the extraction areas in a 24-hour 

period. A sample might be drawn from the face of one wall, and then a sample might be 

drawn from a car loaded with ore from several parts of the face of the wall, and finally a 

sample might drawn from dozens of cars with ores from throughout the mine. Each 

reading could be different, and in some cases the readings could be significantly 

different. 

Scores of assay records survive in the archives of Consolidated Virginia and 

California Mining Companies. While they represented one of the most extensive set of 

archival records, they were uneven with respect to content and frequency. Consolidated 

Virginia and California, separate corporations, shared assay facilities. Normally assayoffice 

expenses including wages and supplies appeared in Consolidated Virginia’s 

accounts whereas the cost of assaying California ores appeared in its own accounts. 4 

Assay procedures had been in use for centuries, and while modifications and efficiencies 

had been introduced over time, the basic format was well known and understood. What is 

described below, by me a non-chemist, was drawn from current publications. A quantity 

(perhaps no more than an ounce) of ore was weighed and then mixed with lead oxide and 

1 

My appreciation to Mario Desilets of the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, University of Nevada, 

Reno, for answering my inquiry concerning the frequency of assays. 

2 

Annual Report, 1877, California Mining Company, p. 20, NC99/1/5/6, Bx 2, Special Collections, Library, 


3 

See Hickson, Mint Mark: “CC”, 21-31, for discussion of procedures followed at the Carson City Mint 

from the time of the arrival of the ingots arrived to the minting of the coins. 

4 

For how costs were allocated see the Annual Reports for each company in NC99/1/5/1-2 and 1/5/6-7, Bx 

2, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno.


2 

with other chemicals that acted as reducing agents. The mixture was assembled in a 

crucible and allowed to cook in a small but very hot furnace. The reducing agent changed 

the oxide back to lead in the form of thousands of droplets that attached themselves to the 

gold or silver minerals and sank to the bottom of the crucible. The crucible was removed 

from the furnace and its contents were poured into a mold and allowed to cool. The slag 

or residue was discarded, and what remained was an alloy of precious minerals and lead. 

The next step was to place the “lead button” in a cupal that absorbed the lead that was 

oxidized again in a very hot furnace. The result was something called a “dore bead” 

which contained all the gold and silver minerals and none of the lead. It was weighed and 

then was immersed in another chemical like nitric acid that dissolved the silver and left 

the gold. This was called “the parting”. The gold was weighed and the difference between 

the weigh of the gold and the dore bead was the weight of the silver. From this process 

the ratio of gold to silver was computed along with the separate value of the gold and 

silver according to a predetermined formula. How closely the assayers of Consolidated 

Virginia or other mining companies followed these procedures remains a matter of 

speculation in the absence of assay manuals or other such documents. Since assays were 

taken at all stages, from the interior of the mines through the milling process into the 

sluices and dumps, the results had high variability. Ore quality was the primary factor, 

but the wetness or dryness of the ore and the volume of residue contained in the ore could 

also be factors. Ore in the mines tended to have higher assays than the same ore after it 

had been crushed and prepared for milling. The lowest assays came from the slimes and 

tailings. Companies like Consolidated Virginia or California where assays were 

conducted as normal operating procedures surely understood how to interpret the results. 

The high readings from inside the mine were perhaps misused from time to time in the 

public arena, but they served as signposts for the miners and managers in determining a 

course of action. 

The two companies shared assay facilities but did not necessarily keep identical 

assay records. From the surviving assay documentation the records from California are 

more detailed than those from Consolidated Virginia. The major difference between the 

two sets of records is that California’s assays were keyed to specific areas in the mine or 

stages in the milling process or other surface locations. Unfortunately the California 

assay entries were often written in abbreviated forms that cannot always be precisely 

identified or explained. An example would be scores of assays, taken for the week 

Monday 3 April through Sunday 9 April (1876), shortly after California made its official 

debut, on the floors or in the galleys of the mine, from cars loaded with ores on the floors 

and in the mills and at various stages of milling operations. It was common, especially 

with carloads, to take more than one sample. 

Figure 1 shows all the entries at California for 8 April, the date chosen primarily 

to show the variability of assays. To begin with, at least 20 assays were entered into the 

assay records beginning with #35 and ending with #55. If other assays were taken, they 

were not reported. California Mill was the only mill to receive ore from the California 

Mine during April 1876. At 1,500 feet the main or sill floor had three crosscuts, Nos. 1, 2 

and 5, with ore breasts, although the only reference to No. 2 was that one carload of ore 

was designated as having originated there. A second and a third floor had been cut below


3 

the sill floor in crosscut No. 1, and by the end of the summer the number will have 

reached 10 floors. By far the highest assay was returned from the northern end of No. 1 

crosscut on the sill floor. A ton of ore from that area was said to be worth $922 with $671 

worth of silver and $251 worth of gold. The lowest assays within the mine were noted in 

the No. 5 crosscut south on the sill floor at a value of $26 per ton. The average value of 

ores from the floor was $324 per ton. Although the total value of the assays from the 

second floor of crosscut No. 1 were lower than the previously cited figures, management 

had to be encouraged because the quantity of gold from a batch of ore in the western 

wing of crosscut No. 1 came in at 64 percent of the total value. On average gold was 

equal to about a third of the total value. Not unexpectedly by the time the ore had been 

loaded into cars the values had dropped. The three carloads, one with ore from each 

crosscut, came in at an average of $181 per ton. At the same time that these tests were 

made below ground the ore in 255 carloads was assayed above ground. Duplicate assays 

were done, but the exact procedure was not explained nor described. The first assay 

yielded $305.10 per ton and the duplicate $267.40 per ton. Nearly 40 percent of the ore 

was said to be gold. Finally with respect to what was described as tailings, the assays 

except for pulp fell significantly. It is not clear why pulp was listed on tailings (given the 

customary meaning of tailings) since the pulp was a mixture of crushed ore and water, 

flowed into the reduction facilities where it was incorporated with quicksilver and other 

chemicals to separate the minerals from the ore. It is assumed that the pulp was a 

reference to the ore undergoing reduction rather than the ore escaping it. The pulp had 

assays of $197.50 per ton, 42 percent ($84.40) of gold and 58 percent ($113.10) silver. It 

should be recalled that the yield from California ore in the first month averaged $188 per 

ton, not far from the yield on the pulp from a single day. Sulphurets (also known as 

sulphates) were the slimes and tailings that were carried away in the sluices to nearby 

dumps and pools. The assays in these categories were among the lowest. A range of 

assays as the ore passed from the interior galleys to the waste dumps was not by any 

means unexpected. 5 As Grant Smith explained, “The ore as it left the mine was roughly 

sampled and weighed or estimated, which became the mine’s valuation, with 10 percent 

or more of moisture included, while the assays made at the mill were of battery samples, 

dried.” He further noted that the average recovery at California was 74 percent (compared 

to Consolidated Virginia’s 73.5 percent). These ratios were close to the Comstock 

average of a 30-percent difference between “wet” (battery) and “dry” (refinery) assays. 6 

Indeed, company accounts, especially those kept by The Firm, showed the average 

monthly “wet” assay (100 percent) and the average monthly “dry” assay (70 percent), but 

if the final dry assay were higher or lower than 70 percent of the wet assay, the difference 

was described in the ledgers as a surplus or a loss. Consolidated Virginia and California 

almost always calculated the 100-percent and the 70-percent valuations as well the 

excesses or losses at each mill for each month. What mattered in the end was how much 

bullion could be squeezed from the ore. The ores extracted and processed were so rich 

5 

See Report of Assays, 3 April-10 April & 1-6 August 1876, California Mining Company, NC99/1/2/1, Bx 

5, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. Any of the Bullion Records between 1876 

and 1881, California Mining Company, can be consulted for examples of 100/70 percent figures. 

NC99/1/3/7, After Bx 1, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. 

6 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 255. Smith provided no source, but his ratios are close, although somewhat 

lower, compared to the ratios that I calculated from the monthly mill accounts. Seldom did losses show up, 

i. e., less than 70 percent, even in the declining years.


4 

that the conventional “wet” and “dry” assay ratios did not apply to Consolidated Virginia 

and California. In earlier bonanzas this was probably true as well - that the 70-percent 

benchmark was generally exceeded. 

FIGURE 1 

ASSAY SAMPLES, CALIFORNIA ORE, 8 APRIL 1876 

No. Description of Sample Value Per Ton Calculated % 

1,500 Feet Gold Silver Total Total Gold 

35 Calif Mill 255 Cars 7th $116.55 $188.55 $305.10 $305.10 38.20% 

36 duplicate $106.50 $160.90 $267.40 $267.40 39.83% 

Mine 

37 Sill Floor E $281.35 $450.00 $736.35 $731.35 38.21% 

38 Sill Floor NW No 1 $64.30 $133.20 $197.50 $197.50 32.56% 

39 Sill Floor W No 1 $48.20 $88.00 $136.20 $136.20 35.39% 

40 Sill Floor N No 1 $251.15 $671.20 $922.35 $922.35 27.23% 

41 3rd Floor No 1 $112.55 $243.85 $356.40 $356.40 31.58% 

42 2nd Floor W No 1 $84.40 $47.75 $132.15 $132.15 63.87% 

43 2nd Floor N No 1 $36.15 $98.05 $134.20 $134.20 26.94% 

44 2nd Floor NW No 1 $176.85 $346.90 $523.75 $523.75 33.77% 

45 Car Sample No 1 $40.20 $88.00 $128.20 $128.20 31.36% 

46 Car Sample No 2 $88.40 $108.10 $196.50 $196.50 44.99% 

47 Sill Floor S No 5 $8.00 $17.60 $25.60 $25.60 31.25% 

48 Sill Floor N No 5 $24.10 $47.75 $71.85 $71.85 33.54% 

49 Car Sample No 5 $64.30 $153.35 $217.65 $217.65 29.54% 

Tailings 

50 Calif Mill Pulp 8th $84.40 $113.10 $197.50 $197.50 42.73% 

51 Calif Mill Sulphurates 8th $8.00 $42.75 $50.75 $50.75 15.76% 

52 Calif Mill Night NS 8th $1.00 $7.50 $8.50 $8.50 11.76% 

53 Calif Mill Night SS 8th $1.35 $10.05 $11.40 $11.40 11.84% 

54 Calif Mill Day NS 8th $1.00 $8.80 $9.80 $9.80 10.20% 

55 Calif Mill Day SS 8th $0.50 $8.80 $9.30 $9.30 5.38% 

Totals $1,599.25 $3,034.20 $4,638.45 $4,633.45 

% 34.48% 65.41% 99.89% 

Abbreviations: 7th next to cars is batch number for cars tested; 8th next to California Mill entries is batch 

number for those types of assays; N, E, S, W & NW designate north, east, south, west & northwest, 

locations on floors where ore was extracted or piled at time of assays; No 1, No 2 & No 5 refer to tunnels 

where ore or car samples were taken; NS refers to north sluice and SS to south sluice at California Mill. 

Entry # 37 has an addition error. 


Even though California’s assay records gave more details about locations, 

Consolidated Virginia’s assays offered more details about the contents of the ores. A 

short ton of ore, of course, weighed 2,000 pounds, but from that ton only a few ounces of 

gold and silver were normally drawn. The more metal the richer the ton of ore. In many 

instances a ton of ore could be streaked with gold and silver and yield virtually nothing. 

The assay records of Consolidated Virginia included not just the value in dollars and 

cents of the gold and silver but also their weight in ounces per ton. On 1 April 1877, 24 

samples from unspecified locations were assayed. (I chose this date, not at random, but 

because the assay dataset was manageable.) On most days scores of tests were made on


5 

ores from Consolidated Virginia, and on some days nearly a hundred tests would be 

made. The number of assays was directly related to the number of tons of ore delivered to 

and prepared at the mill(s). The first question to ask, therefore, is whether the less 

voluminous ore yields in dollars and cents for this one day fit what has been computed as 

an average for the month. The April average per ton yield was $90 per ton, down from 

$94 per ton in March. The 1 April average was $82 per ton, somewhat below the two 

monthly averages and yet not so sharply divergent as to make further analysis irrelevant. 

It would appear that the per-ton yield on 1 April generally reflected the state of the mine 

in the spring of 1877. The second observation is that these 24 tons of ore from which 

samples were drawn yielded nearly 20 ounces of gold (4 percent) and 476 ounces of 

silver (95 percent) for a total of 495 ounces. Since gold was 16 times more valuable than 

silver by the standard formula gold accounted for $32 (39 percent) of the $82 per-ton 

yield and silver for $50 (61 percent). The more gold, of course, the richer the per-ton 

yields. Finally, the amount of gold and silver, based on the assays, indicated that some of 

the one-ton batches had little or no value and some had extraordinarily high value. 

Samples 1-2, 4-6, 9-13 and 9-13 came in at less than $20 per ton (combined gold and 

silver) or lower than the so-called Comstock break-even point. But the remaining samples 

made up for the low assays, from $26 per ton to $461. This was the magic of a Comstock 

bonanza, and why assays were important. Even though on average each ton yielded less 

than an ounce of gold (.81), more than 40 percent had at least one ounce and as much as 4 

ounces. A frequency-distribution table (below) shows the distribution of gold (by ounces) 

among the samples, and notably 38 percent had between one and two ounces of gold. 

Silver fell within a range of one ounce per ton to 113 ounces per ton. Sample 21 was the 

richest of them all with 117 ounces of gold and silver worth $461 ($177 for gold and 

$284). It is worth underlining that these assays were taken from an ore body that had 

been worked for approximately four years since the company made its first official 

declaration. A bit long in the tooth, one might conclude, and yet Consolidated Virginia 

could still make money. 7 FIGURE 2 

GOLD DISTRIBUTION 

Oz # % 

0.99 14 58% 

1.99 9 38% 

2.99 0 0% 

3.99 0 0% 

4.99 1 4% 

24 100% 

7 

Ore Assay, Assay Office of the Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, 1 April 1877, NC99/1/2/2, Bx 5, 

Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. Twelve additional samples were taken. Ten of 

them were identified as located at Mariposa Mill (primarily for tailings) or at surface facilities such as 

slimes or wastes. Two of the samples were identified as paid for by John Mackay. Except for Mackay’s 

samples at $127 and $143 per ton the per-ton values ranged between $3 and $50. Why Mackay was 

credited with two of the 12 samples was not explained.


6 

FIGURE 3 

ASSAY SAMPLES, WEIGHTS AND VALUES, CONSOLIDATED VIRGINIA 

ORE, 1 APRIL 1877 

Sample # Weight (ozs) Value ($) Gold 

Gold Silver Total Gold ($40+/oz) Silver ($2.50/oz) Total Total ($/oz) 

(calculated) 

(calculated) (calculated) 

1 0.100 3 3.100 $4.00 $7.55 $11.55 $11.55 $40.00 

2 0.100 3 3.100 $4.00 $7.55 $11.55 $11.55 $40.00 

3 0.150 8 8.150 $6.00 $20.10 $26.10 $26.10 $40.00 

4 0.050 2 2.050 $2.00 $5.00 $7.00 $7.00 $40.00 

5 0.075 4 4.075 $3.00 $10.05 $13.05 $13.05 $40.00 

6 0.025 1 1.025 $1.00 $2.50 $3.50 $3.50 $40.00 

7 0.750 17 17.750 $30.15 $42.65 $72.80 $72.80 $40.20 

8 1.600 20 21.600 $64.30 $50.20 $114.50 $114.50 $40.19 

9 0.025 1 1.025 $1.00 $2.50 $3.50 $3.50 $40.00 

10 0.025 1 1.025 $1.00 $2.50 $3.50 $3.50 $40.00 

11 0.025 1 1.025 $1.00 $2.50 $3.50 $3.50 $40.00 

12 0.025 1 1.025 $1.00 $2.50 $3.50 $3.50 $40.00 

13 0.050 2 2.050 $2.00 $5.00 $7.00 $7.00 $40.00 

14 1.000 22 23.000 $40.20 $55.20 $95.40 $95.40 $40.20 

15 1.950 64 65.950 $74.35 $160.65 $235.00 $235.00 $38.13 

16 1.300 27 28.300 $52.25 $67.75 $120.00 $120.00 $40.19 

17 1.625 31 32.625 $65.30 $77.80 $143.10 $143.10 $40.18 

18 1.400 42 43.400 $56.25 $105.40 $161.65 $161.65 $40.18 

19 1.200 14 15.200 $48.20 $35.15 $83.35 $83.35 $40.17 

20 1.200 23 24.200 $48.20 $57.75 $105.95 $105.95 $40.17 

21 4.400 113 117.400 $176.85 $283.65 $460.50 $460.50 $40.19 

22 0.800 22 22.800 $32.15 $55.20 $87.35 $87.35 $40.19 

23 0.500 25 25.500 $20.10 $62.75 $82.85 $82.85 $40.20 

24 1.000 29 30.000 $40.20 $72.80 $113.00 $113.00 $40.20 

Totals 19.375 476 495.375 $774.50 $1,194.70 $1,969.20 $1,969.20 

Average 0.807 19.8 20.64 $32.27 $49.78 $82.05 $82.05 $40.02 

Sources: See footnote 7. Each sample=one ton. 

Whether other companies were as disciplined as The Firm in conducting assays or 

could afford to be that disciplined cannot be determined on the basis of current archival 

records. Nor can it be shown how the companies used the assay data. Given the volume 

of assays conducted daily The Firm must have had as much first-hand information about 

the quality and character of its ore bodies as any company on the Comstock. The weekly 

reports seldom contained specific assay references, although they often reverted to 

descriptive adjectives such as “good”, “fine”, “favorable” and even “excellent” to 

describe the ore. From an historical perspective, however, assay data are valuable 

because they demonstrate so clearly the variation in the mineral content of an ore body 

that was by now well known but not always acknowledged. It is easy to assume from 

much that has been written that every batch or carload of ore was rich in gold and silver, 

and yet the assays revealed how unrealistic and mistaken such assumptions were. 

Experienced miners surely understood this phenomenon, and as the high assays in the 

underground workings began to disappear and low assays began to predominate (as was 

the case for both Consolidated Virginia and California in 1877 and 1878), they should


7 

have adjusted their strategies and forecasts, although they may have been reluctant to do 

so. One interesting observation from California’s assay records is that during 1876 the 

assays from the floors between 1,600 and 1,700 feet never reached the values of the 

assays from the floors between 1,500 and 1,600 feet. To be sure, assays from the lower 

floors yielded values that were still well above Comstock averages but not as high as the 

$100-per-ton-plus range of the upper floors. To cite one example, on 1 August 9 samples 

taken from the sill or main floors plus floors 8 through 10 of the No. 1 crosscut at 1,500 

feet came in at $202 per ton and 14 samples taken from the sill floor plus 2 through 8 of 

No. 5 crosscut at 1,550 feet at $69 per ton. The difference was significant because while 

both were higher than the assays of $39 per ton from the main crosscut at 1,600 feet, they 

pointed to a downward trend in assay value as the depth increased. Even if trends could 

be identified, they did not always hold up. Assays reduced some of the guessing but not 

all of it. 8 As the mines expanded and assays fell, companies must have known they were 

gambling on an outcome different from what the assays pointed to. Assays served as 

pointers, not predictors. 

FIGURE 4 

ORES CARS BEING UNLOADED FROM SHAFT, SAVAGE MINE 

In its most basic form mining was an earth-moving business. By the time of the 

1880 Census, which compiled information on the length of tunnels, drifts, crosscuts, 

shafts, inclines and winzes, the Comstock underground network was estimated to be 

nearly one million feet or 185 miles in length. Imagine a tunnel 10 feet by 10 feet 1 

million feet long. The volume of soil, rock, clay and ore that had to be removed to create 

this tunnel would be 100 million cubic feet. 9 But the underground network of 

8 

Report of Assays, 1 August-6 August 1876, California Mining Company, NC99/1/2/1, Bx 5, Special 


9 

1880 Census available On-Line at www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/1880.html, United States 

Census Bureau. Statistics and Technology of the Precious Metals, vol. 13, 124-125, Table XVI.


8 

approximately 1 million feet in length was far more complex than represented by the 

image of a single tunnel. The 1880 Census also reported on the average size of the 

network’s components: 10 Drifts 6’ x 7’ 

Single Winzes 6’ x 7’ 

Double Winzes 12’ x 7’ 

Shafts 5.5’ x 15’ 

Specific Shafts: 

Foreman 8.5’ x 28’ 

Combination 8.5’ x 28’ 

Yellow Jacket 9.5’ x 23’ 

Orbiston 8.5 x 23’ 

Old Shafts 8’ x 20’ 

This list surely did not exhaust all the possibilities of how spaces were created 

underground, but it underscored the diversity of spatial arrangements within mining 

complexes. All the shafts listed in the 1880 Census totaled 56,000 feet in length and 

averaged about 9 feet by 23 feet. The total cubic feet would be in excess of 12,000,000. 

The weight of so much debris would depend on the components – stone was heavier than 

dirt – but it too was measured in millions of pounds. Between 1860 and 1885 from 7 to 8 

million tons of ore - about 300,000 per year – was crushed and processed in Comstock 

mills. The tons of debris removed to extract and lift the ore were surely several times 

greater than the ore itself. 

As productive as Consolidated Virginia and California were, the underground 

network that they had carved out was not as large as some others. The most extensive 

underground network (by length) belonged to Chollar Potosi (approximately 65,000 feet) 

and next two were Overman/Caledonia and Yellow Jacket in Gold Hill (between 58,000 

and 59,000 feet). Overman and Caledonia mines had never ranked among the major 

producers, and Yellow Jacket had fallen from the ranking producers in the early 1870s. 

Consolidated Virginia and California (along with C&C Shaft) combined for about 66,000 

feet, 13 miles or 7 percent of the total. Ore had to be hoisted and some non-ore also had 

to be hoisted, but both ore and non-ore could be stored, the former temporarily, in 

abandoned tunnels, stations or galleries. Weekly reports acknowledged the problem of 

debris piling up in passageways used to ventilate the interiors or to transport the ores. 

Crumbling walls and collapsing ceilings also contributed to the debris. It was a 

continuous battle, even at operations as efficient as The Firm’s, managing both the 

unhoisted ore and the residue, especially the latter which never ended even in the richest 

parts of the ore bodies. Even when stored underground, the residue was constantly being 

moved from old to new storage areas and if the storage areas became impediments, it had 

to be lifted. In short, although daily and weekly reports noted the problems that arose 

from underground clutter, carload and hoisting data appeared with less regularity in the 

10 

1880 Census available On-Line at www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/1880.html, United States 

Census Bureau. Statistics and Technology of the Precious Metals, vol. 13, 125.


9 

accounts. Little direct evidence on how much debris was removed, where it was stored or 

how often it was relocated can be pulled from the companies’ records. But in creating this 

underground village of tunnels, galleys and shafts in all their variations must have 

consumed more time and effort than the act of extracting and removing the ore. 

FIGURE 5 

ILLUSTRATIONS OF ORE CARS 

[CARS FABRICATED ON-SITE WITH TIMBERS FROMNEARBY FORESTS. METAL PARTS 

FORGED LOCALLY OR IMPORTED FROM OTHER LOCALES 

By the late nineteenth century mechanization played an increasingly larger role in 

underground mining, and that included earth-moving activities. In Spanish American 

mines the workers were the transporters, and some could perform near incredible feats of 

hauling in sacks strapped to their backs a hundred or more pounds of ore up rope ladders 

several hundred feet to the surface. 11 On the Comstock few workers if any hauled ores to 

the surface or around the interior on their backs. Rather machines and conveyances 

performed the tasks of moving and hoisting. In his 1873 Report the State Mineralogist 

offered a description of how ors were removed from the interior of the mine: 

The ore, as it is worked out or broken down by the miners in the stope, is 

thrown down to the track station below, either falling upon the floor of the 

drift or into a receiver or bin, whence it is loaded into the drift car and 

carried to the shaft. There the car, containing its load, either of ore or 

waste rock, is placed upon the cage or platform in the shaft and raised to 

the surface, where it is run from the cage on to another track, and so 

11 

Peter Bakewell, “Mining in Colonial Spanish America,” in Leslie Bethell, ed., The Cambridge History of 

Latin America, The Colonial Period, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 130-131.


10 

conveyed to the appropriate ore bin or waste dump, according to its 

character, and thus delivered of its load without any intermediate handling. 

The car in general use in the Comstock Mines is made of wood, and has a 

capacity of one thousand six hundred or one thousand eight hundred 

pounds. 12 

Spared the arduous task of hauling the ore, late-nineteenth-century workers still 

performed equally arduous tasks of digging out the ores and loading up the cars that were 

lifted to the surface or transferred within the mine. Scores of picks, sledges, shovels, 

handles and drills (hand rather than mechanical) appeared in property inventories 

appended to company annual financial statements. 13 Some of the drilling had been 

mechanized by the mid-1870s with the introduction of diamond bits and air compressors, 

but much of the work of constructing a tunnel or mining a stope or loading a car was 

accomplished with picks, sledges and shovels. 

Consolidated Virginia kept daily hoist records that were specially described as 

conveyance of “pay ore”. Even though rock and waste hoists were also included, pay ore 

was the main product in the hoist records. These records usually had two sets of figures: 

ore that was hoisted from the mine and ore that was delivered to the mill. Hoisted ore was 

also referred to as extracted ore. The terms were used interchangeably. The records 

showed in tons and pounds the volume hoisted from the level to the surface each day of 

the month. For the month of June, 1874, for example, about 8,300 tons of ore were 

hoisted along with 750 tons of rock. A year later 16,068 tons of ore were hoisted but only 

108 tons of rock. Considerably more ore was hoisted than rock or other components, and 

for some days no rock was hoisted at all or not recorded as being hoisted. 14 The 

origination of the rock was not noted. Was it associated with the ore being hoisted or was 

it from another operation within the mine? The rock hoists were almost incidental to the 

ore hoists. Any attempt to determine a ratio between ore and rock hoists from the few 

dual entries found in the hoist records would be of little value. Far more non-ore hoists 

would have to be recorded to account for all the debris that had to be removed to reach 

the ore bodies. 

Consolidated Virginia was the mine of choice to visit because it was assumed 

(correctly) to be the most mechanized and best managed of the Comstock operations. Dan 

DeQuille, the Territorial Enterprise’s relentless and renowned scrivener, justified his 

choice to inspect Consolidated Virginia for precisely these reasons: “all the latest and 

most approved machinery and…all operations are conducted in systematic and scientific 

manner.” 15 Although specific are missing, like the data of the visit, DeQuille presumably 

12 



13 

See for example the Annual Report for the Year 1875 (issued 1876), Consolidated Virginia Mining 

Company, NC99/1/5/1 and Annual Report, 1876 (1877), California Mining Company, NC99/1/5/6, Special 

Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. Listed under Inventory of Property in both cases. 

14 

Ore Book, June 1874, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/1/3/3, After Bx 1, Special 

Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. Several accounts refer to the ore as “pay ore” since the 

term ore can have several meanings. Some ore could have streaks of gold and silver and yet be of such little 

value that it was discarded. 

15 

DeQuille, The Big Bonanza, 221.


11 

visited the hoisting works at Consolidated Virginia’s main shaft (not to be confused with 

the C & C Shaft and Hoisting Works under construction). The Virginia Shaft (as it was 

known) was badly damaged if not destroyed in the fire of October 1875, and although a 

new hoisting works was ready within months it seems unlikely that DeQuille was 

describing the new building since his book The Big Bonanza was published in 1876. 16 In 

any event the pre-fire hoisting works of Consolidated Virginia was reputed to be the best 

equipped and the most efficient at the time, and from DeQuille’s description it was 

indeed a building to behold. The main building was of “great size” to which was attached 

“several large wings”. In this complex of buildings were a boiler room (with its 

recognizable “tall, black smoke-stacks”), a blacksmith’s shop, a carpenter’s shop, a 

machine shop and of course the principal chamber with the hoists. “Almost the first 

object that attracts our attention upon entering the place [main room] is the mouth of the 

main shaft.” The reason – “great volumes of steam” curling and hissing out of the mouth. 

Upon closer inspection one observes an opening of about 5 feet wide by 20 feet long, 

which was divided into 4 compartments: 3 cages for carrying workers and ores and a 

fourth known as the pump compartment. The machines that ran the cages ands the pumps 

were located around the room with attendant engineers. For visitors, apparently, watching 

workers descend or ascend through the steam was a cause of ‘“palpitations of the heart’” 

Spooky to say the least: “Nothing can induce some persons to venture into the steaming 

shaft after they have taken one good look at it….” 17 The business at hand, of course, was 

to move workers back and forth from the surface of the mine and to hoist as much ore as 

was efficiently possible. 

The focus of the hoisting documents is on the ores. I have created a profile of orehoist 

data for each June from 1874 through 1879. To tally and analyze all the hoist 

figures would be an enormous undertaking (even with a computer), and while it might 

yield some interesting daily or monthly trends it probably would not add much more than 

can be observed from a more limited dataset. During six Junes from 1874 to 1879 

approximately 58,000 tons of ore were hoisted. (Figures more or less agreed with crushed 

ore totals at the mills.) A second set of figures – ore delivered or shipped to the mill – 

could differ from the hoisted figures by as little as a few tons or as much as several 

hundred tons. The June pattern of ore hoists followed the overall trend of ore production 

at Consolidated Virginia. June tonnage rose in 1875 over 1874, fell back in 1876, rose 

again in 1877 and declined sharply in 1878 and 1879. The June with the most tons 

hoisted – 16,000 or 28 percent- was 1875 and with the least tons – 3,500 or 6 percent - 

1879. Consolidated Virginia had access to three different shafts – Consolidated 

(Virginia), C&C and Gould & Curry. The records indicated that a few hundred tons were 

lifted through Gould & Curry, but the rest was lifted through Consolidated and C&C. 

Although the records noted how much was lifted through Gould & Curry, they did not 

distinguish between the two principal shafts. The Consolidated Virginia Shaft by location 

16 

The Big Bonanza did contain a final chapter (marked 73, pp. 426-436) on the “great fire” in which 

DeQuille noted that the Consolidated Virginia hoisting works was destroyed but made no mention of the 

new hoisting works. Mackay and Fair began construction immediately, and new hoisting works was in 

operation by the Spring, 1876. DeQuille’s book was published in 1876, and it seems unlikely that there was 

enough time to tour a finished building and include that tour in the book. Whichever building he was 

describing it was still impressive. 

17 

DeQuille, The Big Bonanza, 222-223.


12 

and connectors was the workhorse, no doubt, but being older and located in less stable 

ground it was in constant need of repair. Periodically it went out of service, and in May 

1878 it was closed for the rest of that year to be retimbered. The C&C Shaft was deeper 

and faster but like Gould & Curry was connected to the stations that served the ore 

galleries through long drifts. Stations for loading ores into hoisting cages were located at 

every 100 feet between 1,200 and 1,500 feet and (beginning at 1,550) at every 100 feet 

between 1,550 and 1,950. At 1,550 a station in Consolidated Virginia was connected to a 

drift from Gould & Curry and to C&C. All the stations below 1.550 eventually had 

access to C&C. During the six Junes about 1 percent of the hoisted ore was loaded 

through stations at 1,200 and 1,850 feet and only a tenth of a percent came from the 

station at 1,950 feet. Between 5 and 7 percent was loaded at 1,400 and 1,750 respectively. 

Two-thirds of the ores were loaded at station 1,500, 1,550 and 1,650. The station at 1,500 

accounted 26 percent, followed by 1,650 with 23 percent and 1,550 with 19 percent. The 

ranking of the stations changed from year to year as extractions underground changed 

course. In June 1874 ore was hoisted only from 1,300 and 1,400 in almost equal 

proportion, and a year later ore was lifted from 1,400, 1,500 and 1,550 with more than 

three-fifths from 1,500, one third from 1,400 and the remainder from 1,550. In 1876 

while stations at 1,400 and 1,500 contributed 16 and 22 percent respectively, the action 

had clearly shifted to 1,550 with 62 percent of the total. The station at 1,650 came into its 

own in 1877 with two-thirds of the hoists, but 1,550 continued strong with the remaining 

one third. Before 1877 most of the ore above 1,550 was probably hoisted through the 

Virginia shaft because it was closer to the ore body. After 1877, however, as new drifts 

were opened between the ore bodies and the C&C, the new shaft was preferred. And, of 

course, in 1878 the main shaft was closed for most of the year so that C&C made almost 

all the hoists. Gould & Curry was marginal at best because it was a long trip of about 

1,500 feet from the mine to the shaft. In 1878 ore was hoisted from four stations. 

Extractions resumed at 1,200 with 7 percent and had reached 1,850 with 8 percent. Two 

other deep stations – 1,650 and 1,750 – accounted for 58 percent and 35 percent 

respectively, although total hoists had fallen to 8,200. In the final June (1879) total hoists 

came in at the lowest figure (3,800) since 1874 with 98 percent from 1,500 and the 

remaining 2 percent at 1,950. No new ore bodies were found at 2,000 and below, and the 

existing ore body, as enormous as it was, had reached its edge. 18 

During the six Junes profiled above nearly 58,000 tons of ore were hoisted from 

all stations between 1,200 and 1,950 feet. By a simple calculation the average daily hoist 

amounted to 320 tons (58,000 tons/180 days). Some daily hoists in the most active June, 

1875, came in between 700 and 800 tons. Hoist figures from Eliot Lord by way of the 

Territorial Enterprise covered three different dates: 461 tons on 19 March 1875 (which 

Lord called a “notable exhibit”), 908 tons on 16 March 1876 and (a whopping) 1,034 tons 

on 26 November 1877 19 Although the assignment of the specific shaft was vague, the first 

two figures appeared to be hoists through the main shaft of Consolidated Virginia. The 

18 

Ore Books, June, 1874-79, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/1/3/3, After Bx 1, Special 


19 

Ore Book, June, 1875, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/1/3/3, After Bx 1, Special 

Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno; Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 312 with citations 

from Dan DeQuille, The Big Bonanza…, 324, and two issues of Territorial Enterprise, 16 March 1876 and 

28 November 1877.


13 

final figure of 1,034 could not be related explicitly to any shaft. Of these three daily 

hoists the first figure, reported by DeQuille, was above the aforementioned daily average 

but hardly controversial. The second and third figures were more than double the first and 

greatly surpassed the average from the hoist records. From the June hoist records the year 

1875 was the highest of the six Junes: on a daily basis (to compare with Eliot’s figures) 

the company hoisted between 600 and 700 tons during seven days, between 500 and 600 

toms over 16 days and under 500 tons for seven days. (Note: the company hoisted every 

day of the month.) No other June in the profile matched this hoisting schedule. One 

should pause to consider what was involved here with ore being hoisted from several 

different levels and perhaps in several different shafts. The average for June, 1875, was 

536 tons per day. How many trips would be required to lift that volume of ore over 24 

hours? About 22 tons had to be lifted each hour an average distance of about 1,500 feet. 

Since, according to Consolidated Virginia’s own records, each car carried from 1,600 to 

1,800 pounds, about 26 cars would have to be lifted every hour from the interior to the 

surface. If one car (actually 1.08 cars) were lifted in each hoist then 2.5 minutes would be 

allowed to place the car in the cage, hoist the cage to the surface, remove the car from the 

cage and drop the cage. That was hardly possible. The key was the number of cages, each 

with a single car, which could be lifted at once. A double or triple compartment shaft, 

each with its own cage or a deck of two or three cages in each compartment would 

multiply greatly the number of cars to load, lift and unload cars in one hour. (In the shafts 

with double- or triple-decker cages and more than one compartment, it was possible for 

one compartment to ascend while the other compartment was descending, and they could 

load and unload simultaneously.) In these multi-compartment shafts with multi-deck 

cages 700 to 800 cars and perhaps even 900 to 1,000 could be lifted in a day so long as 

equipment breakdowns and traffic snarls did not delay the operations. More than likely an 

average lift of 500 cars per day over an extended period would be considered highly 

efficient and successful, although both the anecdotal and archival record indicated that 

average-day number could be trumped. 

There is no question that C&C Shaft was a large, powerful and efficient system 

that could have shattered previous hoist records. Lord, ever fascinated by the application 

of technology to mining, compiled C&C Shaft data, some of which may have been drawn 

from the 1880 Census. The main hoisting engine in the newly constructed C&C Shaft 

was described as a “double cylinder, horizontal, direct-acting, with brake fly-wheels” 

2,000 horsepower engine. The 1880 Census described it as a “double cylinder, 26-inch 

diameter by 6-foot stroke, direct acting” of 2,200 horsepower. 20 (In an 1881 report the 

C&C Shaft hoisting engine was said to have 2,680 horses while the Yellow Jacket engine 

was slightly larger at 2,941 horses.) It could whisk a three-decker, iron cage (4,000 

pounds) with three cars (1,200 pounds each) loaded with 4,800 pounds (1,600 pounds 

each) of ore or waste for a total of 12,400 pounds with “perfect ease” while lowering a 

companion cage at the same time. (It also had a third compartment for auxiliary 

operations.) If raising and lowering triple-decker cages could be accomplished in 

20 

1880 Census On-Line at www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/1880.html, United States Census 

Bureau. Statistics and Technology of the Precious Metals, vol. 13, 130, Table 18. Both Lord and the 1880 

Census specify triple-decker cage, although in an earlier description of the shaft operations Fair used the 

term double-decker cage. It is possible that a third deck was added or that somehow three cars could be 

loaded in an essentially double-decker cage.


14 

minutes, one could project, by re-doing the arithmetic a scenario like 6 hoists with 18 

cars per hour and a 9 and 10 minutes turn-around. If the arithmetic reflected the actual 

circumstances, than lifting up to a thousand tons per day, as Lord averred (although I 

could not confirm with the successive June data), was feasible. One has to assume that 

not only did the machinery work efficiently and continuously under very tight 

scheduling, but (as Eliot himself suggested) the work force also performed with 

efficiency and diligence. 21 The average daily tonnage of 320 hoisted during the six Junes 

from 1874 through 1879 works out to a more manageable number of four hoists per hour 

(in a triple-decker cage). 

It is inconceivable that deep underground mining necessary to exploit the riches 

of the Comstock could ever have achieved even modest success without the new 

technologies in the form of bigger motors, stronger materials and better mechanics. 

Moving workers, supplies and ores a third of a mile in a matter of minutes could not have 

happened without the technological benefits that grew out of the so-called industrial 

revolution. Under such heavy and constant use, however, the components of the systems 

were subject to considerable “worn and tear.” At an operation as large as Consolidated 

Virginia hundreds of cars were needed to move ore (or waste) to the surface. Over the 

course of a year dozens if not scores of cars were damaged or destroyed. Cars were 

fabricated on site because the technology was fairly straightforward and simple. 

Consolidated Virginia bought wheels and axles of certain specifications from iron and 

steel fabricators. The carriages were made from timbers purchased locally, the same 

timbers used to frame the interior of the mine. Apparently management paid close 

attention to how well suppliers handled their orders. In one order for 12 sets of wheels 

and axles Fair reminded the supplier, Prescott Scott & Company: “Please have them 

made correctly this time!” as an earlier batch did not meet specifications. 22 Perhaps more 

important to the hoisting operation was the cable that pulled the cage to the surface or 

dropped it to the interior. Not only did the cable have to be strong enough to handle five 

to six tons, but it also had to be laced properly to pass smoothly through the pulleys and 

coil onto or uncoil from the drums easily. Wire cables or “wire ropes”, as they were 

called, predominated in Nevada mining as well as in Story County mines. The flat variety 

was more common than the round or the combination of flat and round varieties. They 

came in various sizes and dimensions, all of which were duly recorded in the 1880 

Census. 23 Cables could be purchased from domestic and foreign suppliers. In one 

purchase from Hazard Manufacturing, San Francisco, Fair acknowledged the arrival of 

the wire rope in good time and good condition. He complained, however, that the cost at 

29 cents a pound plus the freight made the purchase more expensive than he had 

anticipated. He urged Hazard to find a more economical way to deliver such a heavy item 

21 

Ore Book, June, 1875, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/1/3/3, After Bx 1, Special 

Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno; Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 347-348 plus 

footnote 1, p. 347. 1880 Census On-Line at www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/1880.html, United 

States Census Bureau. Statistics and Technology of the Precious Metals, vol. 13, 136. 

22 

Copy of Letter from James Fair to Prescott Scott & Co, 11/13/75, Letterpress Book, Consolidated 

Virginia Mining Company, 1 September 1875-27 January 1876, NC99/2/5, Bx 6, Special Collections, 


23 

1880 Census On-Line at www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/1880.html, United States Census 

Bureau. Statistics and Technology of the Precious Metals, vol. 13, 135-137, Table 22.


15 

in order to lower the total cost. Three months later Mackay complained in a letter to 

Hazard that the rope did not work properly because it was incorrectly laced. The wire, he 

wrote, was “much inferior to any I ever saw [with] cracks and breaks.” He declared their 

product unsatisfactory. By the end of 1876 Fair was negotiating with an English 

company, Henry W. Hammond, to supply wire rope. He specified that it was to be 5 

inches by ½ and 2,200 feet long. He wrote that “The quality and manufacture is [sic] the 

most important item”, and then he added that the company must find an economical way 

to ship the product from England to the western United States. 24 Fair did not disclose the 

price under consideration, and whether the purchase was ever consummated Surely the 

freight alone would have made the cable per pound more costly than a domestic brand, 

although the higher cost might well have been offset by better performance and longer 

life. Despite frequent complaints about suppliers’ high prices Mackay and Fair were 

known to be willing to sacrifice price for quality. In the case of wire rope a defective 

product imperiled the lives of the workers who rode the cages daily and jeopardized the 

efficiency of the operation. 

While the above referred to cable 5 inches by ½, a common size for Comstock 

shafts, the cable in the dual-compartment, triple-decker-cage C&C Shaft used a heavier 

flat steel cable – 7 inches by 5/8 th although the third or pump compartment had a standard 

5 inches by ½ cable. Another Mackay and Fair property, Union Shaft, also used the 7 

inch cable for its three-decker cage. The largest cable belonged to the “new” Yellow 

Jacket Shaft. It was 8 by 5/8 th and lifted a double-decker cage, each of which carried two 

cars side by side for a total of about 16,000 pounds. While the hoisting system required 

an expensive plant, in particular a reinforced foundation to hold the engine, pulleys, gears 

and the hoisting frame, the size and the strength of the cable became a metaphor for 

applications that could speed up the operations. In the case of the Comstock steel cables 

had replace hemp ropes found in the earliest shafts, and the size of the cable quadrupled 

in a decade. Hoisting hundreds of tons of ore or rock as well as hundreds of workers 

could not have taken place without stronger cages, bigger engines and of course larger 

cables. The average life of a standard cable was said to be about two years. In the C&C 

Shaft, according to the census agents, it had a lifetime of 18 months. Was the shorter 

lifetime of the hoisting cable at C&C a direct result of the heavy daily hoisting schedule 

discussed above? The tears and splits in the cable wire often occurred in the “sheaves” or 

pulleys built at each station so the cage could be securely latched for loading and 

unloading. In C&C the sheaves were reported to be 45 feet high and 11 feet in diameter. 

Cables could be mended, but the task required the replacing of large sections – 75 to 100 

feet – of the cable. If Mackay and Fair were paying about 30 cent per foot for the fiveinch 

cable, and, say, twice that for a seven inch cable then replacement could run between 

$50,000 and $100,000 for cable from 2,000 to 3,000 feet in length. Given the output of 

their mines the outlay for new cable was probably not viewed as a major expense. It may 

24 

Copy of Letter from James Fair to Hazard Manufacturing Co., 12/03/75 and from John Mackay to 

Hazard Manufacturing Company, 03/26/76, Letterpress Book, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, 1 

September 1875-27 January 1876, NC99/2/5, Bx 6, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at 

Reno; Copy of Letter from James Fair to Henry W. Hammond, 12/23/76, Letterpress Book, Consolidated 

Virginia Mining Company, 1 November1876-31 August 1878, NC99/2/8, Bx 6, Special Collections, 



16 

have been a different story at Yellow Jacket’s new shaft because the attempt to recover 

that mine never achieved profitability. 25 

25 

The 1880 Census contained information on hoisting cables for all the major mines and shafts on the 

Comstock. 1880 Census On-Line at www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/1880.html, United States 

Census Bureau. Statistics and Technology of the Precious Metals, vol. 13, 136-138.

THE COMSTOCK [0] 

1 

Chapter 15 


Labor Component, C&C Joint Shaft, Squire Dewey & Financial Chicanery 

As noted earlier, Eliot Lord, a staunch laissez-faire advocate who disliked iron-clad 

agreements governing wages and hours and opposed unionization, held the Comstock 

laborer in high esteem. The reason was that he like so many others had to acknowledge 

that Comstock workers as a group surpassed all expectations. In short, they were 

generally productive under the most trying conditions. Machines hoisted the ores, but 

workers performed the task that made the hoists possible. In an earlier chapter I discussed 

wages, hours and working conditions in general terms, but in this chapter I want to 

expand on the role of the worker by examining worker-related documentation from the 

archives of Consolidated Virginia, California and ancillary companies. In addition to 

detailed statistics on daily, monthly and quarterly payrolls over several years I can also 

draw from the records a portrait of how the regimen of work was organized and managed 

within the mines and mills. Even though The Firm invested heavily in technology, its 

operations could not function without hundreds and at times thousands of laborers above 

and below ground. To study the details of work patterns and employment practices over 

several years even at the largest and richest of the mining companies will help to clarify 

how the Comstock achieved the performance that it did. 

Because The Firm had created its mining and milling behemoth through a series 

independent corporations wage and salary data must be assembled from several different 

sets of payrolls and ledgers. And, as is often the case with an array of historical numeric 

datasets for a given inquiry, finding patterns in numeric data from different sources can 

be challenging. Despite these challenges very solid information on wages and salaries 

paid to various occupational categories can be assembled and analyzed. Wage and salary 

data were not kept from public view. Public documents such as the State Mineralogist’s 

reports and the 1880 Census compiled information on wages and salaries as well as 

working conditions. Wage and salary data were summarized in the companies’ Annual 

Reports. Since many daily wages were set during contract negotiations with various 

unions, they became a part of the public record mainly through local newspapers. 

Company records add more details about compensation profiles and work regimens than 

was available through published accounts. 

Since The Firm controlled the largest combine of businesses ever assembled on 

the Comstock and had a reputation for efficiency, its labor component is a matter of 

interest. In 1875, when Consolidated Virginia had its most productive year (in spite of the 

October fire), the value of its bullion was about $17 million. The company spent about $3 

million dollars to operate the mine and extract the ore. Of that total $800,000 or 27 

percent was paid out in wages and salaries. (Compare to $14 million paid out for 

reduction and dividends.) Three years later in 1878 when bullion yields had fallen in half 

to $8 million, mining costs (excluding reduction and dividend expenses) came in at about 

$2.5 million with wages and salaries at about $650,00 or 26 percent. And a year after 

that, as bullion yields continued to fall to $2.5 million, operational expenditures (minus 

dividend and reduction expenses) also fell to $1.1 million with wages and salaries just


2 

under $300,000 or 27 percent. The profile at California was only slightly different from 

Consolidated Virginia. Data from four of five years between 1876 and 1880 (1879 is 

missing) indicate that wages and salaries comprised from 23 to 31 percent of the mine’s 

operating costs. In short, employee compensation in these mines whether production was 

rising or falling fell in a range between 25 and 30 percent of total operating costs. 

Another angle for analyzing compensation is to compute the percentage in wages and 

salaries not of total operating costs but of total bullion yields. When yields were in the 

vicinity of $100 per ton the wage-and-salary bill absorbed 3 to 4 percent of the total 

value, and when yields began to drop below $50 per ton and then $40 per ton that bill 

absorbed 10 to 20 percent of the total value. While compensation as a percentage of total 

operating expenses was more or less range-bound, compensation as a percentage of total 

bullion value rose as yields fell. Even though many more hundreds of workers were 

needed during the boom years than during the lean years, the total compensation outlay in 

percentage terms was modest. As the work force dwindled in size, however, employment 

compensation took on much greater significance. 1 

Despite the usefulness of these public disclosures on wages and salaries the 

payroll ledgers kept by the individual mining companies add many more details to 

compensation profiles. Although these archives are extensive, they contain far less data 

prior to 1876 than after. That affects the analysis of Consolidated Virginia more than 

California because the latter did not officially begin producing ore until 1876. Because of 

the size of the post-1876 payroll archives I have selected samples rather than trying to 

incorporate and analyze all of the archival material. 2 I will begin with a profile of the 

labor force at Consolidated Virginia based on payroll data from January, 1876. Two 

factors should be kept in mind with respect to the January data. Rehabilitation of the mine 

after the fire of the previous October was still underway, and yet the delivery of nearly 

20,000 tons of ore to the mills was among the highest of any month in the history of the 

mine. Based upon the number of vouchers issued to workers, the company had a mine 

payroll (not including mills or ancillary operations) of 547 employees. On the first day of 

the month (New Year’s Day) 437 workers were on the job aboveground and below. 

During the month 100 more workers had been added to the payroll. The figure of 547 

represented the number employed for one or more days. Some employees were paid off 

after only a few days, but the majority logged at least 28 days of work. Such counts can 

be made from the payrolls by day or month over a five-year period. 3 

The size of Consolidated Virginia’s work force in January (and in the two 

subsequent months) was larger than normal because of the reconstruction on the surface 

and in the shaft. Reconstruction absorbed about a fifth of the work force. There were, for 

example, 19 bricklayers and 96 carpenters (including assistants) on the payroll, far more 

than would ever be needed for strictly underground work. The full list of occupations 

1 

Annual Reports for Consolidated Virginia and California Mining Companies are located in NC99/1/5/1 

and NC99/1/5/6-7, Bx 2, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. 

2 

The data are so voluminous that one could follow the work regimen on a daily basis over several years. 

Such an approach would be appropriate for a detailed labor history. 

3 

Time Book (Duplicate), January-February, 1876, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/3/4, Bx 

9, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. Original accounts covered one month, and 

duplicates two months. They contained the same data. I have used the duplicate as a matter of convenience.


3 

along with wages and salaries numbered more than 50. The largest category remained 

miners (the infamous $4-day workers) with 45 percent. Next came the carpenters with 18 

percent and then laborers with 10 percent. Nine of the occupations paid salaries instead of 

wages. The highest paid employee was the assayer whose salary was set at $500 per 

month or nearly $17 per day. Few jobs were as important as the assayer’s, for it required 

a mastery of basic chemistry and testing techniques. No job paid less than $3.50 per day, 

nearly a fifth of the jobs falling in that category. Some jobs compensated workers at 

different scales. For example, 16 timbermen had been hired with three receiving $4.50 

per day and the remaining 13 received $4.00 per day. It could not be determined if skill 

accounted for the difference. A single diamond driller on the company’s payroll earned 

$7.00 per day for 13 days and $5.00 per day for 16 days. Of the four brakemen one was 

paid $4.50 per day, one $4.00 per day and the remaining two $3.50 per day. In some 

instances, where varying scales existed, the highest wage was reserved for “bosses” such 

as the head carpenter and lower wages were paid to his underlings. Those who received 

salaries instead of wages, besides the assayer, were: assistant assayer ($250) head 

carpenter ($200) cupeller ($175), foremen ($200), melters ($175), melter’s assistants 

($150) and mine engineer ($200). It is worth noting that $150 per month (for melter’s 

assistant) was only $5 per day, the equivalent of a machinist, timekeeper or for that 

matter the clerk to the melter. Perhaps those who were paid monthly salaries had greater 

flexibility in choosing their hours, but, if so, it could not be discerned from the accounts 

themselves. Among the wage earners the highest paid at $7 per day were the head 

bricklayer, the carter (who apparently provided his own horse) and the diamond driller 

for at least some days. The vast majority of the workers on this list earned about $4 per 

day. Many of the other underground workers such as car-men, bulk-headers, riggers, 

pick-boys and station-tenders were paid the same wage ($4.00 per day) as miners because 

they had essentially underground jobs. On the other hand, at the lowest daily wage 

($3.50) were clerks, woodmen, oilers, lamp-boys and cleaners, whose work were not as 

skilled and could be above and below ground. If one were to divide January’s total 

payroll by the number of employees and then by a 30-day month, the average 

remuneration per day would be slightly above $3 00, a figure that was lower than any of 

the actual wages or salaries. The reason for this stemmed from the notation above - not 

all of the 547 employees worked a full month. 4 

Employment levels changed from month to month. Figure 2 was drawn up from 

both payroll and mill data for January, 1876, through June, 1878. The company’s payroll 

data included the total number of vouchers issued to the work force each month and the 

total outlay to cover those vouchers; mill data, as a proxy for extracted and hoisted ore, 

showed how much ore before crushing was delivered to the mills. In the 30 months for 

which we have figures 10,134 vouchers were issued with a total outlay of $1,059,368. In 

the same period 422,147 tons of ore were delivered to the mills. The labor cost to extract 

that volume of ore was $2.51 per ton. Each worker (not just miners) roughly produced 42 

tons each month or 1.39 tons per day in a 30-day month. It must be stressed that these 

4 

Time Book (Duplicate), January-February, 1876, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/3/4, Bx 

9, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno.


4 

figures are not derived from the dollar value of the bullion but from the volume of 

extracted ore. 5 FIGURE 1 

LABOR COSTS, CONSOLIDATED VIRGINIA MINING COMPANY, 

JANUARY 1876-JUNE 1878 

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] 

Jan 1876 547 $50,026 19,891 $2.52 1.21 

Feb 546 $58,999 26,061 -0.18% 17.94% 31.02% $2.26 1.59 

Mar 556 $60,848 26,984 1.83% 3.13% 3.54% $2.25 1.62 

Apr 455 $48,702 17,354 -18.17% -19.96% -35.69% $2.81 1.27 

May 402 $43,416 12,230 -11.65% -10.85% -29.53% $3.55 1.01 

Jun 359 $33,422 7,539 -10.70% -23.02% -38.36% $4.43 0.70 

Jul 365 $36,281 4,597 1.67% 8.55% -39.02% $7.89 0.42 

Aug 250 $25,157 3,545 -31.51% -30.66% -22.88% $7.10 0.47 

Sep 299 $32,333 6,976 19.60% 28.52% 96.78% $4.63 0.78 

Oct 394 $42,921 12,608 31.77% 32.75% 80.73% $3.40 1.07 

Nov 467 $21,312 13,505 18.53% ** 7.11% ** 0.96 

Dec 367 $41,436 4,765 -21.41% ** -64.72% $8.70 0.43 

Jan 1877 244 $26,739 6,348 -33.51% -35.47% 33.22% $4.21 0.87 

Feb 244 $25,406 5,908 0.00% -4.99% -6.93% $4.30 0.81 

Mar 243 $27,808 7,051 -0.41% 9.45% 19.35% $3.94 0.97 

Apr 217 $24,703 12,945 -10.70% -11.17% 83.59% $1.91 1.99 

May 249 $28,003 13,979 14.75% 13.36% 7.99% $2.00 1.87 

Jun 257 $27,570 14,744 3.21% -1.55% 5.47% $1.87 1.91 

Jul 255 $27,550 13,698 -0.78% -0.07% -7.09% $2.01 1.79 

Aug 283 $30,830 14,358 10.98% 11.91% 4.82% $2.15 1.69 

Sep 315 $34,916 15,032 11.31% 13.25% 4.69% $2.32 1.59 

Oct 275 $31,380 18,487 -12.70% -10.13% 22.98% $1.70 2.24 

Nov 275 $31,144 21,248 0.00% -0.75% 14.93% $1.47 2.58 

Dec 302 $34,389 19,467 9.82% 10.42% -8.38% $1.77 2.15 

Jan 1878 287 $33,536 22,066 -4.97% -2.48% 13.35% $1.52 2.56 

Feb 281 $30,758 22,421 -2.09% -8.28% 1.61% $1.37 2.66 

Mar 287 $29,331 19,502 2.14% -4.64% -13.02% $1.50 2.27 

Apr 274 $31,161 20,245 -4.53% 6.24% 3.81% $1.54 2.46 

May 448 $46,295 11,799 63.50% 48.57% -41.72% $3.92 0.88 

Jun 391 $42,996 6,794 -12.72% -7.13% -42.42% $6.33 0.58 

Total 10134 $1,059,368 422,147 $2.51 1.39 

Legend: [1] Month; [2] # of Vouchers; [3] Total Labor Costs; [4] Total Tons; [5] % Change Voucher; 

[6] % Change Costs; [7] % Change Tons; [8] Cost Per Ton; [9] Worker Output Tons Per Day. 

Notes: Data for total compensation in November 1876 are incomplete. Percentages changes for November 

and December 1876 not calculated. Also cost per ton in November 1876 not calculated. Worker output per 

day based on assumption that each worked 30 days per month. Output figures would be somewhat higher if 

based on actual days worked. It is assumed that the number of vouchers issued was generally equal to 

actual number working. 


5 

Payroll data in Figure 1 and discussed in text assembled from the Time Books (Duplicates), January 1876- 

June 1878, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/3/1-70, Bxs 9, 10 & 11, and ore data from 

Bullion Records, 1876-1878, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, MC99/1/3/5, After Bx 1, Special 



5 

FIGURE 2 

COMPARISON OF PAY VOUCHERS AND ORE TONS, MONTHLY, 

CONSOLIDATED VIRGINIA MINING COMPANY 

600 

500 

400 

300 

200 

100 

0 

Vouchers 

Tons 

30,000 

25,000 

20,000 

15,000 

10,000 

5,000 

0 


The size of the work force, one would assume, was directly linked to the output of 

the mine. As underground activity increased, more workers were added to the payroll, 

and conversely as it contracted, workers were trimmed from the payroll. But the 

correlation between numbers of employees and tonnage for the 30 months is relatively 

weak at 33 percent. In Figure 2 graph shows that employment and production generally 

moved in the same direction, but the association began to fall apart in the spring of 1877. 

In fact between January 1876 and March 1877 the relationship was nearly perfect at 90 

percent. In the final 15 months, however, it came in at a negative reading of –17 percent. 

By April 1876 the upswing in production and employment had peaked, and for the next 

five months both indicators dropped sharply. In August production fell below 5,000 tons, 

the lowest since February 1874, and employment fell to 250. This was followed by an 

upturn in both production and employment through November, as production tripled and 

employment doubled. Both fell in December (production once again dropping below 

5,000 tons). The shrinkage in employment opportunities at Consolidated Virginia that 

began during the second quarter provoked James Fair to advise those who wrote the 

company about employment to avoid the Comstock, for it was “overcrowded with young 

men out of employment.” 6 The employment of so many construction workers in the first 

quarter did not appear to distort the correlation because underground and surface workers 

were also needed to move out the ore that had piled up during the quarter after the fire. 

About the same time that the reconstruction was finished and those workers were 

released, the ore in storage as well as the extractable ore in the galleries themselves was 

waning with an attendant reduction in the labor force. The association between 

production and employment levels fit the expected pattern for two years. 

6 

Copy of Letter from James Fair to Arthur W. Scott, 12 July 1876, Letterpress Book, 24 May-17 August 

1876, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/2/6, Bx 6, Special Collections, Library, University of 

Nevada at Reno.


6 

In early 1877 the two variables began a divergence that continued through the 

first half of 1878. Production will climb gradually until it exceeded 20,000 tons in the 

spring of 1878, while employment will remain static at between 200 and 300 workers. In 

the last two months, May and June 1878, before the employment series came to an end, 

the lack of convergence between the two indicators was at its sharpest point. Employment 

jumped to between 400 and 500, but production plummeted to just above 5,000 tons. In 

the absence of any company explanation for the divergence, the most likely reason for 

maintaining such a large work force inside a mine whose ore reserves were diminishing 

was repair and exploration, both of which were necessary, even though costly, in times of 

falling output so long as management did not believe that the bonanza had ended (and 

that was certainly the case in 1877 and 1878). Despite less than positive indicators 

explorations below 1,700 feet intensified with the hope of relocating the quartz fissure 

that held the riches between 1,200 and 1,700 feet. The explorations proved to be fruitless, 

and eventually the level of employment had to reflect this condition. While payroll 

records for the second half of 1878 were not found, monthly figures on tons of ore 

delivered to the mills bounced around between 5,000 and 8,000 before skidding to about 

2,000 in December 1878. It would be reasonable to assume a reduction in payrolls, but 

given the rise in employment the previous months it remains an assumption. Over the 

next two years, however, payrolls clearly shrunk. In the last 12 months before April 1881, 

when a fire closed the mine, the average monthly employment was fewer than 150 

workers. Miners came to constitute 85 to 90 percent of all the personnel. In addition to 

miners the payroll included foremen, shifts bosses, assayers and their assistants, a 

reduction not only in numbers but skills. Miners’ daily wages remained at $4 per day but 

nearly all the other wages and salaries had been reduced. The assayer formerly paid $500 

per month was now paid $300, and the foremen who previously earned $200 per month 

now received $125 (just slightly above the miner’s per diem wage). The payroll now 

included other company employees such as accountant at $250 per month. By this time, 

the remaining principals (Fair had departed and O’Brien had died) and stockholders must 

have known that Consolidated Virginia’s had reached the end of its long run, although 

explorations through the C&C Shaft at 3,000 feet and below continued. 7 

Comstock workers, especially those underground, had gained a reputation locally 

as extraordinarily productive under trying conditions. With data from Consolidated 

Virginia (and California) it is possible to make some tentative estimates about worker 

productivity. It cannot be assumed that the findings for The Firm’s mines apply across 

the Comstock. Much depended, of course, on the ore bodies and how the mining 

companies managed them. By the same token The Firm’s mines were among the premier 

operations, and if productivity could be advanced significantly, these operations should 

be leading the way. The period under consideration included the 30 months between 

January 1876 and June 1878. In the period Consolidated Virginia issued 10,134 monthly 

vouchers for a monthly median of 293. Total monthly tonnage was 422,147 with a 

median of 13,839. That reduces to 47 tons per voucher holder, although, to repeat an 

earlier point, some voucher holders did not work a full month. On a daily basis (without 

taking into account days worked) each voucher holder accounted for approximately a ton 

7 

Weekly Reports, Report of Operations, 14 May 1880-1 April 1882, Consolidated Virginia Mining 

Company, NC99/1/1/4, Bx 3, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno.


7 

and a half of ore. Daily productivity was volatile. 8 In fact there was a wide range from 

less than half a ton (for example, July-August 1876) to more than two and a half tons 

(late 1877, early 1878). Not surprisingly when the output per day per worker fell the cost 

of labor per ton rose, and conversely when it rose the cost fell. In purely human terms, 

however, handling from two to three tons of ore per day required an effort that few of us 

could aspire to, especially when mechanization will still in its infancy. As large as 

Consolidated Virginia’s payroll was relative to other companies, one may reasonably ask, 

why was it not bigger? Between October 1877 and April 1878 output per day per worker 

ranged from a low of 2.15 tons to a high of 2.66 with a median of 2.46 tons per day per 

worker. During the seven months approximately 280 workers handled 20,000 tons month 

after month. From a statistical standpoint workers were extracting, loading and hoisting 

more ore during the decline in production than during the expansion. 9 

FIGURE 3 

COMPARISON OF LABOR COSTS PER TON EXTRACTED ORE AND 

OUTPUT PER WORKER, JANUARY, 1876-JUNE, 1878 

$10.00 

$9.00 

$8.00 

$7.00 

$6.00 

$5.00 

$4.00 

$3.00 

$2.00 

$1.00 

$0.00 

Cost per Ton 

Output per Worker 

3.00 

2.50 

2.00 

1.50 

1.00 

0.50 

0.00 


For the remainder of 1876 as output moved back and forth in a range between 

3,500 and 17,000 tons both cost and output per worker suffered materially. Labor costs 

per ton reached as high as $8.70 in December, and output fell below one ton per worker. 

(November’s per-ton costs, as shown, are inaccurate because total labor costs were 

inaccurately reported.) This occurred even as the size of the labor force was shrinking. 

Starting in January 1877 improvements in both cost per ton and output per worker 

became readily apparent. And they continued into 1878. But unlike the first quarter, when 

8 

The calculation is not perfect: monthly tonnage divided by monthly voucher holders divided by 30 

(assumed days worked each month). 

9 

The average and median figures are very close.


8 

ore production and mine employment were on the rise, the post-January trends embraced 

rising extractions with stable payrolls. The result of these diverging trends was that the 

outlay for labor per ton fell as low as $1.37 and output per worker rose as high as 2.66 

tons in February 1879. Most notably, when production was hovering around 20,000 to 

22,000 tons from December 1877 through February 1878, volume comparable to the first 

quarter of 1876, there were a third fewer workers on the payroll than during the first 

quarter (even if the surface workers are not counted). 

Is it possible to check these figures from other sources? Yes, it is possible. Part of 

the daily operational record kept by Consolidated Virginia was a tally of workers at each 

location or station (by shift) along with carloads of ore or waste. 10 Again, because these 

documents were so voluminous, I chose to analyze a few samples: the first day of the 

month in each new quarter. On the first day (New Year’s Day) of January 1876 over all 

three shifts about 460 workers had reported to work. 11 The recorded tonnage was 365 

tons. For that day tons per workers came in at .79, not a particularly robust figure. But 

half of the workers were identified as located on the surface or at 500 feet where a new 

assay office was being built. Some surface employees were always necessary to operate 

the cages, unload the cars, etc., but normally the number was more like 20 to 30 rather 

than in excess of 100. The assay-office project was a special item. To arrive at a 

productivity figure for those more directly involved in the handling of the ore only 

employees below 500 feet were counted. That number was about 225 for an output per 

ton per worker of 1.60 tons. That falls more closely in line with some figures cited above. 

On the first day of the next quarter (April 1876) the number of construction workers had 

diminished sharply, and most of the employees were engaged in extracting and moving 

ore. There were 437 employees with 335 of them working below 500 feet. They handled 

749 tons of ore or 1.71 tons per person (all workers) and 2.24 tons per person 

(underground workers). Of the six first-of-the-month days for all the quarters 1 April 

1876 posted the highest output per worker (surface and underground or solely 

underground). The range over the six data points was from .71 for the total payroll and . 

93 for the underground payroll to 1.71 for total and 2.24 for underground. The mean and 

median calculations over these six data points were similar to the mean and median 

calculation over the 30-month payroll-tonnage productivity data cited above. 

The capacity for work was greater than these daily averages for the entire mine 

indicate. The Daily Reports included the number of workmen assigned at each level 

during each shift, and from these entries it is possible to examine more discretely worker 

output. On 1 January 1876 (cited above) over 24 hours 225 workers were assigned, as 

follows, between 1,000 and 1,550: at 1,000 feet, 3 workers; at 1,200 feet, 2; at 1,300 feet, 

4; at 1,400, 3; at 1,500 feet, 144; and at 1,550 feet, 69. Ore extractions were confined to 

1,500 feet (252 tons) and 1,550 feet (113 tons) for a total of 365 tons. The extractions per 

shift were noted for 1,500 feet but not for 1,550 feet. At 1,500 feet 72 workers were 

assigned to the first shift, but no cars were loaded and no ore was shipped. During the 

second shift, however, with 44 men on duty 210 cars were loaded with 189 tons of ore. 

10 

Daily Reports, 1 January 1876-13 May 1877, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/1/1/2, Bx 

3, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. 

11 

The total in the Daily Report was 454, but because of an arithmetic error the total should be 461.


9 

Each worker on average loaded more than 4 tons and 4 cars over eight-hour periods. The 

third shift at 1,500 feet had lower but nonetheless impressive numbers: 28 workers loaded 

70 cars or 2.5 cars and 2.25 tons per worker. Was it possible for a worker to move as 

much as 18 pounds of ore each minute of the shift? Without mechanical loading 

equipment it seems unlikely. Indeed the performance of the workers at 1,500 on 1 

January 1876 based on what was recorded in the Daily Report should be viewed with 

skepticism. If the calculations are accurate, then the performance was surely an 

aberration; if the calculations are in error, then the results can be disregarded (always a 

risk in analysis of historical data). The output per worker on other levels and on other 

days was never as high as these figures. For example on 1 January 1877 at 1,550 223 

workers were assigned to three shifts, and they loaded 230 cars or slightly more than one 

car per worker and 207 tons or slightly under one ton per worker. Worker productivity on 

those levels where ore was being extracted had a wide range for the six data points. At 

1,400 feet data on workers (by shift), tonnage and carloads survived for the first day of 

the third and fourth quarters, 1876, and for the first day of the second quarter, 1877. Each 

worker on average loaded .78 carloads and .71 tons per day. At 1,500 feet for the first day 

of the first, second and third quarters, 1876, 416 employees loaded 980 cars or 2.36 cars 

per worker and 882 tons or 2.12 tons per worker. Obviously the figures at 1,500 were 

notably higher, and reasons why can only be guessed at. Perhaps less time was spent 

working the face of the ore walls because previous shifts had accumulated ore that had to 

be hoisted. And the extractions on 1,400 could have been more difficult and the 

accumulated ore smaller. From the daily or weekly reports by the superintendents 

working conditions could vary on a single floor and among several floors. At 1,550 feet 

with data from these first days of the month in all six quarters 791 workers produced 

1,016 tons or 1.28 tons per worker, which might be regarded as a normal day’s work. 

(Carload data were incomplete.) 12 The range in worker productivity level by level and 

day by bay should not be surprising in light of all the variables from human to managerial 

that came into play in these underground operations but an explanation remains difficult 

to pinpoint. The human variable – the sheer ability of a worker to perform at levels 

suggested by productivity calculations remains the most elusive. But also the state of the 

interior of the mine and the way in which management organized the workday or the 

degree to which it supplied the worker with the modern tools would affect productivity 

levels. Of all the Comstock operations Consolidated Virginia (as well as California) was 

probably the leader in technological and mechanical applications. A more systematic 

analysis of the Daily Reports would certainly refine the productivity figures and possibly 

reveal somewhat different patterns from those in my small sample. The extraordinarily 

high productivity levels on certain days should not distract attention from the pattern that 

the various employment records reveal: namely given the recorded levels of employment 

and output at Consolidated Virginia worker productivity on average (one to two tons) 

was a noteworthy and remarkable feat. 

California’s payroll and productivity data conformed to and differed from the 

findings for Consolidated Virginia. In the fiscal year 1877 California’s most productive 

12 

Daily Reports, 1 January, 1 April, 1 July, 1 October 1876 and 1 January and 1 March 1877 (substituted 

for April 1877, which could not be found), Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/1/1/2, Bx 3, 



10 

year with nearly $19 million in bullion, the Annual Report to the company stockholders 

stated that more than $788,000 was paid in wages and salaries to operate the mine (mill 

labor was a separate item). Total mining costs were set at $4.3 million or 23 percent of 

the bullion value. The wage and salary bill amounted to 18 percent of the total mining 

costs and to 4 percent of the total bullion value. In that same Annual Report the company 

published more details about worker remuneration. A chart showed the hours worked and 

the wages paid in ten classifications. Daily wage rates for eight classifications ranged 

from $3 to $7. The remaining two classifications were specified as monthly rates at $250 

and $200. Based on a 30-day month the daily rates of these two classifications would be 

$8.33 and $6.67 respectively for such occupations as foremen, assayers, and other 

administrative or managerial tasks. The labor force put in a total of 191,554 workdays 

that resulted in an average daily wages (total wages divided by total days) of $4.055. 

Among those paid a daily rate 92 percent earned $4 per day, the union-mandated 

compensation for the underground mine workers. The next largest daily remuneration at 

5 percent was $5 per day. Most of the work force - approximately 500 – received daily 

wages between $3.50 and $5.00. 13 If a worker stayed the full year (365 days) and was 

paid the average daily wage, as shown in the chart, his annual remuneration would be 

nearly $1,500. (Medical benefits, etc., as discussed earlier, wee determined on a case-bycase 

formula with the unions and local charities picking up the bulk of the tab.) Since 

about 219,000 tons were extracted in 1877 and 192,000 days were worked, the output per 

worker per day roughly was about 0.9 tons. For those who actually extracted the ores 

from the stopes the output per worker per day was more like 1.25 tons. The productivity 

calculations shown on Figure 4 below are not significantly different from those for 

Consolidated Virginia. The range was from .56 tons per worker to 2.77 tons per worker, 

but most of the calculations hovered around 1 to 1.5 tons per worker. 

California was not a carbon copy of Consolidated Virginia. While California and 

Consolidated Virginia shared an ore body, the configuration and location of the facing 

walls required different strategies, and that affected employment assignments and 

productivity levels. It must be emphasized again that the time-lines are different: in 1876 

when California began production Consolidated Virginia had already been operating for 

three years and was at the peak of its production. Not surprisingly, therefore, as 

Consolidated Virginia’s payroll shrunk in 1876, California’s grew. In fact, as noted in a 

previous section on labor tenure, many Consolidated Virginia workers transferred to 

California in 1876. During its 29 months (one month less than Consolidated Virginia) 

from February 1876 through June 1878 California spent $1.2 million in wages and 

salaries and delivered 432,185 tons. The monthly mean and (median) for payroll 

vouchers issued was 373 (384); for compensation $40,000 ($42,000) and for tonnage 

16,000. Labor costs were $2.67 ($2.68) per ton per month, and worker output per day was 

1.33 (1.37) tons. In April the labor force grew by more than three fold in April 1876 from 

35 in February and 33 in March to 142. In August 535 laborers would be on board at 

California. Total monthly labor costs had risen from several thousand dollars to tens of 

thousands of dollars. For the next dozen months the work force averaged about 380 

workers, and in the final quarter of 1877 (October–December) the monthly payroll 

13 

Annual Report, 1877, California Mining Company, NC99/1/5/6, Bx 2, Special Collections, Library, 

University of Nevada at Reno, 32-33.


11 

climbed to 532, 548 and finally 563, the highest for the entire period, before turning 

down in January, 1878. For the remaining months (until June 1878) the work force stayed 

below 500 except for the month of May when the payroll had 507 workers. The 

California data unlike the Consolidated Virginia data concern the rise of the mine to its 

zenith rather than the decline of the mine from its peak. The correlation between monthly 

vouchers and monthly tons at 65 percent proved to be strongly positive, an indication that 

as output rose so too did employment and conversely when output fell employment fell. 

Any comparison with Consolidated Virginia for analytical purposes would be misleading 

because each occupied a different point in the production cycle. The proper comparative 

framework would include Consolidated Virginia data from 1874-1875, but the needed 

payroll data are still missing. 

California’s production cycle was somewhat cleaner than Consolidated Virginia’s 

for analytical purposes. The correlation between production and employment is much 

stronger at California than at Consolidated Virginia. California’s employment database 

covered the full production cycle, and calculations reflect the beginning, the middle and 

the end whereas Consolidated Virginia’s dataset covers the middle and the end. In 

addition, the fire had no impact on production and employment at California; moreover, 

large-scale repairs that could swell the labor-force at Consolidated Virginia and distort 

the calculations were generally avoided at California, certainly during its bonanza period. 

How Consolidated Virginia’s figures would have looked if payroll data existed for the 

entire production cycle is unknown. Nevertheless output per work at the two mines was 

similar, but based on calculating from the datasets and nothing more California workers 

fell slightly behind Consolidated Virginia workers, 1.31 tons versus 1.39. Finding a 

perfect number is neither the aim nor a possibility. It may be best to think of an average 

between 1.25 tons per worker and 1.40 tons. At California daily output per worker 

reached 2.77 tons in December 1976 when the payroll was at one of its lowest levels and 

total output was just slightly above 15,000 tons. It fell to 0.56 tons per worker in the final 

month, June, 1878, when the work force was nearly a third above its average but tonnage 

had dropped to half its average. In the daily records that I consulted the output per worker 

in some shifts output reached or exceeded 3 tons per workers; but it never matched the 

highest at Consolidated Virginia. 14 FIGURE 4 

LABOR COSTS, CALIFORNIA MINING COMPANY, 

FEBRUARY 1876-JUNE 1878 

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] 

Feb 

1876 35 $3,748 

Mar 33 $3,496 -5.71% -6.72% 

Apr 142 $15,391 7,594 330.30% 340.24% $2.03 1.78 

May 148 $12,426 9,986 4.23% -19.26% 31.50% $1.24 2.25 

14 

Payroll data were assembled from the Time Books (Duplicates), January 1876-June 1878, Consolidated 

Virginia Mining Company, NC99/3/1-70, Bxs 9, 10 & 11, and ore data were assembled from Bullion 

Records, 1876-1878, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, MC99/1/3/5, After Bx 1, Special 

Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. For output per ton per worker per day see Daily 

Report, 19 June 1877, California Mining Company, 19 March 1876-July 22 1877, NC99/1/1/1, Bx 3., 



12 

Jun 142 $15,391 11,541 -4.05% 23.86% 15.57% $1.33 2.71 

Jul 463 $49,128 18,723 226.06% 219.20% 62.24% $2.62 1.35 

Aug 535 $61,180 19,190 15.55% 24.53% 2.49% $3.19 1.20 

Sep 474 $50,109 15,753 -11.40% -18.10% -17.91% $3.18 1.11 

Oct 434 $50,031 14,028 -8.44% -0.16% -10.95% $3.57 1.08 

Nov 305 $34,454 15,527 -29.72% -31.13% 10.68% $2.22 1.70 

Dec 183 $21,154 15,200 -40.00% -38.60% -2.11% $1.39 2.77 

Jan 1877 360 $41,478 15,375 96.72% 96.08% 1.15% $2.70 1.42 

Feb 361 $38,897 14,576 0.28% -6.22% -5.20% $2.67 1.35 

Mar 372 $42,320 15,257 3.05% 8.80% 4.67% $2.77 1.37 

Apr 384 $41,563 14,449 3.23% -1.79% -5.30% $2.88 1.25 

May 336 $26,413 16,568 -12.50% -36.45% 14.66% $1.59 1.64 

Jun 384 $41,619 18,950 14.29% 57.57% 14.38% $2.20 1.64 

Jul 458 $49,535 19,456 19.27% 19.02% 2.67% $2.55 1.42 

Aug 478 $54,743 18,679 4.37% 10.51% -3.99% $2.93 1.30 

Sep 466 $50,117 20,081 -2.51% -8.45% 7.51% $2.50 1.44 

Oct 532 $58,961 21,421 14.16% 17.65% 6.67% $2.75 1.34 

Nov 548 $57,546 19,807 3.01% -2.40% -7.54% $2.91 1.20 

Dec 563 $52,671 19,097 2.74% -8.47% -3.58% $2.76 1.13 

Jan 1878 541 $63,661 19,547 -3.91% 20.86% 2.36% $3.26 1.20 

Feb 401 $42,277 17,687 -25.88% -33.59% -9.52% $2.39 1.47 

Mar 379 $42,718 16,096 -5.49% 1.04% -8.99% $2.65 1.42 

Apr 355 $39,862 16,217 -6.33% -6.69% 0.75% $2.46 1.52 

May 507 $52,080 13,200 42.82% 30.65% -18.61% $3.95 0.87 

Jun 483 $46,211 8,181 -4.73% -11.27% -38.02% $5.65 0.56 

Total 10,802 $1,159,176 432,185 $2.68 

Mean 373 $39,972 16,007 1.33 

Legend: [1] Month; [2] # of Vouchers; [3] Total Labor Costs; [4] Total Tons; [5] % Change Voucher; 

[6] % Change Costs; [7] % Change Tons; [8] Cost Per Ton; [9] Worker Output Tons Per Day. 


The calculation of the coefficient of variation (measure of volatility in a series) 

indicates that monthly production levels at Consolidated Virginia were twice as volatile 

as they were at California (48 percent versus 22 percent). Monthly employment levels, on 

the other hand, were more volatile at California than at Consolidated Virginia by about a 

third (41 percent versus 29 percent). It is not immediately clear what accounted for the 

differences. Labor costs per ton were slightly higher at California ($2.68 per ton) during 

its triumphant years compared to Consolidated Virginia ($2.51 per ton) in its twilight 

years. What can be observed under the numbers is that when tonnage at Consolidated 

Virginia dropped off beginning in the middle of 1876 and remained low into the middle 

of 1877 the level of employment stabilized in the middle to high 200’s, and when 

production began to climb in late 1877 and into early 1878 employment levels did not 

change significantly. At California the change in the level of production induced (after 

some delay on the downside) a change in the level of employment. Thus the volatility in 

monthly labor costs per ton at Consolidated Virginia was almost three times greater (87 

percent) than at California (33 percent), even though Consolidated Virginia’s 

employment levels had less variability. In those months during the second half of 1877 

when Consolidated Virginia was producing more but not hiring more, the worker 

productivity reached its highest level of the 30 months and notably outpaced California.


13 

The question arises for which there is no definitive answer: did Consolidated Virginia 

achieve such notable productivity levels because fewer workers were hired and more 

work was required? There is of course a dark side to rising productivity levels in an era 

when the rules and regulations governing the work place were minimal. The fact that 

workers at both Consolidated Virginia and California and perhaps other mines performed 

admirably did not mean that the work regimen was admirable. 15 

FIGURE 5 

COMPARISON OF PAY VOUCHERS AND ORE TONS, MONTHLY, 

CALIFORNIA MINING COMPANY 

600 

500 

Vouchers 

Tons 

25,000 

20,000 

400 

300 

200 

15,000 

10,000 

100 

5,000 

0 

0 


Most of the extraction of ore in California came from 1,500 through 1,550 to 

1,600. Almost no ore was extracted above 1,400, very little from between 1,400 and 

1,500 feet and a modest amount below 1,600. There was considerable activity at depths 

below 1,600 feet, and the C&C Shaft, one of several hoisting operations, pushed pass 

1,600 and as far as 2,150 feet by the end of 1878 with little to show for the expense of 

opening these new depths. The Superintendent’s Annual Report admitted that the cost of 

maintaining “dead works” to open and explore these greater depths was high in light of 

the lack of return in refinable ores. Moreover the costs increased because the closing of 

the main shaft of Consolidated Virginia for repairs degraded the quality of air in 

15 

There was no evidence in the Mackay and Fair archives that managers imposed daily quotas and minimal 

performance standards on the work force. Let me stress that calculations of productivity figures, in this case 

dividing tons extracted by workers employed, provide a quantitative gauge of worker performance but not a 

qualitative standard. The stamina and skill of the Comstock worker seemed almost intuitive if these figures 

are to be accepted, but other research avenues used by labor and demographic historians need to be pursued 

to demonstrate their validity. For each worker to have lifted, shoveled, drilled or transferred in some other 

way a ton or more of ore on a daily basis without modern conveyors and loaders in cramped and dusty 

spaces should certainly be admired.


14 

California, required the most expensive “dead works” and the employment of more 

workers since in the poor ventilation individuals could not work full shifts. The rising 

labor costs that showed up in the California payroll data toward the end probably 

involved more money committed to dead works than before. Despite the optimism of the 

Annual Report and the intersection of the C&C Shaft with the Lode at about 2,200 feet, 

the lower depths lack of profitable ores posed problems that required costly solutions. 

California like Consolidated Virginia limped along until the fire of 1881, and some 

limited activity after that. In both mines the declining productivity levels signaled that the 

future of the operations at 1,400 to 1,700 feet was far from assured. 16 

The C&C Shaft – a joint undertaking by Consolidated Virginia and California – 

had an important role in developing the underground network. The construction of the 

C&C Shaft and the connecting tunnels to the ore bodies was a joint undertaking of 

Consolidated Virginia and California Mining Companies. Each company kept separate 

accounts for expenses including payrolls in the construction of the shaft. The construction 

costs, as reported in the companies’ Annual Reports, were identical, however, because 

those costs were split fifty-fifty. In addition, though, the mining companies paid for the 

operation of the shaft, and those figures could differ on the basis of how much ore each 

company hoisted through the shaft. Finally, since tunneling had to be built from the shaft 

to the mining areas, the mining company where the work was being done bore the 

expense of those projects. While the accounts, as they appeared in the stockholders’ 

annual reports, may have met prevailing accounting standards, they did not always 

provide sufficient detail to allow close analysis of the financing behind the construction 

and the operation of the shaft. 17 

C & C construction began in late 1874 when Consolidated Virginia had entered 

its most productive period and California had recently been incorporated. From the outset 

this was a high-priority project to be moved along as quickly as possible. By 1 January 

1875 the shaft had been sunk 45 feet and the structure on the surface to house hoisting 

equipment had been completed. 18 Work on the shaft was pursued vigorously and 

aggressively in order to open an access to the ore bodies at 1,500 feet and below. Work 

continued for a decade, even after the mines themselves had been shuttered in 1881. By 

1883 the shaft had been sunk more than 2,500 feet, and construction and operation costs 

were paid out of assessments against stockholders of the companies that had taken over 

the shaft and the mines. Prior to that the financing of the shaft’s construction and 

operation was derived from direct contributions of about $2 millions from the 

Consolidated Virginia and California and from operating revenues of about $1.2 million 

earned mainly from hoisting Consolidated Virginia and California ores. Each company 

treated its contribution as a continuing expense, and even after the shaft began generating 

16 

Annual Report, 1877, California Mining Company, NC99/1/5/6, Bx 2, Special Collections, Library, 


17 

Compare for example the joint shaft accounts in the Annual Reports, 1878, Consolidated Virginia Mining 

Company, 43, NC99/1/5/1, Bx 2, and California Mining Company, 29, NC99/1/5/6, Bx 2, Special 


18 

Copy of Letter from James Fair to David Bagley, Secretary, 01/03/75, from Letterpress Book, 11 

November 1874-31 August 1875, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/2/3, Bx 6, Special 



15 

receipts (by charging the companies to hoist their ores) the contributions were required to 

cover mainly construction expenses. The shaft was not incorporated as a separate 

company, had no directors or stockholders and reported no profits (or losses). The Firm 

owned the pot of ground where C&C was built. It lay east of the ore bodies and was not 

supposed to intersect the Lode until the 2,000-foot level. (The Lode had pinched out at 

about 1,000 feet but was expected to reappear at 2,000 feet or below under the ground 

that contained the current bonanzas.) Drifts from 1,000 to 2,000 feet long had to be dug 

from the shaft to the location of the ore bodies, and under the arrangement the individual 

company paid for the construction and maintenance of the drifts. If the shaft did intercept 

the Lode at 2,000, the presumption was that this would provide direct access to new 

bodies associated with the Lode, as had been the case for the first thousand feet. The 

Lode was found (actually deeper than 2,000 feet) but not the ore bodies. These great 

depths, however, required expensive “dead works” for the control of ventilation and 

water and ultimately proved too costly to be pursued. In the 1878 Stockholders’ Report, 

when the C&C Shaft had arrived at 2,150 feet, W. H. Patton, Superintendent at 

Consolidated Virginia, noted that ores, normally used to pay for these explorations and 

expansions, were simply absent. “The quality of ore extracted being so much less than 

taken out in the previous year, it was so much the less able to bear the increased burden 

of expense imposed on it.” 19 

Despite ample accounting documentation for the construction and operation of the 

C&C Shaft, the data are not easy to disentangle. The reason is that part of the expense 

was covered building the shaft and another part operating, repairing and connecting the 

shaft. In one set of accounts the expenses covered by the companies’ contributions (as 

opposed to operating income) appear to be mainly from the purchase of supplies and the 

employment of labor required for sinking the shaft. The Annual Reports always made a 

distinction between contributions, which were the same for both companies, and income, 

which could be different. The Annual Reports, however, may not provide a complete 

record of the companies’ finances. In the case of California the first annual report was not 

published until 1876, although it had been under construction since 1874 and had 

contributed to the C&C project from 1875. A document for the period December 1874 

through February 1879, reported that the monthly costs for building the shaft were to be 

covered by the companies’ contributions. For December 1874 the first month of 

construction, only Consolidated Virginia made a contribution. From there to the last entry 

in February 1879 the two companies split the monthly construction costs. Even after 

February 1879 the shared contributions continued into the early 1880s. Since California 

technically had no income during 1875, its contribution was probably made from the 

working capital that the stockholders (mainly Mackay, Fair et al.) had raised to 

incorporate the mine. No operational income from C&C appeared in the Annual Reports 

until 1877. An income entry coincided with the completion of a drift of nearly 700 feet 

between the shaft and the ore body at 1,650 feet that allowed hoisting through the shaft to 

began. Fair’s comments to his stockholders on 17 January 1877 was: “All the 

appurtenances to this shaft, such as the main building, an extensive machine shop, the ore 

house, the hoisting and pumping machinery, the pumps, the pump bobs, water tanks, etc., 

19 

Annual Report, 1878, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, 35, NC99/1/5/1, Bx 2, Special 



16 

are complete in every respect.” The system was designed to accommodate the expected 

heavy volume of ore to be extracted from both mines. “The surface station of this shaft 

and the stations in the shaft have been made double, one immediately above another, and 

two cages, called a double-decker, are employed for hoisting ore, so attached one above 

the other as to exactly meet these divisions of the stations; both cages being loaded in the 

mine and unloaded at the surface at the same time.” 20 The cost, according to Fair, was 

$820,000, a figure that was slightly below the $855,000 derived from documents related 

to C&C financing. 21 

In the first month (December 1874) of construction the costs amounted to a 

pittance - only $8,240. Over the next 50 months the companies would pay out more than 

$625,000 or on average $12,500 per month. During the second quarter, 1875, costs 

jumped from an average of $9,000 per month (previous four months) to $46,000 (April 

1875). Two of the most costly months were October and November 1875 when the 

outlays were $54,000 and $58,000 respectively. On the basis of the extant records 

(through February 1879) these were the highest of monthly outlays. In the months 

surrounding October and November monthly costs were also high in the range of $45,000 

and $50,000. The fire of October 1875 did not impose new expenditures to repair or 

rebuild because C&C’s surface structures were not in the fire’s path. Two weeks after the 

fire James Fair reported that the machine shop (noted above) was almost complete and 

the engines were running splendidly. 22 Other factors explain why monthly expenses were 

so high between July 1875 and January 1876. In May 1875 the foundation for hoisting 

and pumping engines was laid, and by the end of June it had been finished. Toward the 

end of September the new pumps had been installed and started. Other machinery (not 

specified) had been installed by early October. In a letter to Goddard and Company Fair 

complained that the joints were so poor that they had to be refitted. The expense for this, 

he advised, would be charged to the manufacturer, and the manufacturer, he further 

advised, should send representatives to Virginia City to observe firsthand how much time 

and money was required to make the repairs. 23 Once the surface facilities were in place, 

as these letters suggest that they were by the fall of 1875, the remaining work was 

underground. 

20 

Even though the 1880 Census reported triple-deckers cages at C&C, the addition of a third cage did 

appear in the documentation that I read. On-Line at www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/1880.html, 

United States Census Bureau. Statistics and Technology of the Precious Metals, vol. 13, 136. 

21 

The monthly expenses may be found in the Journal, C&C Shaft, January 1874-February 1879, NC99/5/3, 

After Bx 13, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno, and Fair’s comments appear in 

the Annual Report, 1876, California Mining Company, 11-12, NC99/1/5/6, Bx 2, Special Collections, 


22 

Copy of Letter from James Fair to C. H. Fish, Secretary of the Board, 11/07/75, from Letterpress Books, 

28 March-15 November 1875, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/2/4, Bx 6, Special 


23 

Copies of Letters from James Fair to C. H. Fish 05/23/75, 06/27/75 and 09/26/75 from Letterpress Books, 

28 March-15 November 1875, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/2/4, Bx 6, and Copy of 

Letter from James Fair to Goddard & Company, 10/11/75, from Letterpress Books, 1 September 1875-27 

June 1876, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/2/6, Bx 6, Special Collections, Library, 

University of Nevada at Reno.


17 

The direct contributions (which will not match up with the costs discussed above) 

by Consolidated Virginia and California Mining Companies to the C&C Shaft from 

December 1874 through February 1879 totaled $1.3. The pattern of monthly 

contributions was sharply upward in 1875 and then irregularly downward over the next 

several years. The monthly outlays were highest in 1875 at an average of $36,000 per 

month, dropped slightly in 1876 to $35,000 and then sharply in 1877 and 1878 to $19,000 

and $15,000 per month and finally to in 1879 to $8,300 per month. 24 In 1880 and 1881 

the outlays continued at $100,000 per year, even though Consolidated Virginia shut down 

in the spring of 1881 and California had very limited operations. The shaft became the 

vehicle in the search for new ore bodies, but having reached almost 2,500 feet without 

any discoveries and relying on stockholder assessments rather than bullion yields to cover 

costs C&C curtailed finally further explorations in 1883. Over the decade direct 

contributions by the companies as a percentage of total-bullion yields were probably no 

more than 1.5 percent, a significant amount, perhaps, with respect to an outlay for a 

single mining project but much less so in terms of what was ultimately mined. For 

Mackay, Fair et al. once the richness of the ore body had been determined, there was 

never much doubt that a new shaft to expedite the movement of ores, personnel and 

supplies should be built. 

The accounting data in connection with the operation of the C&C Shaft pose 

some analytical issues. Beginning in the 1877 Annual Reports the section on C&C’s 

accounting became more complex. In addition to itemizing the companies’ direct 

contributions and the property and inventory held in behalf of C&C, it showed charges 

against Consolidated Virginia and California for hoisting, sales and purchases of supplies 

and labor costs. While the companies continued their annual combined contributions of 

one to two hundred thousand dollars the operational side of C&C involved even larger 

transactions. Not all the C&C figures and entries, as they appear in the annual reports, 

can be explained or reconciled. The precise financial arrangements between the two 

mining companies and C&C will remain incomplete unless other documentation will 

appear. From an analytical standpoint the main problem is that the information, as 

presented in C&C annual statements, did not divulge enough about the origins of the 

figures or how they were assigned to various accounting categories. Generally what the 

statements showed was cash balances at the start and the end of each year, the 

companies’ contributions as well as their hoisting costs, purchase and sale of supplies and 

expense of labor. In a variation of this general format the supplies would be itemized 

company-by-company. Finally the C&C annual statement often included an inventory of 

property, real and mechanical, and supplies on hand. 25 

By the end of 1876 Consolidated Virginia and California had contributed more 

than $850,000 to the construction of the shaft, which had reached 1,600 feet. Drifts were 

24 

Journal, C&C Shaft, January 1874-February 1879, NC99/5/3, After Bx 13; Annual Report, 1879, 

Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, 20, NC99/1/5/1, Bx 2, Special Collections, Library, University of 


25 

Commentary in text based on analysis of annual reports: Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, 1878 

(43-44), and 1879 (18, 20-21) in NC99/1/5/1, Bx 2, and California Mining Company, 1877 (34-36), 1878 

(29-30) in NC99/1/5/6, Bx 2, and 1880 (24-26) in NC99/1/5/7, Bx 2, Special Collections, Library, 



18 

under construction from the shaft to the ore-bearing areas. According to the 1876 

inventory the real estate was valued at $25,000 and the “Hoisting Works, Pumps and 

Machinery” at $300,000 for a total of $325,000. Supplies were valued at nearly $70,000 

boosting the total to $395,000. More than $50,000 of the supplies consisted of 2 million 

feet of timber (at 2.5 cents per linear foot?), and the remainder were sundry items such as 

coal, oil, powder, iron, sledges, picks and handles. 26 By the end of 1877 the inventory had 

fallen to $375,000 even though the “Hoisting Works…” etc. had risen to $320,000. The 

volume of timber on hand had been reduced to several hundred thousand feet with a 

value of only $8,000. The C&C annual statement (called “Balance Sheet”) indicated that 

the cost to build and operate the shaft in 1877 was nearly $673,000. About 81 percent 

($547,000) was spent on the consumption of supplies and the remuneration of workers. In 

fact, though, C&C charged Consolidated Virginia and California $82,000 and $21,000 

respectively for hoisting and $269,000 for labor and sales of supplies (supplies not 

specified) so that the unreimbursed costs were $301,000 of which $262,000 consisted of 

contributions from the companies. 27 

The first year in which hoisting receipts appeared in the annual statement was 

1877. Given that more than 370,000 tons of ore were raised by the companies and their 

total hoisting bill was in excess of $400,000, it may be surprising that only a quarter of it 

was raised through the new shaft. It was not a matter of depth, for the shaft had been 

dropped below 1,850 feet so that it paralleled all the important ore-bearing regions of 

both mines. What limited its use was access from the shaft into areas where ore was 

being mined. C&C had been located where it was in anticipation of intersecting the Lode 

at 2,000 feet or slightly below, or at least that was how the formation of the Lode was 

understood to be. In order to tap the anticipated riches at the greater depths hundreds of 

feet would separate the shaft from the ore body at 1,500 to 1,700 feet. Under receipts 

C&C received payments for “Labor and Sales of Supplies” from Consolidated Virginia 

and California. These were payments to build the tunneling from the C&C to the stopes. 

Other shafts were also in use. At California 105,724 tons were extracted at 1,600 feet and 

then hoisted by way of the Ophir Shaft. Even the “older” main shaft of Consolidated 

Virginia was also being extended 100 feet to 1,650 feet because of its proximity to the 

ore bodies. 28 It was possible that cutting the tunnels from the shaft to the ore bodies was 

time-consuming and expensive than dropping the shaft. It is speculation, but C&C’s role 

from the outset may have been conditioned by what was assumed to be at the intersection 

of the Lode and below. That was a mindset shaped in part by experience - rich new ore 

bodies had been discovered at greater depths – and by local doctrine – the Lode had 

endless treasure. 

In the following year of 1878 as the shaft and its connecting drifts had been 

extended hoisting revenues rose by almost half to a total of $148,000. Direct 

26 

The 1876 C&C documentation only included an inventory. See 1876 Annual Report, California Mining 

Company, 15 in NC99/1/5/6, Bx 2, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. 

27 

There were two sets of numbers: assets and liabilities equaled $636,268.48, but receipts and expenses 

equaled $672,694.89. The difference was traced to receipts and expenses where $40,000 more in supplies 

were consumed than purchased (thus, the decline in inventory) and to cash on hand, which was ignored. 

28 

Annual Report, 1877, California Mining Company, 11, NC99/1/5/6, Bx 2, Special Collections, Library, 



19 

contributions of $180,000 exceeded hoisting revenues by more than $30,000, but the sale 

of supplies (presumably for the underground network) greatly exceeded them by 

$230,000. C&C paid out $576,000 for supplies that included $136,000 for wood, 

$155,000 for timber and $285,000 for sundries. In addition it paid out $128,000 in wages 

and salaries. The total outlays were $704,000 of which fees and sales covered $528,000 

or 75 percent. The balance was made up through contributions. The two companies had a 

total hoisting bill of $241,000 (down 40 percent from the previous year, a sign of the 

future) of which more than half was paid to C&C. Based on hoisting fees I estimate that 

nearly 80 percent of Consolidated Virginia’s ores moved through C&C and something 

less than half of California’s ores. The reason why so much of Consolidated Virginia’s 

ores were shipped through C&C was that its own main shaft was closed down for repairs 

on 1 May 1878 and remained closed for most of the year. Such was acknowledged in the 

annual Superintendent’s Report: “The work of hoisting from this level [1650 feet] has not 

been interfered with by the closing of the main…shaft, as there is a direct communication 

between this level and the C. and C. Shaft.” Consolidated Virginia had in addition to 

C&C access to Gould & Curry’s Shaft through a longtime southern drift and to Ophir’s 

Shaft through a new northern drift. California continued to reply more on the Ophir than 

C&C with several new non- C&C-connecting drifts being completed to enlarge that 

network. 29 

The Annual Statement of the C&C Shaft for 1879 features several significant (but 

not surprising) changes after 1878. Hoisting fees declined in response to reductions in 

output of ore, and direct contributions rose to help to cover continuing costs to sink the 

shaft. Overall the operations at C&C amounted to $482,000 or a third lower than the year 

before. The 1879 financial report was more detailed than its predecessor. Supplies 

charged to mining companies were down substantially: from $154,000 to $54,000 (-64 

percent) at Consolidated Virginia and $62,000 from $147,000 (-58 percent) at California. 

General sales of supplies (buyers unknown) also fell from $75,000 to $19,000 (-75 

percent). The purchase of supplies obviously declined as well from $576,000 to $316,000 

(-45 percent). For the first time the annual statement itemized the supplies purchased and 

sold. Among the purchases were eight categories: wood, timber, ice, powder, caps and 

fuses, candles, miscellaneous iron and miscellaneous articles, and among the sales seven 

categories – the same list as the purchases except for wood. It is presumed that that the 

sales of supplies to (or the payments for supplies by) the mining companies were related 

to the construction of the underground network of tunnels and rooms that served the 

particular needs of the individual mining companies. If the sales of supplies to the 

companies were subtracted from the purchases of supplies the difference of $200,000 was 

virtually identical to the total contributions made by the companies. Wood purchases 

were the largest at $138,000 or 44 percent, and since neither company purchased any 

wood from C&C, this was probably an item that was purchased for the boilers that 

powered the engines that lifted or dropped the cages. The second largest category was 

timber: C&C purchased more than $78,000 worth of timber and sold nearly $70,000 

worth of timber to the two parent companies. Certainly some timber was used in the 

29 

See the Superintendents’ Reports in the Annual Reports, 1878, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, 

28-33, NC99/1/5/1, Bx 2 and California Mining Company, 8-14, NC99/1/5/6, Bx 2, Special Collections, 



20 

construction of the shaft itself, but how (or why) it was allocated between the C&C and 

the parent companies remains unclear. The third and fourth largest categories of 

purchases were iron and general merchandise at $31,000 and $24,000 respectively, but 

only 5 percent ($1,500) of the iron and 10 percent of the sundries were sold to 

Consolidated Virginia and California. The bulk (36 percent) of the iron was sold to other 

(unspecified) companies. Of the $9,000 spent on ice, an essential article for underground 

workers, 98 percent of it was sold to the two mining companies. Similarly with powder, 

capes and fuses and candles more than 90 percent of what was purchased was sold to the 

mining companies. The 1879 Annual Statement included items not specifically noted in 

prior annual statements. For example, there were entries for a “Joint Pipe Account” 

showing purchases of more than $22,000 and receipts of more than $16,000, although the 

origin of the receipts was not given. Other outlays were for freight, water, surveys and 

taxes, and other receipts were from rebates granted by the Virginia and Truckee Railroad 

(a common practice) and from fees for “Compressed Air and Pumping” (source 

unspecified). 30 

The most detailed Annual Statement of the C&C Shaft was presented as a part of 

the annual reports to the stockholders of Consolidated Virginia and California in 1880. In 

providing some context I would note that total output of the two mines had fallen a fifth 

from 120,000 tons in 1879 to 94,000 tons in 1880. The business of the C&C Shaft, 

however, fell modestly from $482,000 to $442,000 or 8 percent. Both Consolidated 

Virginia and California made direct contributions totaling $199,000 (as opposed to 

$200,000 in 1879) and paid hoisting fees of $103,000 (compared to $115,000 in 1879). 

Contributions and hoists accounted for 68 percent of C&C’s budget. Of the remaining 32 

percent ($141,000) $101,000 was derived from sales of supplies (timber, ice, iron, etc.) to 

Consolidated Virginia and California with the former 61 percent of the total. In this 

statement sales to other mining companies (also owned or controlled by Mackay, Fair et 

al.) were spelled out in greater detail. Supplies and services worth about $30,000 were 

sold to nearly a dozen other companies with mines or shafts, most of which were in the 

vicinity of Consolidated Virginia and California and owned or controlled by Mackay, 

Fair, et al. Supplies constituted the largest transaction of about $17,000, and the next 

largest transaction was pumping for which the Sierra Nevada, Mexican and Union Shaft 

Company paid $7,200, Ophir Mining Company paid $1,100 and Sierra Nevada Mining 

Company paid $4,400 for a total of $12,700. Mines and shafts to the north of C&C paid 

to use of C&C pumping facilities as explorations had shifted from California’s claim to 

the Ophir and Sierra Nevada claims. Without earlier notations of a joint pipe account, its 

appearance here was unexplained. Not unexpectedly the purchase of supplies in 1880 fell 

to $282,000 from $316,000 in the previous year. As C&C’s business declined, the role of 

the direct contributions by the parent companies assumed greater importance: in 1878 the 

contributions accounted for 25 percent of the total operating revenue, in 1879 42 percent 

and in 1880 45 percent. By 1882 so far as I could determine the only income for C&C 

was from direct contributions, which totaled $199,000 and were paid for out of 

assessments of $400,000 (not all of which was collected) against the stockholders. It was 

30 

Annual Statement, Consolidated Virginia and California Joint Shaft, in the Annual Report, 1879, 

Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, 20-21, NC99/1/5/1, Bx 2, Special Collections, Library, University 

of Nevada at Reno.


21 

reported that the shaft was being maintained and repaired, as needed; the equipment was 

in “excellent” operating order; and work on the shaft and the area served by it between 

2,500 and 2,700 feet continued. Despite favorable comments such as “strength of the 

formation” of the Lode at the lower levels and improvements to ventilation through links 

between C&C and the Joint Union Shaft, the end was at hand. Operating and expanding 

the shaft through assessment without any visible return could not be justified. 31 

Absent from the preceding discussion of C&C’s finances was the cost of the labor 

force. In 1876 it was $133,215, in 1877 it was $125,278, in 1878 $128,180, in 1879 

$115,871 and in 1880 $142,398. C&C Shaft payroll data can be assembled from two 

sources. The C&C Annual Statements reported yearly payroll outlays from 1877 through 

1780. 32 It turned out that the these payroll data were drawn from the “Time Books”, 

which both sponsoring companies kept on wages paid and hour worked by the labor force 

above and below ground at the mines and at the C&C Shaft. Monthly Time Books, as 

noted earlier, covered the period from February 1876 through June 1878. 33 Even though 

the C&C Shaft project began in December 1874 and the companies began sharing costs 

in 1875, no payroll data prior to February 1876 has yet turned up. In that month and for 

the remainder of 1876 it contained columns of figures for workers at the Consolidated 

Virginia and California Mines, the C&C Shaft and the Utah Mine and Shaft (several 

properties north of California). 34 Beginning in January 1877 two additional classifications 

appeared in the Time Book: payrolls for workers at “C&C – Consolidated Virginia” and 

at “C&C California”. This separation between general C&C payroll expenses and 

company-specific C&C payroll expenses remained the case through June 1878, at which 

point the Time Book archives ceased. Lacking a specific description of what C&Crelated 

work the companies paid for, I have assumed that the work involved the chambers 

that had to be built around the shaft and the tunnels from the shaft to the ore-bearing 

regions. The strongest implicit evidence for this interpretation is that the payrolls directly 

charged to the sponsoring did not appear in the Time Books until the shaft had reached 

1,550 feet. At this depth the first drift from the C&C Shaft was started. On its own the 

C&C shaft required a steady, sizable work force of about 105 on average each month 

between February 1876 and June 1878. Their total wages amounted to more than 

31 

Annual Statement, Consolidated Virginia and California Joint Shaft, in the Annual Report, 1879, 

California Mining Company, 24-26, NC99/1/5/7, Bx 2, and “Financial Status of C. & C. Shaft” as part of 

Annual Statement, 1882, California Mining Company, 16, NC99/1/5/7, Bx 2, Special Collections, Library, 

University of Nevada at Reno. The problem in analyzing the C&C financial statement is how many of the 

purchases (expenses) and sales (revenues) involved Mackay and Fair companies. Were these transaction 

legitimately priced, or were they bookkeeping entries with little or no relevance to the market? 

32 

In 1877 and 1878 payroll appeared on the “Balance Sheet” as both a credit and a debit. In 1879 and 1880, 

because the “Annual Statement” replaced the “Balance Sheet” the payroll appeared as an expense in several 

different places. 

33 

In the one year 1877 where the figure in the C&C Annual Statement can be compared to the figure in the 

Time Book the totals are very close but not identical. They are not identical because the C&C totals for one 

month – May 1877 – are missing from the Time Book. Without May the annual total from the Time Book 

is $113,617. The Annual Statement reported wages and salaries of $125,278. The difference is $11,661. 

The average monthly payout in each series was about $10,500. If the average were used for the missing 

month in the Time Book series the totals would be within $1,000 of each other. Malfeasance did not to play 

any role in the recording of figures in two different accounts. 

34 

No ore was reported from Utah, and since it was connected to California through drifts that passed 

through the intervening mines, the shaft may have been used for ventilation, transport, etc.


22 

$321,000 or $11,075 per month. In 1876 an average of 110 monthly wage vouchers were 

issued; that figure fell to 94 in 1877; and it rose to 101 in the first six months of 1878. 

Approximately 10 percent of the more than 30,000 monthly wage vouchers recorded in 

the Consolidated Virginia and California Time Books between February 1876 and June 

1878 were issued for C&C Shaft laborers. During the 18 months from January 1877 

through June 1878, when the Time Books have entries for both the C&C Shaft 

construction and the related C&C-Shaft construction, the latter paid for directly by the 

sponsoring companies, the payroll for related work was four times greater than the 

payroll for the shaft work - $683,000 versus $178,000. Consolidated Virginia’s payroll 

for C&C-related work totaled $371,001 and California’s $312,032. More than a fifth of 

the monthly wage vouchers issued between February 1876 and June 1878 were for shaftrelated 

work. Nearly a third of the monthly wage vouchers between January 1877 and 

June 1878 were for shaft-related work. The average at Consolidated Virginia was 185 per 

month and at California 155 per month. In the second half of 1877 Consolidated 

Virginia’s numbers ranged from 257 to 305 per month with the latter number being 

recorded in September 1877. But California actually registered the highest numbers with 

338 in February and 340 in March 1878. It is worth underscoring that in those two 

months California’s work force in C&C-related construction was almost as large as its 

work force in the mine itself (401 and 379 respectively). Although the wage bill for the 

shaft and related construction was a small percentage of the more than one hundred 

million dollars worth of bullion extracted from the mines, it remained a multi-million 

dollar undertaking that did not in fact achieve its ultimate goal of unleashing another 

bonanza at even greater depths than the extractions were taking place. 35 

The daily-wage profile for work on the C&C Shaft and ancillary projects can be 

assembled from the Time Book data and related sources. In 1877 when the C&C payroll 

was over $125,000. The labor force worked 28,887 days so that the average daily wage 

was $4.34. In that same year at the California Mine the work force put in almost 192,000 

days with an average daily wage of $4.06. As a group the C&C workers earned on a daily 

basis slightly more than California workers. The daily pay scale ranged from $6.50 to $3 

with one employee being paid $250 per monthly or between $8.20 and $8.30. Slightly 

less than half of the workers earned $4 per day, the standard underground wage. About a 

fifth of the workers were paid at $5 per day (usually artisans such as head carpenters) and 

nearly another fifth were paid at $3.50 per day (semi-skilled laborers for example.) A 

fraction of a percent received the highest daily wage of $6.50 or the lowest of $3. This 

profile in terms of daily wage rates and distribution of workers did not differ significantly 

from the earlier discussion of profiles of Comstock wages and occupations. A somewhat 

different profile of the daily average wage emerges if the total number of monthly 

vouchers issued for work in 1877 at Consolidated Virginia, California, C&C- 

Consolidated Virginia, C&C-California and C&C (stand-alone) are analyzed and 

compared. The following calculations are estimates; since I do not know the number of 

days worked in each wage category, I have simply divided the total number of monthly 

vouchers into the total annual compensation to arrive at an average monthly 

35 

Data on the Time Books (actually bimonthly accounts which duplicate of the monthly accounts) are 

found in the following archives: NC99/3/1, 4, 7, 11, 16, 20, 26, Bx 9, NC99/3/31, 36, 42, 48, 51, Bx 10, 

NC99/3/57-59, 62-63, 65, 68-70, Bx 11, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno.


23 

compensation figure, and then I have divided that figure by 30, the approximate number 

of days worked each month, to arrive at an average daily figure. With 13,868 monthly 

vouchers and total annual compensation of $1,515,000 million, the monthly average per 

worker (voucher) was $109 or $3.64 per day. Even though the total vouchers and wages 

for workers under C&C-Consolidated Virginia and C&C-California differed, the average 

daily wage rounded out to an identical $3.73, the highest of the five groups. 36 Next came 

the regular Consolidated Virginia labor force at $3.70 per day, the regular C&C Shaft 

labor force at $3.67 per day and finally regular California labor force at $3.53. These are 

gross numbers, and while they all fall within a range of $3.50 to $3.75 for an average 

daily wage, the regular California work crew earned less per day as a group than its peers 

including those who were building the drifts from the California Mine to the C&C Shaft. 

This showed up as well with the California wage profiles based on the actual days 

worked as reported to the stockholders. With the California Mine’s labor force three 

times larger than the C&C-related crew it probably included a greater number of workers, 

especially on the surface, whose wages fell toward the lower end of the pay scale. In the 

end, though, pay scales for the various mining operations with separate payrolls were 

remarkably similar. 37 

In a curious way C&C’s role in hoisting Consolidated Virginia and California 

ores was smaller than may have been anticipated – the underground network proved to be 

challenging and diverting – and its other role became larger - especially as the bonanzas 

began to fade. Thus, C&C could never became financially self-sustaining (through 

hoisting revenues), if that was ever intended, and it continued to require subsidies. By the 

time the tunneling from the shaft to the stopes was completed ore hoists in general were 

rapidly declining. The money that continued to be appropriated was a down payment on 

discovering new bonanzas rather than servicing existing ones. It was equally curious the 

way in which the cost was allocated and how revenue was earned. Buying supplies that 

were sold back to the companies that subsidized C&C arouses suspicion, but without 

more price data – what they paid and sold the items for – the suspicions cannot be 

pursued. C&C never was organized to pay dividends. Given the Nevada tax structure, the 

subsidizing companies by paying more than C&C did for items that were probably being 

used to expand the underground might have been able to increase reported costs when 

bullion assessments were calculated. But it was hardly worth the effort. It remains a 

curiosity, and it may be nothing more than a convenience for C&C to make bulk 

purchases of supplies needed in both the construction of the shaft and the links and 

allowing the subsidizing companies to reimburse C&C on the basis of what they used 

specifically in building the links that passed through their ground. Chicanery, if any, is 

hard to document. 

36 

The figures four places to the right of the period were $3.72905 and $3.72752 respectively. 

37 

The 1877 data from Annual Report, California Mining Company, 35, NC99/1/5/6, Bx 2, and Time Books 

(Duplicates), NC99/3/31, 36, 42, 48, 51, Bx 10, and NC99/3/57-59, Bx 11, Special Collections, Library, 



24 

FIGURE 6 

EMPLOYEE VOUCHERS DISTRIBUTED FOR WORK ON C&C SHAFT AND 

RELATED FACILTITIES, JANUARY 1878-JUNE 1879 

400 

350 

300 

250 

200 

150 

100 

50 

0 

CVMC 

CMC 

C&C 

Sources: See footnotes 35, 37. 

Chicanery, however, was the weapon often employed by outsiders against firms 

that hit the jackpot. The Firm was not exempt. The fact that it made so much money 

elevated it as target, not because of manifest evidence of misdeeds but rather because of 

the insinuation that making that much money required malfeasance. Mackay and Fair had 

earlier separated mining and milling operations, and they followed the same course with 

Consolidated Virginia, California and other mines. In 1874 Pacific Mill and Mining 

Company was incorporated as a California company. The trustees of the new company 

were Mackay, Fair, O’Brien and Flood and probably included longtime associates and 

investors Edward Barron and Solomon Heydenfeldt (a lawyer) from San Francisco. 38 

Pacific was assembled through the purchase of existing mills and the construction of new 

mills. To separate the finances of mining from milling was a strategy that William Sharon 

introduced to the Comstock in the 1860s, and it became standard practice for mining 

companies to divest themselves of milling operations. Before the bonanza at 

Consolidated Virginia began in the early 1870s Mackay, Fair et al. had purchased and 

operated mills independently of their earlier mines. And some of these mills were then 

transferred to the new company. The strategy was straightforward in that the milling 

company charged the mines, which retained the ownership of the ore, a per-ton rate to 

crush and process the ore. Based on mining records that showed how much ore was sent 

to each mill month by month from 1874 through 1881 Consolidated Virginia and 

California contracted with at least 18 mills to refine ore although several also refined 

tailings, a somewhat different process from the initial refining. Pacific did not own all the 

mills that processed the bonanza mines’ ores, but it owned (or controlled) as many as a 

dozen of them. From time to time because of the heavy flow of ore other nearby custom 

mills were enlisted. 

38 

Smith, The Comstock Lode, 117, 148, 237. No documentation directly relating to the incorporation of 

Pacific has not been found.


25 

Whether or not mining companies themselves should own and operate the mills 

was a topic of debate among Comstock investors and speculators, and in the case of The 

Firm became the subject of a lawsuit. Charles Fish, President of Consolidated Virginia in 

1878, and later George Wallace, President of California in 1880, in almost identical 

language (a ghost writer perhaps!) addressed the issue of the divestiture of the milling 

operations from the mining operations. The rationale could be summarized under two 

principles. First, since the two mining companies lacked any milling facilities of their 

own, they would have had to invest heavily in the purchase or construction of mills with 

a commensurate reduction in dividends for stockholders. By contracting with Pacific Mill 

and Mining Company (which owned mills but no mines so far as could be determined), 

the companies could avoid huge capital outlays and maintain high dividend payments. 

Second, even though the principals of the two mining companies owned Pacific Mill and 

Mining Company, they had worked to lower milling costs in their own mills, and that had 

the effect of driving down milling costs across the region. There was nothing unique 

about this rationale, for Sharon had taken basically the same position a decade earlier. 39 

Lawsuits against Mackay, Fair et al. and their various companies had grown into 

a cottage industry. In 1878 alone, according to the President’s Report, eight new suits 

over claims, asking for more than $100,000,000, had been filed and at least six of them 

had been tried and dismissed. The most troubling suit was inaugurated on 19 January 

1878 against the principals of Consolidated Virginia on behalf of several unidentified 

stockholders who alleged fraud and urged the Board to take action against the principals. 

After much legal wrangling that consumed several months in which Squire Dewey 

emerged as the major disgruntled stockholder, a complaint (not yet a suit) with Dewey as 

plaintiff was delivered on 29 March 1878 to a notary public against the principals, 

officers and trustees of Consolidated Virginia and against Pacific Mill and Mining, 

Pacific Wood, Lumber and Flume, Virginia and Gold Hill Water and Nevada Bank of 

San Francisco, all controlled by Mackay and Fair. It asked for more than $35 million, and 

while the milling question was the core of the suit, questions involving other business 

transactions by Consolidated Virginia and the related companies were also raised. On 9 

May 1878 John Burke, a recent buyer of 100 shares of stock and in lieu of Dewey, filed 

in the 12 th District Court of California a suit based upon the foregoing Dewey 

complaint. 40 The suit was apparently dismissed in federal court, but the dissidents 

continued their legal challenges. In August 1880 Dewey alleged misconduct and fraud in 

an almost identical suit filed in the Superior Court of San Francisco. 41 The Court 

apparently ruled that while the company and its principals, officers and trustees had not 

engaged in actual or willful fraud a violation had occurred because of the way in which 

the company’s lawyer and trustee, Heydenfeldt undertook certain transactions. An award 

of $1 million was granted to stockholders with claims, but all the parties, tired of years of 

39 

From the President’s Report in the Annual Report, 1878 [9 January 1879], Consolidated Virginia Mining 

Company, 19-23, NC99/1/5/1, Bx 2, and these pages were repeated verbatim in the President’s Report in 

the Annual Report, 1880 [19 January 1881], California Mining Company, 6-9, NC99/1/5/7, Bx 2, Special 


40 


Company, 17-19, NC99/1/5/1, Bx 2, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. 

41 

From the President’s Report inn the Annual Report, 1880 [19 January 1881], California Mining 

Company, 6, NC99/1/5/7, Bx 2, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno.


26 

litigation, agreed to a private and undisclosed settlement that was probably less than the 

award. 42 While the charges originated around the creation and operation of a separate 

milling company to the detriment of the stockholders, the final decision turned on a 

questionable transfer of property in the creation of Consolidated Virginia. 

The original claim against Consolidated Virginia by Squire Dewey and his 

associates concerned losses to stockholders because the principals of the company had 

split mining from milling functions and had pocketed the profits from mills that might 

have been paid to mining company stockholders. Were their claims legitimate? How 

much money did the founders of Pacific Mill and Mining Company earn and how much 

did the stockholders of Consolidated Virginia Mining Company lose? These questions 

cannot be answered definitively, but sufficient documentation has survived to allow a 

modest inquiry. The extent to which the Board of Directors of Consolidated Virginia ever 

discussed the arrangement is not known except that when the officers commented on the 

arrangement in the annual stockholders’ reports they did so favorably. From the 

standpoint of Dewey et al., however, by assigning ores to Pacific Mill and Mining 

Consolidated Virginia had “entered into an extravagant and corrupt contract with a 

Milling Company [Pacific] organized in the State of Nevada, whereby it agreed that said 

Milling Company should reduce the ores…at a large profit and after reduction should 

retain the residues or tailings and ‘slimes’ as its own property.” 43 In detailing their 

response to the suit the officers of Consolidated Virginia provided some statistics. Since 

the founders of Pacific Mill and Mining subscribed the capital necessary to buy or build 

the mills, the officers calculated that at the very outset they avoided an assessment of $3 

per share against 108,000 outstanding shares ($324,000) simply to construct 

Consolidated, a new mill started in 1874. Consolidated Virginia produced about $5 

million worth of bullion that year. Without more detailed cost data the capacity of the 

company to absorb the expense of the mill cannot be evaluated. In the first quarter 1874 

the company reported that costs to expand the mine and extract the ore were running at 

about 50 percent of the bullion income. 44 To focus on whether or not Consolidated 

Virginia could have afforded to the build the mill from its own resources may miss the 

more pressing issue that the mine needed mills to handle the 100,000 tons of ore that it 

hoisted in 1874. The year began with three to four mills under contract and ended with 

five to six mills. The founders of Consolidated Virginia at the time of its incorporation 

owned five (Bacon, French, Mariposa, Occidental and Sacramento) of the six mills with 

ownership of Kelsey Mill still unverifiable. Had the company directly purchased these 

mills and also launched the construction of a new mill its immediate capital costs would 

have grown significantly and may well have necessitated greater assessments than noted 

above, although the impact of these actions on company finances is difficult in retrospect 

to determine. In addition to these initial capital costs, however, Consolidated Virginia 

would still have had to pay milling charges, which under contract with the stand-alone 

42 

See Smith, The Comstock Lode, 218-222, for a description of these events. Unfortunately, he was not 

always clear on which case was being considered. 

43 


Company, 9, NC99/1/5/1, Bx 2, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. 

44 

One Abstract Statement prepared by Story County’s assessor has survived for the first quarter in the 

Nevada State Archives.


27 

milling company, came in at about $1.3 million or $13 per ton. Pacific’s per-ton rate was 

not out of line with what other milling operations charged in 1874. 

These responses from Consolidated Virginia’s Board did not necessary undermine 

Dewey’s complaint (in hindsight). In his view the company could have begun with a 

prudent business plan to acquire and build mills in response to need by using the mine’s 

profits. Once the milling capacity was achieved the stockholders could have enjoyed the 

profits from both mining and milling operations instead of milling profits being siphoned 

off to the principals. Furthermore company ownership of the mills might have pushed 

down refining costs even lower and faster than was the case after Sharon had broken the 

monopoly of the custom millers. After the custom millers’ alleged financial stranglehold 

had ended, the argument for creating and maintaining separate mill facilities no longer 

carried much weight. The thrust of the complaint was simple: why allow principals of 

mining companies to set up independent milling companies of which they were the 

principal owners in order to monopolize milling profits when mining companies could 

own and operate the milling facilities and mining stockholders would benefit from both 

mining and milling profits? The financial imperative for separate milling companies had 

become moot. Consolidated Virginia’s officers (and California’s too) in the Annual 

Reports presented a financial defense concerning the divorce of mining from milling. It 

was a negative defense because it considered not the value-added to the mining 

companies during goods times but the value-subtracted during bad times. The companies 

would be strapped with a financial burden because idle mills required continuing 

investment for maintenance and repair without producing any income, and if the 

companies tried but failed to sell them, they would more than likely have to abandon 

them and write off the investment as a loss. “And no property”, declared the 1878 Annual 

Report, “depreciates with such rapidity as an idle quartz mill.” Indeed at the time Pacific 

Mill and Mining and not Consolidated Virginia (or California) was under the gun in the 

wake of contracting Comstock mining sector. “When the milling facilities…were found 

inadequate the Pacific Mill and Mining Company erected mills [beginning in 1874] at 

their own expense to meet the temporary demand. Mark the result! The mills used to 

crush the ore taken from the mine stand idle to-day [sic]. Even the new Con. Virginia 

mill, as it was called, and which was built at an expense of $500,000, is idle, and, 

therefore, not only profitless but a source of expense.” Then the report reinforced this 

analysis by citing the financial failure of combined mining and milling operations at 

Gould & Curry and Savage Mining Companies. Not only did these companies lose 

money on their milling properties as ore production declined, but they also saw their 

mining properties depreciate as investors refused to cover the milling losses. Finally, 

Consolidated Virginia and California both gained from their relationship with Pacific 

because milling rates dropped from $13 per ton to $9 per ton and operational 

proficiencies allowed Pacific to return 73 percent of the mine assay value compared to 65 

percent by other millers. Consolidated Virginia’s directors had rejected the proposal in 

1876 to buy and operate the mills and would not entertain a new motion to that effect at 

the Board Meeting in January 1879. 45 The fact that Pacific was carrying the financial 

burden of unproductive mills even though Pacific and Consolidated Virginia had the 

45 


Company, 21-23, NC99/1/5/1, Bx 2, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno.


28 

same principal owners mattered less because Pacific’s financial losses did not carry over 

unto Consolidated Virginia’s balance sheet. Business was sliding for both companies, but 

for the stockholders of Consolidated Virginia, a circle that unlike Pacific extended 

beyond the founders and their closest associates, the mining operations continued to yield 

dividends, which might have been significantly reduced if the company had milling 

losses to cover. It was almost irrelevant that the two companies were in fact under the 

control of the same principals. In essence, this intertwining business relationship drove 

investors like Squire Dewey to a rage because the above premise may have made sense in 

the downturn, but it made money – lots of money – for the founders during the upturn. 

Both Sharon’s Union Mill and Mining Company and Mackay & Fair’s Pacific 

Mill and Mining Company became monopolistic, or perhaps more accurately 

oligopolistic, offshoots of the major mining companies that they served. Whatever 

control over rates enjoyed by the early custom millers was bound to be temporary. A few 

millers had the knowledge needed to refine Comstock ores, and once that knowledge 

entered the public domain their grip of the milling price structure was loosened. It is 

doubtful that Sharon, Mackay and Fair or any other milling combine was motivated to 

create a more competitive milling business. Sharon was certainly correct in his 

assumption that by combining mills to achieve greater efficiencies and lower costs he 

could also make more money for himself and his associates so long as the bonanza mines 

for which they were reducing ores were productive. It is not known from the available 

evidence how much milling business if any Union or Pacific undertook for other mining 

companies. The harsh fact was that as ore bodies were exhausted and not replaced the 

milling business had no future. Independent millers did not completely disappear, but 

they operated in the shadow of the milling combines, which set the rates, controlled the 

flow of ore and by their very existence dampened competition. What other millers 

observed was how Consolidated Virginia and California mines paid increasingly lower 

rates to its milling partner under the ownership of Mackay, Fair et al. Pacific Mill and 

Mining pushed per-ton rates from $13 to $12 in October 1876, to $11 in February 1877, 

to $10 in April of 1877 and to $9 in January 1878. 46 In 16 months the per-ton cost fell 31 

percent. Whether or not these rates were justified by proficiencies at Pacific’s mills, they 

reduced the costs to the mining companies and raised the profits from which the 

stockholders were paid their dividends. Dewey’s complaints notwithstanding the 

stockholders of Consolidated Virginia and California distributed more than $70 million in 

dividends. Did it much matter how Pacific or any other ancillary Mackay, Fair business 

performed? The hard reality was that milling was about making money, just as mining 

was. 

FIGURE 7 

REFINING COSTS, CONSOLIDATED VIRGINIA (CVMC) AND CALIFORNIA 

(CMC) MINING COMPANIES, 1874-1878 

Year CVMC CMC 

Average Cost Total Tons Total Costs Average Cost Total Tons Total Costs 

1873 $13.00 14,864 $193,232.00 

46 

Schedules of rates over time can be verified in the Bullion Records kept by both Consolidated Virginia 

and California Mining Companies, 1873-1881, NC99/1/3/1, NC99/1/3/5, and NC99/1/3/7, After Bx 1, 



29 

1874 $13.00 90,134 $1,171,742.00 

1875 $13.00 168,694 $2,193,022.00 

1876 $12.50 145,466 $1,818,325.00 $12.80 127,542 $1,632,537.60 

1877 $10.20 153,166 $1,562,293.20 $10.40 213,715 $2,222,636.00 

1878 $9.00 123,272 $1,109,448.00 $9.60 128,436 $1,232,985.60 

Total 695,596 $8,048,062 469,693 $5,088,159 

Total Tons 1,165,289 

Total Costs $13,136,221.40 

Average Cost $11.27 


The Dewey-Burke suit claimed that Pacific Mill and Mining owners had made 

about $26 million that would have accrued to the stockholders of the mining companies if 

the companies had owned and operated the mills. How did they arrive at this figure, and 

was it legitimate? In the four years before the suit was filed, Consolidated Virginia and 

California delivered ore totaling 1.25 million tons to the mills, most but not all of which 

were owned by Pacific Mill and Mining. As noted above, milling rates at Pacific and at 

mills under contract dropped from $13 per ton in 1873 to $9 per ton in 1878. Based on 

the monthly entries of the milling rates the average for nearly 1.2 million tons of 

(crushed) ore for all mills was $11.37 for a total of more than $13 million. Dewey’s 

reimbursement claim alone was twice what the companies actually paid to Pacific. 

Dewey’s claim made specific reference to the loss of income from tailings because 

customarily tailings income belonged to the mill and not the mine. Pacific actually owned 

tailings mills, and the tailings were not entered in the mining companies’ monthly 

ledgers. Where the tailings showed up was in the County’s quarterly assessments under 

the name of the mill that processed them. The bulk of the ore claimed by Consolidated 

Virginia and California was amalgamated with the costs duly and regularly recorded, but 

some ore was lost in the milling. As the moisture-laden ores moved from the stamps 

where they had been crushed to the amalgamation pans, the water was allowed to drain 

off into troughs that carried the water and any residue into storage areas. The residues 

contained ores that could be milled again. Very few mining companies (if any) owned 

tailings mills. Mining companies had little interest in milling their tailings, and they were 

more inclined to sell their tailings to millers who specialized in such business. County 

assessments had to be paid on all ores including tailings, and generally the mining 

companies paid the taxes on the amalgamated ores whether or not they owned the 

refining mills, and the tailings mills paid the taxes on the ores that they had acquired and 

processed. Pacific Mill and Mining actually operated two tailings mills - Omega and 

Mariposa. Omega was strictly for tailings, and its output did not appear in any of the 

companies’ monthly mill accounts. Mariposa, on the other hand, handled both processing 

functions, and any ores that it amalgamated for Consolidated Virginia and California 

appeared in the monthly accounts. In fact Mackay & Fair built Omega to process the 

tailings from Consolidated Virginia and California. They may also have solicited 

business from other mining companies. From 1877 to 1885 Omega reported for taxes 

about 200,000 tons worth about $1.5 million. What amount of the $1.5 million was 

derived from Consolidated Virginia and California ores cannot be ascertained from the 

extant archives. They may have in fact bought tailings from other mills. I could find no


30 

records on the finances of their tailings mills, especially how much they paid for tailings 

including those from their own reduction mills. Even if one assumes that the two bonanza 

mines contributed a large part of the tailings receipts that accrued solely to Pacific and its 

owners and then combines that estimate, say $1 to $2 million dollars, with the recorded 

refining costs on amalgamated ores, one has a total far less than the damages claimed by 

Dewey et al. in their lawsuit. Clearly, as other writers have suggested, Dewey like his 

ally, The San Francisco Chronicle, had more sinister motivations. Dewey had originally 

sought an amount in excess of $50,000 to settle what he considered a dishonest 

transaction by one of The Quartet, James Flood. When Consolidated Virginia refused to 

pay, the ante was raised by several tens of millions and the reputation of The Quartet was 

under attack. That The Quartet knew how to make money cannot be doubted. In the 

minds of their critics the ill-gotten gains were not so much from the ore bodies 

themselves – all acknowledged the skill of the founders in exploiting them – but from the 

ancillary businesses that the founders created in support of their mining operations.

THE COMSTOCK [P] 

1 

Chapter 16 


Refining As Financial Bonanza, Other Mineral Mercury, Founders’ Cash Flow 

Pacific Mill and Mining made money for its principal and the small circle of investors. 

There is not much debate that it was organized to serve the refining needs of 

Consolidated Virginia and California Mining Companies, and when these mines reached 

the end of the road (as had Comstock mining in general) the milling business collapsed. 

By the middle of the 1880s, when Comstock production had fallen to a fraction of its 

1870 levels, many of Pacific properties had been sold or abandoned. In the years between 

the creation of Pacific (1874) and the demise of Consolidated Virginia and California 

Mining (1881) milling operations enjoyed substantial profits even as milling rates 

dropped. It helped, of course, that Pacific was the exclusive refiner for the largest and 

richest mines in the history of the Comstock. In addition, though, these were Mackay and 

Fair properties that like the mines that they served were well managed. Mackey and Fair, 

even before they had joined forces with Flood and O’Brien, had acquired several mills in 

the late 1860s to process ores from their Kentuck and Hale & Norcross mines. They were 

not novices in the milling business when they organized Pacific. The dozen or so mills 

that can be verified as being under the Pacific umbrella included the mills Mackay and 

Fair bought in the 1860s plus mills purchased or built in the 1870s. Eighteen mills 

processed ores from Consolidated Virginia and California, and the ownership by Pacific 

of at least 12 of these mills can be firmly documented. They were Bacon, Brunswick, 

California, Consolidated, Empire State, Hoosier State, Mariposa, Morgan, Occidental, 

Omega, Sacramento and Trench. The ownership of six other mills - Devil’s Gate, Kelsey, 

Mexican, Nevada, Rhode Island and Winfield – could not be so firmly documented. It 

could not be determined if Pacific owned all or part of these six mills, leased them or 

simply signed milling contracts with them on a per-need basis. Mill ownership can be 

difficult to trace because mills were sold, renamed and even dismantled and rebuilt. All 

of the mills can be identified on recent survey maps created by Nevada agencies 

responsible for the cleanup of toxic-waste sites. They stretched from Virginia City south 

(along what is now Highway 341) to the Carson River and then to Carson City and east 

through Six Mile Cañon toward Sutro. 1 

The Bacon Mill was probably the first milling property that any of The Quartet 

acquired. In the 1866 state survey C. L. Lowe and James Fair were listed as the mill’s 

owners. Lowe was also the principal owner of Hale & Norcross. More than likely ore 

from Hale & Norcross was processed at Bacon, since the mine apparently did not own 

any mills. Not only did Fair own part of Bacon, but he also worked for Lowe at Hale & 

Norcross for a few months in 1867. His departure occurred under somewhat cloudy 

1 

See above footnote for sources on how much ore the mining companies shipped monthly to each mill. The 

mill survey has been published on-line at Bureau of Corrective Actions, Superfund Branch, Nevada 

Division of Environmental Protection – http://ndep.nv.gov/BCA/CarsonRiver/milm_opt.jpg. Handwriting 

in manuscripts can be challenging. According to this map Bacon and Trench mills were located on the 

same property. The map also shows a mill named French and another named Frenches. When I first came 

across lists of mills in manuscripts I could not be sure I was reading a capital F or a capital T, French or 

Trench. For a while I thought Trench was French, but then upon consulting this map I decided that the 

Pacific-owned mill was Trench next to Bacon.


2 

circumstances, but he remained an owner of Bacon and perhaps became the sole 

proprietor. In 1868 when Mackay and Fair acquired Hale & Norcross Mackey may also 

have acquired part-ownership in Bacon. Although the details are scant, Bacon, it would 

appear, continued to be operated as a separate entity from the mine. In 1872 after the 

disposal of Hale & Norcross and before the founding of Consolidated Virginia Fair 

addressed a long letter to Flood and O’Brien concerning various financial matters. He 

noted that Bacon’s improvements had cost $8,490.25 in addition to the cost of the mill, 

which he did not specify. Bacon was in continuous operation until its dismantlement in 

1883. Other mills cited in Fair’s letter (without specific dates) were Trench and 

Mariposa. Trench, Bacon’s neighbor, was apparently bought in 1870 at a cost of 

$49,670.50. Improvements added another $21,574.27 for a total investment of 

$71,244.77. Trench did not appear on the 1866 survey, and its prior owner(s) cannot be 

identified. Mariposa’s owner, on the other hand, was simply identified as McCurdy in the 

1866 survey, and while it was purchased for only $11,557.00, in 1870, it needed 

$16,518.01 worth of repairs. A third mill, Marysville, was mentioned in the letter, but 

according to Fair it should not be listed as a property because no money had exchanged 

hands. The implication was that the transaction was never completed. In any event it 

never showed up the monthly milling accounts for Consolidated Virginia and California. 

What can be said was that Marysville was owned in 1866 by O’Neale, Rule & Glazier, 

was located in Gold Hill near other mining properties that Mackey and Fair acquired and 

was officially sited on Nevada’s recently completed superfund survey. 2 

In the early 1870s Mackay and Fair along with Flood and O’Brien were actively 

purchasing more milling properties. Since they had not yet founded Pacific Mill and 

Mining, they may have acquired and operated the mills as separate entities (not yet 

incorporated) apart from their mining properties. Empire State Mill probably entered the 

fold in November 1870. Empire State was formerly a Sharon property, and while Sharon 

and the Mackay and Fair crowd were perennial adversaries, they were not averse to 

negotiating business deals and transactions that might advance their own financial goals. 

Occidental, whose previous owner is not known, was purchased next. In a letter to his 

partners Fair remarked that other parties (not specified) had an interest in Empire and 

Occidental and the transfers were not recorded in Virginia City. When Pacific Mill and 

Mining came into existence, the Quartet owned or controlled five or six mills. Once 

established, Pacific continued to be aggressively buying and building mills. That included 

the previously-discussed construction and reconstruction of Consolidated and California 

mills as well as the construction of Omega Mill. These three projects probably required 

outlays of approximately $1.5 million. In 1875 Pacific Mill and Mining added Morgan 

and Brunswick (the latter also purchased from Sharon) at a cost of $100,000 and 

$250,000 respectively. A third purchase (without price or date) was Sacramento. 3 

2 

For data on mills from the mid-1860s see “Annual Report of the Surveyor-General of the State of Nevada 

for the Year 1866” in State Journal and Appendix, 3 rd Legislative Session (1867), insert after p. 21. Letter 

from James Fair to James Flood and William O’Brien, 19 December 1872 in Mackay & Fair Company, 

Letters, July 1871-July 1877, #5, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. Marysville 

appears on the aforementioned survey. 

3 

Letter from James Fair to James Flood and William O’Brien, 19 December 1872 in Mackay & Fair 

Company, Letters, July 1871-July 1877, #5, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. 

Hoosier State Mill may also have been purchased in 1873 as a part of Hoosier Mine. Built in 1862 by


3 

A few detailed financial records (i.e., daily or monthly accounts) of Pacific’s 

operations have been found scattered among several archives. Pacific was one of several 

Mackey & Fair businesses held privately. The principals were The Quartet – Mackey, 

Fair, Flood and O’Brien – and perhaps several other minor investors. When Fair gave 

testimony at a 1878 hearing, he was asked who owned Pacific Mill and Mining, Pacific 

Wood, Lumber and Flume and Virginia and Gold Hill Water, and to each question he 

answered that Mackey, Fair, Flood and O’Brien were the principal owners, although in th 

case of the water company he added Hobart, Shae and Wells. 4 For all intents and 

purposes, however, Mackey and Fair were the “principals of the principals.” Transactions 

involving these companies were recorded in something known as the Mackay & Fair 

Account. These ventures were financed with money mainly subscribed by Mackay and 

Fair. When Pacific was organized its original assets included properties in which Mackay 

and Fair held substantial interests. Reorganization of Pacific Mill and Mining began in 

1880 when a Supplemental List of company officers was filed in San Francisco. Mackay 

was listed as President, E. C. Platt as Vice-President and W. H. Lowell as Secretary, and 

Mackay and Platt were listed as directors along with three others. Fair’s name was absent 

because he was preparing for his retirement from The Firm, to be fully completed in 

1881. Also missing were others among the original organizers: Flood, O’Brien (died in 

1878), William Barron and Solomon Heydenfelt. 5 I have found no records that spell out 

precisely the financial or managerial roles, if any, of the non-principals in the original 

group. It was possible that Flood and O’Brien were included because they managed the 

mercury accounts (purchases and transfers) for The Firm, and mercury was crucial to 

refining. William Barron owned a large mercury mine in Alamen, California, from whom 

The Firm bought mercury. Heydenfelt was a transplanted southern who distinguished 

himself as a jurist and attorney in San Francisco. Both were members of the original 

Board of Directors for Consolidated Virginia. That said, it’s not clear how any of the 

proceeds from Pacific benefitted anyone but the principals. 

In connection with the Dewey-Burke suit J. H. Gager, who had served The Firm 

as an accountant, conducted a review of the milling company accounts. As Pacific was 

winding down business in 1883, he provided an addendum to an 1881 statement (less 

than an official audit) of what was entitled “Operations of Pacific Mill & Min. Co.” The 

statement plus the addendum was mainly concerned with the period from 1874 to 1881 

but also included some activities between 1881 and 1883. The account in question was 

something referred to in the document as The Account of Mackay & Fair. This was not 

Clarke and Hearst, custom millers, it did not process any Consolidated Virginia ores until 1875. See 

Account of Supplies, Hoosier Mine, January 1873 in Mackay, Fair, Flood & O’Brien Archives, 

NC356/1/20, Nevada Historical Society. 

4 

Quote from testimony in Oscar Lewis, The Silver Kings: The Lives and Times of Mackay, Fair, Flood and 

O’Brien, Lords of the Comstock Lode (Paperback Edition, Reno NV: University of Nevada Press, 1989), 

153. Unfortunately, no footnotes were provided. 

5 

Supplemental List of the Officers of the Pacific Mill and Mining Company, January 1880, NC80, Special 

Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. The directors included George Congdon, Cornelius 

O’Conner and William Legle. Congdon and O’Conner were directors of Consolidated Virginia and 

California Mining Companies and would be among the founders of a newly established company through 

the consolidation of the two mining companies in 1884. See authenticated copy (1886) of Certificate of 

Consolidation, 1884, of Consolidated Virginia and California Mining Companies, Mackay, Fair, Flood and 

O’Brien Archives, NC356/1/42, Nevada Historical Society.


4 

account in which the company’s business was recorded, but rather was the account in 

which the principals recorded (or had recorded) their income from the milling operations. 

The details are limited and the figures cannot be reconciled in all instance. In Figure 1 

(below) I have presented the entries as they appear in the Gager statement. 6 

Let me start with the most obvious question? Did Pacific make money, and if so 

what much accrued to Mackay and Fair? Of course is the answer to the first part, and 

millions is the answer to the second. But the exact amount is hard to discern from the 

aforementioned document. It would appear that gross profits – surpluses over and above 

operational costs – ranged between $6 million and $8 million as of 1883. A range 

emerged because the figures changed between 1881 and 1883 (because according to 

Gager who said he had reexamined earlier documents). In 1881 the surplus in the Mackay 

& Fair account was declared to be $7.7 million, but by 1883 it had fallen to $6.7 million 

(which were called dividends whereas in the 1881 version the document stated money 

was “turned over” to Mackay & Fair). Why the difficulty in arriving at a final figure? It 

boiled down to how capital was raised to acquire and renovate the company’s facilities. 

By 1881 there were profits, but when Pacific started up there were no profits. Mackay 

and Fair advanced the capital for certain undertakings and then were reimbursed from the 

accruing profit. The difficulty in reconciling the two versions has to do with those 

reimbursements. . 

Most of the financial information in the Gager document concerned what might 

be roughly called capital expenditures and surplus distribution. Operational expenses 

were not included, although later in this chapter I will make some estimate of the latter. 

The itemized list in the 1881 version was fairly straight-forward, From August 1774 to 

July 1881 the document stated that the company had “net profits” of $8.8 million, or 

slightly more than one million dollars per year on average. Profits were derived from 

“working ores, slimes and tailings, slimes sold;” they were also derived from “dividends 

from Woodworth Mill (½) & dividends from Eagle Salt Works, etc.” The mill is 

something of mystery because it did not show up in any of the records of the ores milled. 

My first thought was that Woodworth was a timber mill, and that may be the correct 

assumption except a refinery by that name shows up in other mill records. 7 The outlays 

6 

“Operations of the Pacific Mill & Mining Co. – at Virginia – from August 1 st 1874 to July 1 st 1881”, 

Pacific Mill and Mining Company Financial Records, 1874-1881, Mackay, Fair, Flood, O’Brien Archive, 

NC356/1/2 &13, Nevada Historical Society. This is a single document that summarized financial data to 

1881 and then added another page of data up to 1883. Grant Smith (The Comstock Lode, 254) also analyzed 

Pacific Mill and Mining audits that he said that he found in the library of the Mackay School of Mines, 

University of Nevada Reno, where John Mackay’s archives were first housed. Those archives were later 

transferred to Special Collection in the University Library. Smith did not provide a specific reference, and 

therefore the document that he used could not be located. It could still be in Special Collections but was not 

turned up during my research. The document that I am using has different figures, has fewer details and is 

housed in the Nevada Historical Society. “Net Profits” may be an inaccurate description as defined by 

contemporary accounting standards. The Mackay & Fair Account of which this was a part contained 

financial data from all the Mackay & Fair privately-held businesses. This account was separate from the 

accounts for the mining operations. More about this account later in this chapter. 

7 

In 1870 The Quartet purchased a half interest ($12,000) in Woodworth Mine, its location unknown 

because it did not appear on any the previously discussed surveys. Nothing else is known about the mine. 

In the early 1870s a Woodworth Mill appeared on the Mineralogist’s survey of mills in Lyon County, and it 

is possible that the mine and mill occupied the same property. The other possibility is that the mill was a


5 

consisted of purchases such as property, construction and reconstruction of mills and 

inventory (i. e., value of unused supplies when the audit was made). That amounted to 

almost $1 million, and when that figure plus the value of slime bullion and cash on hand 

were added up the deduction from the $8.8 left $7.7 in Mackay & Fair’s account. Among 

the outlays were $850,000 dollars for four milling facilities: Mariposa, Consolidated 

Battery & Pan, California Battery & Pan and Omega Tailings. (Consolidated was lost in 

the 1875 fire.) Eagle Salt (an ingredient needed to refine the ore) cost between $33,000 

and $34,000 to acquire. The surplus of $7.7 million, resting in the Mackay & Fair 

account consisted of the balance after operating costs were deducted from operating 

revenues (Pacific charged The Firm’s mines at various per-ton rates) along with certain 

“capital” charges. (It was this surplus that provoked Dewey to sue.) 

The 1883 addendum made for more confusion than clarity. The first difference 

with the 1881 statement came at outset: “Total net profits” was replaced by “Balance 

against Mackay & Fair” with the date of 1 September 1883 and the amount of 

$8,101,122.90. This figure did not appear anywhere in the 1881 version. In two years 

Pacific’s surplus (money left over after operational costs had been deducted from 

receipts) had dropped by three-quarters of a million dollars. No explanation was given. 

Were the prior figures incorrect or had business declined so much that the principals had 

to divert money from their own account to keep the company afloat? Total tonnage in 

1883 had fallen to its lowest levels since the initial discoveries with yields between $15 

and $20 per ton. Pacific had sold or abandoned most of its mills, and what of value 

remained of this milling colossus was an inventory (in excess of $100,000) of a few 

properties plus supplies. In theory, at least, Mackay & Fair account should be worth less, 

although how that happened cannot be detailed. Next came an unexplained charge of 

$425,478.43. The starting point for this second version of Gager’s audit was 

$7,675,644.47. This figure appeared in the 1881 version as the balance after deducting 

various expenditures for acquisition and construction for which Mackay and Fair were 

being reimbursed. In the 1883 addendum (and allegedly the reason it was prepared) the 

aforementioned construction costs (reimbursements not profits) were increased by an 

additional $11,285.40: for construction ($8,069.94) of the “Old Consolidated” mill, that 

was destroyed in the 1875 fire, and for construction ($3,215.50) of the new California 

mill. The confusion arises because in addition to this minor revision Gager added other 

separate property and closer to Virginia City. In the same letter concerning the purchase of the Woodworth 

Mine there was a reference to the fact that The Quartet also owned half an interest in a “Woodworth Sluice 

Property”. The mill cost them almost $39,000 and another $85,000 to $90,000 to improve the sluices and 

others facilities. If Woodworth was an ore mill two possible explanations can be suggested: it may have 

been purchased in connection with their ownership of the Virginia and Gold Hill Water Company, 

incorporated in 1871, or it may have been purchased in connection with the construction of the Omega 

Mill, which as a tailings mill had need for the sluices. In terms of analyzing Pacific finances, however, the 

Woodworth Mill is not especially crucial because no figures on the size of the dividend are given. 

“Operations of the Pacific Mill & Mining Co. – at Virginia – from August 1 st 1874 to July 1 st 1881”, Pacific 

Mill and Mining Company Financial Records, 1874-1881, Mackay, Fair, Flood, O’Brien Archive, 

NC356/1/13, Nevada Historical Society; Letter from James Fair to James Flood and William O’Brien, 19 

December 1872 in Mackay & Fair Company, Letters, July 1871-July 1877, #5, Special Collections, 

Library, University of Nevada at Reno; and “Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist of the State of 

Nevada for The Years 1871 and 1872,” Appendix to Journal of the Senate, 6 th Legislative Session, 1973, 

100. Eliot Lord wrote a long section Virginia and Gold Hill Water Company, set up by Mackay, Fair et al. 

in 1871 without any mention of Woodworth in Comstock Miners and Mining, 322-333.


6 

figures without fully explaining and in the process reports some figures differently from 

how they appeared in the 1881 version. Thus, the new figure for the “Balance against 

Mackay & Fair, July 1 st , 1881” was $7,664,359.03 after deducting the unexplained charge 

and the minor revision. He then listed a series of payments for purchases of mills and 

supplies in September, October and November of 1875 (at the time of the fire) and in 

December 1876 for a total of $585,665.21 that did not appear in the 1881 statement. They 

involved costs for purchases of Morgan and New Brunswick mills and of machinery for 

Consolidated (lost in the fire) and California mills. The entry read: “Payments by J. H. 

Gager – per his statement up to July 1 st 1881”. Having acknowledged these expenses 

Gager then declared that “Dividends from April 30, 1877 to May 31, 1881” [first time 

that either of these dates had appeared] was $6,647,067.89. However, when this figure 

was added to $585,665.21 plus $218.49 cash on hand in 1883 the total is $7,232,951.62 

or $431,407.41 less than the aforementioned $7,664,359.03. And the difference was left 

unexplained. Finally, again without explanation, he listed “sundry mixed charges” of 

$162,324.12. While the transfer of more than $11,000 from profits to costs is 

understandable, the remainder of the 1883 addendum is not. (See Figure 1 below) 8 In 

addition to the unresolved accounting problems the document did not explain how the 

surpluses or dividends or profits of $6 to $8 million were disposed of. The Mackay & 

Fair Account was used to deposit monies from their privately-held businesses listed in 

Fair’s testimony. If the other principals had accounts comparable to the Mackey & Fair 

Account, they did not surface in the archives I consulted. The money deposited in the 

Mackay & Fair Account may have been just Mackay and Fair’s share, or, this appears 

more likely, it may have been undistributed profits from the Quartet’s various businesses. 

After numerous failed attempts to try to make sense of these accounts, incomplete 

as they are, I would propose that the gross profits (or surpluses) of Pacific Mill and 

Mining until its demise fell in a range of $6 to $8 million. Based on what I have found 

concerning receipts and costs (to be discussed) in the company’s operations, these profit 

figures are entirely plausible. It is important to underscore that most of these figures 

derive from operations prior to 1881, and between 1881 and 1883 Pacific was operating 

at a deficit. Gager’s audit was to satisfy inquiries about Pacific’s profitability and not to 

explain how the profits were distributed. The Mackay & Fair Account was not terminated 

after Fair’s departure because other transactions took place with respect to that account in 

the early 1880s. None of the businesses in which Mackay and Fair had a stake made 

money after 1880, and Pacific under the new Board of Directors, according to surviving 

accounts from 1883 through 1885, was occupied with disposing of remaining inventory 

and not to resurrecting the company. 9 The Mackay & Fair Account survived into the 

1880s, and these quasi-post-mortem audits, initiated mainly in response to lawsuits or 

other inquiries, open a small window into the principals’ private enterprises, operating 

independently of and yet making money from their publicly-owned companies. 

8 

“Operations of the Pacific Mill & Mining Co. – at Virginia – from August 1 st 1874 to July 1 st 1881”, 

Pacific Mill and Mining Company Financial Records, 1874-1881, Mackay, Fair, Flood, O’Brien Archive, 

NC356/1/2 &13, Nevada Historical Society. 

9 

Ledger #4, 1883-1885, Pacific Mill and Mining Company Records, 1876-1884, NC80, Special 



7 

FIGURE 1 

FINANCIAL STATEMENT, PACIFIC MILL AND MINING, BY J. H. GAGER, 

1881 WITH ADDENDUM 1883 

Operations of the Pacific Mill & Mining Co. – at Virginia City 

August 1 st 1874 to July 1 st 1881. 

Total Net Profits: 

derived from working ore, slimes and tailings, slimes sold; 

dividends from Woodworth Mill (1/2) & 

dividends from Eagle Salt works, etc; 

after taking out the amount expended in constructing 

the old Consolidated Mill & the old California Battery 

Mill (destroyed by fire) from and after Aug 1 st 1874. $8,821,711.66 

These Profits were disposed of as follows: 

[marked “Paid for” before each entry below] 

Land Mill Slimes (1,487 tons carried/worked Omega Mill) $5,713.02 

Real Estate in Virginia City & Silver City $16,908.70 

Personal Property (2 sleighs @ $290 & 1 horse $150 $440 .00 

Mill Supplies on hand July 1 st 1881 $89,512.43 

Removal & Reconstruction Mariposa Mill (net) $11,448.11 

Construction 

Consolidated Mill (Battery & Pan) $307,700.74 

California Mill (Battery & Pan) $274,071.12 

Omega Mill (with all appurtenances) $219,089.93 

Omega Sluice (with reservoirs) $35,179.98 

Eagle Salt Works (the whole property) $33,650.00 

[No description but clearly total of above figures] $993,714.03 

Slime Bullion on hand, July 1 st 1881, assay value $85,756.92 

Cash remaining on hand (July 1 st 1881) $66,596.24 

Turned over to the acct of Mackay & Fair $7,675,644.47 $8,821,711.66 

[A long note follows in which Gager explained why an additional $11,285.44 in costs should be deducted 

from the profits shown in Mackey & Fair’s Account. What followed the note are the figures below.] 

Charges against “Mackey & Fair from July 1 st 1881 to Sept 1 st 1883—net $425,478.43 

[Total shown without description] $7,675,644.47 

Credited for additional construction expense from Aug 1 st 1874 to Dec 31 st 1876 $11,285.41 

Balance against "Mackey & Fair" July 1 st 1881--net $7,664,359.03 

Payments by J. H. Gager per his statement up to July1 st 1881 

[statement referred to above not explained] 

Cost of Morgan Mill (Sept 1 st 1875) $100,000.00 

Machinery for Consolidated Mill (Sep 2 nd 1875) $93,234.76 

Cost of Brunswick Mill (Oct 1 st 1875) $225,000.00 

Cost of California Mill (Nov 12 th 1875) $150,000.00 

Supplies at Brunswick Mill (Dec 23 rd 1876) $17,430.48 

[No description but clearly total of above figures] $585,665.24 

Dividends from April 30, 1877 to May 31, 1881 $6,647,067.89 

Cash on Hand July 1 st 1881 $218.49 $7,232,951.62 

[Difference not described] $431,407.41


8 

Sundry mixed charges by J. H. Gager from Feb 1 st 1877 to Oct 18 th 1880 - $162,324.13 

[Sundry mixed charges not explained] 

J. H. Gager closed his acct-----Dec 20, 1876. 

J. H. Gager opened his acct again Dec 26 th 1876 

[Not explained] 

The acct of Mackay & Fair was credited for construction expenses- 

Dec 31 st 1876 $ 993,580.30 

Sept 30 th 1881 $11,285.44 

Incurred between Aug 1 st 1874 and Dec 31 st 1876 $1,004,865.74 

Sources: See footnote 16. I have replicated the Gager statement as fully I could. I have corrected arithmetic 

errors and I have entered inside brackets comments about what is missing. 

During The Firm’s bonanza years about 1.4 tons of crushed ore from 

Consolidated Virginia and California passed through Pacific’s amalgamation mills (most 

of it through mills that it owned) at an average rate of about $11 per ton for a total of $15 

million. Tailings, slimes and ancillary business probably generated several hundred 

thousand dollars more in revenues. Based on Gager’s figures of what accrued to Mackey 

and Fair it can be estimated that 40 to 50 percent of Pacific’s receipts ended up as gross 

profits or perhaps more appropriately operating surpluses. Was that possible even as 

milling rates dropped from $13 to $9 per ton? A few surviving mill accounts allow that 

matter to be considered. 

The reimbursements to Mackay and Fair for capital outlays shed some light on 

how they financed the expansion of 

Pacific’s milling capacity. As discussed 

earlier Mackay, Fair et al. owned several 

mills that were incorporated into the new 

firm, Pacific Mill and Mining Company, 

in 1874. The audits confirmed the 

acquisition of (and the reimbursement 

for) Morgan Mill on 9 September 1875 

for $100,000 and Brunswick on 1 

October 1875 for $225,000, and the 

“removal and reconstruction” of 

Illustration 1: California Pan Mill 

Mariposa Mill, one of the original properties, for just under $11,500. Mackay and Fair 

launched and underwrote the construction of a new mill, Consolidated (Virginia) in 1874 

that won rave reviews from the State Mineralogist in his 1875 report to the state 

legislature. He described the battery building as 110 feet long by 10 feet wide, the pan 

building as 120 feet long and 92 feet wide, the engine room as 58 feet long by 92 feet 

wide, the agitator room as 20 feet long by 92 feet wide and the retort house as 24 feet 

long by 60 feet wide for a total of 26,000 square feet at a cost of several hundred 

thousand dollars. 10 Consolidated milled about 60,000 tons of ore between January and 

October 1875 when the Virginia City fire destroyed it and adjacent facilities. The 1881 

audit simply declared without elaboration that the money spent on the old Consolidated 

10 


Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session, 1875, 133.


9 

Mill and old California Battery (a stamping mill) had been removed (the meaning of 

which was unclear). When Mackay and Fair acquired these works cannot yet be 

documented. One puzzling item was the purchase on 25 September 1875 of machinery 

(nearly $93,000) for the Consolidated Mill, presumably the old mill, although it is not 

clear if this was a payment for machinery to be delivered (and therefore may have 

escaped the fire) or for machinery already delivered (and a casualty of the fire). A second 

new mill, California, close to completion at the time of the fire, escaped damage and was 

up and running as of 1 January 1876. Two California Mill entries appear in Gager’s 

statements: an undated reimbursement of nearly $275,000 and a dated reimbursement (12 

November 1875) of $150,000 for a total of $425,000. In the aftermath of the fire 

Consolidated Mill was rebuilt at a cost (minimally) of $308,000, and it began processing 

ore in the fall of 1876. Reimbursements for the new California Mill and the new (postfire) 

Consolidated Mill totaled more than $732,000, and if this total were added to the 

estimated expenditure for the construction of Consolidated Mill and the California 

Battery lost in the fire these four facilities cost Mackay and Fair more than a million 

dollars. In accord with the audits, however, only reimbursements for the new California 

Mill and the reconstructed Consolidated Mill were recorded. The remaining mill project 

to consider was the slimes or tailings mill Omega that Mackay and Fair built (and were 

reimbursed for) at a cost of more than $255,000. Although the reimbursements to 

Mackay and Fair included outlays for mill supplies, property transfers (including Eagle 

Salt Works) and miscellaneous items, 90 to 95 percent of the reimbursements (which 

totaled between $1.5 and $1.6 million) were for the acquisition and construction of 

milling facilities. Even if Mackay and Fair alone or in partnership with several others 

expended, say, $2 million to build Pacific Mill and Mining, the return on capital of $5 to 

$6 million certainly made it a highly profitable venture. 11 

What made the return on investment several times greater than the outlay for plant 

and equipment was the revenue flow derived from milling operations. In modern parlance 

Pacific was a “cash cow”. Because of the 

richness of the ores and the efficiency of the 

operations Pacific generated large operating 

surpluses. This can be seen in a statement of 

receipts and expenses from 10 of the mills under 

the umbrella of Pacific Mill and Mining for June 

1877. 12 Not all mills were equal in terms of 

comparative costs and potential profits. It will be 

recalled that 1877 was the best year for 

Consolidated Virginia and California combined 

Illustration 2: California Pan Mill-Interior with nearly $32,000,000 worth of ore being 

extracted and processed. For Consolidated 

Virginia it was the second best year and for 

California the best year. Ores from Consolidated Virginia in June yielded $72 per ton 

11 

The figures included in the text and the tables are from Pacific Mill and Mining Company Financial 

Records, 1874-1881, Mackay, Fair, Flood, O’Brien Archive, NC356/1/2 &13, Nevada Historical Society. 

12 

The June 1877 account was not necessarily representative of the operational link between Consolidated 

Virginia and California and Pacific, but given the paucity of data on Pacific’s finances, it provided as full 

an accounting as any of the surviving documents.


10 

(crushed ore), the lowest yield for the year, while ores from California yielded $82 per 

ton, close to the average for the year. The ores were split among the mills in the 

following manner: ores from Consolidated Virginia went to California (68 percent), 

Trench (16 percent), Bacon (12 percent) and Mariposa (4 percent); ores from California 

to Consolidated (41 percent), Brunswick (27 percent), Morgan (15 percent) and 

Occidental and Sacramento (8 percent each). The two tailings mills, Mariposa and 

Omega, processed about 12,000 tons for the quarter (April-June) and we can assume that 

perhaps a third of that was processed in June. 13 How ore was allotted to the mills was not 

explained, and mills were regularly switched back and forth between Consolidated 

Virginia and California without explanation. The efficiency and availability of a mill may 

have played a role. 

Mill accounts for June 1877 show the cost to reduce a ton of ore (for the moment 

I ignore the tailings facilities) and the profit to be realized from reduction. The mills did 

not own the ores. The reduction rate in June at all the mills was $10 per ton. At the 

beginning of 1877 some of Pacific’s mills charged a rate of $12 per ton, but by the 

middle of the year all the mills had dropped their rates to $10 per ton. A mill’s expenses 

included supplies, labor, freight and repairs, and the difference between the total costs 

and the per-ton rate charged the mining companies was the gross profit. In addition, what 

the mill could earn from the bullion in the “slimes” would be added to the operating 

surplus. If the costs were $7 per ton and the slimes yielded $2 per ton (over and above 

their costs), then the profits would be $5 per ton ($10+$2-$7=$5). Without the slimes 

Pacific Mill and Mining’s profits averaged $2.19 or 22 percent on each ton of ore from 

Consolidated Virginia and $2.64 or 26 percent on each ton from California. The slimes 

from Consolidated Virginia ores added $2.56 per ton and from California $2.48 per ton. 

In nominal terms (dollars and cents) the profit from the reduction of the slimes as 

measured by the value of the bullion could often equal that from the amalgamation of the 

ores. For this single month California Mill had the best profit record for those mills 

reducing ores from Consolidated Virginia, and Brunswick Mill had the best record for 

those mills reducing California ores. Mariposa proved to be the least profitable with 

Consolidated Virginia ores and Occidental with California ores. Labor costs per ton 

differed across the spectrum of mills. Average labor costs for the four mills processing 

Consolidated Virginia ores was $1.60 per ton whereas California Mill spent only $1.17 

per ton. With respect to the mills processing California ores Brunswick had similarly low 

labor costs at $1.16 per ton against an average for the five mills of $1.59. The two-yearold 

California Mill may have registered lower unit labor costs because it was among the 

most efficient mills, and perhaps rebuilding Brunswick had raised its efficiency and 

lowered its per-unit labor outlays. Other factors such as grades of ores assigned to the 

mills may have played a role. In both Mariposa and Occidental labor was between $2.00 

and $2.10 per ton. The cost of supplies per ton did not vary significantly from mill to 

mill. Apparently the mills paid the cost to deliver the ore from the mine, and that cost 

ranged from near zero in the case of Consolidated and California mills, which were next 

door to the mines, to $1.75 per ton for mills along the Carson River near Carson City. 

Repairs were reported at three mils – Sacramento, Consolidated and California – but none 

13 

Bullion Records, June 1877, Consolidated Virginia and California Mining Companies, NC99/1/3/5 & 7, 



11 

at the other mills. Other expenses that one could think of – administrative and legal, for 

example – were not noted. The above calculations concern mainly operating costs. 14 

Among the items needed to do the refining including wood, castings (shoes and 

dies) and bluestone (copper sulfate), quicksilver was the most crucial ingredient. 

Quicksilver or mercury was first applied to the reduction of low-grade silver ores in 

sixteenth-century Mexico and Peru through a process invented by Bartolomé Medina. In 

colonial mines large stone were used to pulverize the ore before it was incorporated with 

mercury, salt and several other ingredients in open, round patios that had large wooden 

spatulas attached by a rod to a donkey that stirred the mixture by walking around the 

patio. Even individuals were known to walk around in the mixture with tragic 

consequences, of course. By the time of the Comstock bonanza the patio process had 

undergone important modifications. The plants still consisted of stamps along with 

batteries for grinding the ores and smashing the rocks, but a mechanized system of pans 

and agitators in a long building had replaced the patios. Mills were identified in terms of 

the numbers of stamps and pans. The process of amalgamating the ore with the mercury, 

which could take up to three months in the patios, had been reduced to weeks and even 

days. In general the higher the quality of the ore the more mercury was required to 

separate the metals. Mercury was bought from California and Arizona miners and as far 

away as Hong Kong. The quality of the mercury was important, and the higher the 

quality the greater the efficiency of the mercury in amalgamating with the ore. Only a 

portion of the mercury in the pan was lost with each incorporation, and what appeared as 

mercury expenses in mill accounts was mainly to recharge the amalgamation pans after a 

batch of ore had been successfully amalgamated. These recharges were unpredictable and 

could vary from pan to pan and mill to mill. Recovery of the mercury, which some 

Spanish colonial miners also practiced, consisted of heating the amalgam of ore and 

mercury to evaporate the mercury, which could then be condensed into a “retort” that was 

usable again. Devices for capturing and restoring mercury were far more effective in the 

late nineteenth century than 100 or 200 years before. 15 

Amalgamation had been invented primarily to make refining various ore grades 

profitable. In colonial Spanish America high-grade ores were often smelted rather than 

amalgamated because mercury sold through the royal monopoly was expensive. Along 

the Comstock and in the West generally, however, mercury was used even with highgrade 

ores. Mill superintendents had learned from experience how to adjust the quantity 

of mercury with respect to the quality of the ore. If manuals existed with the individual 

milling operations, they have not shown up in the archives that I have consulted. Frequent 

assays could provide some guidance on how much mercury should be incorporated with 

the ores. Those who have written about the Comstock have accepted as rough estimates 

the following: if the pans accommodated 2,000 to 3,000 pounds of ore, then they needed 

14 

“Comparative Statement of the Operations of Mills, June, 1877,” Pacific Mill and Mining Co, records 

1865-1884, Bancroft Library, P-G 207, Oversize Box 1, Folder 11. The calculations in the text are mine 

based upon data from this statement. 

15 

Much has been written about Medina and the patio process. For example, see Peter Bakewell, Silver 

Mining and Society in Colonial Mexico, Zacatecas 1546-1700, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 

1971), Chapter 7. All the Comstock’s major historians – DeQuille, Lord and Smith - discussed aspects of 

the refining operations.


12 

200 to 300 pounds of mercury with an expected loss of one pound per pan per operation. 

Such a loss amounted to 0.3 to 0.5 percent of the total. In addition to the experience in 

accommodating for grades of ores, some plants and crews were highly efficient at 

incorporating and reserving quicksilver and therefore minimized the loss and lowered the 

cost. A loss of one pound per ton was a yardstick based on all Comstock operations. 16 

The fact that mercury could be used more than once was what made amalgamation an 

economically viable procedure. If each pan required an average mercury charge of 10 

percent of the ore or 200 to 300 pounds, and that charge had to be replaced in each pan 

after each operation, then amalgamation would have proved to be prohibitively 

expensive. For example, in 1877 the Pacific mills reduced over 366,000 tons of ore. To 

replace 200 to 300 pounds of mercury in each pan after each operation would have cost, 

at 50 cent per pound, from $37 to $55 million dollars. A total replacement would have 

translated into mercury costs reaching $100 per ton. At $100 per ton instead of $10 to 

$15 per ton mercury would have played no role in the milling business. Recharging the 

pans depended on ore grades, which could require recharges several times the average.. 

FIGURE 2 

SUMMARIES OF MONTHLY QUICKSILVER TRANSACTIONS, 1877, 

PACIFIC MILL AND MINING COMPANY 

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] 

Jan 21,535 $3,222,725.00 1367 $50,647.87 $0.48 980 3.49 $41,233.50 $0.55 

Feb 20,333 $3,081,112.00 900 $32,647.85 $0.47 890 3.35 $34,042.50 $0.50 

Mar 22,057 $3,408,014.00 675 $22,978.68 $0.44 1395 4.84 $53,358.75 $0.50 

Apr 27,161 $2,709,443.00 1400 $46,536.98 $0.43 765 2.16 $29,261.25 $0.50 

May 29,642 $2,106,886.00 895 $29,889.98 $0.44 1643 4.25 $62,844.75 $0.50 

Jun 32,943 $1,923,481.00 675 $22,978.68 $0.44 1355 3.15 $51,828.75 $0.50 

Jul 32,626 $1,628,698.00 450 $15,319.12 $0.44 1691 3.97 $64,680.75 $0.50 

Aug 32,184 $1,627,880.00 2227 $83,582.81 $0.49 960 2.28 $36,720.00 $0.50 

Sep 34,057 $1,794,641.00 2500 $99,730.19 $0.52 1450 3.26 $61,008.75 $0.55 

Oct 38,368 $1,888,523.00 575 $19,708.31 $0.45 1190 2.38 $50,069.75 $0.55 

Nov 39,566 $1,731,309.00 1375 $49,183.80 $0.47 1529 2.96 $58,280.37 $0.50 

Dec 36,412 $1,715,623.00 1000 $36,383.50 $0.48 1255 2.64 $48,003.75 $0.50 

Total 366,884 $26,838,335.00 14039 $509,587.77 $0.47 15103 3.15 $591,332.87 $0.51 

Mean 30,574 $2,236,527.92 1,170 $42,465.65 $0.46 1,259 3.23 $49,277.74 $0.51 

Median 32,405 $1,906,002.00 950 $34,515.68 $0.46 1,305 3.21 $50,949.25 $0.50 

Legend: [1] Month; [2] Tons Crushed; [3] Bullion Returned; [4] Flasks Bought/76.6 Pounds; [5] Cost 

of Flasks of Mercury; [6] Price per Pound; [7] Flasks Sold to Pacific Mill and Mining; [8] Pounds 

Sold per Crushed Ton; [9] Cost to Pacific Mill & Mining; [10] Price per Pound. 

Sources: See footnotes 16, 17. 

The total quantity of mercury shipped to and consumed by Comstock millers or in 

particular by Pacific Mill and Mining cannot be stated with any degree of accuracy. This 

could only be determined if we had a full accounting of mercury purchases by all millers. 

16 

The reference to the Pacific mills based on data from “Comparative Statement of the Operations of Mills, 

June, 1877,” Pacific Mill and Mining Co, Records 1865-1884, Bancroft Library, P-G 207, Oversize Box 1, 

Folder 11. Also see Smith, The Comstock Lode, 257.


13 

A 1992 report on “Mercury Contamination of the Carson River” estimated that 15 million 

pounds (7,500 tons) of mercury entered the Carson River basin, mainly from mills 

located along or in the vicinity of the river. 17 Comstock millers processed more than 

seven million tons of ore up to 1885. Based on the performance of the Pacific mills in 

1877, each ton of crushed ore required a charge (to cover the loss) of about three pounds 

of mercury. If that figure were applied to seven million tons, then minimally 21,000,000 

pounds of mercury was consumed up to 1885. The total figure must surely be higher than 

that. The presence of so much mercury in the Carson River would indirectly support an 

estimate of the consumption of 21,000,000 plus pounds, not only because many large 

mills were located on the river itself but nearly all the mills were located in the watershed 

that drained into the river. In addition, all the abandoned mills sites, of which there were 

scores, had mercury contamination so that the estimated volume of the residual mercury 

in the Carson River was incomplete with reference to all the mercury consumed. Using 

the 21-million figure we can also estimate the total cost, based on prices paid by Pacific. 

The cost of 21,000,000 pounds (275,000 flasks) at 50 cent per pound was $10 to $11 

million or 2.5 percent of the total bullion value of gold and silver. A fairly 

straightforward calculation indicates that The Firm accounted for a fifth or $2 million of 

the money spent on the mercury purchases plus the freight. For a single mill the quality 

of the ore would determine how onerous in percentage terms the cost of mercury was. 

Even though high-grade ores required more mercury, the yields themselves could be so 

high, as they were at bonanza mines, that increased mercury consumption had little 

impact on a company’s cost structure. If Pacific’s total mercury expenses were between 

$2 and $3 million, that amount equaled a fraction of a percent of the total value of the 

bullion declared. The legacy costs, however, in the form of contamination and 

rehabilitation of the environment will dwarf the price per ton paid for mercury to refine 

the ore. 18 

Pacific Mill and Mining purchased millions of pounds of mercury to maintain its 

amalgamation operations each year. It was by far the largest purchaser of mercury in the 

history of the Comstock. It did not purchase mercury directly, at least in a technical 

sense. Flood and O’Brien through their San Francisco offices signed the contracts for 

delivery of mercury in behalf of Mackay & Fair in Virginia City, which sold the mercury 

to Pacific Mill and Mining. (This was another section in the previously-discussed 

Mackay & Fair Account.) The account showed what Flood & O’Brien paid for the 

mercury and then what Mackay and Flood received for the mercury when it was sold to 

their own mills under Pacific Mill and Mining. One might assume that the volume of 

mercury purchased by The Firm gave it some leverage in negotiating prices, but, if that 

were the case, it cannot be verified from the transactions detailed in the accounts. It was 

entirely possible that using such leverage was never intended. During the middle years of 

the 1870s demand for mercury was higher than it had ever been, and that pushed up 

prices significantly by as much as a third to a half. Once the boom had ended, prices fell 

by a fifth or more. No serious mercury shortages were alluded to in The Firm’s 

17 

Quarterly Newsletter of Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, Winter, 1992. This figure was taken from 

a 1942 report that is not available on-line. 

18 

The number of flasks and the cost per flask from calculations made from the data in “Comparative 

Statement of the Operations of Mills, June, 1877,” Pacific Mill and Mining Co, Records 1865-1884, 

Bancroft Library, P-G 207, Box 2.


14 

correspondence, although it occasionally contained references to dissatisfaction over 

quality, defective flasks and delays in shipments. Mercury from Hong Kong was more 

expensive by a few pennies per pound than western US mercury, and the cost of freight 

from Hong Kong added more to the final price than domestic freight. (Size of flask may 

have been different and therefore direct comparisons are not possible.) The Hong Kong 

purchases were undertaken to insure a substantial inventory at a time when California 

was at its peak and Consolidated Virginia was staging a comeback. In 1877 total 

purchases may have amounted to 5,000 flasks (383,000 pounds) but as many as 3,500 

flasks and perhaps 4,000 flasks had not yet arrived in Virginia City by the end of the 

year. Because of the travail in completing the transaction, Hong Kong would not soon 

replace domestic suppliers. From the annual mercury statements maintaining an adequate 

supply was more of a concern than looking for the cheapest price. 

At the start of 1877 during the final phase of the Big Bonanza the accounts of 

Mackay & Fair showed that 2,838 flask or 217,000 pounds were on hand in Virginia 

City. During the year Flood & O’Brien bought 14,039 flasks or 1.1 million pounds, 

which were shipped to Virginia City. Another 300,000 pounds, purchased in Hong Kong, 

never arrived except for a few thousand pounds. About 1.2 million pounds were 

distributed, and at the end of the year 136,000 pounds remained. At the rate ore was 

being delivered to Pacific mills, the quantity on hand was enough for a little more than a 

month. At the same time other mines were hoisting ore, and the mills processing their 

ores also needed access to a supply of mercury. The total demand was probably greater 

by several hundred thousand pounds than the totals drawn from the foregoing accounts. 

FIGURE 3 

FLASKS OF QUICKSILVER BOUGHT AND SOLD IN THE ACCOUNT OF 

MACKAY AND FAIR, 1877 

3000 

2500 

Flasks Bought 

Flasks Sold 

2000 

1500 

1000 

500 

0 

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 

Sources: See footnotes 16.


15 

There was a negative correlation (-.27) between the purchases of mercury in the 

account of Flood & O’Brien and the sales of mercury from that account to the account of 

Mackay & Fair. For the year flasks of mercury purchased averaged 1,170 per month 

while sales averaged 1,259. The local stockpile of quicksilver on the first of each month 

averaged 2,900 flasks in the first six months and 1,800 flasks in the next six months. For 

the year crushed ores from Consolidated Virginia and California rose from 21,535 tons in 

January to 36,412 tons in December, a rate of over 4 percent a month (R 2 =90 percent). 

Purchases by Flood & O’Brien in the first half averaged 985 flask per month and in the 

second half 1,385 flasks, while sales to Pacific averaged 1,171 and 1,486 respectively. By 

the end of the year the stockpile of mercury was lower than at the start of the year. On 1 

August the inventory of quicksilver in Virginia City had fallen dangerously low to 481 

flasks (37,000 pounds) against the average inventory on the first of any month of about 

2,400 flasks. As shown in Figure 4, almost 2,500 more flasks of mercury were sold to 

Pacific than Flood & Fair bought through July 1877. 19 In the two months after July Flood 

& O’Brien sharply boosted purchases: they bought 2,227 flasks in August and 2,500 

flasks (of which 1,000 arrived from Hong Kong) in September. For the rest of the year, 

while stockpiles were not fully replenished, they were less overdrawn. 

FIGURE 4 

QUICKSILVER TRANSACTIONS, PACIFIC MILL & MINING, JUNE, 1877 

Month Tons Bullion Flasks Total Price Flasks Lbs 

Crushed Values Bought Cost per lb Sold to Sold 

76.6# PMMC per Ton 

Jan 21535 $3,222,725 1367 $50,647.87 $0.484 980 3.49 

Feb 20333 $3,081,112 900 $32,647.85 $0.474 890 3.35 

Mar 22057 $3,408,014 675 $22,978.68 $0.444 1395 4.84 

Apr 27161 $2,709,443 1400 $46,536.98 $0.434 765 2.16 

May 29642 $2,106,886 895 $29,889.98 $0.436 1643 4.25 

Jun 32943 $1,923,481 675 $22,978.68 $0.444 1355 3.15 

Jul 32626 $1,628,698 450 $15,319.12 $0.444 1691 3.97 

Aug 32184 $1,627,880 2227 $83,582.81 $0.490 960 2.28 

Sep 34057 $1,794,641 2500 $99,730.19 $0.521 1450 3.26 

Oct 38368 $1,888,523 575 $19,708.31 $0.447 1190 2.38 

Nov 39566 $1,731,309 1375 $49,183.80 $0.467 1529 2.96 

Dec 36412 $1,715,623 1000 $36,383.50 $0.475 1255 2.64 

Total 366884 $26,838,335 14039 $509,587.77 $0.474 15103 3.15 

Average 30573.67 $2,236,527.92 1170 $42,465.65 $0.463 1259 3.23 

Month Total Price % Chg % Chg % Chg Index Index 

Cost per lb Tons Flasks lb Sold Tons lb Sold 

Sold 

Jan $41,233.50 $0.549 70.44 108.01 

Feb $34,042.50 $0.499 -5.58% -9.18% -3.82% 66.50 103.89 

Mar $53,358.75 $0.499 8.48% 56.74% 44.49% 72.14 150.10 

Apr $29,261.25 $0.499 23.14% -45.16% -55.47% 88.84 66.85 

May $62,844.75 $0.499 9.13% 114.77% 96.80% 96.95 131.55 

19 

Calculating coefficients of variation for the first six months revealed that there was more than twice the 

variability on the purchase side (58 percent) as on the sales side (24 percent).


16 

Jun $51,828.75 $0.499 11.14% -17.53% -25.79% 107.75 97.62 

Jul $64,680.75 $0.499 -0.96% 24.80% 26.01% 106.71 123.01 

Aug $36,720.00 $0.499 -1.35% -43.23% -42.45% 105.27 70.79 

Sep $61,008.75 $0.549 5.82% 51.04% 42.73% 111.39 101.05 

Oct $50,069.75 $0.549 12.66% -17.93% -27.15% 125.49 73.61 

Nov $58,280.37 $0.498 3.12% 28.49% 24.60% 129.41 91.72 

Dec $48,003.75 $0.499 -7.97% -17.92% -10.81% 119.10 81.80 

Total $591,332.87 $0.511 5.24% 11.35% 19.44% 

Average $49,277.74 9.26% 19.93% 

Sources: See footnote 18. Base for indices is series average. 

FIGURE 5 

CRUSHED ORE IN TONS AND MERCURY SALES (REPLENISHMENTS) IN 

POUNDS, PACIFIC MILL AND MINING, 1877 

45000 

40000 

35000 

30000 

25000 

20000 

15000 

10000 

5000 

0 

R² = 0.8994 

R² = 0.206 

Crushed Tons 

Pounds Added Per Ton 

Linear (Crushed Tons) 

Linear (Pounds Added Per Ton) 

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 

6.00 

5.00 

4.00 

3.00 

2.00 

1.00 

0.00 

Sources: See footnotes 16. 

Can the depletion of stockpiles of quicksilver in Virginia City be accounted for? 

In the first six months Flood & O’Brien bought less mercury on average per month (985 

flask) than Mack & Fair sold on average per month (1,171 flasks) to Pacific. Suppliers 

may have been pressed to meet the demand (why else turn to Hong Kong) and yet given 

prices paid, as they appear in the accounts of Flood & O’Brien and Mackay & Fair, not 

much if any constraint on supplies of mercury can be observed. A more likely 

explanation for the decline in stockpiles may have resulted from sudden upturn in the 

extracting and milling of high-grades ores during the Spring 1877. Crushed tons yielded 

far more bullion in the first half than the second half. Ratios of pounds of mercury sold to 

Pacific Mill and Mining against tons crushed (a rough measure at best) indicated 

(Column 8, Figure 4), that sales of mercury by Mackay and Fair, presumably to replenish 

the pans, were higher in the first half than the second half of the year. The reason for this 

could be seen be the yields per ton in the first six months: 150, 152, 155, 100, 71 and 58. 

In the last six months the yields slid into the lows 50’s and then into the mid-40’s. High 

ore grade consumed more mercury and therefore demanded larger recharges for


17 

successive batches. These yields, declared to the Story County Assessor, in the first half 

of 1877 were among the higher ever recorded for any bonanza. 20 Such yields may well 

have been unexpected, and thus for a brief few months mercury stockpiles declined 

normal levels. By the end of the year, even though Hong Kong purchases had been 

arranged for to restore the stockpiles and to anticipate any further upswing in yields, the 

yields had tuned in the opposite direction and the state of local mercury stockpiles was no 

longer a matter of concern. Mercury supplies would be ample as the Comstock moved 

from bonanzas to borrascas. 

The average price paid by The Firm was $0.474 per pound on the purchases of 

nearly 1.4 million pounds. (Hong Kong’s purchases are included in this figure because 

they had been paid for.) The average monthly price for purchases by Flood and O’Brien 

ranged from $0.434 to $0.521 per pound. Only once, in September 1877, when they 

purchased more than 380,000 pounds of mercury in Hong Kong, did the average price 

exceed $0.50 per pound. The cost of freight to Virginia City on average was 2.25 cents 

per pound. To buy and ship a pound of mercury from its source to Virginia City cost on 

average $0.497, or 50 cent per pound. The price of the sale of a pound of mercury by 

Mackay and Fair to Pacific mills was higher by a few pennies than the combined average 

purchase and freight costs. Their accounts always showed how much was on hand after 

sales plus purchases. There may be an appropriate explanation for boosting the price paid 

by Pacific by a few pennies, such as covering office expenses, etc., but whatever the 

explanation was it cannot be found in the accounts themselves. What this meant in 

financial terms was that Flood & O’Brien paid approximately $530,000 for 14,000 flasks 

and their freight, or $0.495 per pound, for which they were duly reimbursed by Mackay 

and Fair, who then sold 15,000 flasks from the stock at nearly $600,000 or $0.511 per 

pound. Given the inconsistencies and inaccuracies that exist in these accounts it is 

probably wise not to make too much of the difference between figures for purchases and 

sales within the same operation. Still, based upon an examination of the accounts, each 

flask of the mercury sold by Flood & O’Brien to Mackay & Fair cost a few cents more 

per flask when sold by Mackay & Fair to Pacific Mill and Mining. 21 

From the beginning of the Quartet’s tenure on the Comstock entailed the 

intertwining of separate companies to handle distinct tasks in the exploitation of the 

Lode. Owning an array of businesses did not begin with Mackey, Fair, Flood and 

O’Brien, but they may have carried the idea of integrating various enterprises farther than 

others did. Mining companies were incorporated with public stockholders besides the 

members of the Quartet and issued annual reports and other pronouncements on the state 

of underground operations. The other companies – logging, water, banking and refining – 

were privately held and therefore were less transparent, not being required to publish 

financial statements. How the Quartet allotted duties can be figured out even without any 

detailed job description - Mackay and Fair in operations and Flood and O’Brien in 

finances – but how the profits and surpluses were allotted is much harder to unravel. It is 

20 

The above text based on examination of the “Quicksilver Statement, 1877,” in Miscellaneous Accounts, 

Mackay, Fair & Co., NC95, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. 

21 

“Quicksilver Statement, 1877,” in Miscellaneous Accounts, Mackay, Fair & Co., NC95, Special 



18 

of interest because the Quartet’s various businesses made money, at least the most 

important ones. All of the members of the Quartet except perhaps O’Brien were hands-on 

managers and administrators. Fair was the long-time day-to-day superintendent of 

Consolidated Virginia and California Mines, although Mackay was on the site most of the 

time and acted as superintendent when Fair was gone or indisposed. In addition to 

Mackay and Fair in Virginia City D. B. Lyman was the long-time superintendent of 

Pacific Mill and Mining Company and J. Minor Taylor was the equally long-term office 

manager. Taylor was more visible than the others because his initials appeared on almost 

all the correspondence emanating from Virginia City, starting in 1874. He was also 

responsible for maintaining the financial transactions under the previously-discussed 

Mackay & Fair account. (J. H. Gager was an auditor or accountant who reviewed and 

corrected their account.) From all indications he was a meticulous and conscientious 

manager. The mining company finances were elaborately recorded in bound volumes and 

in considerable detail. The accounts of the other businesses were on the basis of what 

have survived less elaborate and specific, although they can be informative. Flood and 

O’Brien managed what might be called the “corporate offices” since the two largest 

entities, Consolidated Virginia and California, were incorporated in California. When 

funds were transferred to San Francisco from the Virginia City Mackay & Fair account 

they entered the Flood & O’Brien account. Transactions could originate with Flood and 

O’Brien but be paid out of transfers from the Mackay & Fair Account and vice-versa 

could originate with Mackay and Fair and be paid out of transfer from the Flood & 

O’Brien account. In addition they dealt with the US Mint and Treasury on the disposition 

of the bullion or coin that the Quartet owned. I have found no records directly relating to 

their affairs, although I have come across documents that summarize some of their 

activities. Taylor made it quite clear that the Mackay & Fair account was the accounting 

umbrella for all the Virginia-City-based businesses except for the Consolidated Virginia 

and California Mining Companies. In response to inquiries that arose out of the Dewey 

litigation he wrote in a letter to Flood and Fair on 11 September 1881 that “[W]hen I 

entered your employ in December 1874 Mackay and Fair were the mediums (and have so 

remained) through which all transactions of the Pacific Mill and Mining Company with 

Flood and O’Brien and J. C. Flood and Co. were made.” Taylor further noted that the 

Mackay & Fair account was actually recorded in their names as Quicksilver Accounts, 

and that was the title that appeared in the heading of each page for the 1877 document 

that has survived. It is unclear if Taylor regarded this as an error or a risk and, if so, 

whether he sought to change the accounts to fit more closely with what they reflected. 

This did not mean that Pacific Mill and Mining (of any other business entity) lacked 

financial records and ledgers to keep track of day-to-day operations. Indeed the financial 

documents relative to mill operations, discussed above, were highly detailed. The 

Mackay & Fair accounts or, as they were titled, “Quicksilver Statements”, concerned the 

purchase and sale of quicksilver on the one hand and the remittance of funds, presumably 

gross profits, generated by the businesses that Mackay and Fair owned or controlled in 

association with Flood and O’Brien. 22 

22 

Copy of Letter to Messrs. Flood and Fair from J. Minor Taylor, Virginia City, 11 September 1881 in 

Grant Smith Archives, Binder 4, “Bonanza Firm”, NC229, Special Collections, Library, University of 

Nevada at Reno.


19 

Monthly Quicksilver Statements generally consisted of three parts contained 

within two pages. Most of the Statements were signed by J. Minor Taylor in behalf of 

Mackay & Fair in Virginia City and dated. The general format was consistent from 

month-to-month, but the entries themselves varied considerably. It was not always clear 

from the entries exactly what items were being referenced with respect to Mackay and 

Fair’s Account. The first page concerned mainly mercury transactions between the 

accounts of Mackay & Fair and Flood & O’Brien. The quantity of mercury on hand at the 

start and the end of the month was noted along with purchases and sales and remittances 

in cash from Virginia City to San Francisco. These transactions were discussed above. 

The second part concerned the remittances of monies accruing to Mackay and Fair’s 

Virginia City account from Pacific’s milling operations to Flood and O’Brien’s San 

Francisco account. The remittances were in the form of cash, bank drafts and bullion. 

This section was particularly interesting because a “running total” was calculated each 

month, and that figure closely approximated the “net profits” under review in the Dewey- 

Burke suit and the Mackay-Fair distribution in subsequent years (also discussed above). 

Finally the third section carried the heading of “Cash Receipts & Disbursements”. This 

was a summary of cash transactions involving the Mackay & Fair account. The account 

received cash from the mercury business as well as the milling and logging businesses. 

The cash transferred from Virginia City to San Francisco was only a portion of the total 

transfers. The value of these Monthly Quicksilver Statements (which obviously dealt with 

more than quicksilver) even for just one year is that they make it possible to study the 

stream of income to Mackay, Fair et al. from their ancillary businesses. Let me 

underscore that these remittances did not include the ingots from the ore extracted from 

The Firm’s mines. Most of milled ore was shipped from the Comstock to the Federal 

Mint in San Francisco for the final assay and the conversion into bullion or coin. 23 It was 

the bullion, of course, that came to represent the great wealth of Mackay, Fair et al. But, 

as can be seen from the monthly accounts, the ancillary businesses could also yield 

income for the principals. 

The remittances involving Pacific Mill and Mining had the largest numbers and 

the most complicated entries. Total remittances as of 1 January 1877 were $2,428,131.53. 

Pacific had been in operation since 1874, and in the first two or three years the mills had 

generated substantial operating profits. During 1877 total remittances rose to 

$4,272,567.98, an increase of 72 percent. Total remittances continued to grow; by the end 

of 1879 they had exceeded $7.2 million and by the middle of 1881 when the dissolution 

of the Pacific partnership was completed they had surpassed $8.9 million. That figure is 

close to what the “net profits” were said in one of the two documents drawn up for the 

dissolution. Remittances continued after the middle of 1881 and may have pushed the 

total somewhere above $9 million. 24 The remittances may not have been so much “net 

profits” as “operating surpluses”. From the 1877 Monthly Statements and other 

documents it cannot be said that all of Pacific’s operational and capital expenses had been 

met prior to the transfer of money from Virginia City to San Francisco. The Monthly 

Statements simply did no more than record what had been transferred. Still the “running 

23 

A small part of the ore output was minted in Carson City and then shipped to San Francisco. 

24 

The totals for the years between 1878 and 1881 were taken from a typescript copy by Grant Smith of a 

Letter to Messrs. Flood and Fair from J. Minor Taylor, Virginia City, 11 September 1881 in Grant Smith 

Archives, Binder 4, “Bonanza Firm”, NC229, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno.


20 

total” through 1877 and beyond corresponded to what other sources declared to be “net 

profits”. While the figures themselves remain ambiguous, the entries for the year 1877 

taken as a whole offer some interesting insights into how Pacific’s owners managed their 

affairs. 

The manner in which the monthly remittances of Pacific Mill and Mining funds 

were entered into the Mackay and Fair accounts followed several different formats. 

Entries under Pacific remittances were stated in cash and drafts with no further 

description of the origination of the entries. Some entries were described more 

specifically as proceeds from sales of ore bars, mostly silver, and from sales of slime or 

mill bullion plus rebates on freight on the Virginia & Truckee Railroad. Other entries 

(equal to a quarter of a million dollars) were described as “Bullion in Transit in the 

account of PMM&Co” or “Fine Silver to be accounted for by PMM&Co” but were kept 

separate from the remittances and were not included in the running total. It is not clear 

from the Statements why this was so. It will be recalled that Pacific charged Consolidated 

Virginia, California and other mining operations a rate per ton to mill the ore and that 

gold and silver bullion was then registered under the mining company. Even as the rate 

fell Pacific was processing so much ores of high grades in efficient mills that it could 

make a dollar or two per ton over and above its costs. Some of those operating profits 

may have been remitted in the form or cash or banks drafts. But Pacific also earned 

money from processing slimes and other residues that remained in the possession of the 

milling company, and the entries concerned with income from sales of bars may well 

have reflected that side of the milling business. In any event Pacific, incorporated 

primarily to process ores from Consolidated Virginia and California proved to be a 

moneymaker in its own right. 

The third part of the Quicksilver Statements, Cash Receipts & Disbursements, 

tracked the receipt and disbursement of cash and its equivalent as opposed to bars of 

silver and other similar non-liquid financial instruments in the Mackay & Fair account. 

Cash flowed in from previously discussed mercury sales and milling proceeds and from 

another ancillary business, Pacific Wood, Lumber & Flume Co and were listed as 

“debits” in the Mackay & Fair account. Cash from these businesses was disbursed to the 

Flood & O’Brien account and listed as “credits” to the Mackay & Fair account. The total 

cash entered as debits was almost $2 million for 1877 and the total entered as credits 

more than $1.6 million. Not surprisingly during the course of the year some cash was 

held in reserve in the Mackay & Fair account. Some of the cash or equivalent entries in 

Pacific Mill and Mining remittances also showed up in Cash Receipts & Disbursements 

(as they should). Of the receipts, actually in accounting terms a debit, the breakdown was 

as followed: $1 million from Pacific Mill and Mining, $600,000 from quicksilver and 

$300,000 from Pacific wood, Lumber and Flume. Conversely on the disbursements, a 

creditof more than $1 million in cash was disbursed from Mackay & Fair to Flood & 

O’Brien in the account of Pacific Mill and Mining and $150,000 in the account of Pacific 

Wood, Lumber and Flume. Mercury disbursements were almost equal to mercury 

receipts. The Pacific Mill and Mining disbursements were greater than the receipts for 

1877 whereas the Pacific Wood, Lumber and Flume were about half of the receipts. Cash 

transfers from The Quartet’s related business was only a fraction of what they gained


21 

from their mines, but gross operating profits, which these disbursements may represent, 

of $1 million in a single year was by any measure a highly valued business. 25 

25 

“Quicksilver Statement, 1877,” in Miscellaneous Accounts, Mackay, Fair & Co., NC95, Special 


THE COMSTOCK [Q] 

1 

Chapter 17 

Mining Taxes And Public Revenues: 

Vexing Question-Mining Taxes, 1871 Mining-Proceeds Tax Amendment, Measuring 

Tax Impact, Tax Rates, Adjustments & Revisions 

As a part of the western Great Basin Nevada was largely desert in topography and 

climate. Little naturally fertile land existed outside of the major river valleys, and over 

time ranching rather than farming would become the principal agricultural activity. What 

drove Nevada’s economic engine in the early years was mining. Its great mineral wealth 

and the inflow of settlers that accompanied the ore discoveries justified, at least in the 

eyes of the Republican Party, who sought to solidify their congressional majorities, the 

admission of Nevada before it actually qualified on the basis of population. When A. F. 

White, Nevada’s Mineralogist, wrote his report for the 4 th Biennial Legislative session in 

1869, he included a broad survey of the state’s economic resources, and while mining had 

achieved dominance in a few short years, he noted other emerging economic activities. In 

describing Washoe County he wrote that Washoe Valley and Truckee Meadows 

“combine to make this one of the best agricultural counties in the state. Well-tilled farms, 

comfortable residences and accompanying improvements give it the appearance of an old 

settled country. Quantities of wheat, barley, rye, oats, corn, and hay and of all the hardier 

vegetables are produced annually.” In addition the eastern slopes of the Sierras (on 

Washoe western boundary) boasted of “a forest of fine timber” But when he turned to 

Washoe County’s neighbor, Story County, his description took on bleaker tones. Story 

County, he wrote, was “broken and barren.” It had “scarcely any fertile land and but little 

timber. Were it not for the Truckee River forming part of the northern boundary, this 

county would be almost wholly destitute of living water.” 1 Ironically what allowed Story 

County to emerge as the state’s most dynamic economy was not what it lacked above 

ground but what was so bountiful below ground. Notwithstanding Nevada’s other 

economic assets its economic health and future would become tied directly and 

inexorably to the resources of its subsoil well into the twentieth century. {See Survey 

Map in Special Appendix at end of chapter.] 

Like every new state Nevada had to arrive at a formula for financing state 

services. After much wrangling and numerous lawsuits Nevada included in its tax code a 

provision for taxing minerals as well as plants. The mining boom attracted tens of 

thousands immigrants who required public services. Road, prisons and schools had to be 

built and judges, bureaucrats and legislators had to be paid. Despite objections from 

mining industry executives, who became a powerful constituency in state and national 

politics, a consensus existed that mining should pay an appropriate share of the cost of 

government at the local and state level. Although the mining industry was never taxed as 

heavily as some thought was justified (and never as much as the Spanish Crown taxed its 

colonial mining industry) the mining industry soon became the major revenue source. In 

good times government funding was adequate to meet the demand for minimal basic 

services, pay down the public debt and maintain a small surplus. (There may have been 

considerable debate about how to define minimal services.) Expectations were high that 

1 

“Biennial Report of the State Mineralogist of the State of Nevada for the Years of 1867 and 1868” in 

Senate Journal and Appendix, 4 th Legislative Session (1869), 21-24.


2 

such funding levels would and perhaps grow indefinitely. This was the view in large part 

because the mining experts often rendered such extraordinarily positive projections of 

how much profitable ore lay underground. Even the noted German expert Baron von 

Richthofen, while warning that the structure of the ore bodies could change at greater 

depths, also concluded that yields at current levels (1864) will not diminish with greater 

depths. Indeed he went so far as to predict that some mines currently unproductive would 

become productive again. In comparing the Comstock with Mexico’s most famous 

mining district, he noted that at 1,200 feet Guanajuato encountered barrenness that 

continued at lower depths. That was not the case on the Comstock where even richer ore 

bodies were being exploited at several hundred feet below 1,200. Of course, experts can 

be misled by what they see or hear, and while von Richthofen’s comparison of Comstock 

with Guanajuato (Mexico) was correct, his conclusion was not. When the miners reached 

1,600 or 1,700 feet, they too found the ore boundary. The State Mineralogist summarized 

the Baron’s Report and quoted from it in his 1875 Report to the Legislature at the outset 

of the greatest bonanza to underscore more or less the endless potential ore production as 

Comstock mines went ever deeper. 2 This was good news for the mining industry and for 

all the public treasuries. But eventually the mines turned barren, and so too did state and 

county treasuries. But the public infrastructure remained and more importantly had to be 

paid for. As mines were shuttered and camps abandoned, public expenditures had to be 

reduced, and where the public infrastructure had to be maintained, even though some 

depopulation had occurred, taxes had to be raised. The rate of taxation on property in 

Story County in general and in Virginia City in particular was higher at the end of the 

great Comstock era than at any time during it. 

Relations between government and the mining industry over taxation and other 

regulations involved mainly the state rather than the county or municipality. Certainly 

documentation on these relations is more ample with respect to the state than the county 

or municipality. In fact the legislation concerning the thorniest issue – taxation of the ore 

– was directly a state matter, not a local one, even though the county was charged with 

assessing the ore and collecting the tax. These relations were hardly ever amicable. That 

battle lines were drawn early, and as the industry’s wealth and power grew, they proved 

difficult to smooth over. The mining companies’ aim was to pay as little as possible in 

taxes to the state, whereas many officials and citizens believed that at the very least 

companies should be taxed to pay for the services that had to be extended to the mining 

camps. Some even believed that the companies should be required to share the great 

profits that they enjoyed from exploiting Nevada’s natural patrimony. This was a state, of 

course, in which almost everyone was a newcomer. Although the hope was that no matter 

one’s origins, once in Nevada one should change one’s stripes and become a Nevadan. 

The truth was that only a small percentage of those who came during the Comstock 

bonanzas ever became the ideal Nevada citizen. What drew the investor, the worker or 

the vagabond was the chance to make money, and what drove them out was the collapse 

of chance (at least until the rise of the gambling business). Newcomers were itinerants. In 

the case of those who financed the mining industry they were not even itinerants, they 

were more often absentees. The ambivalence in the political rhetoric was how to build a 

2 


Assembly, 7 th Legislative Session (1875), 91-101.


3 

civil society in the absence of control if not ownership of the state’s precious resources. 

Increasingly over time, as the most powerful driver of the state’s young economy – the 

Comstock – substituted borrascas for bonanzas, the rhetoric became harsher. The inflow 

of outside capital mainly from California was duly acknowledged, but the outflow of 

wealth also mainly to California was first resented and then condemned. Efforts to alter 

these dynamics, even on a modest scale, ran smack into a powerful alliance between the 

business of mining and the business of politics. Some of the new state’s most influential 

politicians came out of the mining industry. They had little interest in accommodating the 

needs of the state except at some minimal level. Moreover, they were, in a form of 

perverse logic, prepared to allow the federal government, which held inherent powers of 

disposition of public lands and mineral rights to set the rules for western mining. Mining 

companies actually preferred federal regulation to state regulation because it was less 

intrusive and more protective with respect to their financial and property interests. 

Nevada’s own congressional delegation was often composed of former mining 

entrepreneurs who looked after the business interests of the state as much as if not more 

than the citizen interests. Differing and sometimes opposing viewpoints during America’s 

late nineteenth century economic expansion were not abnormal, as Americans tried to 

sort out how the principles of laissez-faire could co-exist with the public’s need for 

protection and security in a time of a rapid economic transformation. In western mining 

where the institutional structure (for example, the legal system) was still evolving that 

struggle between he private and the public turned acrimonious and nasty. Nevadans 

found themselves in the difficult position of wanting both to promote and to control the 

business of mining, which all parties recognized as vital to the State’s continuing 

economic growth and development. As more and more mines went out of business and 

output of ore fell correspondingly, the bullion tax as a source of revenue virtually 

evaporated with little hope that it could be revived. Needless-to-say as the public, in 

particular the state government, tried to assess what future mining had in the State’s 

economy, the sentiment toward the mining industry turned increasingly hostile. For some 

the ambivalence was erased: Nevada had been robbed. 

Official financial record reveals how the fortunes of the state and the county 

changed over time. In the Controller’s Report of 1865, the first year after statehood, the 

receipts of the state treasury amounted to $466,137.31 including a small balance of 

$1,000 carried over from the territorial government. Proceeds from mining taxes 

contributed only about 3 percent ($15,447.36) of the total. Poll taxes provided about the 

same percentage ($17,069.24). Property taxes (current and in arrears) accounted for about 

33 percent and the remaining 40 percent came from miscellaneous sources including 

licenses, fines, tolls and the sale of state bonds. It was not unusual for a newly admitted 

state to have to issue bonds in the first few years before the tax and revenue systems were 

in place to pay their bills. In the case of Nevada the issuance amounted to $150,000, a 

third of all receipts and equal to revenues collected from property taxes. 3 More than a 

decade later in 1877 the state treasurer reported a balance at the start of the year of 

$351,522.60, with receipts of $699,244.71 for a total of $1,050,767.30. Proceeds from 

mining taxes equaled $240,558.31 or 23 percent of the total. Disbursements had also 

3 

“First Annual Report of the Controller of the State of Nevada for 1865” in Senate Journal and Appendix, 

3 rd Legislative Session (1867), 7.


4 

reached $605,800.86, but the treasury still reported a balance of $444,966.44. As the 

mining boom unfolded mineral taxes allowed the state government to meet its obligations 

at a time when population growth demanded more services and simultaneously to show a 

surplus. 4 But when the boom faded the surpluses served to buoy up state finances for a 

year or two while adjustments were being made. In 1880 receipts totaled only $151,245 

with mining-tax proceeds contributing $20,680 or 14 percent. In that year disbursements 

exceeded receipts by more than $60,000 so that a surplus of nearly $240,000 shrunk to 

$179,000. The Governor, John Kinkead, reported in his message to the 10 th Session of the 

Legislature (1881) that receipts from mining taxes for the current biennium (1879-1880) 

were $436,000 less than the previous biennium (1877-1878). In addition property taxes 

had fallen as mining properties had been abandoned or closed, and the mining tax itself 

was reduced by nearly half by the Legislature in response to the deteriorating state of the 

mining industry. Disbursements had fallen by two-thirds since the 8 th Session but they 

still exceeded receipts, and they were slowly eating away at the surplus. 5 But Kinkead 

was actually optimistic about the future of the state’s economy (perhaps as governors 

must be) and in particular about the mining industry. He held that mining would remain 

the backbone of the economy, and that the recent rise in prospecting (outside the 

Comstock District) would help lead the mining industry back to good health. He wrote 

“[D]evelopment awaits upon discovery, and material wealth upon both.” 6 

During the next biennium (1881-1882) Kinkead’s optimism about mining was not 

borne out. Mining receipts came in slightly above $20,000 in 1881 but still below the 

receipts for 1880, and they fell again in 1882 to less than $16,000. 7 Total treasury receipts 

in both years were actually much higher - $461,000 in 1881 and $381,000 in 1882 – than 

the previous biennium. These increases resulted not from improvements in mining but 

rather from higher receipts in property taxes and from sales of bonds and assets. Total 

expenditures (although some were not for current outlays) exceeded receipts by $25,000 

in 1881 but came in under them by $33,000 the following year. After certain receipts and 

expenses were excluded for accounting purposes the 1881-1883 biennium reported 

revenues of more than $605,000 and expenditures of nearly $634,000 for a deficit of just 

under $30,000. Kinkead, however, continued to believe that mining would be the engine 

for economic growth, and to that end he proposed new legislation to encourage 

investment and development in mining. “Much of the [mineral wealth] lies dormant for 

lack of capital and transportation facilities. The decline in the production of the great 

Comstock Lode…has through unjust comparison greatly retarded the prosecution of the 

mining industry in other portions of the state.” And he acknowledged openly that 

Nevada’s financial future would be shaped in part by how the Legislature answered once 

4 

“Annual Report of the Controller…1877” in Appendix to Journals of Senate and Assembly, 9 th Legislative 

Session (1879), 80-88; “Annual Report of the Treasurer of the State of Nevada [Jerry Schooling, Treasurer] 

Fiscal Year Ending 1877” in Appendix to Journals of Senate and Assembly, 9 th Legislative Session (1879), 

10-19, 60-72. 

5 

“First Biennial Message of his Excellency Governor John H. Kinkead to the Legislature of the State of 

Nevada,” in Appendix to Journals of Senate and Assembly, 10 th Legislative Session (1881), 5-7. 

6 

“First Biennial Message of…Kinkead to the Legislature….” in Appendix to Journals of Senate and 

Assembly, 10 th Legislative Session (1881), 9. 

7 

Figures cited by Kinkead differed from the actual treasury numbers because he added $33,000 in penalties 

paid by The Bonanza Firm on taxes withheld in 1877.


5 

again that “vexed question” of how much to tax the mining industry. 8 His sanguine 

outlook for Nevada mining (not necessarily Comstock mining) was apparently drawn 

from the Surveyor-General’s biennial report (once again responsible for mining surveys 

since the Office of the State Mineralogist had been abolished) in which he stated that 

despite the declining output at the Comstock other regions were taking up the slack. 

Every mountain range, he averred, had mines of gold and silver of “greater or less value” 

with the area around Eureka showing the most promise. But then the Surveyor-General 

had to admit, as did the Governor, that results had not yet matched up with prospects. 

Notwithstanding all the wealth extracted from the Comstock “the people of Nevada to 

day[sic] are poor.” The populist rhetoric that grew in intensity during the 1880s was 

immediately recognizable in his report: 

Not a dollar of the net proceeds of our mines is invested in the State. The 

city of San Francisco has been the principal recipient of Nevada’s mineral 

wealth….Mining corporations leave no monument of their wealth with us, 

while railroad corporations, with gasping avarice, continue to exact their 

pound of flesh. No wonder the state is poor!…When taunted with being 

poor, as Nevada frequently is, it is well enough to let the world know the 

cause of her poverty.” 9 

It was hard to accept that Nevada’s unprecedented mining boom had run its 

course, at least given the prevailing state of knowledge about its mineral assets and the 

technology to recover them, and not to avoid the question of how so much wealth could 

have failed to lay the foundations for a more diverse and productive economy. In fact 

extractive industries, even as big as Nevada’s was for a quarter of a century, often left 

local economies in disarray. It happened repeatedly in western United States mining and 

throughout colonial Spanish America from Mexico to Peru. The economics of extractive 

industries can be fairly easily delineated and analyzed, but that does not make the results 

any less controversial or more acceptable. Gold and silver represented real wealth, almost 

none of which remained in Nevada or Story County as capital to invest. There was little 

interest in investing in anything but mining and its ancillary businesses (including 

railroads) and when mining collapsed, as happened on the Comstock and throughout 

much of Nevada after 1880, there was little else to show for how that great stockpile of 

gold and silver benefited Nevadans. 

Indeed mineral taxes had “vexed” Nevadans from the outset. The first 

constitution, written in 1863, was rejected in part because the mining interests disliked 

the taxing provisions. In this constitution mining taxes were simply an extension of 

property taxes. In his history of Nevada taxation Romanzo Adams explained that since 

many early settlers, especially miners, came from California where mines were exempt 

8 

“Second Biennial Message of…Kinkead to the Legislature….” in Appendix to Journals of Senate and 

Assembly, 11 th Legislative Session (1883): the summary of state finances included in the message covered 

pp. 4-10 with total revenues and expenditures for 1881 and 1882 cited on p. 10; the discussion of mining 

prospects appeared on pp. 23-24. 

9 

“Biennial Report of the Surveyor-General…1881 and 1882” in Appendix to Journals of Senate and 

Assembly, 11 th Legislative Session (1883), 10-11. See also “The Persistent Optimists” in Hulse, The Silver 

State, 144-145, for Nevadans’ attitudes a decade after the collapse of the Comstock.


6 

from taxation (until 1872), they favored the same approach in Nevada. He pointed out 

that the amount of taxable property excluding mining properties was so small in Nevada 

that it could not have served as the sole financial support of the new state government. 

Mining was what put the state on the map, and irrespective of the Californian transplants’ 

approach to taxation mining had to help pay for the cost of organizing and financing 

government. Taxes on mining were inevitable. 10 

“To escape taxation,” according to Adams, may have been the best description of 

how the mining industry approached the subject first in the territorial government and 

then in the state government. It did not totally escape taxes, but it succeeded in limiting or 

reducing taxes due. In the First Territorial Legislature (October-November, 1861) mining 

was exempted, but in the Second Territorial Legislature (November-December, 1862) a 

“gross proceeds” tax was enacted: 12 cents per $100 of ore for the territorial government 

and 18 cents per $100 for county governments. Gross proceeds were less than precisely 

defined to be “bullion recoverable from the ore”. In Story County where mineral mining 

was concentrated the District Attorney in the absence of a legislative mandate declared 

that the mines’ proceeds were the untreated ores (and therefore assigned lower dollar 

values) whereas the mills’ proceeds were the treated ore (and assigned much higher 

values). Adams estimated that under this interpretation 60 percent of the bullion escaped 

taxation. 11 Nevada’s first constitution, written in November and December 1863, 

contained a provision that taxed the properties rather than the proceeds of mines, and in 

response the Third Territorial Legislature (January, 1864) abandoned the gross proceeds 

tax in favor of a property tax. The new constitution was rejected, however, in January 

1864. Taxing mines as property went against the wishes of William Stewart, who was 

among the most prominent of Nevada’s early mining entrepreneurs and was emerging as 

political leader (later elected U. S. Senator) and who preferred a tax on proceeds, and his 

opposition to the new charter helped to defeat it. 12 In the second constitution, written in 

July and approved in September 1864, Article X, Section 5 provided for a proceeds tax. 

Some miners preferred a total exemption, but inasmuch as Nevada already had a deficit 

of more than $264,000 on which it was paying interest of between 10 and 18 percent 

there was little support to give special waivers to mining companies. The formula by 

which proceeds were taxed as defined by the first State Legislature was complex. Adams 

explained it this way: 

The term “proceeds of mines” was interpreted to mean the value of the 

ore, not the value of the bullion, and the value of the ore was determined 

by subtracting twenty dollars a ton from the value of the bullion extracted 

by ordinary processes and by subtracting forty dollars a ton from the value 

of the bullion extracted by the Freiburg process, and then by taking threefourths 

of the remainder as the value of the ore for taxation. 13 

The deductions were arbitrary numbers that were justified (at least by the mining 

interests) as reflecting the cost of extraction, reduction and transportation of the ore. Once 

10 

Adams, Taxation in Nevada, 69, footnote 1. 

11 

Adams, Taxation in Nevada, 71-72. 

12 

See Hulse’s discussion of Stewart’s position and strategy in The Silver State, 81-83. 

13 

Adams, Taxation in Nevada, 73.


7 

the deductions were determined, however, everyone paid taxes on the remaining 75 

percent of the ore. Obviously costs varied from company to company, but having taken 

that into account and also granting a 25 per cent general discount the legislation required 

all assessment be standardized at the 75-percent level. When the Nevada Supreme Court 

initially was asked to rule on the whether any deductions should be granted, it decided 

that while the deductions may be interpreted as too extreme, that in and of itself did not 

make the legislation unconstitutional. In 1867, however, in a ruling from the court the 75- 

percent assessment was found to be unconstitutional. In the aftermath of the decision the 

Legislature decreed that once the assessed value were determined, the rate for purposes of 

state and county taxes was fixed at $1 per $100 in ore, a figure that was below what other 

property owners paid. This too was declared unconstitutional. Also in the 1867 legislative 

session the $20 deduction per ton was reduced to $18. 14 Finding a workable solution was 

not easy. The growing fiscal crisis faced by state and local government necessitated some 

new approach to taxing mineral output, Nevada’s most prosperous industry. 

In 1871 the Legislature amended the statutes governing mining-proceeds taxes. In 

an earlier section I discussed the provisions of the amendment with respect to how 

assessment and tax records could be assembled to describe the structure of the industry. 

Herein I am interested in the 1871 law with respect to how the Legislature addressed the 

need for revenue and how its decision affected the tax burden of the mining industry. The 

justification for amending the original bullion tax was to assure a flow of revenue to state 

and local governments that lacked the financial resources to provide minimal basic public 

services, especially in Story County, where the expansion in mining itself required an 

extension in services. Mining interests still carried clout in these negotiations and 

debates, and although the amendments both modified and formalized the approach set out 

in earlier legislation, the mining companies prevented wholesale changes, which could 

have greatly increased their taxes, by accepting tax revisions that offered a measure of 

stability for financing public services. Perhaps the most important change was that 

mining taxes would be based on the value of the bullion instead of the value of the ore. In 

terms of enforcement this change meant that county assessors could rely on mint records 

to determine the dollar value of the gold and the silver extracted from a company’s ore 

rather than on estimates of what the ore might yield. Companies could continue to deduct 

costs for extraction, transportation and reduction from the value of the bullion without the 

strict oversight by mining-company critics who feared that even under an amended law 

companies would practice deception and fraud in accounting. The amended law limited 

deductions based on expenditures by linking them to the ore yields: for yields of $12 per 

ton or less, 90 percent of the costs could be deducted from the gross value to determine 

the assessed value (to be taxed); from $12 to $30, 80 percent could be deducted; from 

$30 to $100, 60 percent; and over $100, 50 percent. If a company had yields in the $30 to 

$100 per ton range and its costs came in under 60 percent of the value of the bullion, then 

no deduction was granted and the assessment from which the tax was determined would 

be the “net” or the balance after costs had been subtracted from revenues (value of 

bullion). If the company’s outlays exceeded the percentage for the yield, say, for ore 

yields between $30 and $100 the outlays equaled 70 percent of the value - then the 

formula would be applied so that the company could only deduct 60 percent and not 70 

14 

Adams, Taxation in Nevada, 73-81.


8 

percent. That meant that even if a company spent $10 more per ton to extract, transport 

and refine its ore, it received no exemption for the added cost. The legislation was clear 

that “in no case whatsoever shall the whole amount of deductions” be permitted when 

those deductions exceeded the threshold based on the yield per ton in bullion. This 

formula was a compromise that did not satisfy any of the parties in the dispute, but 

despite efforts to alter the percentages the formula remained intact until the end of the 

Comstock era and beyond. Finally, as required by the state constitution, the rate applied 

to the assessed value of the bullion could be no higher than the rate for other real and 

personal property. 15 

Romano Adams concluded that the 1871 legislation was still “favorable to the 

mine owners” but less so than past legislation. What concerned Adams on the basis of his 

review of assessments and taxes three decades after the collapse of the Comstock was 

that the percentages were simply too generous: “…it is probable that the statement of a 

maximum limit encouraged mining operators to return costs nearly up to the limit and 

without much reference to the actual costs.” 16 In brief, if a mining company declared ores 

with yields of $30 to $100 per ton that allowed for a 60 percent deduction against the 

total bullion value, it could try to push up the costs as high as possible so that the “net” 

(difference between bullion value and operational costs) upon which the tax was 

calculated was as small as possible. If the assessor was suspicious, he could order an 

audit, although to date no such audits can be documented as having taken place. The 

question remains: How inflated were the companies’ reported expenses? And the answer 

is no one knows. In making his assertion Adams relied on official commentary. In one 

instance he cited the comments of Governor L. R. Bradley in his biennial message to the 

8 th Legislative session. The Governor’s message was mainly concerned with fairness - did 

mining companies, often California corporations, pay less than their fair share in taxes 

when compared to other property holders? The governor did not address the question of 

fraud directly. His calculations showed that under the 1871 law companies paid taxes on 

assessments that were less than 50 percent of the actual bullion value. Was that fair in 

comparison to other companies and businesses that paid taxes on higher assessments 

because they were not granted generous deductions? That question was indirectly related 

to how expenses were reported, but more specifically it was related to the formula itself. 17 

Adams also cited a report from the State Controller that exemptions allowed mining 

companies between 1875 and 1878 were “fifty per cent larger than was allowed under 

former law”. Unfortunately the footnote is incomplete, and I could not confirm the 

accuracy of the assertion. 18 That the procedure for assessing the value of the bullion, as 

established in the 1871 law, granted favorable tax advantages to mining companies that 

other businesses did not enjoy is hard to miss. But on the matter of how often and how 

15 

“An Act providing for the taxation of the net proceeds of mines” [Approved February 28, 1971, p. 87] in 

The Compiled Laws of the State of Nevada, 2:225-228; Adams, Taxation in Nevada, 82. 

16 

Adams, Taxation in Nevada, 83. 

17 

“Third Biennial Message of Governor L. R. Bradley of the State of Nevada” in Appendix to Journals of 

Senate and Assembly, 8 th Legislative Session (1877), 7-8. 

18 

Adams cited page 100 of the “Biennial Report of the Controller…1876”, Appendix to Journals of Senate 

and Assembly, 8 th Legislative Session, 1877, and while that page contained fiscal data, it did not have 

anything to do with a comparison between the two laws nor could it have covered the period from 1875- 

1878.


9 

much mining companies cheated in reporting their costs the evidence remains to be 

discovered. 

FIGURE 1 

COMPARISON OF PER-TON YIELDS AND COSTS FROM TOTALS AS 

RECORDED IN STORY COUNTY ASSESSMENT ROLLS BY QUARTER, 

1871-1885 

$80 

$70 

$60 

$50 

Per-Ton Yields 

Per-Ton Costs 

$40 

$30 

$20 

$10 

$0 

0 10 20 30 40 50 

Quarters Sequentially 

Notes: Reported totals for bullion and cost each quarter divided by reported total tonnage to achieve a perton 

figure. Total of 43 quarters between first quarter 1871 and fourth quarter 1884 with some quarters 

missing between 1871 and 1876. 


Close scrutiny of Story County assessment records did not resolve the question of 

whether companies exploited the loopholes that Adams and other critics had highlighted. 

The key was how companies reported their costs. On the value of the bullion the assessor 

could check mint records and receipts; on the cost of extraction, transportation and 

reduction the assessor depended on honest company declarations. Audits were seldom if 

ever undertaken on a regular basis, and company accounts if they have survived at all 

provide partial but not definitive summaries of company outlays. Combing through 

company accounts is an arduous and not always a rewarding venture since accounting 

principles and practices were less than enthusiastically embraced. One modest approach 

is to examine the stated declarations of all companies appearing before the county 

assessor to see if any patterns emerge. Companies were permitted to make their 

declarations and payments in the quarter following the quarter that they were reporting. 

Figure 1 above is derived from dividing total tons by total bullion receipts and total 

operational costs as declared before the assessor each quarter (for which data exist). 

Between the first quarter of 1874 and the third quarter of 1879 total bullion receipts per 

ton were two to three times higher than total costs per ton. In the remaining quarters the 

differences were less obvious. For the period from the fourth quarter 1880 through the 

third quarter 1881 costs consistently exceeded receipts. The large differential between the


10 

two variables in the middle 1870s can be explained, of course, as the result of 

extraordinarily rich ores and relatively moderate costs to extract and refine those ores at 

Consolidated Virginia and California. The reversal was the result of the deep contraction 

in output and not surprisingly the sharp rise in cost. Even after output began to grow ever 

so slightly after 1881 costs tended to exceed receipts. What, then, to make of this pattern? 

The median for bullion receipts was $27 per ton versus $22 per ton for operating costs. 

(The average was higher at $32 for receipts and lower at $21 for costs.) Receipts were 

more volatile than costs (coefficient of variation 61 percent versus 27 percent). Receipts 

had a wide range from $10 per ton to $80, but costs stayed within a much narrower range 

of $10 to $35. Over the period for which quarterly data exist operating costs as reported 

by companies were fairly predictable: during the 1870s $20 to $30 per ton and in the 

1880s $10 to $20 per ton. If companies were cheating, they were all cheating to the same 

degree. Individual companies could exaggerate their costs, but as a group they reported 

figures that changed only slightly from year to year. These figures do not prove that 

cheating never took place. What they may best reveal is that a range of costs over periods 

of time came to be accepted as normal. As long as declared costs did not significantly 

disrupt that standard, they were not challenged. 19 Public officials (as evidenced in the 

governors’ addresses) were always suspicious that companies were less than honest, but 

they, in particular local assessors, may have been unwilling to challenge company 

declarations so long as the range of costs was not seriously violated. That companies 

periodically reported far higher costs than revenues was not in itself a signal of deception 

because it was well known on the Comstock that massive expenditures were often needed 

to make a mine productive. Mines known to be profitable would certainly have a difficult 

time maintaining the charade of excessive costs in order to reduce taxes. Lacking large, 

professional auditing staff assessors had to depend on companies to make relatively 

honest declarations. Both sides were prepared, it would seem, to live with each other 

without demanding too much. 

Bonanza mines might arouse immediate suspicions about “cooking the books” in 

order to qualify for deductions under the law. In the case of Consolidated Virginia and 

California the ratio between yields and costs do not appear to be greatly exaggerated. But 

some notable differences between what was declared before the assessor and what was 

reported in the accounts or to the stockholders do exist. In the end the 1871 amended law 

did not specify precisely what was to be included in costs for extraction, transportation 

and reduction. It would appear that instead of systematically fabricating figures (not an 

easy task) companies took advantage of the law by including as much as possible under 

costs of extraction, transportation and reduction. In this way costs could be inflated 

without necessarily directly violating the law. This may have raised official eyebrows, 

but was it serious enough to merit the kind of review that a full-blown audit would 

require/ Even with both company accounts and public records in front of me I cannot 

determine with certainty the accuracy of the accounting. What the surviving historical 

record provides is a glimpse from which we must make an educated guess. For example, 

at Consolidated Virginia in 1876 ore yielded nearly $17 million in bullion, and, when 

19 

For the quarters from 1871 through 1874 data taken from surviving Abstracts of Story County 

Assessments in the Nevada State Archives; for the period from 1875 through 1884 data from microfilm 

copies in The County Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story County, Special Collections, Library, 

University of Nevada, Reno. The calculations are mine.


11 

dividends, cash on hand etc. (totaling between $12 and $13 million) are stripped from 

general disbursements, the new total is a proxy for mining costs of between $4 and $5 

million or 29 percent of the bullion value. Items under disbursements included actual 

operating operations – timber, lumber, hoisting, reduction, freight, supplies, wages, to 

name a few – plus other items such offices expenses, books and stationary, legal outlays, 

etc. The exact comparison would be the declared expenses for extraction, transportation 

and reduction before the assessor along side of the reported disbursements to the 

stockholders. Unfortunately because of the fire the former has not survived. But even if it 

had survived, the reported costs for tax purposes were general rather than itemized so that 

what the company included in extraction, transportation and reduction cannot be 

ascertained without more records. For the two quarters (third and fourth) in which 

assessments survived the average reported costs were $1.5 million, which if projected 

backward would approach $6 million, a figure somewhat higher than the general 

disbursement figure in the 1876 Annual Report (that covered 1875 business activities). 

The report to the stockholders was more discrete, although not perfect, than the 

declaration to the assessor, and yet the spread did not point to any massive cheating. 20 

A similar test can be run on Consolidated Virginia’s accounting for 1878: the 

Annual Stockholders’ Report (dated 1878) can be compared with declarations before 

assessor. Declarations of expenses were supposed to be by category: extraction, 

transportation and reduction. Some companies adhered to the procedure with regularity 

(although that did not mean what constituted these expenses was revealed) and other 

companies, in particular Consolidated Virginia and California, simply reported totals for 

all three categories. Since this happened with regularity, even though a technical violation 

of the law, the assessor apparently did not object. 21 In 1878, for example, Consolidated 

Virginia’s declared costs before the assessor appeared as follows: $1.3 million in the first 

quarter; $900,000 in the second; $500,000 in the third; and $300,000 in the fourth. It 

should be noted that Consolidated Virginia’s operations were curtailed during the year 

because of extensive repairs to the main shaft and other facilities. Of interest is how these 

costs were reported: the $1.3 million was entirely assigned to reduction and the $900,000 

entirely to extraction; the remaining two entries were simply listed as totals. 22 It is 

dubious that these declarations can be trusted in terms of how they were assigned. When 

summed, however, the entries for all the quarters total slightly more than $3 million. 

Checking these figures against the accounts in the Annual Report proves to be equally 

complicated because the Annual Report contained several different accounting 

documents (see footnote), each of which has to be examined. 23 In accounting for the 

20 

Relevant Annual Reports in NC99/1/5/1, Bx 2 and NC99/1/5/6, Bx 2, Special Collections, Library, 

University of Nevada, Reno. 

21 

One possible reason is the bonanza mines seldom qualified for deductions in assessments. Their per-ton 

yields were so high that their costs never reached the threshold where those costs would change the 

assessments. Under these terms the assessor might have been willing to accept unitemized totals. 

22 

The mill records for 1878 show that most but not all the ores were reduced during the first half of the 

year. The total value of the bullion from the reduced ores was between $1.1 and $1.2 million, slightly 

below what was reported to the assessor. See Bullion Records, 1878, Consolidated Virginia Mining 

Companies, NC99/1/3/5, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada at Reno. 

23 

Within what is titled the “Chief Clerk’s Report” (pp. 38-44) are four accounting documents to be 

consulted: Consolidated Virginia’s “Annual Statement (Balance Sheet)”, “Inventory of Property”, “Actual 

Cost of Mine” and “Consolidated Virginia and California Joint Shaft and Disbursements”. Annual Report,


12 

actual cost of operating the mine – presumably from extraction to reduction since the 

company paid for removing and refining the ore - the company put total costs at $2.6 

million, or about one half of a million dollars less than the assessor’s figure. The 

explanation for the difference lay in ferreting out costs from the other accounting 

documents. In short, without burdening the text with the details of the search let me state 

the basic proposition that the total costs as declared for purposes of assessments included 

items that did not appear in the accounts detailing actual mining costs but appeared in 

other documents that detailed costs incurred to manage the company. Two examples will 

suffice: the company both purchased and consumed supplies; some purchased supplies, 

however, remained unconsumed at the end of 1878. The assessor’s declaration included 

both purchased and consumed, but the calculation of the actual mining cost included only 

that which was consumed. The unconsumed became a part of the property inventory on 

hand at the end of the year. The second example has to do with the C&C Shaft. The 

outlays for construction, operation and repair show up in the assessments but not in the 

accounting for the cost of operating the mine. Through this process it is possible to 

reconcile the difference of nearly $500,000. The conclusion that one must draw is that 

since the 1871 law did not spell out in detail what could be counted and not counted the 

company bundled together all direct and related costs for running Consolidated Virginia 

This was not necessarily illegal or illegitimate in the absence of specific instructions from 

the statute itself. Since the cost for operating the mine as reported to the stockholders was 

lower than the cost reported to the assessor, the per-ton expense will be different - $20 

per ton in the Annual Report versus $24 per ton in the assessment declaration. Since 

Consolidated Virginia’s bullion yields were so high even in 1878 between $64 and $65 

per ton, the mine’s assessment was computed by subtracting straight-away mining costs 

from bullion receipts without any deductions or exemptions. The more the company 

could show in expenditures, the lower the tax burden would be. Similar tests with similar 

results could be run for other years at Consolidated Virginia and for California. How 

much was lost to the county and state by including additional $500,000? About $15,000 

on the basis of the tax rates in 1878. 24 Even in modern times tax laws without loopholes 

are difficult to write, and while the 1871 law allowed considerable latitude over 

identifying mining expenses, it may have been written and allowed to stand as written 

because a case could be made that extracting, transporting and reducing the ores involved 

legitimately both direct and indirect costs. 

While the companies and their executive complained of the tax burden that the 

mining-proceeds levy imposed, the statistics do not necessarily support the outcry. The 

tax burden borne by Comstock mining companies could hardly be described as excessive. 

Even companies with low yields and high costs in dollar terms paid only hundreds of 

dollars in taxes. Recall that the change in the 1871 law required all companies (or 

individuals) with bullion had to pay taxes. Even the bonanza mines or, more precisely, in 

particular the bonanza mines, had little to complain about. In 1876 when both 

1878, Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, NC99/1/5/1, Bx 2, Special Collections, Library, University 

of Nevada, Reno. 

24 

From 1875 through 1880 (the last full year) Consolidated Virginia received no deductions based on ratios 

of costs to yields in 68 percent of the quarters (15 of 22) and California received no deductions in 73 

percent of the quarters (14 of 19). In other words, they paid a tax based on the net after subtracting 

expenses from receipts (in bullion).


13 

Consolidated Virginia and California declared ores for the first time in the same year the 

companies paid more than a half million dollars in taxes on ores that yielded more than 

$20 million or two-thirds of the Comstock total yield. In brief the companies paid out 

about 1.7 percent of their receipts in state and county taxes based on the net-proceeds 

mining tax (and excluding taxes paid on properties such as mills, offices, etc. owned by 

Mackay & Fair and their associates). 

As the Comstock’s star producers Consolidated Virginia and California had no 

rivals in outlays for state, county and municipal taxes. In 1876 when Mackay and Fair’s 

two mines paid over $500,000 in mining-proceeds taxes the other two-dozen mines or 

mills assessed for taxes paid less than $70,000. In other words two mining companies 

paid 91 percent of the mining-proceeds taxes collected by Story County in 1876. The 

third and fourth highest taxpayers were Ophir ($19,432) and Belcher ($17,264). In 1876 

both mines were under the control of Sharon, Ralston and their associates, although 

Mackay and Fair bought Ophir in 1877 after Ralston’s apparent suicide in the San 

Francisco Bay in 1876. Ophir did not pay dividends but Belcher did at least until 1877. 

Ophir produced $2.4 million worth of bullion at a cost of $1.6 million (66 percent). It 

paid taxes on an assessed valuation of more than $870,000 or 36 percent of the $2.4 

million. Its tax bill amounted to .79 percent of the total bullion. Its yields per ton fell from 

$40 per ton to $24 per ton over the four quarter. It paid “net” (yields minus costs) in the 

first quarter when its costs amounted to 54 percent and it received deductions of 60 

percent in the second and third quarters and 80 percent in the fourth quarter as its yields 

declined and its cost accelerated: 65 percent in the second, 62 percent in the third and 90 

percent in the fourth, its worst quarter. Lacking company records for 1876 I have been 

unable to check these figures against other financial documents. It is known that the fire 

destroyed nearly 400 feet of Ophir’s main shaft and it was retimbered along with other 

renovations after the fire. What was more telling, however, was the expenditure of money 

in search for the extension of the California ledge under the Ophir claim by the current 

and future owners. 

The Belcher story was different. Being located on the Comstock’s southern end it 

was not connected to the frenzy of activity that animated the northern end after the 

discoveries at Consolidated Virginia, and although it had remained productive longer 

than Crown Point after their bonanza years in the early 1870s (having paid dividends 

through 1876), it had entered the final phase of profitability. Its bullion valued at $2.8 

million cost about $2.5 million (90 percent) according to the company’s declarations. Its 

tax bill amounted to .63 percent of its bullion. Its yields, already well below its earlier 

achievement continued to fall in 1876 from $26 per ton to $16 per ton. Without access to 

more company financial data I cannot comment on the accuracy of its ratio of yields to 

costs except to say that Comstock miners themselves had more or less established $20 per 

ton as the break-even point. Its yields per ton entitled the company to 80 percent 

deductions, which it was granted in every quarter but the first when its cost reached only 

76 percent of the value of the bullion. In the subsequent quarters expenses were equal to 

88 percent, 100 percent and finally 135 percent. Belcher had sunk into the red for the first 

time in years. Even though it lost more than $100,000 in the fourth quarter mining ore, it 

paid taxes of more than $1,600. Whether or not Belcher accurately or inaccurately


14 

reported its costs, the fact is that the mine ceased producing recoverable ore until the 

early 1880s. 

The remaining $30,000-$35,000 in taxes during 1876 was raised from companies 

well-known and long-established and from companies virtually unknown. More than a 

dozen of the taxpayers were tailings operations, which were listed as mills or as 

individuals. Tailings were assessed under the same rules as ores, but they contributed 

only a fraction – less than 1 percent – of the total tax receipts. Of the $250,000 worth of 

bullion that the tailings produced the taxes on tailings of $600 amounted to about a 

quarter of one percent. The yield per ton of ore came in between $8 and $9. The largest of 

the tailings operations was Express Mill, which generally reported costs to be about $8 

per ton against receipts of about $9 per ton. Of the remaining ore producers several 

reportedly operated in the red throughout the year. Chollar Potosi had total costs that 

exceeded receipts by nearly a million dollars and Crown Point by nearly half a million. 

Their yields per ton were between $12 and $30, and that entitled them to an 80 percent 

deductions except for the fourth quarter when Crown Point’s yield fell below $12 per ton 

and it earned a 90 percent deduction. Their tax bill totaled more than $7,500 when Crown 

Point paying the largest quarterly bill of more than $3,000 on receipts under $500,000 but 

costs over $500,000. Both of these mines had reached their ore-bearing limits and would 

make only sporadic appearances in the assessment rolls during the next decade. That they 

may have exaggerated their costs in 1876 was still a possibility, even though it was 

evident that the expense of operating the mines was far greater than the return. 25 

Tax policy treated the mining community well, at least in comparison to other 

property classifications. Adams pointed out that nearly a half century later with only 

minor technical revisions in the 1871 law (which continued in effect for many more 

years) the difference between ad valorum taxes (i. e., taxes based on assessments of 

values of properties) in mining and in farming was 8 percent (15 percent versus 23 

percent). 26 The difference between the two categories in the decades after the founding of 

the state and during the Comstock bonanza has not, to my knowledge, been calculated 

simply because comparable data are hard to come by. During the first two decades, 

beginning in 1867 (earliest ore and tax records) through 1884 more than $379 million 

worth of gold and silver bullion was reported from all of Nevada’s mining districts. This 

was a yearly average of $21 million. Of that total $176 million or 46 percent was subject 

to taxation. The taxes collected from the assessments amounted to about $3.7 million or 

2.1 percent of the total assessable property and 0.97 percent of the total bullion value. 

Assessments as a percentage of the bullion value never rose above 57 percent (1876 and 

1877) and they fell as low as 22 percent (1883 and 1884). During the years of the highest 

assessments taxes on mining operations consumed 1.2 percent of the reported bullion 

value and during the years of the lowest assessments they consumed an equal amount. 

These figures do not include what mining paid for assessments on surface properties (and 

their improvements) such as mining shafts or what mills and ancillary operations paid on 

their business properties. How much the properties and in the case of the mines how 

25 

The above discussion of assessments and taxes for 1876 used the microfilm copies in The County 

Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story County, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno. 

All the calculations are mine. 

26 

Adams, Taxation in Nevada, 100.


15 

much the proceeds should be assessed constituted one part of the continuing debate. The 

other part concerned rates that were levied against those assessments. 

FIGURE 2 

COMPARISON OF NEVADA COUNTY TAX RATES IN DOLLARS PER $100 

ASSESSED VALUES OF MINING PROCEEDS, 

SELECTIVE YEARS: 1867, 1877 and 1885. 

County 1867 1877 1885 

Rate $/$100 Assessment Rate $/$100 Assessment Rate $/$100 Assessment 

Year 1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q Year 1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q Year 1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q 

Churchill 2.8 

Elko 3 3 3 3 3 2.15 2.15 2.15 2.15 2.15 

Esmeralda 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 

Eureka 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.55 2.55 2.55 2.55 2.55 

Humbolt 2.9 2.9 2.9 2.9 2.9 2.9 2.9 2.6 2.6 2.6 2.6 2.6 

Lander 2.9 2.9 2.9 2.9 2.9 2.6 2.6 2.6 2.6 2.6 3.6 3.6 3.6 3.6 

Lincoln 3.84 3.8 4 3.8 3.8 3.55 3.75 3.5 3.5 3.5 

Lyon 2.45 2.45 2.45 2.45 2.45 2.75 2.75 2.75 2.75 2.75 

Nye 2.25 1 1 1.5 2.75 3.2 3.2 3.2 3.2 3.2 3.35 3.35 

Story 1.42 1 1.5 1.5 1.5 2.05 2.05 2.05 2.05 2.05 5.15 5.05 5.2 5.35 5.25 

Washoe 3.15 

White Pine 3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 3.45 3.45 3.45 3.45 3.45 

Mean 1.74 1.33 1.61 1.82 2.12 2.14 2.12 2.19 2.14 2.17 3.47 4 3.46 3.18 3.16 

Median 2.9 1.95 2.2 2.2 2.9 2.75 2.75 2.75 2.75 2.75 3.25 3.45 3.45 3.35 3.45 

Notes: Rates computed from Controllers’ Biennial Reports: total tax collected divided by total miningproceeds 

assessments. Figures in red estimated. 

Sources: See foot note 26. 

The history of tax rates is far more difficult to untangle than the history of mineral 

assessments. State and local government determined the rates. State rates were more 

stable because revisions could only be made during biennial legislative sessions while 

local rates could be changed annually and even changed more than once during a fiscal 

year. Once rates were determined, the State Constitution (Article 1, Sections 1 and 9) 

required that ad valorum rates must be applied uniformly to all categories of property, 

generally defined as “real, personal and possessory” but also defined to include proceeds 

of mines. To treat mining proceeds as a separate category with its own rate structure was 

impermissible. Equally impermissible, as some had proposed, was to make owners of 

rich mines to pay a higher rate than owners of inferior mines. This principle was 

reaffirmed in several court cases from the late 1860s and the early 1870s and remains 

largely unchanged after more than a century. Public officials could employ within 

reasonable bounds different measures for assessing the value of property of different 

classes (residences might be assessed differently from business), but once assessed all 

properties (including mine proceeds) paid the same rate within the taxing jurisdiction. 

These bodies could not adjust the assessment formula for mining proceeds because that 

was established in a legislative statute. From the standpoint of how property assessments


16 

were established local governments had some flexibility to raise or lower tax revenue by 

adjusting the assessment formula. With respect to rates, however, all property holders 

including mining companies paid the same. Assessment schedules could differ but rate 

schedules could not. 

Between 1867 and 1885 the Legislature changed tax rates four times. In 1867 

(prior to the legislation of 1871) the state collected $1.25 per $100 of taxable assessed 

value (or 1.25 percent of that value). For example, mining proceeds assessed at $1,000 

would yield taxes of $12.50 if calculated at $1.25 per $100 ($1.25 times $1,000 divided 

by 10) or if calculated at .0125 times $1,000. In 1875 the rate was reduced to 0.90 percent 

where it remained until 1879 when it was lowered again to 0.55 percent of the assessed 

bullion value. Two years later the Legislature restored the 0.90-percent rate, and that was 

the last change through 1885. The Legislature altered rates for various reasons. The 

obvious reason was to try to adjust tax receipts to match up with revenue needs. Because 

of the Comstock boom in the first half of the 1870s the state treasury began to report 

surpluses that increased pressure on the Legislature to lower its ad valorum rates in 1875. 

Legislatures had to negotiate the shoals of protests erected by the mining interests, who 

although still publicly opposed to any proceeds tax increasingly shaped their arguments 

in terms of taxes diverting capital from investment needed to maintain the expansion of 

the Comstock. Like all booms this one eventually came to an end, and by the late 1870s 

the engulfing depression added pressure for the Legislature to drop rates further to cut 

mining costs. In 1879 the Legislature complied with another reduction. It was assumed 

among the politicians as well as the investors that the Comstock would recover as it had 

in the past, and the diminution in revenue accompanied by a drawing down of surpluses 

was seen as temporary. By 1881 with Comstock output falling further and with no new 

major discoveries or recoveries in sight the state, having exhausted its surpluses, was 

forced to raise taxes at a time when logic would dictate the reverse action. In the 

following years the Comstock recovered slightly from the lows of 1880 and 1881 but the 

recovery was statistically insignificant against the backdrop of the previous recoveries. 

The state’s financial health grew more precarious, and that led to more borrowing and 

cost cutting including the elimination of the Office of the Mineralogist. 27 

27 

The Controllers’ Biennial Reports contained information on the rate structure. Beginning with the 3 rd 

Legislative Session (1867) through the 13 th Legislative Session (1887) the reports are in Appendix to Senate 

Journal through the 6 th Legislative Session (1873) and in Appendix to Journals of Senate and Assembly 

through the 13 th Legislative Session (1885). When compiling the reports the Controllers indicated the statetax 

receipts at the prevailing rate plus the county-tax receipts without any notation of the prevailing rate 

since rates varied from county to county. A rate can be calculated for each county in each quarter (tax 

receipts divided by assessed values), and an average can be calculated for all counties from the total county 

tax receipts divided by the total county assessment values. I have used the Controllers’ Biennial Reports in 

the Nevada State Archives. As noted in Chapter 2 the 1871 law helped to clarify and standardize the 

procedures for assessing mining proceeds, collecting taxes due and transferring tax revenues owing to the 

state. County assessors were required to gather the following information from the mining companies and 

tailings mills: total tons, per-ton yields, bullion values, costs of extraction, transportation and reduction, 

deductions (if any), assessed values and total taxes. Mines and mills were required to report their taxable 

ores every quarter. The above data were copied to an Abstract Statement from the Quarterly Assessment 

Roll of the Proceeds of the Mines that was virtually identical to the accounts kept by the assessor (at least 

in Story County). The county auditor verified the figures in the Abstract, and after state revenue stamps 

were attached the county clerk notarized the document. Usually written in at the bottom of the Abstract was 

a breakdown of the total tax between the state and the county. These abstracts were the sources used by the


17 

County government had the responsibility for administering assessments and 

collecting taxes. As noted above, a share of those taxes were claimed by and transferred 

to the state. Over time most all Nevada counties derived some revenue from mining. In 

1867 only five counties had taxable mining proceeds, and during the next 20 years 13 

counties reported such proceeds at least once. Figure 2 presents the average rate countyby-county 

based on the Controller’s biennial reports for selected years: 1867 because it 

was the first year in which the Controller’s data appeared in print; 1877 because it was 

the most productive year in the history of the Comstock; and 1885 because it was the 

final year of this study. A word of caution about these figures is called for. They were 

computed by dividing the assessed values of declared ores into amount of tax actually 

collected. This yields a percentage rate that can be converted to dollars and cents per 

$100 of assessed value. The actual county rate for any given time period (a year or less) 

most appropriately should be drawn from county records. I have not searched for or 

consulted county archives, in particular Story County archives for discussions and 

decisions about tax matters. I have examined Story County assessment and tax ledgers 

currently available in the County Assessor’s Office in Virginia City. The October 1875 

fire destroyed many of the Story County records, but according to the index of the 

County Microfilm Project some pre-1875 records exist on microfilm. I have not checked 

those microfilm copies. My aim is not to write a history of early taxation in Story County, 

but to evaluate assessments and rates and their impact on the mining industry. The rates 

can be calculated from the taxes paid, which were recorded as a part of the assessment 

information, and that calculation constitutes the rate structure that I am using in this 

analysis. I am well aware that if I had Story County’s tax-rate schedule for each year in 

front of me, I might be looking at rates that were slightly different from the “backward” 

calculations that I have done. Moreover there is an additional problem in that the county 

government could establish different rates for municipalities within its jurisdiction. 

Presumably these different tax rates were based on different expenditure levels that had 

to be met in the municipalities. These different municipal rates show up in the assessment 

records with respect to Gold Hill, Virginia City and later Flowery, and while they can be 

calculated in the “backward” fashion noted above, I cannot always be certain that they 

accurately reflect the real rates as legislated by county government and as applied to the 

assessed proceeds of mines within these municipalities. The rates that I discuss in the 

following paragraphs are in my opinion close to the real rates but remain to be confirmed 

through the reconstruction of the Story County rate schedule, something that may or may 

not be possible. Finally, it is important to note that these rates were not simply set at 2 

percent or 3 percent but often carried one or two digits to the right of the decimal point – 

2.15 percent instead just 2 percent or 4.60 percent instead of 5 percent. (When the rates 

are shown as x dollars per $100 of assessed value, the first figure can be converted to a 

percentage.) What the State Constitution constrained municipalities from doing was 

taxing one class of property differently from another class. Hence county tax rate data in 

Figure 2 above are no more than a calculated rate for all local taxing jurisdictions. The 

actual rates for counties and taxing jurisdictions within those counties could only be 

state Controller in making his biennial reports to the State Legislature. Story County Assessment Rolls 

survive from the third quarter 1875 (post-fire) through 1885 both in their original form at the Assessor’s 

Office in the Story County Courthouse, Virginia City, NV and in The County Records Microfilm Project, 

ST 67 Story County, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno.


18 

documented though research in county records or, as I will show below, analysis of the 

bullion-tax assessment rolls. 

Despite considerable variability in county tax rates (not unexpected given the 

state’s demographic and economic diversity) both the average and median county rates 

rose during the selected years. The mean rate for all counties rose between 1867 and 

1885: from $1.74 to $3.47 per $100 and median rate from $2.90 to $3.25 per $100. From 

the larger sample of 10 counties between 1877 and 1885 the mean and median rates rose 

from $2.14 to $3.47 per $100 and from $2.75 to $3.25 per $100 respectively. The countyby-county 

pattern was somewhat more complex. From the 1867 list three had higher rates 

in 1885, one had a lower rate and one had the same rate. The most notable increase 

occurred in Story County where average rate in 1885 was $5.15 per $100 compared to 

$1.42 per $100 in 1867. The rate in Nye County climbed from $2.25 to $3.35 per $100 

and in Lander County from $2.90 to $3.60 per $100. Esmeralda’s rate was unchanged 

and Humboldt’s fell by a few cents. For the shorter period from 1867 to 1877 rates fell in 

Esmeralda and Lander counties, rose in Nye and Story and remained unchanged in 

Humboldt. Between 177 and 1885 rates continued to rise in Story and Nye. In Lander 

1885 rates not only rose above the 1877-level but also above the 1867-level, and in 

Esmeralda the rate was higher in 1885 than in 1877, although the 1885 rate was the same 

as the 1867 rate. In Humboldt the rate was lower in 1885 than 1877. Of the remaining 

five counties two had lower rates in 1885 than 1877 and three had higher rates. 

Presumably the movement in levies applied to mining-proceeds shadowed the movement 

of levies on general property. On the one hand, mining was encouraged because it created 

jobs and raised incomes, and without the in-migration that accompanied mining Nevada’s 

statehood may have been delayed indefinitely. On the other hand, in-migration could 

overwhelm local services and facilities, and while mining taxes helped to pay for these 

needs, they were not so generous as to obviate the need for upward adjustments in all tax 

categories. When mining booms ended, the counties faced new fiscal crises. Although 

out-migration usually accompanied the collapse of mining, municipalities and counties 

that had depended on revenue from the bullion tax had to make some wrenching 

decisions about how to meets the needs of the remaining population with less revenue 

and in some cases like Story county with far less revenue. Higher property taxes at times 

when they were least affordable had to be part of the answer. 28 

When bullion was declared before the county assessor, the mining jurisdiction 

was noted and the county tax levied against the bullion was based on the property-tax rate 

in that jurisdiction. As noted above, the share of net-proceeds taxes paid by the mining 

companies to the state treasury was uniform across all jurisdictions and counties 

regardless of local rates set to cover local expenditures. At the local level tax rates varied 

from county to county and from municipality to municipality within a county. It is 

possible to calculate the rate of taxation paid by the mining companies on their assessed 

valuations within their respective jurisdictions, but that rate may be different from what 

other property owners paid. The way in which this could occur, as it did in Story County 

for nearly a decade, was that the county rate was based on the sum of the millage needed 

28 

See footnote 26 for references to Controllers’ Reports with respect to calculating comparative mean and 

median values.


19 

to fund each division: tax millage for general government or public education or debt 

reduction, etc. Net proceeds of mining companies, it turned out, were not required or 

expected to contribute to the funding of all public business, and if they enjoyed a waiver 

that part of the county’s tax levy would not be applied to their bullion assessments. In 

Story County until 1876 mining companies only paid that part of the county/local tax that 

funded general government, and as a result the rate at which their net proceeds were 

taxed was lower than what other ordinary property owners paid. Prior to 1876 the 

county/municipal share from Comstock mines was $0.25 per $100 and then jumped to 

$0.35 per $100 because they were exempt from paying for public education and debt 

reduction while other property owners paid more than twice the rate because they were 

not exempt. Like mining companies all across the state Story County mines paid the same 

state rate of $1.25 per $100. After the law was changed in 1876 mining companies like 

other property owners paid taxes to support all government services. The local rates paid 

by mining companies on net proceeds jumped sharply to bring them into conformity with 

all other property tax rates. For the next decade rates fluctuated between $1 per $100 (or 

1 percent) to $4.60 per $100 and were inclined toward the high end rather than the low 

end of this range. In addition, since jurisdictions within the county could fix their rates at 

different levels what mining companies (and other property owners paid in Virginia City 

could be higher or lower than what was paid in adjacent Gold Hill. State rates declined 

after 1876 and then rose again, but from 1876 on local taxes constituted a higher 

proportion of the total tax bill than state taxes. 

The rise in rates to support county and municipal functions for Comstock mining 

companies after nearly a decade of modest rates was immediately manifest. From 1876 

through 1880 Virginia City’s rates fluctuated between a low of $1.05 and a high of $3.00 

per $100 while Gold Hills fluctuated between $1.10 and $2.55 per $100. In more than 

half the quarters they shared the same rate. After 1880 with production on the northern 

branch of the Comstock Lode in a nosedive rates in Virginia City rose to $4.00, then 

$4.10 and finally to $4.60 per $100. Rates also rose in Gold Hill, although somewhat less 

severely, to $3.25, then $3.50 and finally to $4.10 per $100. For comparative purposes 

Flowery with a small burst of mining activity in the 1880s had tax rates on net proceeds 

of between $2.50 and $2.90 per $100. There is little doubt that as production declined 

along the Comstock after 1880 tax rates had to rise to support an infrastructure that 

continued to exist as if it was serving fewer people. The out-migration that combined 

decline in output along the Comstock actually in the short term, at least, intensified the 

financial dilemma because all through the tax structure from general property to mine 

proceeds less income was being generated to finance public services. In time adjustments 

would be made that brought public expenditures in line with tax receipts, but unless the 

old mining towns of Gold Hill and Virginia City or the County of Story was simply 

erased from the map, tax-supported public business would remain along with the 

challenge to figure out how to pay for it. One thing for sure mining became a relatively 

modest contributor. 29 

29 

Data from the microfilmed copies in The County Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story County, 

Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno.


20 

FIGURE 3 

COUNTY TAX RATES FOR VIRGINIA CITY AND GOLD HILL, IN DOLLARS 

PER $100 OF ASSESSED BULLION, 1876-1885 

(State bullion rates excluded) 

YEAR & QUARTER COUNTY RATE YEAR & QUARTER COUNTY RATES 

BY DISTRICT $ PER $100 BY DISTRICT $ PER $100 

1876 1881 

1Q VC $2.50 1Q VC $4.00 

1Q GH $2.50 1Q GH $2.50 

2Q VC $1.05 1Q FL $2.00 

2Q GH $1.55 2-4Q VC $4.00 

3Q VC $1.05 2-4Q GH $3.25 

3Q GH $1.55 2-4Q FL $2.90 

4Q VC $1.05 1882 

4Q GH $1.55 1-4Q VC $4.00 

1877 1-4Q GH $3.50 

All Qs $1.15 1-4Q FL $2.90 

1878 1883 

All Qs $1.10 1-4Q VC $4.10 

1879 1-4Q GH $4.10 

1Q VC $2.00 1-4Q FL $2.90 

1Q GH $2.00 1884 

2-4Q VC $3.00 1-4Q VC $2.60 

2-4Q GH $2.00 1-4Q GH $2.10 

1880 1-4Q FL $2.50 

1Q VC $2.00 1885 

1Q GH $2.00 1-4Q VC $4.60 

2-4Q VC $2.00 1-4Q GH $4.10 

2-4Q GH $2.55 1-4Q FL $2.90 

DISTRICTS: VC=Virginia City, GH=Gold Hill, FL=Flowery. 

Sources: See footnote 26.


21 

Special Appendix: Survey Map from 1867 showing Virginia City. Gold Hill, Cpmstock 

Tunnel & Sutro Tunnel plus topographical features.

THE COMSTOCK [R] 

1 

Chapter 18 

Mining Taxes And Public Revenues: 

Tax Revenues and Government Finances, Tax Showdown, County and Municipal 

Property Taxes 

Total tax revenues from statewide mining can be assembled from the Biennial 

Controllers’ Reports. Between 1867 and 1885 the counties reported the declaration of 

$385 million worth of bullion of which $176 million or 46 percent was assessed as 

taxable. On the assessed bullion the counties collected $3.7 million or 2.1 percent, and on 

the total bullion 1 percent. Of the $3.7 million the state received $1.8 million ($94,000 

per year) or 49 percent and the counties $1.9 million ($102,00 per year) or 51 percent. 

From 1867 through 1875 the state and counties more or less split the bullion revenues, 

although in 1874 the state took more than 72 percent of the total. That led to a call for 

reducing the state tax in 1875, and after the state rate was lowered the county treasuries 

claimed half or more of the taxes on mining proceeds. On average the state treasury and 

the county government received $114,000 per year through 1875, but after 1876 the state 

averaged $76,000 per year and the counties treasuries $124,000. In a state with a 

population of only several tens of thousands of taxpaying citizens the mining-proceeds 

taxes became the most important component of the financial structure. In the seven years 

from 1872 to 1879 the median revenue per year from taxes on proceeds was nearly 

$300,000. The peak years, not surprisingly, were 1876 with $531,000 and 1877 with 

$572,000 and corresponded with the peak years on the Comstock. When the decline set in 

after 1879, it was severe and sharp. From 1880 through 1885 mining-tax revenues 

dropped 75 percent. In the final year, 1885, the state treasury gained only $6,300 from 

mining taxes, the equivalent of what the state earned in interest from various bonds that it 

owned. Although mining had spread across the state with new camps being opened and 

abandoned with regularity, the bullion-tax revenues were driven in large measure by 

events surrounding the Comstock industry. No other camp came close to matching the 

performance of the Comstock, and therefore no other camp could match the impact that 

the Comstock had on overall revenue levels. 1 

Story County earned the most tax revenue from the bullion tax because it had the 

state’s most productive mines. It also had the highest maintenance and infrastructure 

costs because its population reached tens of thousands during the Comstock’s peak years. 

Whether the services were adequate or inadequate, efficiently managed or corruptly 

mismanaged, necessary or unnecessary is not my concern. What is of interest is how 

much the county raised through the taxes on companies’ net proceeds. Between 1867 and 

1885 taxes on mining proceeds generated $2.3 million (Story was 2 percent of the 

counties with 62 percent of the bullion tax), and of this amount the county received 

$992,000 (44 percent) and the state $1.3 million (56 percent). On average the county 

collected $52,000 per year and the state collected $67,000. The combined impact of the 

bullion tax on the declared valuation (without any deductions as permitted under the law) 

1 

Biennial Controllers’ Reports began with the 3 rd Legislative Session (1867) and continued through the 13 th 

Legislative Session (1887), and they may be found in Appendix to Senate Journal through the 6 th 

Legislative Session (1873) and then in Appendix to Journals of Senate and Assembly through the 13 th 

Legislative Session (1885). Copies of the Appendices are housed in the Nevada State Archives and Library, 

Carson City, NV.


2 

was less than 1 percent, more precisely 0.91 percent. The county took 0.40 percent of the 

declared value and the state 0.51 percent. Bear in mind that because county rates changed 

frequently, county tax-revenue levels could be highly variable. Over the long term, of 

course, the ultimate determinant of tax-revenue levels was the state of mining in the 

county. Figure 1 (in logarithms) shows that the total bullion declarations of the county’s 

mines (and mills) and total tax revenues generated by those declarations followed similar 

paths. The trends correlate at about 80 percent, a fairly high result. Unless rates dropped 

as output increased (an inverse relationship) one could expect that higher mineral output 

led to higher tax revenues, and that is what Figure 1 demonstrates. Since county tax rates 

could change from year-to-year or from quarter-to-quarter within the mining jurisdictions 

movements in rates could have an impact on revenues from bullion beyond the cyclical 

phase in mineral production. According to the coefficient of variation, a measure of 

variation within a series, county tax revenues compared to total bullion declarations (not 

assessments) were almost twice as great (154 versus 88 percent). In other words tax-rate 

changes imposed by the county were more variable than production cycles associated 

with the Comstock. Over the period for which tax data exist the average county tax rate 

on total bullion declarations was 0.40 percent or 40 cents per $100 of mining proceeds. 2 

FIGURE 1 

COMPARISON TOTAL BULLION VALUE AND TOTAL BULLION-TAX 

REVENUE, STORY COUNTY 

(in logarithms) 

$100,000,000 

$10,000,000 

$1,000,000 

$100,000 

$10,000 

$1,000 

$100 

$10 

Total Bullion Value 

Total County Revenue 

$1 

Sources: See footnotes 1 & 3. 

2 

The median is even lower at 23 cent per $100, but it is a less useful measure with these variables. The 

percentage would be higher if I measured proportion of tax revenue from assessed valuations, but I do not 

always know how assessments were determined prior to the 1871 amended law on mine proceeds or what 

assessments were for every quarter between 1871 and the fire of 1875.


3 

Tax revenues from mining proceeds as a percentage of the total bullion value 

averaged out at 11 cents per $100 (.11 percent) through 1875 and then jumped to 66 cents 

per $100 dollars (.66 percent) after 1875. The highest point was reached in 1879 when 

county taxes absorbed $1.05 of every $100 of mine proceeds or 1.05 percent. Had the 

actual county tax rates been applied not to the assessed values (which included 

deductions for expenses, etc.) but to the declared valuations the county receipts from 

mine proceeds would have averaged closer to $100,000 each year. But one must recall 

that the county tax rates were set where they were because of the use of assessed value 

rather than declared values. General property-tax rates were also applied to assessed 

values rather than market values (in most jurisdictions). The debate concerned the level 

of deductions (which general property owners could not take) in determining the assessed 

values against which tax rates were applied. Even in the years (1876-1879) with highest 

yields from tax revenues – on average $182,000 per year – the revenues amounted to less 

than three-fifths of 1 percent of the total value of the declared bullion. That mining 

companies fought hard to preserve what others saw as unjustified tax breaks can be fully 

appreciated in light of the numbers analyzed above. The profitable companies benefited 

more than the unprofitable companies. Marginal or unprofitable mines wanted to 

eliminate any expense they could in order to eliminate the red ink. It was unlikely that the 

elimination of all tax payments by marginal or unprofitable mines would have made 

much difference since the taxable product was so small because of the deductions (up to 

90 percent) granted companies with low-profit ores. More likely the anger or concern was 

directed at the bonanza companies, even the cost-efficient ones, which could deduct 

millions of dollars in expenses before taxes were levied. Companies also paid taxes on 

their surface properties under the same procedures and rates that other property owners 

paid. These general property taxes to be discussed briefly later were modest compared to 

the mine-proceeds taxes. 3 

Since all mining companies paid the same rates within their respective 

jurisdictions, the companies declaring the highest yields paid the most in taxes. This may 

seem self-evident, but it needs to be emphasized in order to clarify how the tax on mines’ 

net proceeds was structured. The higher the yields, the lower the deductions and the 

greater the taxes. From the third quarter of 1875 through 1884 (1885 assessment rolls 

ignored) over 38 quarters 56 different mines, mills and individuals declared bullion worth 

$128 million of which $73 million (57 percent) was taxed. These figures agree with totals 

in the Controllers’ Reports except for a few minor variations stemming from errors in 

arithmetic or transcription. The taxes paid on mining proceeds to the state and the county 

totaled nearly $1.6 million. The county quarterly assessment rolls did not consistently 

specify how much of the tax collected was forwarded to the state and how much was 

retained by the county, although that percentage can be calculated for each company in 

each quarter by subtracting the state’s rate (which was indicated in the Controllers’ 

Reports) from the total and using the difference as the county’s rate. The county rates 

could differ because the millage in Virginia City and Gold Hill could differ quarter by 

quarter. To avoid numerous calculations I have computed a ratio between the county’s 

3 

Story County Assessment Rolls survive from the third quarter 1875 (post-fire) through 1885 both in their 

original form at the Assessor’s Office in the Story County Courthouse, Virginia City, NV and in The 

County Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story County, Special Collections, Library, University of 

Nevada, Reno.


4 

share and the state’s share 75 percent to 25 percent. I then applied the 75 percent figure to 

total taxes paid by each company to illustrate how much the county collected from each 

company. 4 These estimates are not perfect, but they present a fair picture of the 

distribution of the county tax burden among the companies. The county was entitled to 

about $1.2 million of the $1.6 million raised by the bullion tax. Many of the companies or 

individuals who made declarations and paid taxes were marginal producers. Of the 10 

largest taxpayers nine were mining companies and one was a tailings mill. Five of the 

nine were on the northern branch of the Comstock Lode in Virginia City and four were 

on the southern branch in Gold Hill. Half of the 10 were owned or controlled by Mackay, 

Fair et al. The top 10 accounted for 96 percent of the declared bullion valuations and 98 

percent of the county bullion taxes. They paid 0.95 percent in taxes of the declared value 

and 1.62 percent in taxes of the assessed value. They generated $1.2 million for the 

county coffers compared to only $29,000 total from the remaining 46 companies and 

individuals. As with so many other comparisons relative to the Comstock mining 

industry, fiscal wellbeing also depended on a precious few operations. 

FIGURE 2 

TOTAL BULLION TAX REVENUES AND TOTAL STATE AND LOCAL 

SHARES OF TAX REVENUES. 

$700,000 

$600,000 

$500,000 

$400,000 

Total Tax 

State Tax 

County Tax 

$300,000 

$200,000 

$100,000 

$0 

7 

6 

8 

1 

8 

6 

8 

1 

9 

6 

8 

1 

0 

7 

8 

1 

1 

7 

8 

1 

2 

7 

8 

1 

3 

7 

8 

1 

4 

7 

8 

1 

5 

7 

8 

1 

6 

7 

8 

1 

7 

8 

1 

8 

7 

8 

1 

9 

7 

8 

1 

0 

8 

1 

1 

8 

1 

2 

8 

1 

3 

8 

1 

4 

8 

1 

5 

8 

1 


The list of contributing taxpayers can be narrowed to individual companies. The 

two behemoths, Consolidated Virginia and California, paid 87 percent of county taxes. 

Mackay and Fair’s Pacific Mill and Mining Company owned the tailings mill Omega, 

and they also acquired an interest in the mines Ophir and Union so that their total county 

tax payments may have reached 92 percent. The other taxpayers – the remaining five in 

the top ten and the balance of 46 – combined to pay 8 percent of the bullion tax receipts. 

4 

It is also possible to calculate the county’s share from the Controllers’ Reports but not each company’s 

share.


5 

To be sure, Belcher, Crown Point, Yellow Jacket and Kentuck were high- flyers from the 

period prior to the fire and the destruction of the assessment rolls. They may well have 

played the same role with respect to tax generation prior to 1875 that Mackay & Fair’s 

companies did after the fire. The mines of Gold Hill, although still operating on a modest 

scale, only contributed between 3 and 4 percent of the collected taxes in the Comstock’s 

final decade. 

FIGURE 3 

PERCENTAGE CHANGE IN BULLION VALUES &-TAX REVENUES FOR 

STATE AND STORY COUNTY, 1867-1885 

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] 

1867 $13,853,348 $75,951 0.55% 

1868 $9,441,717 -31.85% $52,629 -30.71% 0.56% 

1869 $6,684,065 -29.21% $28,918 -45.05% 0.43% 

1870 $6,859,699 2.63% $34,781 20.27% 0.51% 

1871 $10,644,704 55.18% $58,045 66.89% 0.55% 

1872 $12,630,675 18.66% $81,917 41.13% 0.65% 

1873 $22,657,724 79.39% $185,341 126.25% 0.82% 

1874 $22,529,615 -0.57% $171,314 -7.57% 0.76% 

1875 $26,023,051 15.51% $176,840 3.23% 0.68% 

1876 $38,038,146 46.17% $466,349 163.71% 1.23% 

1877 $37,062,252 -2.57% $475,264 1.91% 1.28% 

1878 $20,436,685 -44.86% $258,057 -45.70% 1.26% 

1879 $7,557,712 -63.02% $96,534 -62.59% 1.28% 

1880 $4,280,907 -43.36% $34,981 -63.76% 0.82% 

1881 $1,468,919 -65.69% $13,759 -60.67% 0.94% 

1882 $1,675,098 14.04% $17,455 26.86% 1.04% 

1883 $2,024,558 20.86% $16,284 -6.71% 0.80% 

1884 $2,584,580 27.66% $14,799 -9.12% 0.57% 

1885 $2,952,499 14.24% $8,361 -43.50% 0.28% 

Total $249,405,954 $2,267,579 0.91% 

% Tot Tax 

Mean $13,126,629 $119,346 

[7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] 

$60,556 0.44% $15,395 0.11% 

$43,857 -27.58% 0.46% $8,772 -43.02% 0.09% 

$24,129 -44.98% 0.36% $4,820 -45.05% 0.07% 

$28,457 17.94% 0.41% $6,324 31.20% 0.09% 

$48,370 69.98% 0.45% $9,674 52.97% 0.09% 

$68,264 41.13% 0.54% $13,653 41.13% 0.11% 

$154,451 126.26% 0.68% $30,890 126.25% 0.14% 

$142,762 -7.57% 0.63% $28,552 -7.57% 0.13% 

$127,325 -10.81% 0.49% $49,515 73.42% 0.19% 

$213,444 67.64% 0.56% $252,904 410.76% 0.66%


6 

$208,652 -2.25% 0.56% $266,611 5.42% 0.72% 

$116,126 -44.34% 0.57% $142,931 -46.39% 0.70% 

$17,265 -85.13% 0.23% $79,269 -44.54% 1.05% 

$7,516 -56.47% 0.18% $27,465 -65.35% 0.64% 

$2,778 -63.04% 0.19% $10,981 -60.02% 0.75% 

$3,456 24.41% 0.21% $13,998 27.47% 0.84% 

$3,377 -2.29% 0.17% $12,907 -7.79% 0.64% 

$4,329 28.19% 0.17% $10,470 -18.88% 0.41% 

$1,467 -66.11% 0.05% $6,893 -34.16% 0.23% 

$1,276,581 0.51% $992,024 0.40% 

56.30% 43.75% 

$67,188 $52,212 

Notes: [1] Year; [2] Total Bullion Value; [3] % Change; [4] Total Tax Paid; [5] % Change; [6] % of 

Total Value; [7] State Share; [8] % Change; [9] % of Total Value; [10] % County Share; [11] % 

Change; [12] % County Share; [13] Year 

Sources: See footnote 1 & 3. 

FIGURE 4 

MINING COMPANIES, DECLARED BULLION, ASSESSED BULLION, STORY 

COUNTY TAXES 

Mines [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] 

Con Vir [VC} $51,252,898 $33,334,008 $738,712 $554,034 1.08% 1.66% 46.52% 

Calif (VC) $46,830,260 $31,556,875 $648,204 $486,153 1.04% 1.54% 40.82% 

Belcher (GH) $6,059,755 $1,583,017 $35,377 $26,533 0.44% 1.68% 2.23% 

Ophir (VC) $5,390,720 $2,165,279 $48,247 $36,185 0.67% 1.67% 3.04% 

Cr Point (GH) $4,123,907 $765,315 $22,012 $16,509 0.40% 2.16% 1.39% 

Justice (GH) $3,476,607 $747,992 $16,202 $12,152 0.35% 1.62% 1.02% 

Omega (VC) $1,597,114 $474,088 $11,577 $8,682 0.54% 1.83% 0.73% 

Yel Jacket 

(GH) $1,341,847 $261,227 $9,677 $7,258 0.54% 2.78% 0.61% 

Union (VC) $1,285,873 $450,053 $14,206 $10,654 0.83% 2.37% 0.89% 

Choll Pot 

(VC) $1,273,069 $254,059 $5,191 $3,893 0.31% 1.53% 0.33% 

Total (10) $122,632,049 $71,591,912 $1,549,406 $1,162,054 0.95% 1.62% 97.57% 

Others (46) $5,160,645 $1,197,533 $38,553 $28,914 0.56% 2.41% 2.43% 

Grand Total $127,792,693 $72,789,446 $1,587,958 $1,190,969 0.93% 1.64% 

100.00 

% 

Notes: Con Va=Consolidated Virginia; Calif=California; Cr Point=Crown Point; Yel Jacket=Yellow 

Jacket; Choll Pot=Chollar Potosi 

[1] Companies; [2] Declared Value; [3] Assessed Value; [4] Taxes Paid; [5] Estimated Tax Due 

County 75%; [6] % County Tax Declared; [7] % County Tax Assessed; [8] % Total Tax 

Sources: See footnote 1 & 3. 

To what extent did county taxes place a burden on mining operations? A financial 

burden, of course, would depend on the overall health of the mining enterprise. If 

operating in the black, taxes may have had little impact; if operating with losses, they 

could only make the red ink redder. It is worth recalling that even when their costs


7 

exceeded their per-ton yields companies still paid taxes on any bullion that they declared, 

and like all property owners they paid general property taxes on all surface structures. At 

the same time, when companies were hemorrhaging red ink, they usually had high costs 

on low yields and that meant, given the permissible deductions of 80 to 90 percent before 

any taxes were levied, their tax bills were modest. Consolidated Virginia and California 

paid county taxes of more than $1 million from 1875 to 1881. Against declared bullion 

values of just under $100 million their county tax bills were slightly above 1 percent; 

against assessed values of more than $64 million their bills were about 1.6 percent. 

Inasmuch as their dividend payouts amounted to more than 50 percent of their bullion 

declarations taxes represented a minor outlay. Because of the richness of their ores they 

seldom could qualify for assessment deductions and therefore had to pay taxes on what 

was called the “net” – the difference between bullion receipts and mining costs. On the 

other hand, Yellow Jacket, which tried to make a comeback in the early 1880s, paid 

county taxes of about $7.200. Its expenses substantially outpaced receipts, and its yields 

were range-bound in the low teens. It qualified for deductions of up to only 80 percent so 

that the tax bite against assessed ores was 2.78 percent, the highest of the ten, but against 

the declared bullion value the tax bite was among the lowest at 0.54 percent. To be sure, 

had it been excused from taxes because it was basically a money-losing operation it could 

have improved its balance sheet slightly. The real problem was more fundamental than a 

tax burden: Yellow Jacket simply lacked profitable ores. From the public perspective its 

presence in Gold Hill, even though it added to the local labor force, imposed certain costs 

on the municipality and the county. The day of tax incentives to attract business whatever 

the cost had not yet arrived in Story County. 

FIGURE 5 

BULLION VALUE AND PERCENT OF BULLION VALUE PAID IN BULLION 

TAX, STORY COUNTY 

$40,000,000 

$35,000,000 

$30,000,000 

$25,000,000 

$20,000,000 

$15,000,000 

$10,000,000 

$5,000,000 

$0 

Total Bullion Value 

% Tax of Value 

1.20% 

1.00% 

0.80% 

0.60% 

0.40% 

0.20% 

0.00% 

Sources: see footnote 1.


8 

It is well known among Comstock enthusiasts that Mackay and Fair refused to 

pay taxes on proceeds from their flagship mines, Consolidated Virginia and California, 

beginning in the third quarter of 1876. Perhaps the most colorful account appears in Ethel 

Manter’s “story” of John Mackay, Rocket of the Comstock. She opened her narrative with 

a description of Mackay and Fair and their San Francisco routine as told by a Comstock 

miner: “They are like two buckets on the end of a rope. When one comes up [to Virginia 

City], the other goes down.” It turned out, however, they both showed up in San 

Francisco at the Palace Hotel during the same week because, according to Manter, they 

had been quarreling about the tax-evasion issue. 5 Mackay’s reputation, as it had evolved 

on the Comstock, would not have suggested that he was prepared to initiate or to execute 

a tax-evasion plan. Fair, on the other hand, was certainly not above such scheming. Why, 

after having dutifully paid taxes in prior years (even if they might have disagreed with the 

policy), should they consider such a course of action that in all likelihood would fail and 

certainly had the potential of sullying their image? It is not clear from what has been 

reported that what angered Fair in particular was the tax itself. Rather it may have been 

the change in the rate for the year 1876. I noted earlier that mining companies with their 

hefty deductions had only paid a fraction of what owners of real and personal property 

paid to the county prior to 1876. According to county property assessment rolls the rate 

of taxation on real and personal property had reached $2.25 per $100 in Virginia City. 

The rate may have been higher in Gold Hill. After deducting the state’s share of 90 cents 

per $100 (on properties a well as proceeds), the actual county rate was $1.35 per $100, or 

$1.00 per $100 higher than what the mining companies paid. Originally the companies 

only paid 25 cents per $100 to cover county government expenses, but the rate had risen 

to 35 cents per $100. In an appeal to the elected officials in 1875 local property owners 

including merchants and farmers persuaded county officials to equalize the rates, as 

required under the State Constitution. Real and personal property and mining proceeds 

would be taxed at the same rate, which in 1876 would be $1.95 per $100. After 

subtracting 90 cents for the state the county would receive $1.05 per $100 in order to 

cover county costs at 40 cents per $100, school appropriations at 15 cents per $100 and 

Virginia and Truckee Railroad bonds at 50 cents per $100. The petitioners argued that the 

mining-proceeds tax was already generous enough because it allowed mining companies 

to reduce their taxable proceeds by subtracting expenses from receipts, an exemption not 

extended to other properties. The lawmakers “placed a tax on a farmer’s crop without any 

regard to his seed and labor, taxed the product of the mechanic’s skill without deduction 

for time or cost, taxed the merchant according to his goods, and the laborer according to 

his wealth and possessions.” 6 The change went into effect in 1876, and Fair went into 

action to undo this violation of a long-standing fiscal principle. 7 

The tax-rate issue in 1876 was a more complicated issue than the foregoing 

suggests. Under a law approved by the Legislature on 25 February 1873 county 

commissioners were to set tax rates “on or before the first Monday of March in each 

5 

Ethel Manter, Rocket of the Comstock (The Story of John William Mackay) (Caldwell, ID: Caxton 

Printers, 1950), 137. 

6 

Manter, Rocket of the Comstock, 138. 

7 

Grant Smith believed that the rate change propelled Fair to action. His earlier description presented some 

of the same details that appeared in Manter’s account. See The Comstock Lode, 204-206.


9 

year” for that calendar year. 8 These taxes would be paid at various intervals (quarterly for 

mine proceeds) through the first quarter of the next year when the rates would be 

reconsidered. In 1875 the tax rate that mining companies paid to cover state and county 

taxes was $1.25 cent per $100, but the other county tax payers paid $2.25 per $100 on 

their properties. Since the mining companies paid 90 cents to the state they only 35 cents 

to the county. (Both classes of taxpayers paid a state tax of 90 cents per $100 so that the 

county’s share was $1.35 per $100 - $2.25-.90=$1.35.) One would expect the October 

1875 fire to have caused havoc with tax collections and to have necessitated a rise in tax 

rates to meet any fire-induced government outlays, at least in Virginia City. In March 

1876 the county had the opportunity to raise tax rates. Here, the tax-rate picture becomes 

blurry. In the first quarter of 1876 the county tax rate levied against mine proceeds, based 

on assessor’s records, was set at $2.50 per $100 but the rate against general property, 

based on the general tax ledgers, was set at a lower rate. Rates in Virginia City and Gold 

Hill were comparable in the first quarter of 1876, but they fell farther in Virginia City 

than in Gold Hill in succeeding quarters (even though Virginia City suffered directly 

from the fire). The state rate of 90 cent per $100 was unchanged and can be ignored. 

Whether fire-related or not, the fact is that mining companies paid higher rates on mine 

proceeds than other property holders paid, a reversal of the situation in previous years. 

However the anomaly arose, it was temporary. What was not temporary was that 

beginning in the second quarter of 1876 a uniform tax rate was applied to all property 

holders, and that meant for the first time that mining company proceeds were levied at the 

same rate as every other class. Their tax bill rose not just because of higher rates but more 

importantly because of uniformly applied rates. For mining companies in Virginia City 

the tax rate excluding the state rate of 90 cent per $100 was set at $2.50 per $100 for the 

first quarter and then it dropped to $1.05 per $100 for the remaining three quarters. In 

effect to meet all its current expenses the county approved rates that all its property 

holders would pay with no exceptions granted to mining companies. Companies like 

Consolidated Virginia and California were faced with higher local tax bills. That mining 

companies should be treated on par with other property owners apparently deeply 

offended James Fair. Even though mining companies kept their assessment deductibles, 

they no longer enjoyed other waivers. During 1876, then, Consolidated Virginia had a tax 

bill to the county alone of about $220,000 and California of about $103,000, for a total of 

$323,000. In 1875 California had paid no taxes to the county, and Consolidated Virginia 

had paid under $40,000. This was probably the biggest quarterly tax bill that The Firm or 

any other mining company had ever received. Although taxes due in 1876 were 1.1 

percent of the total bullion value and less than 2.0 percent of the dividends paid to the 

stockholders ( of which Mackay, Fair et al. owned 75 to 80 percent of all the stock), the 

outlay for taxes in 1876 did not escape notice. The Firm was assuming a public burden 

that no previous bonanza company had been asked to bear. 9 

For Fair (if not Mackay) the shift in taxing procedures could be not treated strictly 

as a matter of equity in tax policy. Long-time friction between the Mackay-Fair crowd 

and the Sharon-Ralston crowd contributed to the decision to take a stand against the 

8 

“An Act to define the time for levying and assessing taxes for state and county purposes,” The General 

Statutes of the State of Nevada, 359. 

9 

Microfilm copies in The County Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story County, Special Collections, 



10 

change. To be sure, the death of Ralston and the collapse of his banking monopoly, Bank 

of California, in 1875 left the mining empire of Sharon and Ralston in tatters, but, even 

so, Sharon was still a figure to be reckoned with. In fact Fair was alleged to have framed 

the issue about taxes in terms of Sharon’s past role as entrepreneur and politician. 

Because of higher rates beginning in 1876 mining companies, especially those under the 

control of The Firm, now at its zenith, had to make substantially larger contributions than 

ever required of Sharon and his investors. Sharon had been instrumental in persuading 

(perhaps coercing in the eyes of some) the county to keep taxes on mining proceeds low 

with the customary argument that mining was a risky business and could not thrive if 

overburdened with many fixed costs. For most of the productive years of his mines the 

county taxed proceeds at 25 or 35 cents per $100. In response to Sharon’s assertion that 

the new taxes were just, Fair may have retorted that Sharon favored increased county 

taxes “because the interest on the bonds issued by Ormsby and Story counties for the 

construction of Sharon’s railroad is long overdue.” 10 The railroad was the Virginia & 

Truckee that Sharon and his associates built with contributions from the mining 

companies and from Story and Ormsby counties. Virginia & Truckee also enjoyed 

exemption from property taxes that residents and businesses alike paid, partly in order to 

cover the interest and retire the bonds sold to raise money to build the railroad. From the 

outset the county had struggled to meet these obligations. Prior to 1876 the bullion tax 

had not been used to cover these annual county expenses, but under public pressure to 

moderate the property-tax burdens the county added levies, calculated separately for the 

school fund and the sinking fund (that had responsibility for paying the interest and the 

principal on the bonds), to the tax bill for the mining companies. Previously the mining 

companies had been exempt from contributing to these county programs. The Firm was 

not only paying higher taxes per $100 of assessed bullion value than Sharon ever paid but 

was also contributing to the cleanup of a financial mess that Fair believed that Sharon 

helped to create and from which he still benefited. Fair failed to mention, of course, The 

Firm used the Virginia & Truckee Railroad and received substantial rebates from doing 

so. Nor was there any mention that the holders of real and personal property had been 

paying 50 cents per $100 more since the bonds were issued. But Fair, if not Mackay, was 

preparing for a battle royal mainly because it involved William Sharon. 

While the Bonanza Kings may have had Sharon in mind as they launched their 

attack on mining taxes, they like most mine owners and investors had long opposed such 

taxes. Story County mining interests had managed to maintain the status quo with respect 

to county tax rates, and even though they opposed the tax in principle, they were capable 

of taking a pragmatic view that maintaining a relatively low rate was preferable to taking 

a harder line that might result in higher taxes. Moreover, the state had reduced its share 

from $1.25 to 90 cents per $100 in 1875. What happened in 1876 - the equalization of 

rates for all properties including mining proceeds - meant not lower rates in the aftermath 

of the state reduction but higher rates that exceeded any prior level. Whether these 

concerns resulted in a broadly based strategy embraced and supported by all mine-owners 

or became the obsession of Mackay and Fair and in particular Fair is not easy to answer. 

Mackay and Fair had allies among other mining entrepreneurs, but on the surface at least 

the campaign appeared to be primarily a one-company or perhaps even a one-man 

10 

Manter, Rocket of the Comstock, 138-139. I could not verify this remark.


11 

crusade to settle some grudges. It was not a cause that rallied the mining interests into an 

implacable enemy of local or state government. 

One line attack failed miserably. In the fall elections of 1876 a slate of candidates, 

who were allegedly supported by Mackay and Fair, failed to win a single seat. Shortly 

thereafter, according to some published accounts The Firm began to withhold taxes. 

Some essential details are still obscure: for example, precisely when did the withholding 

begin and how long did it continue. Ethel Manter, Mackay’s biographer, claimed that by 

the end of 1876 $52,000 from Consolidated Virginia and $61,000 from California had 

been withheld, and this had caused the county assessor to seize bullion belonging to the 

mining companies, although she did not explain how or where the seizure took place. 

Apparently the assessor released the bullion after Mackay and Fair said under oath that 

they had the resources to pay the debt should that be required of them. 11 

The withholding action apparently began in the second quarter of 1876, when in 

June Consolidated Virginia paid its first quarter taxes of $227,180 but under protest. 

Taxes from the following three quarters (April-June, July-September and October- 

December) were withheld for both Consolidated Virginia and California. By the time that 

taxes were due during the second quarter of 1877 on proceeds from the first quarter of 

1877 Mackay and Fair had ended their protest. In his Fourth Biennial Message to the 9 th 

Biennial Legislature in January 1879 Governor L. R. Bradley discussed the legal and 

financial issues concerning Consolidated Virginia and California. He reminded the 

legislators that when the last legislative session ended (early March 1877) the two mining 

companies owed more than $290,275.95 in mining taxes. The penalty for withholding 

taxes as provided by law amounted to $101,596.57. The figure of withheld taxes, as cited 

by Bradley, squared with the totals owed by two companies but not paid according to the 

assessment rolls. The rolls included a column with the heading “Date of Payment”. For 

the three quarters noted above (Apr-Jun, Jul-Sep, Oct-Dec) this column showed in the 

second quarter assessments that the past-due taxes were paid on 5 May 1877. The 

penalty, if paid in part or full, was not recorded by the assessor. 12 

One matter, not easy to explain based upon an examination of the assessment rolls 

and the Controllers’ Reports, is how the state’s portion of the taxes due from 

Consolidated Virginia and California was handled. The assessment rolls contained all the 

appropriate information regarding the companies’ operations including the taxes that 

were supposed to be collected by the county treasurer and delivered to the state treasurer, 

but they also indicated that no taxes had been paid from the third quarter of 1876 to the 

second quarter (in May) of 1877. The Controllers’ Reports did not show that any taxes 

had been withheld. One report presented to the 8 th Biennial Legislature in 1877 included 

taxes collected during the second and three quarters of 1876, and the next report for the 

9 th Biennial Legislature in 1879 included the taxes collected for the fourth quarter of 

1876. Since all withheld taxes had been paid by the 9 th session, there was no reason to 

note any unpaid taxes. It was a different matter, however, for the 8 th session. More than 

11 

Manter, Rocket of the Comstock, 139 

12 

“Fourth Biennial Message of…Bradley…” in Appendix to Journals of Senate and Assembly, 9 th 

Legislative Session (1879) 6, and microfilm copies in The County Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story 

County, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno.


12 

$207,000 in taxes had not been paid, and of that amount $93,000 or 45 percent was owed 

to the state. Was the county, as the official tax collector, obligated to pay the state’s share 

even though it could not collect any of the taxes due from Consolidated Virginia and 

California? The assessor was said to have confiscated bullion in lieu of unpaid taxes but 

then to have released it when Mackay and Fair posted a bond with property as collateral. 

The posting of the bond simply gave the county a lien on property, which could be sold at 

a later date to cover back taxes. It did not generate any cash immediately. If the county 

had to advance the state’s share regardless, where would it find the available funds in 

view of the fact that it had not been paid the $114,000 that was the state’s share? 

Consolidated Virginia and California combined represented 65 percent of the taxes due 

from the proceeds of the mines, and that was not an amount that be easily covered by 

other temporary actions. The withholding of tax payments by Mackay and Fair must have 

left county finances in disarray and perhaps, to a limited degree, state finances as well. 

Withholding taxes was a prelude to a further confrontation with the government. 

Mackay and Fair launched a campaign to overhaul the 1871 amendment on miningproceeds 

taxes at the 8 th Biennial Legislation scheduled for 60-day session to start in 

January 1877. Setting up shop in rooms above the Carson City Savings Bank Fair readily 

dispensed champagne, cigars and probably cash to as many legislators and tycoons as he 

could find. That money may have exchanged hands was not what Mackay would have 

preferred, according to Manter. “John Mackay remained aloof, trying to reconcile himself 

to the actual posture of affairs. Fair [Mackay knew] could not be ‘bossed’”. 13 For two 

weeks in February 1877 weekly mine reports from Virginia City to San Francisco noted 

that Fair was not in Virginia City tending to the business of the mines but was in Carson 

City tending to the business of the legislators. Fair had notified the Virginia City office 

that while there was opposition in the House he was confident ultimately of victory. The 

Territorial Enterprise reported in detail the daily progress of all the bills including the 

bill to revise the mining proceeds. The revision or compromise (Bullion Tax Compromise 

Bill) was to change the way in which assessments were made. Sixty percent of all milled 

ores were to be exempt if they yielded less than $100 per ton and 50 percent if they 

yielded $100 or higher. Instead of using costs to determine assessments or in the case of 

mines that had costs that exceeded receipts a graduated exemption schedule based on perton 

yields, all mines would be assessed after exclusions at either the 50- or 60-percent 

level. In the case of Consolidated Virginia and California the impact of the compromise 

would be significant. Because their costs were so low and their yields so high, they could 

only exclude a quarter or a third from taxation. Under the compromise the amount to be 

exempted nearly doubled. Even though both House and Senate members thought the 

compromise was unconstitutional, both chambers passed the bill by fairly close votes – 

27 to 23 in the House and 14 to 11 in the Senate. Governor Bradley, who had already 

publicly proclaimed in his Third Biennial Message (January 1877) that the state had been 

generous enough to the mining sector, promptly vetoed the bill. Had it been allowed to 

become law the state and county governments would have had to raise rates on all other 

classes of property in order to make up for lost revenues. 14 

13 

Manter, Rocket of the Comstock, 139. 

14 

Manter, Rocket of the Comstock, 140; “Nevada Legislature”, Territorial Enterprise, 21 February 1877; 

Copy of Letter from James Fair to A. W. Havens, Secretary of the Board. [actually written by J. Minor 

Taylor], 18 February 1877, Letterpress Book, November 1876-August 1878, Consolidated Virginia Mining


13 

But the story did not end with Bradley’s veto. In spite of the veto of the Bullion 

Compromise Bill the Bonanza mines still owed several hundred thousand dollars in 

overdue taxes and penalties, and the county’s fiscal shortfall was so great that a 

Temporary Relief Committee had to be organized to collect donations to finance certain 

much-needed public services. In the background were several judicial proceedings that 

included a soon-to-announced decision from the United States Supreme Court in a case 

known as Forbes v Gracy. This case like so many others challenged the constitutionality 

of mining taxes, and if mine owners prevailed in court the county and state governments 

would be faced with an enormous financial challenge. In light of a rising public outcry 

against the mining interests and their legislative friends, Mackay and Fair proposed a new 

strategy. Until the judiciary settled the matter of the constitutionality of any bullion tax, 

they proposed to advance $80,000 to the county to cover current expenses except for the 

railroads. If Mackay and Fair lost the lawsuit and had to pay all past-due taxes, the 

$80,000 would be deducted from the amount that they were required to pay. If they won 

the lawsuit, the county could keep the donation. In addition, if they won the lawsuit, they 

would make a contribution (one-half of 1 percent of all mining proceeds) each quarter to 

the county for various public uses but not for any state obligations. To many observers 

this offer constituted a bribe. Few citizens were prepared to grant mining companies, no 

matter how generous they tried to be, exemptions from taxes that other property owners 

did not enjoy. While this became a public-relations disaster for Mackay and Fair, who 

actually resided in Virginia City, the county with a mounting fiscal crisis had to weigh 

the options because it was unclear how soon the taxes in arrears would be paid if ever. 

Ultimately the county rejected the settlement because it was unpopular and would 

establish an unhealthy precedent. Within weeks after the county’s rejection the Supreme 

Court issued a ruling in support of bullion taxes, and the county set about quickly to 

collect both taxes and penalties. Taxes of more than $300,000 were paid to the county on 

5 May 1877 with the matter of penalties to be negotiated. 15 

On the same day that the Firm paid its back taxes James Fair gave an interview to 

the Territorial Enterprise, what the paper called a “brief conversation”. Although his tone 

was more moderate in comparison to earlier statements that he was alleged to have made, 

Fair made no apology for the strategy that he and Mackay had followed. Although 

invoking Mackay’s name only twice in the published version, Fair wanted to leave no 

doubt that this was collaborative effort. They had not decided to end the protest and to 

pay the tax because they had concluded “the tax was just” or because their attorneys had 

advised them to do so. No, showing his combative side, he declared that “we know we 

could have worn out the State and country, and that, if we had not beaten the suits 

entirely[,] we would have eventually compelled a compromise upon our own terms.” The 

reason for changing their minds, insisted Fair, was to come to the aid of the county and 

its citizens. The county’s revenue shortfall could have a ripple effect across the economy. 

Being unable to fund its schools, hospitals and other services would mean bankruptcy for 

Company, NC99/2/8, Bx 6, Special Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno; and Smith, The 

Comstock Lode, 204-220. 

15 

Manter, Rocket of the Comstock, 140-142; “Fourth Biennial Message of…Bradley…” in Appendix to 

Journals of Senate and Assembly, 9 th Legislative Session (1879), 6-7; and “The Payment of Taxes”, 

Territorial Enterprise, 6 May 1877.


14 

“a score of merchants” who depended on business from the county and their employees. 

“In such an emergency, Mackay and myself could not resist the appeal” to loan the 

county $100,000. Now that the times have grown worse “when there is so much despair 

and stress in the State, we have concluded if there was no levy against us, it would be 

necessary for us to donate to the people more than the difference between the taxes which 

we think would be just and the taxes actually levied against us.” Without acknowledging 

that their withholding of taxes might have actually precipitated the crisis Fair sought to 

align the partners’ actions with what all “fair-minded” citizens would have done in the 

face of unjust levies. He further reminded the reader that two years earlier (when the levy 

against bullion was 90 cent and 35 cents per $100) the state and the county were far more 

prosperous than today (not unlike today – taxes hurt growth). In his final remarks Fair 

admitted that what he said in the interview would not placate their enemies and would 

probably not erase the divide that existed between their duties to their stockholders and to 

the “sorely-perplexed people of this State”. He lashed out at the “heavy San Francisco 

capitalists” who were more intent on breaking up the Comstock than holding it together. 

“We are carrying as many mines as we can, and employing as many men. We are doing 

the best that we can for the stockholders, and shall continue to do so for as long as we 

have charge of the mining properties.” But the desperate circumstances of the state and 

the county required that the course be altered. That desperation was also motivation for 

“Mackay and myself” to make a contribution to the county Relief Committee, the amount 

not specified. 16 

The Territorial Enterprise ended the article with its own comment. Without 

knowing how the public would react, the newspaper hoped that the conversation should 

“open the eyes of the most prejudiced enough to cause them to do justice to the Bonanza 

people, and to cause men generally to begin to understand who their real friends are.” 

The role of the Territorial Enterprise in the battle over bullion taxes was ambivalent. By 

and large in the commentary that followed the Fair conversation the Territorial 

Enterprise was mute on critical issues concerning private and public rights. In truth the 

Territorial Enterprise was not always uncritical of the mining interests and in particular 

of The Firm. It was perhaps more the crusader under its original owners Joseph T. 

Goodman and Denis T. McCarthy, but Goodman had sold the newspaper to William 

Sharon in 1872. Along with his many mining and milling properties Sharon had decided 

to acquire the Territorial Enterprise in order to advance his political career. His goal, to 

be elected to the United States Senate by the Nevada Legislature, was attained in January 

1875. Because he did not wish to alienate legislators, who may have opposed special 

treatment for mining and railroad interests, he remained neutral on the emerging debate 

over the bullion tax. Its commentary did not address issues that Fair failed to address 

directly, i. e., the inequities that existed in the assessment procedures. Nor did he reveal 

that the Quartet owned a huge stake of Consolidated Virginia and California as well as 

the ancillary corporations like Pacific Mill and Mining, and therefore the stockholders, 

whom Fair wished to protect, were principally himself and the other three. In spite of 

expressions of support for ordinary citizens the Bonanza Kings like other mining 

entrepreneurs had long opposed any taxes on their operations or the products of those 

16 

“The Payment of Taxes”, Territorial Enterprise, 6 May 1877, and Manter, Rocket of the Comstock, 138- 

139.


15 

operations. Fair spoke of sharing fiscal burdens with other taxpayers but left unclear how 

this burden should be shared. Local government could not meet its obligations even if 

some of those obligations in retrospect were entered into unwisely by depending on the 

charity of the citizenry. Fair appeared to understand that when local government lacked 

funds citizens and businesses suffered, but he seemed to be oblivious to the fact that the 

actions taken by him, Mackay and other owners were a source of that suffering. Grant 

Smith, citing standard histories of state politics, accepted the idea that Sharon had less to 

lose by dropping his opposition to the bullion tax (which he had fought many years 

earlier) and more to gain by accepting a broadly-based tax that insured the future of the 

railroad bond sinking fund. Although Sharon might well have launched an attack on his 

archenemies, who had no doubt about his perfidy on bullion-tax debates, through the 

pages of the Territorial Enterprise, he apparently chose a less vindictive course. In any 

event, Fair was allowed to make his case without much critical response from the 

newspaper. 17 

Not everyone saw the Territorial Enterprise as a neutral observer. Several months 

before Mackay and Fair paid up their taxes during the legislative debates in February 

1877, the Reno Gazette lambasted Sharon’s newspaper for supporting the Bullion Tax 

Compromise against the interests of the citizens in Nevada. The Gazette made the 

unequivocal pronouncement that the legislators should ignore the opinions expressed in 

the Territorial Enterprise because it was “the mouthpiece for Mackay, Fair, Sharon and 

others.” There was no doubt in the view of the Gazette that the Comstock titans were 

prepared to modify the bullion tax in such a way that it would shift to the “rancher, 

mechanic and business man [sic]” tax burdens that were far heavier than these groups 

could endure. 18 In a lengthy reply to the Gazette’s charges the Territorial Enterprise 

began by describing them as “trash”. It denied that it had ever received any instructions 

on what to write about the debate: “it is the plea of a baby and an ass to make such a 

charge against us. We have never whined against the present tax and have never had 

anything to say against it save that it was not framed by a miner, and that its scale of rates 

is not adjusted properly, as every mine and mill-man in the State knows.” The Territorial 

Enterprise went on to espouse the opinion that it spoke for “more than half the men of the 

State” and may be speaking for “three-fourths of the taxpayers of the whole State.” Of 

course, the Gazette had also claimed that it was voice of the majority of the citizenry. The 

Territorial Enterprise once again reminded the Gazette that its principal owner, William 

Sharon, had paid his bullion taxes “without protest or delay” (in the late 1860s) and had 

helped to lift “the State out of bankruptcy into solvency, and that the only instruction he 

ever gave in relation to the conduct of the Enterprise was that it ‘should be true to the 

interests of the whole people of this State.’” Finally the Territorial Enterprise reminded 

the Gazette that the so-called people that it claimed to speak for would have property of 

far less value if the “millionaires” such as Mackay, Fair and Sharon had not assembled 

the capital and assumed the risk to make the Comstock into the economic engine that it 

had become for the region (including Washoe County, the home-base of the Gazette) and 

the state during the last decade. The rival newspapers continued to lob their salvos, and 

17 

“The Payment of Taxes”, Territorial Enterprise, 6 May 1877 and earlier article reprinted in San 

Francisco Chronicle, 28 April 1877. 

18 

As quoted in a reprint of the article from Reno’s Gazette, 21 February 1877, Territorial Enterprise, 21 

February 1877.


16 

without any modern polling data to back up their respective claims it is doubtful that 

either paper spoke for Nevada’s majority. (One reason I seldom use newspaper sources.) 

The Territorial Enterprise presented a case that bore the trademark of the state’s mining 

moguls who had long contended that they paid too much in taxes. It is worth pointing out 

that the Bullion Tax Compromise would not have helped mining operations with huge 

losses since they could no longer exempt up to 90 percent of their bullion receipts under 

the 1871 amendment, but the Compromise would have directly benefited low-cost and 

high-yield mines. And with the equalization of rates between mining proceeds and real 

and personal properties in Story County the tax burden borne by the highly profitable 

companies would have been markedly reduced. Notwithstanding the Territorial 

Enterprise’s alleged objectivity the Bullion Tax Compromise favored a narrow segment 

of the mining community, its Mineral Millionaires. 19 

The Comstock boom had saddled Story County and its municipalities with real 

costs in the form of public services needed to support its large (by Nevada standards) and 

ever-changing population. The mining industry acknowledged (as evidenced in Fair’s 

remarks to the Territorial Enterprise) that it should bear some of the tax burden to pay 

for the public services from which that its businesses benefited. But how much of that 

burden it might or should assume remained the flash-point in the debate. Based on the 

Controllers’ Reports, which are complete from 1867 through 1885, taxes on real and 

personal property may have generated more income for the county than taxes on bullion. 

This cannot be tested definitely until a database of revenue received from property-tax 

collections has been constructed, and that task is made more difficult by the loss of all 

assessment rolls in the October 1875 fire. The documentation is complete for post-1875 

years, but so far as I could determine these figures have not yet been assemble and 

analyzed. Even without a property-tax series comparable to the bullion-tax series some 

information is available to be examined. 

I have not undertaken a detailed analysis of Story County taxes. The survival of 

the assessment rolls after the fire of 1875 would allow such a study for the last decade of 

the Comstock era. Few county financial documents survived the fire, and any effort to 

reconstruct tax policies before 1875 would have to depend on the information that could 

be dug out of the state archives. My aim is to evaluate the role played by taxes on the 

proceeds from the mines in the county’s overall finances. It is understood that netproceeds 

taxes were authorized in part because determining the value of mining property 

for tax purposes was more controversial and probably more difficult than other properties 

such as farm lands or retail stores or private residences, all of which had at the very least 

market values that could be related to sales of property. What was the market value of a 

mine with relatively little profitable ore compared to a mine with much profitable ore? 

And what was the value of the rich mine once the ores were exhausted? Net-proceeds 

offered a simple platform from which to determine how much a mine was worth. Under 

the procedures for residential, commercial and agricultural properties the assessor was 

charged with the power to determine the valuations for: “Possessary Claims” that is, 

properties that were in the possession of an individual or company; improvements to 

properties either by the owners or “others”; and personal property. A Board of 

19 

“The Compromise (?)”, Territorial Enterprise, 21 February 1877.


17 

Equalization reviewed the assessor’s work when complaints were filed. What is not clear 

from the assessment rolls was the basis for the assessment of the property by the assessor. 

Was the assessment a reflection of a property’s full value or a portion of the value (as is 

the case with most assessments today), and was the assessment of one type of property 

different from another type (farms versus banks, for example)? Fifty years after the 

collapse of the Comstock mining industry Romano Adams presented a long list of defects 

in assessments within counties and among counties. 20 Surely Story County’s assessments 

suffered from many of the defects cited by Adams, although references to specific county 

defects were irregular and inconsistent.. Whatever the basis for the valuation by the 

assessor a total figure was computed for each parcel or site and the prevailing rate was 

applied to determine the tax. It should also be understood that “real and personal” 

property on the surface even though it was connected to mining (mills for example) could 

be assessed in the same way as other businesses were assessed. Only underground mining 

operations were exempt from general property taxes. For the other property taxpayers the 

rub was that mining companies’ assessments were arrived at after deductions to cover 

operational costs were allowed. Despite inconsistencies in assessments among categories 

of non-mining properties deductions like those enjoyed by mining companies that could 

reduce assessed valuations on bullion declaration did not exist. 

Figure 6 above shows the Story County assessments and taxes as found in the 

actual ledgers for 1875, 1876 and 1877. 21 I wish that I could report that the bookkeeping 

was straightforward and direct; unfortunately it was not. It proved to be harder to 

untangle than the accounts that contained the mining assessments. Let me take note of the 

fact (and repeat again) that in these three years the Comstock reached its apex in 

production - $26 million in bullion, $38 million and $37 million respectively, that in 1876 

the rates levied against general property and mining proceeds taxes were standardized 

and that in 1875 and 1877 Virginia City and Gold Hill had the same rates but in 1876 

they had different rates with the result that their assessment and tax data were presented 

in separate entries. The county collected taxes for specific local purposes. In 1875 and 

1876 they were listed as county government, schools and railroad, but in 1877 a levy for 

the construction of a new courthouse (post-fire) was added. (As noted above, the county 

also collected the state’s share of property taxes at a rate set by the State Legislature.) In 

1875 non-mine-proceeds assessments totaled $6.1 million, in 1876 $6.6 million and in 

1877 also $6.6 million. In those same years assessments on net-proceeds of the mines 

amounted to $14.1 million, 23.7 million and $23.2 million. Clearly the value of the 

taxable bullion far exceeded that of non-mining properties. Tax revenues generated by 

20 

Adams, Taxation in Nevada, 54-63. When the Nevada’s Citizens’ Economy and Taxation Committee 

published its report on the state’s tax system and in particular property assessments in 1913, it found a lack 

of uniformity in assessments across the state. In some counties 15 to 20 percent of the value of the property 

was taxed; in others it was 40 to 50 percent; and in still others it was 100 percent. Properties within a single 

classification like private residences could be subjected to different assessment standards: in some cases 

small residences carried a higher assessment than large residences. 

21 

I read the actual surviving ledgers (large leather-bound volumes) in which were recorded property 

assessments and taxes for 1875, 1876 and 1877 at the Assessor’s Office, Story County Courthouse, 

Virginia City, NV. The discussion that follows is based on notes taken from these ledgers. The same 

information exists on microfilm in The County Records Microfilm Project, ST 67 Story County, Special 

Collections, Library, University of Nevada, Reno. Data on assessments and taxes on bullion were drawn 

from the microfilm version.


18 

general property assessments for county projects were $83,000 in 1875, $78,000 in 1876 

and $76,000 in 1877 whereas bullion levies generated for the county $28,000 in 1875, 

$253,00 in 1876 and $267,000 in 1877. The difference in bullion-tax receipts in 1875 

compared to 1876 and 1877 underscored the importance of equalizing rates among all 

property classifications. Because the county could only collect $0.35 per $100 of assessed 

bullion instead of $1.35 per $100 ($190,000) that other property owners paid, the bullion 

tax was 60 percent what others paid in property taxes. In 1776 and 1777, however, 

bullion-tax receipts were 3.5 times greater in 1876 and 1877. One can greatly appreciate 

the negative impact of declining gold and silver production on county revenues in 

subsequent years to the extent that they constituted a fraction (2 to 3 percent) of the total 

tax receipts even at the highest rates of the two decades. 

FIGURE 6 

PROPERTY –TAX ASSESSMENTS EXCLUDING MINING PROCEEDS FOR 

VIRGINIA CITY AND GOLD HILL, AND TAX RECEIPTS FOR COUNTY AND 

STATE, 1875-1877 

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] 

1875 

VC/GH 

1876 

VC 

$1,278,955.0 

0 

$1,021,870.0 

0 

$2,935,245.0 

0 

$2,170,125.0 

0 

$44,490.0 

0 

$87,125.0 

0 

$1,855,328.4 

9 $6,114,018.49 $137,565.41 

$1,023,535.0 

0 $4,302,655.00 $83,901.77 

Mortg $344,157.39 $344,157.39 $6,711.06 

GH $320,065.00 $131,350.00 $7,750.00 $437,056.00 $1,896,221.00 $46,457.41 

Mortg $62,000.03 $62,000.03 $1,519.00 

$1,341,935.0 $3,301,475.0 $94,875.0 $1,866,748.4 

Tot 

0 

0 

0 

2 $6,605,033.42 $138,589.24 

1877 

$1,267,615.6 $3,789,135.0 $87,336.2 $1,425,427.0 

$2.0 

VC/GH 

3 

0 

5 

0 $6,569,513.88 $134,675.04 5 

Notes: VC/GH=Virginia City/Gold Hill; Mortg-Mortgage (certain assessments was assigned to values of 

mortgages.) 

[1] Year; [2] Real & Possessary Property; [3] Property Improvement; [4] Others; [5] Personal 

Property; [6] Total Assessments; [7] Total Taxes; [8] Rate per $100. 


Separate assessment and tax accounts for Virginia City and Gold Hill in 1876 

document what was well known: Virginia City had outpaced Gold Hill in size and 

wealth. By the middle 1870s Virginia City was not only the county seat but could claim 

the richest mines ever discovered on the Comstock Lode. The predominance of Virginia 

City was evident in property assessments. In 1876 if all mortgaged property, which was 

also taxable, was counted, Virginia City had nearly $5 million in such properties 

compared to Gold Hill’s $2 million. Although both had mining and milling properties 

that were subject to taxation Virginia City could boast of larger and more modern and 

technically advanced facilities. Although population figures are difficult to verify perhaps 

30,000 to 40,000 lived along and in the vicinity of the Lode with 20,000 (plus?) in 

Virginia City itself. The year 1876 is interesting for another reason. In the aftermath of 

$2.2 

5 

$1.9 

5 

$1.9 

5 

$2.4 

5 

$2.4 

5 

$2.1 

0


19 

the fire Virginia City was quickly rebuilt. Improved properties accounted for almost half 

of the total assessment whereas in Gold Hill, which had escaped the fire, improved 

properties accounted for 7 percent of the total. Mortgaged properties were also five times 

higher in Gold Hill than Virginia City. For this particular year Virginia City residents 

paid in property taxes $42,000 to the state and $48,000 to the county whereas Gold Hill 

paid about $18,000 to the state and $30,000 to the county. The difference between county 

tax receipts was narrower than it might have been because Gold Hill residents paid a rate 

that was 50 cents higher per $100 in the second, third and fourth quarter than residents of 

Virginia City paid. By the middle of the 1880s, however, while both municipalities 

experienced a loss of mining and population county tax rates had doubled or tripled with 

Virginia City residents paying 50 cent to $2.50 per $100 more than Gold Hill residents. 

More importantly, the burden for maintaining public services fell squarely on general 

property inasmuch as the tax on bullion yielded very little. 

In addition to county property taxes the residents of Virginia City and Gold Hill 

could be liable for municipal property taxes. Municipalities could tax general property 

including surface properties owned by the mining companies but not underground 

operations or bullion proceeds. 22 The actual assessment ledgers consulted for the years 

1875, 1876 and 1877 contained information on Virginia City but not, so far as I could 

determine, on Gold Hill. Virginia City property assessments totaled $5.8 million in 1875, 

$5.4 million in 1876 and $4.9 million in 1877. 23 Virginia City collected $23,000 or 40 

cents per $100 of assessed value, $27,000 or 50 cents per $100 and $30,000 or 60 cents 

per $100 in the three years. For the 1877 the assessment rolls indicate that 22.5 cents of 

the 60 cents was to cover the expense of city government and 37.5 cents to cover the 

water bond. 24 

The county and municipal assessment rolls provide a small window on how 

public services were distributed. County government had assumed responsibility for 

financing public education and rail construction while municipal government had taken 

22 

Gold Hill’s Charter (1862) stated that the town trustees could enact a tax not to exceed one-half of one 

percent of the “assessment valuation” of all property except mines, “which shall not be subject to taxation.” 

See “An Act to Incorporate the Town of Gold Hill, 17 December 1862, Chapter XXVIII, Laws of the 

Territory of Nevada Territorial Laws…, 2 nd Legislative Session. (Virginia, NV: John Church & Co., 

Territorial Printers, 1862), 24-26. Virginia City, on the other hand, had a charter (according to the Nevada 

Supreme Court in 1865) that allowed it to tax mining proceeds as it taxed other properties. In the following 

year, however, the charter was amended to prohibit the municipality from taxing mining proceeds. but they 

were permitted to include on property-tax rolls the values of surface buildings such as hoisting shafts, assay 

and general offices, milling operations and storage facilities. And this meant that the county and each 

municipality could collect taxes on mining and milling properties. As I will discuss below, county and 

municipal assessment rolls could differ. 

23 

When the 1876 Virginia City tax assessments are compared to Story County tax assessments for Virginia 

City specifically there was a discrepancy of about $700,000: $5.4 million versus $4.7 million. Since a 

single assessment roll was used for all county and municipal property tax levies, the total value of assessed 

property in Virginia City whether used by the county tax collector or the city tax collector should be the 

same or at least close to the same. The discrepancy could be tracked down, I suspect, by rechecking totals 

for all categories of property assessments and tax payments or by comparing property lists to see if the 

county or city exempted certain properties, but that would be a sizable task not warranted by the intent and 

scope of this study. The discrepancy will simply have to remain unresolved for now. 

24 

See ledger for 1877 in Assessor’s Office, Story County Courthouse, Virginia City, NV.


20 

charge of the local water system. Eliot Lord provided ample description of the history of 

the construction of the water system that not only served Virginia City but also Gold Hill 

and Silver City (south of Gold Hill). 25 A private company, Virginia and Gold Hill Water 

Company, built the facilities to transport the water from its sources. It was reincorporated 

as a California company in 1871. William Sharon was among the stockholders, but he 

quickly sold his stock at time that James Flood was buying up stock in the company. 

Eventually it became the property of the Quartet. One reason why the Quartet was 

interested in a water company was to assure a supply of water for their businesses. The 

arrangement between the city and the water company remains to be documented. One set 

of figures, according to the superintendent J. B. Overton, stated the cost for “flumes, 

dams, reservoirs, pipes, water-rights, litigation, &c” $2.2 million. 26 Presumably the 

private water company had assumed or financed those costs. And yet of municipal taxes 

collected in 1875-1877 in Virginia City about two-thirds of the total $80,000 was 

committed to debt obligations arising from the construction, repair (after the fire) and 

extension of the local water system. Whatever the relationship between the municipality 

and the private water company the municipality had a continuing financial obligation in 

the form of interest on and redemption of bonded indebtedness. 

County and municipal property taxes had at most a marginal impact on company 

costs. Some fragmentary tax records among the Savage Mining Company financial 

papers permit a close look at the financial impact on that company in the late 1860s. To 

begin with I should note that tax structure, as it applied to mining camps, was different 

from what it would become after the 1871 amended law. The bullion tax was set at $1.50 

per $100 worth of ore with $1.25 for the state and 25 cents for the county. Municipalities 

were excluded from receiving tax dollars then (or later for that matter) from the product 

of the company. The Savage Company documents were for property taxes paid to 

Virginia City in 1868 and for those paid to Story County in 1869. The county and the city 

computed their taxes from the county assessments rolls, although some changes had 

occurred in certain categories between 1868 and 1869. Each document listed the lot, the 

block, the assessor’s valuations for possessary claims, personal property and 

improvements and the tax. In Virginia City in 1868 the rate was $1 per $100 and in Story 

County in 1869 the rate was $3.55 per $100 of which $1.25 belonged to the State 

Treasury. That left $2.30 per $100 for the county or about $3,200 from Savage properties. 

For 1868 Savage paid $1,447 in property taxes on real estate and improvements valued at 

$144,725 to the city, and in 1869 it paid $4,989 on basically the same parcels now valued 

at a lower figure of $140,525 to the county. Savage owned several dozen Virginia City 

lots in Blocks numbered 173 to 183. This swath of land was between Howard Street on 

the west and M Street on the east, Flowers Street on the north and Silver Street on the 

south. 27 It also owned a lot (Block 193) across Silver Street between Howard and B 

Streets. The assessment rolls described the size of the lot and the value of the lot and its 

contents. It did not indicate how the lot was used or what the contents were. 

Approximations can be determined from other surveys and maps of Virginia City and the 

25 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miner, 323-333, which included a discussion of the impact of the fire. See 

also Smith, The Comstock Lode, 120-121 for a briefer discussion. 

26 

Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 333. I cannot confirm the Superintendent’s figures. 

27 

Block and lot identifying numbers have not changed much in the original tract laid out in the 1860s. One 

can consult a current plat map (in the Story County Assessor Office) to identify the Savage properties.


21 

Comstock Lode. In 1868 the company’s most valuable lot was in Block 176, Lots 5-9. 

The land had a value of $1,625 but the improvements were assessed at $100,000 so that 

the total value (for assessment purposes) was $101,625 with a tax (1 percent) of $1,625. 

A year later when the county tax was paid this site was said to have no improvements 

with only the land being valued at $1,625 for a tax (3.55 percent) of $58.00. The most 

valuable plots had shifted to Block 178, lots 4-7, where the land was assessed at $525, 

improvements at $100,000 and personal property at $26,800 for a total of $127,325 and a 

tax of $4,520. The year before this site was only worth the value of the land or $525 with 

a tax of $5.25. The company’s hoisting works were known as the E Street Shaft and 

occupied a site (Block 177) between E and F Streets and Flowers and Silver Street. 28 On 

the two assessment documents Block 177 had Lots 3 through 14 with an assessed value 

of only $2,200, hardly sufficient for a mine the size of Savage. A company mill was 

another possibility, but according to the superintendent, even though the company owned 

a seldom-used mill in Washoe County, it contracted with custom or independent mills to 

process its ores. Since the Blocks 176-178 were bracketed in the 1868 assessment 

document, the entire area irrespective of how the individual lots were used was the 

location of Savage’s surface operations - hoisting works and attendant transportation 

facilities. Lots not noted above were modestly assessed at $25 to several hundred dollars, 

and the tax due amounted to a few cents to a few dollars. In 1869 according to Grant 

Smith Savage declared $1.2 million worth of bullion and paid dividends slightly less than 

$300,000. Its local property taxes (not including the prevailing bullion tax) totaled over 

$4,800 ($3,200 to the county + $1,650 to the city) or 0.4 percent of the total value of 

Savage’s ores. It may be worth noting that the Superintendent complained to the 

Mineralogist that because costs for exploration and extraction were rising, company 

profits (per ton) were falling. While local taxes were an obligation that the company had 

to assume, they no doubt paled in significance to other costs directly related to mining 

operations. Even the bullion tax (at the time 50 cents per 100 pounds of ore) would have 

been two to three times higher than the local taxes. 29 

By 1875 as the Comstock boomed with the recent opening of Consolidated 

Virginia and the soon-to-be-opened California mines county and city rates had been 

adjusted downward from the rate structure in effect for Savage in 1868-1869. The county 

rate was set at $2.25 per $100 and the city rate was set at 40 cents per $100. Of the 

county rate the State’s share was $0.90 and when subtracted from $2.25 the county was 

left with $1.35 per $100. (It should be recalled that this was the last year that the mining 

industry would be exempt from paying their full county tax rate, as discussed above.) The 

new behemoth being created by Mackay, Fair et al., virtually in the heart of Virginia 

City, generated more revenue from property taxes than any other property owner in the 

28 

See Graphic Chart of the Comstock Mines, State of Nevada, 1876 [J. B. Treadwell, C. E.] issued with the 

S. F. News Letter, 3 June 1876. 

29 

It is possible, of course that the assessment documents cited in the text were incorrect in their citations, or 

that the block and lot numbers for that part of Virginia City was revised. The documents themselves may be 

read in Savage Mining Company Papers (from Barry Cassidy[?]), NC62, Special Collections, Library, 

University of Nevada, Reno. References to the E Street Shaft in “Biennial Report of the State 

Mineralogist…1869 and 1870” in Senate Journal and Appendix, 5 th Legislative Session (1871), 7. Also 

Grant Smith’s Notes contain data on Savage ore production in NC229, Binder 1, Special Collections, 



22 

county or the city. The Firm’s businesses (mines, mills, shafts, etc.) occupied 

approximately four-dozen lots scattered across the center of the city. The lots can be 

divided into three different property groupings: Consolidated Virginia Mine occupying 

lots in Blocks 81, 87, 95-97, 101 and 115-116; C&C Shaft occupying lots in Blocks 92- 

93 and 95; and Consolidated Mill occupying lots in Blocks 69-78. These Blocks could be 

found in an area bordered by Stewart Street on the west, Q Street on the east, Mill Street 

on the north and Taylor Street on the south. The lots associated with Consolidated 

Virginia were assessed at $61,780 with a tax of $1,390, the C&C Shaft $15,490 and $149 

and Consolidated Mill $142,234 and $3,200 for a total of $219,504 and $4,939. Of this 

amount the county received about $3,000. In addition the city received (based on 40 cents 

per $100) about $900. By almost any measure these were modest figures for the city’s 

largest enterprise. The assessed properties were 1.5 times higher than Savage’s 

properties, and yet taxes were less by several hundred dollars. County tax rates had fallen 

by a third since the late 1869, and city rates had fallen even more by 60 percent. 

Consolidated Virginia’s tax burden will grow as city rates rose in subsequent years. 

County tax rates will fall for several years before rising again, but at the same time 

beginning in 1876 mining companies paid the full rather a modified county rate. Even 

though the fire damaged or destroyed some Mackay-Fair structures in central Virginia 

City their new valuations probably increased the company’s taxes. (And of course 

California was ready to come on line and would have to start paying taxes.) Still the 

impact for Mackay, Fair et al. was small given the fact that the mines produced tens of 

millions of dollars over the next several years. 30 

Consolidated Virginia’s shaft and related operations were spread over a dozen or 

more lots situated in Block 87 between E and F Streets (north-south streets) and Union 

and Sutton Streets (east-west streets). This was also known as the E Street Shaft. Block 

87 had at least 11 lots with lots 1 through 8 assessed at $43,000 and lots 9 through 11 

assessed at $15,280 for a total of $58,280 or 95 percent of all lots that fell under the 

ownership of Consolidated Virginia. Moving east from the shaft toward Q Street one 

encountered the new C&C Shaft being built by both Consolidated Virginia and 

California. Even though underground work in California, which lay to the north of 

Consolidated Virginia approximately under the city Blocks with numbers 65 to 70, was 

going on during 1875, the mine did not officially came on line in the spring of 1876. 

According to the tax rolls the lots with numbers 1 through 5 in Block 93 and numbers 1 

through 4 in Block 95 had the highest values of $6,000 and $9,290. Finally on the north 

side across Sutton Street in Blocks 69 through 78 sat the sprawling Consolidated Mill. 

The main plant was located on lots 1 through 9 in Block 69 and lots 1 through 10 in 

Block 70. Of the total $142,234 in assessed values for all lots connected to the mill, the 

lots in Block 69 and 70 were valued at $106,000 or 75 percent of the total. The next 

highest valued lots were at the other end of the mill’s properties next to Q Street in Block 

78 was assessments of $30,100. Compared to the total assessments – possessary, 

improvement, personal and other – in Story County these mining and milling properties 

of Mackay, Fair et al. comprised 4 percent of the total. 31 

30 

Consolidated Virginia’s property assessments and taxes were taken from the 1875 assessment roll in the 

Assessor’s Office, Story County Courthouse, Virginia City, NV. 

31 

See footnote 58 above.


23 

FIGURE 7 

PLAT MAP OF VIRGINIA CITY PROPERTIES 

CURRENT PLAT, VIRGINIA CITY, NV 

PINK: LOCATION OF SAVAGE WORKS 

ORANGE: LOCATION OF CONSOLIDATED VIRGINIA & CALIFORNIA 

WORKS & C&C SHAFT

THE COMSTOCK [S] 

1 

Chapter 19 

An Assessment 

“Big strikes” of precious metals unfolded in a predictable path. Populations swelled in 

remote areas with few civic or legal institutions. Ad hoc arrangements among the 

participants preceded the establishment of a more orderly political, economic and social 

order. Early locators and stakeholders gave way to entrepreneurs, bankers and investors 

who supplied the capital and organization that deep mining required. Scattered claims 

were consolidated in the name of efficiency, and over time several mining behemoths 

emerged to control the industry and reap the rewards. To support these enterprises a camp 

evolved into a city, and mining assumed an urban character in the form of processing 

mills, commercial suppliers, transportation systems, banking operations and labor pools. 

And to function properly a city needed public agencies, infrastructure and elected 

officials. At some point, sooner for some cities than others, when the ores gave out, the 

economy (in the absence of any other industries to take up the slack) collapsed and the 

population shrunk. If a formerly robust mining center survived (many simply 

disappeared) it did so mainly as an administrative center (e.g.a county seat) and perhaps 

eventually as a tourist center. 

Dan DeQuille, the most famous of the Territorial Enterprise journalists (except 

perhaps for Samuel Clements whom he hired) described the discovery of Peter O’Riley 

and Patrick McLaughlin: 

The manner in which the grand discovery was made was not very 

romantic. What our miners found was a great bed of black sulphuret of 

silver, a decomposed ore of silver filled with spangles of native gold. This 

gold, however, was alloyed with silver to such an extent that it was more 

the color of silver than of gold. 

When the discoverers struck into the odd looking black dirt, they only 

thought that it was a sudden and rather singular change from the yellowish 

gravel and clay in which they had been digging. They at once concluded to 

try some of the curious looking stuff in their rockers. 

The result astounded them. Before, they had only been taking out a dollar 

or two a day, but now they found the bottoms of their rockers covered 

with gold as soon as a few buckets of the new dirt had been washed. They 

found they were literally taking out gold by the pound. In a few weeks 

after the discovery had been made, and the work had been advanced 

further into the croppings of the lode they were taking out the gold at the 

rate of one thousand dollars per day. This they were doing with the 

rockers. Taking the harder lumps left on the screens of the rockers, one 

man was able to pound out gold at the rate of 100 dollars per day in a 

common hand mortar.


2 

After specimens had been assayed in Grass Valley, California, and news 

of the richness of the discovery spread across the region, the rush 

commenced. 

The mines at Virginia town and Gold Hill are exceeding the most sanguine 

expectations of their owners. At Virginia town, particularly, the claims on 

the main leads promised to excel in richness the far-famed Allison lead in 

California in its palmiest days. 

Claims are changing hands at almost fabulous prices. No fictitious sales, 

either, but bona-fide business operation. The main lead, on which is the 

celebrated Comstock and other claims, appears to be composed of ores 

producing both silver and gold, and the more it is prospected the richer it 

is proving. 1 

A decade later the Comstock Lode boasted one of the West’s largest cities with 

amenities and attractions that few other mining cities ever had. In The Roar and the 

Silence Ronald James described Virginia City’s progress: 

When enumerators for the 9 th U. S. Census began working on the 

Comstock in June 1870, they found a mining district radically different 

from the one documented ten years earlier. Gone were the Mexican 

packers, the prospectors, the thrown-together buildings, and the society in 

which women were a scarce curiosity. The Comstock was now a place of 

industry and engineers, boasting almost four hundred men employed in 

milling, nearly three hundred in the manufacturing industries, and roughly 

three thousand working in the mines. 

And after combing through the census he found many non-mining occupations that 

testified to the diversity and variety of life in Virginia City (and to a more limited extent 

Gold Hill). 

…the census recorded twenty-two bakers, forty-nine butchers, five people 

operating confectionery stores, two oyster vendors, a coffee vendor, and 

one man who ran a peanut stand. There were also nineteen people 

involved in the theater, including actors, actresses, managers, and a 

“tragedian”. The census recorded fourteen musicians and two gymnasts, 

and there were gardeners, a librarian, photographers, milk dealers, tailors, 

stockholders, politicians, federal tax agents, doctors, lawyers, and several 

people in jail. 2 

The history of the Comstock has been written from many angles. The statistical 

approach may be the least interesting for the general reader, and yet the numbers, so 

highly important to many of the contemporaries, confirm the monumentality of the 

1 

DeQuille, The Big Bonanza, 24-25. 

2 

James, The Roar and the Silence, 91-92.


3 

Comstock venture. Its broadly-understood history, as assembled over the decades, will 

not be extensively modified by examining production trends, daily hoists, wage schedules 

or tax collections. Economists, when analyzing numbers, often ask how big, and in the 

case of the Comstock it was big. It may not have been the biggest – that’s not the point – 

but it generated some very large numbers. Numbers work both ways. They illustrate how 

fast the rise was as well as how fast the fall was. They testify to both grandeur and folly, 

lure and power that accompany the relentless search for two lustrous metals. Perhaps no 

figures are more startling and revealing than how many miles of tunnels and shafts were 

built and how many tons of ore, rock and waste were extracted, transported, hoisted, 

milled and abandoned through the combination of laborers and machines but most 

especially by laborers. 

Mining entailed hard work and constant risk, and yet despite the demands and 

imponderables the Comstock like the phoenix rose repeatedly from disappointments and 

disasters until the inevitable occurred – the ground would yield no more shine. The 

forecasts of charlatans and professionals that the Comstock had an almost inexhaustible 

supply of ore, like the grand mining centers of Potosí and Zacatecas, whose mines were 

productive for more than 300 year, eventually dissolved in the face of ever greater depths 

that were barren of ore. The nature of the Lode was confounding from the outset. It was 

not a solid ledge of profitable ore that extended downward for thousands of feet. It 

appeared and disappeared and finally vanished altogether. In a curious way, however, the 

unpredictability of the Lode inspired hope rather than despair until there was no longer 

any basis for hope. Once the Lode’s upper region was mined the mining community 

came to the realization that the Lode’s lower region was made up of pockets of rich ores 

that had to be found. As one pocket of ore after another was picked clean, the hope if not 

the conviction grew that the pockets would keep appearing at random at ever-greater 

depths. Neither the vast distances between the pockets nor the deep explorations were 

ever regarded as hindrances by the most active entrepreneurs. When new pockets failed 

to materialize as companies explored areas twice as deep as the last great bonanza the 

numbers told the story that no one wanted to hear – the Comstock was finite. 

The most important numbers from the Comstock related to production. Such 

figures from the earliest years are scarce. A few companies had bookkeeping systems that 

captured the output of their mines and the value of their bullion, but not much of that 

documentation has survived. As companies replaced individuals in the extraction of ore, 

the need for bookkeeping systems became an imperative. Companies had investors, and 

investors had a proprietary interest in knowing the financial soundness of mining 

operations in which they had invested. The largest companies like Consolidated Virginia 

and California instituted managerial policies and financial controls that covered virtually 

every aspect of their mining operations, not only to please their stockholders but also to 

make management more effective. In addition, as governmental oversight increased, 

companies large and small had to comply with certain rules on financial reporting. The 

quantity and quality of extant documentation, private and public, are surprisingly solid. 

Given the richness of the documentation it is possible to trace in considerable detail 

mining trends for the Comstock as a whole and by individual companies.


4 

In the aftermath of the initial discoveries nearly all the land along the Comstock 

and for miles beyond the Lode was claimed. Tens of thousands of claims may have been 

posted, although the number of legally registered claims was surely smaller. But under 

the system of parole, a spoken or verbal claim, the conveyance of a claim without a deed 

was accepted in court. It is not known how much ore was removed from all of the 

claimed areas between 1859 and 1885 – a figure that will remain permanently 

unrecoverable – but it can be stated with some accuracy how much was extracted from 

the Lode itself. In the final analysis very few productive or profitable mines were found 

outside of the Lode. The history of mining in Story County and surrounding counties 

during the third and fourth quarters of the nineteenth century was really the history of 

mining on the Lode. 

At the most basic level was the tonnage of ore hoisted and crushed for processing 

at the mills. To reach the ore, of course, vast quantities of rock, soil and waste had to be 

removed through construction of shafts and excavation of tunnels. Then the ore itself was 

removed and after being hoisted was shipped to the mills where it was crushed in 

preparation for incorporation with quicksilver. A few scattered figures may be found in 

some company documents on the amount of so-called “waste” removed but never enough 

data from which to create a dataset. And in a few cases company records included both 

the quantity of ore hoisted and shipped to the mills and the quantity of ore hoisted and 

shipped that was actually worked before incorporation began. 3 The difference could be 

thousands of tons per month in the large operations, but again the standard tonnage that 

companies reported was worked or crushed ore. The laws under which companies paid 

net-proceeds taxes required companies to declare tonnage (worked as opposed to gross) 

along with the value of the bullion (as determined at a federal mint). From these two 

figures an average yield was calculated for tax purposes. Tonnage is a straightforward 

figure that is not complicated by monetary conversions as is the case with bullion values. 

What is not clear is how the tonnage was determined. There is no evidence that scales 

were used to weigh the ore. More than likely it was derived from the number of ore cars, 

each of which could be loaded with 1,600 to 1,800 pounds, which moved the ore from the 

mine to the mill. 

Based on the public record compiled from 1867 through 1885 nearly 12 million 

tons of ore were declared across the state and seven million in Story County. The average 

for this period was about 611,000 tons per year for Nevada and 358,000 for Story 

County. For the period 1860 through 1866 one can add several million tons to the totals 

for the state and for Story County. Since most of the early mining was concentrated in 

Story County the overall totals could reach 14 million tons for the state and 9 million tons 

for Story. Throughout the period Story accounted for 60 percent or more of the reported 

ore tonnage. Statewide the peak in tonnage at more than 900,000 tons occurred in 1877, 

when Story County topped 600,000 tons as a result of the high output of The Bonanza 

mines. Although Story County represented nearly 70 percent of the state total, more than 

10 percent above the average from 1860 to 1885, but this was not the highest. In 1867 

3 

The ledgers of Consolidated Virginia and California had columns for hoisted and worked ores, but the 

former was not filled in consistently. Also daily hoist records occasionally listed the amount of waste 

removed from the areas of the mines yielding ore, but such records have not survived in a form that allows 

for the creation of a dataset.


5 

and 1868 Story County accounted for more than 95 percent of the state total, but by the 

mid-1870s Story County’s share fell as mining spread across the state. But the long-term 

success of Nevada mining was tied to the Comstock. Only in the late 1870s and early 

1880s when Comstock output was contracting rapidly did mining in other areas help to 

pick up the slack and slow the slide. Comstock’s share fell below 50 percent for the first 

time and reached its nadir at slightly more than 25 percent. Story County’s decline 

amounted to as much as 40 percent in some years, but the state’s decline was far less than 

that. The capacity of other mining regions to fill in for the Comstock, which never 

recovered, was short-lived. In 1885 total state tonnage was even less than what had been 

reported in 1867, the first year with official data. 

If Comstock mines extracted from 7 to 9 million tons or more (20 billion pounds) 

between 1860 and 1885, what estimate can be made for the removal of ore and the 

residue? Twice as much? Three times as much? Obviously without actual data any figure 

that is advanced is speculative. Not even the few entries found on removal of residue can 

be extrapolated. Given the miles of tunnels dug underground and the depth of the shafts 

to serve those tunnels an estimate of 20 to 30 million tons extracted in both ore and waste 

was a plausible figure. In the end the actual number may not matter since the officially 

reported ore tonnage of nearly 10 million was itself huge. 

Another way to think about total tonnage is to try to envision it in terms of output 

per miner. Company records from Consolidated Virginia and California indicated that on 

some days miners extracted as much as 3 tons per person. This was probably only 

possible when miners were working in some of the widest sections of the richest ore 

veins where the material was easily removed. Digging through various rock strata, some 

very hard and some dangerously soft, plus clay, heat and water could slow removals 

significantly. Despite these challenges worker output was remarkable and at times 

extraordinary. On average the Comstock mines hoisted about 400,000 tons of ore per 

year, and if one assumes on average an underground work force between 500 and 1,000, 

the output per worker per day would be between 1 and 1.5 tons, that is, 2,000 to 3,000 

pounds. Even one half of a ton (1,000 pounds) per day (i.e.day in and day out) would tax 

the average person. (Compare to digging a garden or a foundation 1,000 feet 

underground.) But, imagine, if the ore and waste were totaled, would underground 

workers face twice the above figure – 2 to 3 tons per day? The speculation is endless, but 

since contemporaries spoke highly of the work ethic of the Comstock miner, that 

reputation may well have been honed on a daily output in the thousands of pounds. 

Tonnage as an example of Comstock performance is less “sexy” so to speak than 

bullion values. Bullion, which was the term that was used in the official and company 

documentation to represent what the owner received from the mint, was always expressed 

in dollars. Millions of dollars were more eye-catching than millions of pounds. The 

custom was to assign Comstock ore a monetary value even though much of the output, 

especially silver, was never coined. That monetary value was then recorded by the 

company and declared to the assessor. Since gold could be coined and often was, its 

ascribed value was fairly reliable. In the case of silver, however, its coinage was either 

limited or prohibited for most of the Comstock period, and the ascribed values were often


6 

artificially high compared to market values. Whether coined or not, the gold or silver 

bullion (bars or ingots with prescribed a weight and finesses) that emerged at the end of 

the process had a value that was entered as such into the public records and the 

companies’ accounts. And those figures, for better or worse, expressed the triumph of the 

Comstock. For the years (1867-1885) when the official records can be consulted Nevada 

produced $390 million worth of gold and silver, and of that amount Story County 

produced $250 million or 64 percent. Some estimates exist for the period from 1859 to 

1867, and perhaps another $50 million worth of ore could be added to the Comstock and 

slightly more to Nevada totals: $300 for the Comstock and $450 million for the state. The 

extent to which these figures may overestimate or underestimate the production of ore in 

Nevada and on the Comstock will continue to be debated, but even with that uncertainty 

these were big numbers. Comstock ore probably contained more gold than most other 

mining regions so that of its projected $300 million silver was worth about $180 million 

and gold $120 million. 

While hundreds of individuals made claims and opened mines, the original 

locators found little if any profitable ore. Small pockets of ore on or near the surface 

encouraged miners and their backers to push ahead with expensive explorations that soon 

entered endlessly barren ground. As outcroppings gave way to lode mining, entrepreneurs 

who operated from the premise that the Comstock needed control, consolidation and 

capitalization soon replaced the early locators. The Comstock turned out not to be a solid 

ledge of gold and silver ores hundreds of feet deep but rather a series of pockets of ores 

unconnected to each other and surrounded by ground of little or no value. The pockets 

were mainly located along the Lode for about two miles from Ophir Mine in Virginia 

City to Belcher Mine in Gold Hill, and as the depths grow their locations angled eastward 

from Mt Davidson. There was no sure-fire way to locate these pockets, although some 

experienced miners had the uncanny ability to separate promising streaks of vein matter 

from the dead ends. 

The element of concentration grew more apparent after lode mining replaced 

surface mining. For the period with the best documentation, 1875-1885, about 50 mining 

companies, tailings mills and a few individuals declared all the taxable bullion. Even 

within this capitalist/entrepreneur group only a handful - perhaps a half-dozen – struck it 

big. Based on more scattered documentation prior to 1875 the structure of the industry 

was not much different in preceding decade when the first large mining corporations 

appeared. Technically this was not monopoly but rather oligopoly. But for all practical 

purposes, however, the Comstock fell under the dominion of Sharon and Ralston for 

nearly a decade and then under Mackay, Fair, et al. for another decade. Their business 

networks included mines, mills, banks, railroads, water pipelines and logging tracts. 

Other prominent Comstock entrepreneurial figures from mine and mill owners to bankers 

and lawyers could be highlighted, but in the end the Comstock’s economic and financial 

powerhouse was a small contingent. For at least half of the period under consideration the 

ore declarations before county assessors showed how concentrated the production of ore 

was in the hands of a few companies. Mining camps historically developed such 

entrepreneurial systems, and what can be observed about Comstock mining was that it


7 

hardly qualified as unique. 4 Mine owners had to be risk-takers, but even the most 

successful risk-takers had to find the ores that would compensate for the risks. No doubt 

some miners were more skilled at finding the markers that led to underground riches than 

others, but even they could fail to anticipate the natural obstacles that surrounded all such 

undertakings. Moreover all faced additional risks even after locating new deposits 

because they could not muster the skills or the finances needed to make the operations 

profitable. Mining titans, even the most ruthless, had to bring a combination of talents to 

their tasks along with the elusive luck. In light of the formation of the Comstock Lode, 

which only came to be well understood after the Lode had given up most of its wealth, 

the surface or shallow (within a few hundred feet) mineral deposits were less than reliable 

indicators of deeper deposits. It made sense for more daring investors to try to collect 

groups of mines with potential under single ownership and to develop them under a joint 

plan, and additionally, if their potential came to fruition, it made sense for them or other 

investors to try to secure claims on adjoining mines. Claims traditionally could not 

exceed certain dimensions, although small parcels could be fused up to those limits. Few 

legal restrictions prevented entrepreneurs and their investors from buying up adjacent 

mining properties and consolidating the operations of these mines even if the claims 

themselves could not be merged. Consolidation was more about operations than 

properties. One might criticize the early rush to carve up the Comstock and the absence 

of a legal or political framework for the disorder that inflamed those early years and 

contributed to the rise of a situation that allowed a small oligarchy of owners and their 

backers to control the Comstock. In point of fact almost all modern gold and silver rushes 

began the same way and evolved toward a highly concentrated ownership structure as 

deep mining required increasingly larger doses of capital and expertise. The Comstock 

was not an exception. 

Even if the argument can be made that precious-metal mining tended toward an 

oligopolistic structure (and that was what Comstock statistics indicated), driven in large 

by the financial considerations for developing high-risk operations, the argument must 

take into account other potentially controversial questions. The reach of the mining 

entrepreneurs did not stop with the mines themselves. Over time they came to dominate 

other essential businesses in and around the Comstock. Controlling the most important 

mines became a springboard to owning or controlling ancillary enterprises such as mills, 

banks, rails, water and timber. Along the Comstock money spoke volumes, and little 

stood in the way of those with the penchant and wherewithal to acquire or assemble a 

financial empire. The more of the mining economy that they could own or control the 

greater the potential to make more money. Milling operations could be spun off as 

separate corporate entities from the mining enterprises whose ores they processed 

because the business of milling was a potentially profitable enterprise on its own. These 

were seldom publicly-held companies like their mining clients, and therefore whatever 

profit from whatever efficiency of scale size provided accrued to the principals and their 

partners rather than to the mining companies’ stockholders. Of course, bonanza 

stockholders could realize huge profits even without sharing in mill profits, but the 

principals of the mining and milling companies enjoyed dividends from the mining 

4 

Several examples could be cite from the period of Spanish colonial mining: Antonio López de Quiroga at 

Potosí and Conde de la Regla at Pachuca and José de la Borda at Zacatecas in Mexico.


8 

operations and surpluses from milling operations. To be sure, the creation of milling 

empires by the founders of mining empires helped to break whatever dominance the 

custom millers had managed to exert over the necessary process of converting ore to 

bullion. Little documentary evidence on milling finances existed in or survived from 

those years so other than the anecdotal reporting that custom millers charged exorbitant 

rates for less than efficient services. Given the rush to build mills, even by mining 

companies themselves, it should not be unexpected that some would attempt to bring 

order to the milling industry by driving down prices while also controlling capacity. 

Whatever the actual financial relationships and conflicts among early miners and millers, 

the large and somewhat disparate custom-milling group could not survive as mining came 

to be controlled by the so-called corporate powers. As the size and power of the mining 

corporations grew, they had ample capital and leverage to take command of milling 

sector, and that was what happened under one of the earliest corporate titans, William 

Sharon, in the mid-1860s. The documentation is not sufficient, at least until the late 

1860s, to confirm how many mills he purchased or how efficient these mills were, but his 

accumulation of milling properties began the process of shifting control from custom 

millers to new milling entities under the direction and ownership of prominent mining 

entrepreneurs. And that with new milling technologies began to push down milling rates. 

Prominent miners who followed Sharon pursued the same strategy. Custom mill probably 

did not completely disappear, and the documentation is so sparse that it cannot be said 

with any certainty what their role was after the new milling giants appeared. During the 

peak years of Consolidated Virginia and California Mackay and Fair had to secure the 

services of mills outside of those owned by Pacific Mill and Mining, the milling arm of 

their Comstock properties, but the documentation as to the exact status of these outside 

mills is sparse. Were they custom mills or mills owned by other mining companies? In 

the tailings business custom mills may have survived longer than in mainstream milling. 

It is no clear how much business was left for the unaffiliated amalgamation mills. There 

was a sharp increase in the number of tailings mills as the surplus of ores lost during 

crushing and refining continued to build. But independent millers outside of the network 

created by the important mining companies would seem to have be relegated to a 

insignificant role for most of the Comstock’s triumphant years. 

Tailings mills were of a different classification from amalgamation mills. They 

also entail far less documentation. Tailings millers dealt in ores that had been discarded, 

and therefore unlike amalgamation millers they paid the ore taxes instead of the original 

mine owners. Taxes paid on tailings were grouped in a different section of the assessment 

ledger, although the rates and deductions were the same as those applied to the mining 

companies. Some mining and milling companies operated their own tailings mills, and 

some mills were equipped to be both amalgamation and tailings mills. It is not easy to 

find detailed accounts of how tailings mills operated. What is known is that the discarded 

ores ended up as extremely hard, tightly packed mounds of ore and residue. The process 

of preparing these mounds to extract whatever gold or silver they contained was costly 

and time-consuming. The yields were small, and the trick was to balance the cost of 

hauling and processing against the improbably tiny yields. One of the largest tailings 

mill, built by Mackay and Fair’s Pacific during the height of the Comstock boom, was 

Omega. Pacific also owned a second mill, Mariposa, with tailings operations. Presumably


9 

most of the tailings came from Consolidated Virginia, California and adjacent mines, and 

it would appear that the construction of tailings mill in conjunction with the acquisition or 

construction of amalgamation mills was to allow for a quick-turn-around in recovering 

ores that escaped amalgamation. Mackay and Fair actually realized tens of thousands of 

dollars in bullion from their tailings stockpiles, and few of the mills that declared bullion 

from tailings could match the output of their mills. Tailings represented only a fraction of 

the bullion declarations, but Mackay and Fair operated on the basis that as little ore as 

possible should be lost for others to recover. The yields per ton from tailings compared to 

amalgamated ores generally came in under $10 per ton. Often it was half that amount. 

For millers who bought tailings the price-paid component was important. With their own 

tailings mills Mackay and Fair made the price paid less crucial. In the case of Pacific, 

since Mackay and Fair owned both the mines and mills, the price that the tailings mills 

paid for the residues from Consolidated Virginia, California and other mines surely 

favored the mills. It is not known to what extent a market for tailings may have existed so 

that as stockpiles of tailings grew (as they did with rising output) some downward 

pressure on prices may well have come into play. From strictly a documentary angle 

there remains a large unfilled hole in how tailings mills were operated or financed. Not 

only is the process not spelled out, but also the cost structure, as is understood with the 

amalgamation mills, is lacking. 

The bonanzas mines from the middle 1860s through the middle 1870s clearly 

made money for their investors. The cycle of profitability lasted no more than a few years 

for each mine. From the earliest years through the middle 1870s the Comstock 

experienced several profit cycles, but by 1880, as the mines reached unprecedented 

depths, the results were uniformly disappointing. There were no new discoveries and no 

new bonanzas. Much smaller operations (by comparison with earlier years) carried on the 

business of mining (and milling for that matter) along the Comstock. Small operations 

had come and gone throughout the period, and in the absence of detailed financial records 

one can only speculate about their profitability. The assessments indicate that the costs 

often absorbed all the revenues or exceeded them, but verifying the declared costs is 

nearly impossible without more data. No doubt some small operations at least for brief 

periods happened upon rich veins that were profitable in the short run. In the end, though, 

unless companies had large underground deposits to exploit they could not maintain a 

flow of capital that was necessary to support and expand their operations. Even some of 

the large bonanza companies, when they ran out of good ore, ran out of capital also. It 

was said that a company needed $20 per ton or ore to break even, although that was not a 

figure to inspire much investor confidence. Many small operations with bullion 

declarations had yields below $20 per ton. And while a few small operations with such 

yields could eke out profits, they had at best a limited role in Comstock mining history. 

The Comstock became a captive of big companies. 

Mining and milling operations depended on a pool of labor that ranged from 

skilled to unskilled. Thousands of Americans made the journey to the Comstock in search 

of work (and fortune). In spite of the dangers associated with mining the work paid wages 

above those in other industries. In setting wage levels employers had to consider the 

higher-than-usual cost of living in a remote area like the Comstock. So much of what was


10 

needed by companies and workers had to be imported over hundreds of miles. Even after 

the opening of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad the cost of transportation remained a 

large component of the retail price. In addition scarcity of housing pushed up lodging 

costs that employers had to be mindful of in determining compensation. And finally 

throw into the mix the presence of unions almost from the outset. Unions including some 

fairly radical ones were active in many western mining camps. The Comstock unions did 

not appear to follow a radical agenda, at least once they were organized and recognized, 

although they and the employers were from time to time at odds compensation, ours and 

other working conditions. But strikes were few and far between. Defending what the 

unions had won for the most part in the earliest years remained their chief goal. Unions 

made little effort to demand higher wages and better working conditions during the 

bonanza years, and conversely companies made little effort to change the contracts 

during the lean years. There may well be some truth to the assertion of those who have 

studied relations between companies and their unions that they needed each other. 

Certainly frequent interruptions, delays and closures would have jeopardized the 

companies’ balance sheets as well as the unions’ past gains. 

The labor scene was more robust than the frequently-cited wage negotiations 

between the companies and their workers. Underground miners constituted the largest 

occupational category among all the employment categories. Although they performed 

various tasks, they were essentially involved with building the underground infrastructure 

and extracting and lifting the ores. Early in Comstock history they had won the wage of 

$4 per day, and that remained the standard daily compensation in good and bad times. 

There are a few examples in the company accounts of miners being paid more or less 

than the standard, but the deviations were infrequent. Mining companies, especially the 

big bonanza mines, organized their labor systems around dozens of different job 

categories. These included skilled workers such as blacksmiths, carpenters, and engineers 

as well as less skilled workers such as laborers, carmen and assistants to various skilled 

categories. Hours worked per day were basically the same for all categories – eight hours 

per day – but wages ranged from $2 to $3 per day to $5 to 6 dollars per day. Some 

employees - foremen, assayers and even watchmen – were generally paid a monthly 

salary rather than a daily wage, although when that monthly salary was translated into a 

daily wage the recipients might actually receive less than some of the most skilled wageearners. 

Most of the employees had union representation. Except for minimum wages and 

hours and some other mandated working conditions, companies faced few other imposed 

contractual restrictions in dealing with workers. They were known to provide some health 

and death benefits and to make inquiries concerning the welfare of their workers. By and 

large, religious charities, public agencies and unions themselves provided the safety net 

and undertook the role of caring for workers and citizens who could not care for 

themselves. As well paid as Comstock workers were, they faced challenges from 

dangerous conditions to job losses to inflated prices. Many employees worked 25 to 30 

days a month, and some worked double shifts a few days each month. If one can imagine 

a miner lucky enough to keep an underground job for a decade, say, from 1865 to 1875, 

his gross compensation for the year would only have changed if he agreed to work more 

hours. It cannot be said with certainty how many if any workers (below the supervisory 

or administrative staff) remained employed in Comstock mines (or for that matter mills)


11 

for a decade or more. Even though some workers had won the battle for eight-hour shifts, 

an eight-hour shift for 25 to 30 days a month, month after month in the underground, had 

to take a toll There is evidence that workers stayed employed for six to 12 months and 

perhaps longer, although they often changed mines or classifications during those 

months. The documentation is available to study tenure patterns up to three or five years 

but is tedious to analyze, involving, as it does, monthly accounts and hundreds and 

hundreds of names. (A ready-made PhD dissertation.) Any notion that the labor was so 

grueling that turnover within a mine’s work force was frequent and massive should be 

tempered in light of the statistics for duration of employment in the mines of 

Consolidated Virginia and California, two mines with intense daily production regimens. 

People came to the Comstock to work in the mines not because the jobs were easy and 

mines were safe, but rather because the pay was high. It was also a gamble (in a state that 

hitched its economy to gambling) that they could survive and perhaps luck out by 

becoming a locator or discoverer. Many became and remained miners (as my father did) 

because they found some almost inexplicable satisfaction in doing just that. More than 

one observer commented on the capacity of the Comstock miner to perform their tasks 

well. 

A more difficult question to answer is, with the hazards of the jobs and the goals 

of the companies, how well did management and labor get along? There are documented 

periods of strife and outbreaks of violence (mainly confined to the early years), and even 

after a partial rapprochement that institutionalized certain features such as wages and 

hours, a war of words could break out over any number of issues, some covered by 

contracts and other because of circumstances. Still, one cannot in any way describe 

relations as persistently hostile and disruptive. The work of the mines (and the mills) got 

done. Underneath the diatribes and outbursts was a general civility based, it would 

appear, on the economic and financial interests of both parties. Employers counted on a 

stable, reliable labor force and workers on a steady, predictable daily compensation. It 

should not be assumed that everyone who wanted work could find it or everyone who 

wanted to change his job could do so. But based on a small sample more of the labor 

force showed up month after month for work than those who disappeared. Although not 

the subject of this study mine workers perhaps more so than mine owners became a part 

of the fabric of the community. The Comstock social historians have found ample 

evidence workers joined community organizations (fire departments, local militias) 

because they were needed. They organized and managed their own benevolent societies 

and cared about schools, hospitals and churches. In short, this was a community in spite 

of the opportunity for friction that more or less worked for most of the quarter century 

after its founding. Of course as the mines became exhausted the friction grew, the 

community suffered and the disruption was far worse for the worker than the owner. Had 

the workers wanted to do battle with the owners at this stage, there was little in fact to 

fight over. 

How should the Comstock be viewed in light of the economic transformation of 

America in the late nineteenth century? Of course, it played a role, but how important 

was that role? It is an historical event that merits mention in most textbooks – after all 

two presidents visited Virginia City and Mark Twain began his career here – but it is not


12 

accorded a prominent place in the historical annals. Towns founded for extractive 

industries were like supernovas – extraordinarily bright before burning out. Mining 

camps sprung up out of nowhere, grew into towns with thousands of people and dozens 

of businesses and then simply disappeared. They are often the ghost towns that people 

love to visit and explore. Some mining towns, even after the flash was gone continued to 

support a minor extractive industry, and other mining towns hung on not because of 

mining but because of governmental and commercial functions that any surviving 

permanent population needed. Towns founded on extractive industries no matter how 

great the strikes had a feature of impermanence but perhaps more devastating to their 

historical significance they seldom could transform their economic structures in such a 

way as to insure future growth, good jobs and stable prosperity. No town or city, 

regardless of its economic foundations, can guarantee permanent, prosperous existence. 

But mining towns rose and fell with greater alacrity than most. 

Let there be no doubt that the Comstock was a big event with big economic 

ramifications. The Comstock discoveries came a decade after the California gold rush. 

Some of the gold was extracted from large underground quartz mines, but most of it was 

lifted from surface veins or from shallow riverbeds. What distinguished the Comstock 

from California and other similar mining episodes was scale. In an age when American 

business was in transit from small-scale to large-scale producer size became the defining 

characteristic of the economic system. American entrepreneurs set out to create large 

corporate entities that by amassing investment capital could employ the latest mechanical 

improvements to enhance production and productivity and eliminate the inefficiency of 

competition. The emergence of monopolistic or near monopolistic enterprises became a 

troubling component of the economic transformation for Americans to deal with. The 

perception was that the economic power of these corporate monsters with operations in 

different cities and states, labor forces in the thousands and an unlimited appetite for 

control of the marketplace left some Americans bewildered. On the one hand they 

enjoyed lower prices that stretched their meager wages further, but on the other hand they 

had to accommodate to a new economic order that featured the emergence of powerful 

national corporations that disregarded the accepted market ground-rules. Small firms that 

had served local or regional markets continued in existence along side of the corporate 

giants for many decades, but the struggle for market share and financial survival tended 

to favor the national corporation. A policy of laissez-faire (as exemplified in the writings 

of Eliot Lord) dominated economic thinking with somewhat paradoxical results. Letting 

the market decide how best to allocate resources with little or no guidance from 

government resulted in an economic system of monopoly and oligopoly that limited the 

opportunity that the system was supposed to engender and protect. The industrializing of 

America, which began in the 1840s and continued into the twentieth century (with 

Comstock mining a participant), contained mixed messages. The transformation may 

have made Americans better off, statistically speaking, (although some scholars would 

disagree with that assertion), but at the same time it may have made them more 

vulnerable to vicissitudes that the changes engendered. The tension that resulted from the 

new economic order was evident to some degree on the Comstock.


13 

The industrializing of America quite naturally focuses on manufacturing. Other 

economic sectors were changing as well, but according to statistics provided by Robert 

Gallman, the sector known as “manufacturing, mining and hand trades” grew from 17 

percent in 1840 to 24 percent in 1870 and then to 31 percent in 1900 with respect to the 

sectoral distribution of the Gross National Product. Reorganization of industry (in 

general) and heavy reliance on mechanization to effect productivity gains began before 

the Civil War but made great strides in the decades after the Civil War. One driving force 

behind the growth and change in this sector was the exploitation of mineral resources: 

“…other features of the extraordinary U. S. environment were being exploited: enormous 

reserves of minerals of all sorts were discovered and technologies to put them to use.” 5 

Another aspect of the sectoral growth underscored by Gallman was the regional matter. 

In 1840 the West “generated less than one-fifth of the total income…whereas in 1920 this 

figure had risen to 54 percent.” In explaining the redistribution that was taking place in 

the second half of the nineteenth century Gallman highlights economic opportunity: “the 

west clearly had superior agricultural resources, and as time passed, new resources were 

discovered in this treasure house – coal, iron, lead, copper, petroleum, silver, mercury, 

gold. Each discovery led to a boom, some modest, some enormous, as was the California 

gold rush.” 6 And one might add the Comstock in Nevada. 

In trying to fit the Comstock into the industrializing of nineteenth-century 

America, several problems have to be considered. The most obvious difference between 

mining of gold and silver from other minerals and from manufacturing in general was the 

end-product. Gold and silver did not become products that manufacturers bought to 

produce other product (except for small quantities that had industrial or artistic 

applications) or consumers bought to use in their daily lives (except for jewelry or art). 

Gold and silver had commercial, financial and official uses, and as more gold and silver 

were produced they enlarged the available money stock both in the United States and 

across the world, and that contributed to increased capital flows to the very sectors that 

were helping to propel the American economy forward. A second matter has to do with 

pricing. Governments fixed gold and silver prices by determining how many coins could 

be minted from a unit of gold or silver. There was also a market price for both. The value 

of gold, because it was the most sought after metal seldom declined, but the price of 

silver did decline as more was produced. One could argue therefore that as the preciousmetal 

mining industry became more efficient in mining and milling gold and silver ores, 

it could affect the market price by ratcheting up the supply of a metal. A final matter was 

that while costs played a role as to whether or not a mining site was to be exploited, a 

mining company might continue in operation even as the losses mounted in the 

anticipation that new deposits would be found and gains would quickly overcome losses. 

Precious-metal mining companies generally pursued a strategy of investing heavily in 

5 

Gallman, “Economic Growth and Structural Change”, in Engerman and Gallman, eds., The Long 

Nineteenth Century, Cambridge Economic History, 2:49-50. Table I:14 (p. 50) shows distribution by 

sectors, and although mining is included in manufacturing data from precious-metal mining are not 

included in the dataset from which the percentages were derived. The minerals included in the dataset were 

coal, iron ore, copper but not gold and silver. The point to be made is that the sector most closely related to 

business of the Comstock grew substantially during the period of the Comstock. 

6 

Gallman, “Economic Growth and Structural Change”, in Engerman and Gallman, eds., The Long 

Nineteenth Century, Cambridge Economic History of the United States, 2:51.


14 

exploring for ores and once found in removing as much as possible as quickly as 

possible. In a sense the end-product, gold and silver coins or ingots, always had a value 

and always had a market. Creating markets, as manufacturers had to do, and then 

allotting and pricing the factors of production in such a way as to realize a gain from that 

market was the reverse of what precious-metal mining companies did. The market for 

gold and silver was heavily regulated so that strategies to affect the price of the precious 

metal even in times of great strikes were less important than strategies to affect the cost 

of the extraction, reduction and transportation. If mining and milling operations could be 

made highly efficient, then regardless of the fixed price at the end point the mining 

company could make a profit with moderately rich ores. When one looks for the effects 

of an industrializing economy in precious-metals mining, one must mainly focus on 

operational performance. 

The points where the evolution of Comstock mining agreed with the 

industrializing of America were several. First, as mining companies pursued 

consolidation in the extracting and the milling of ores, size became a predominate 

feature. Although scores of claims were laid out along the Lode at the time of discovery, 

the ownership pattern that emerged over the next quarter century was that a small group 

of owners came into control of the major ore assets. The pattern was reinforced by the 

fact that the small coterie of mine owners were also the mill owners, even though milling 

operations were sprung off as separate entities. By the middle of the 1870s with the 

Consolidated Virginia and California bonanzas Mackay and Fair and their associates 

owned or controlled most of the mines on the northern end of the Lode along with a 

dozen or more mills plus aforementioned ancillary companies. In the new corporate 

world that America was creating it was not unusual for companies to try to erect a 

vertical monopoly by controlling all of the operating units from the source of the product 

to its final sale through various legal entities created for that purpose. (John D. 

Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, for example.) A similar force was at work on the Comstock. 

Comstock mining and milling companies remained local operations. Their owners did not 

try to expand their control to other mining camps in Nevada or in other western states. 

Controlling the precious-metal market was less the objective than controlling the inputs 

that produced the precious metals. Once the Comstock ore gave out, the companies went 

out of business or reorganized under new owners. Successful Comstock miners seldom 

staked their financial future on strengthening or diversifying the local or regional mining 

economy. They sought instead to organize their enterprises in such ways as to exploit the 

local wealth quickly and efficiently if possible, to transfer their gains to other places and 

investments (mainly San Francisco) and to abandon the Comstock when its primary 

assets, the ores, had been exhausted. Mining companies may have touted the long-term 

prospects of a rich-ore-bearing lode, but in reality they existed for the short or 

intermediate term. Recall that Mackay and Fair prize creation, The Firm, was gone in less 

than a decade after its founding. To a degree size was driven by the location and quality 

of the ores. As the ores became more widely dispersed at greater depths the investment in 

these underground explorations and operations grew accordingly. There can be no doubt, 

however, that successive generations of miners thought in terms of bigger corporate 

entities.


15 

Organizing ever-larger business enterprises required a vision that served only a 

handful of miners well. If, as Eliot Lord, Dan DeQuille and Grant Smith have described, 

early mining companies squandered their gains through profligacy and greed, their 

successor, no less avaricious, manifested a sense of discipline and order. Early Comstock 

history is difficult to recover because the primary evidence (reports, accounts, letters) is 

missing. The general histories of this period seem to agree, however, on the basic outline 

that portrayed the industry acting like kids in a candy store than businessmen with 

financial acumen and managerial skill. As the riches of the Comstock became more 

widely understood, the helter-skelter approach gave way (probably earlier than assumed) 

to investors and managers who had sharpened their pencils. The excesses were never 

completely washed out, but removing the ores economically and rapidly required 

organization and capital. William Sharon left an indelible mark in this regard even though 

others had probably already begun the makeover. Sharon was more a banker and lawyer 

than the miner, but he had an astute sense of what had to be accomplished and how. For 

better of worse his goal was to dominate mining (and milling) on the Comstock and by so 

doing to make money for himself and his partners. His was not the only model for 

accomplishing these goals, and yet once the industry started down the path of 

consolidation and control there was no turning back. The grand entrepreneurs did not 

eliminate the competitive forces that not only drove them to launch new (sometimes 

bizarre) strategies to outwit their rivals, but they also understood the need for cooperation 

and compromise (although not always with the most altruistic motives). Dozens upon 

dozens of the earliest claims proved to be unprofitable if not barren operations, and that 

certainly opened the door for the emergence of oligopolists like Sharon, Ralston, 

Heywood, Jones, Mackay and Fair. The stakes were much too high to permit a 

competitive jungle irrespective of the prevailing theories. 7 

The stakes were high because the business of mining was costly and risky. The 

vast underground network could not have evolved without mechanization. This should be 

understood broadly. New products and processes made efficiencies possible on a scale 

never known before, but without transportation the Comstock would have been left on the 

sidelines. The Virginia and Truckee Railroad, controversial as its financing was, had the 

effect of opening the Comstock to the manufacturing world. Importing goods from raw 

materials to finished products for the purpose of making mining and milling more 

efficient could not have happened as cheaply and quickly as it did without inexpensive 

transportation. Nor could a quality of life, as social historians have written about, ever 

developed in Virginia City. It is difficult to imagine Comstock deep lode mining without 

the components fabricated from iron and steel and shipped thousands of miles even from 

overseas. That William Sharon like the great railroad barons connived to make the public 

pay for the VTRR does not diminish the importance of the railroad system itself to the 

7 

For a good summary of the role played by monopolies in America’s post-Civil-War economy, see Stanley 

Engerman and Kenneth Sokoloff, “Technology and Industrialization, 1790-1914,” in Engerman and 

Gallman, eds., The Long Nineteenth Century, Cambridge Economic History of the United States, 2:382- 

394. One can observe that the way in which monopolies came into existence in manufacturing and related 

industries did not absolutely apply to precious-metal mining. The essential difference was that the early 

claim lines had to be respected. Even though claim-holders could acquire adjacent properties, they usually 

did so in connection with discoveries of ore deposits rather than to assume ownership and control of the 

whole Lode.


16 

mining industry. The multi-strand cables of several inches thick, weighing thousands of 

pounds that raised and lowered multi-tiered cages, also weighing thousands of pounds, 

were not produced locally or even regionally. Europeans may have produced the highestgrade 

cables, and certainly James Fair negotiated with European companies for these and 

other products. Even though rail transport was the cheapest and quickest mode for getting 

these products from factory locations or ports of entry to the Comstock, he implored his 

supplier to keep transport costs as low as possible and specifically reminded them that 

since his companies received rebates from VTRR (even though his rival’s creation), it 

should be used to transport goods to the Comstock. Turn this upside down and think of 

the difficulty and expense if not the impossibility of moving capital (and consumer) 

goods by wagons and teams. Fans, pumps, drills, tracks, wheels, cages, pans and boilers, 

just to mention a few items, arrived by rail year after year. And railroads, of course, made 

it possible for the manufacturers of these products to be in business in the first place. The 

history of the VTRR and of the newly completed transcontinental (with a depot in Reno) 

its economic impact on the Comstock mining industry remains to be written. 8 

The mining companies for which accounts and records exist understood the 

importance of mechanization. Underground work still depended heavily on human labor, 

but human labor supplemented by mechanical support. What mechanization supported 

was greater output per worker. In the mining industry this simply meant that more ore per 

worker could be recovered and processed more quickly and more efficiently as more 

equipment was added to the operation. In the manufacturing world output was usually 

measured in man-hours, and higher output (productivity per worker per man-hour) helped 

lower the cost to produce the product and the price to sell the product. In the mining 

world, the volume of ore produced had little effect on the value of the bullion. Thus, for 

mining companies cost became a dominant issue. If the speed by which a cage could be 

elevated from or lowered to the diggings or the ore could be milled and amalgamated or 

the bullion could be shipped to the mint or the bank could be improved, it could have an 

immediate impact on the company’s bottom line. Mechanization cost money, and the 

richer the mine’s assets the more likely the company was to invest in mechanization. One 

revelation from the 1880 census that asked questions about machinery and equipment 

was how many of the less productive mines had invested in a degree of mechanization. 9 

One sure sign of the industrializing of America and the Comstock was the 

organization of the companies and in particular the bookkeeping and record-keeping 

procedures. Business accounting has evolved into an almost mysterious realm, and what 

was practiced in the late nineteenth-century was less mysterious. Still it required persons 

with bookkeeping or accounting knowledge. Since many of the new industrial companies 

were public companies with stockholders, annual reports based on certain accounting 

standards had to be prepared for the stockholders. Comstock companies were public 

8 

Scores of boxes of documents on VTRR and other rail connection exist in Special Collection of the 

University of Nevada at Reno Library, but I did not make it a subject of this mining history. 

9 

The Sutro Tunnel Project stand as an exception because even though mechanization made it possible to 

complete the project, the delays and disputes made the tunnel obsolete before it was finished. Had it been 

finished in several years, unlikely given the distances and depths, it might have added to the efficiency of 

the mines by providing a much-needed drainage system. Not everything that embraced the new mechanical 

world necessarily resulted in more efficiencies. Some became wasted investments.


17 

companies with stockholders and issued annual reports. The annual reports for Comstock 

companies that have survived went through their own evolution. The reports that 

basically listed receipts and disbursements were supplemented by reports that showed 

assets and liabilities, inventory accounts, cash flow and stockholder equity. These annual 

reports were drawn in the case of some companies from voluminous financial records. 

The surviving financial archives of The Firm of Mackay, Fair et al. are probably the most 

extensive of any company doing business on the Comstock. But impressive archives for 

Savage, Ophir and several other mining companies have survived as well. 10 In addition to 

the printed annual reports the Nevada Controller and Mineralogist often published in their 

biennial reports sections from the annual reports or from company accounts. The 

enactment of the Felton Act by Congress in 1877 required companies to keep records on 

certain aspects of their mining operations. All in all the extant Comstock financial 

archives are indeed substantial. One has to be impressed with the cost analysis that the 

Sutro Tunnel Company undertook as it weighed the advantages and disadvantages of 

changing from horse-drawn locomotion to steam or water even though the company had 

so little business and was sliding into bankruptcy. On the other hand, the accounting put 

forth in several versions of the distribution of the assets held by Mackay and Fair in the 

Pacific Milling and Mining Company was more sloppy than precise. More records did 

not necessarily eliminate bad record-keeping. 

Industrialization had to be financed, and the change in financing was almost as 

revolutionary as the change in manufacturing and mining. Building industrial American 

required huge capital–investment pools that often exceeded the resources of conventional 

local banks. Investment banks and stock exchanges became important sources for 

underwriting industrial ventures including mining. The earliest investors in Comstock 

mining were Californians (mainly from San Francisco), and Comstock financing 

remained linked to Bay Area. Adolphe Sutro charted a different course by trying to 

arrange for financing through European investment banks. Indeed it has been estimated 

that in the last half of the nineteenth century hundreds of western mining companies were 

nominally capitalized with British capital in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Except 

for Sutro direct European financing of Comstock companies is certainly difficult to 

document. Perhaps Europeans invested through stock purchases and other conveyances. 

Being American or European made little difference with respect to outcomes. According 

to some surveys perhaps one in ten of these projects paid any dividends. British investors 

not unlike American investors “had fallen victim to ‘gold extraction with a vengeance’”. 

To quote the Economist “there is a pretty general belief that the profits were never 

honestly made; that, as a matter of fact, the ore bodies which yielded the dividends were 

planted by human hands and not by nature.” 11 Mining company stocks traded on various 

exchanges, and companies used stock issues to raise capital for new undertakings. 

Speculation in mining stocks was rampant, and outside of the principal owners 

stockholders were often stock-exchange traders and speculators. The main banking 

facilities in Virginia City were extensions of the mining companies. Sharon and Ralston 

10 

Most of these archives are in Nevada or California, but the bulk of the Savage Archive is in the Beinecke 

Library, Yale University. 

11 

Quotes from Lance David and Robert Cull, “ Capital Movements, Markets, and Growth, 1820-1914,” in 

Engerman and Gallman, eds., The Long Nineteenth Century, Cambridge Economic History of the United 

States, 2:759-760.


18 

set up the Bank of California, which they used to collect an array of mining and milling 

properties by advancing loans that borrowers could seldom repay. Mackay, Fair et al. 

decided that instead of doing business with Sharon and Ralston, once their great bonanza 

began, established their own Bank of Nevada. Mining companies used these banks to 

borrow funds, to issue drafts and transfers, hold ores (an underground vault can still be 

visited in Virginia City) and to manage accounts. Local banking has not yet (to my 

knowledge) been thoroughly studied, but annual stockholders’ reports often indicated that 

companies kept deposits in local banks. Weekly reports by mine officials also referred to 

transactions with local banks. One obvious question about local banks was how much if 

at all they served the banking needs of ordinary citizens. Under the contract mine workers 

were to be paid in gold coins (and silver for small coins), and while banks may have 

supplied coins to companies to meet payrolls, mining companies had another source – the 

federal mint, which could provide coins from their own bullion. What is unknown is how 

much consumer (retail) banking local offices engaged in. Banking on the Comstock 

would appear to be mainly devoted to the needs of the mining and milling companies. 

Western mining earned special privileges because the land where the ores were 

usually discovered (certainly true of the Comstock Lode) belonged to the federal 

government. The assignment of mineral rights came under the purview of the national 

government, and even though states would eventually be organized out of the territories 

legal questions relating to mineral rights remained deeply embedded in federal authority. 

Federal oversight in mining was generally light and tended to favor the interests of the 

companies over the citizenry at large. In time some federal regulations evolved including 

some concern for health and safety, but the laissez-faire attitudes that pervaded American 

economic life tended to dictate a hands-off policy. The State of Nevada succeeded in 

asserting its legal right to assess and tax mining operations (not something that owners 

ever fully acknowledged) and to impose minimal safety standards. But Legislature was 

more often than not (as was true in other states) more attuned to the needs of the 

properties and entrepreneurial classes, and even though the Nevada Legislature and 

Governor as well as some local officials stood up to the powerful mining interests from 

time to time, the companies reigned with relative impunity. 

Even though I have chosen to end this study in 1885 when Comstock production 

fell to the lowest level it had known since the early 1860s, I am fully aware that mining 

did not end in that year. In the second half of the 1880s a more optimistic outlook in the 

future of the Comstock could be detected in investment activity and newspaper reporting. 

Dan DeQuille published a small pamphlet-like reprise entitled A History of the Comstock 

Lode and Mines in 1889 in which he wrote of “The New Departure”. The two greatest 

bonanza mines – Consolidated Virginia and California – had been consolidated through 

re-incorporation as Consolidated California and Virginia with work resuming in the 

upper stories “where small streaks of low-grade ore…formerly…passed by led to 

deposits of fair milling ore.” Other deposits were found after the fire that had smoldered 

since 1881 and produced carbonic acid gas. The new company reported ore worth about 

$8 million and actually paid dividends of $2.5 million. Yields were in the $20 to $35 per 

ton range, and enough ore was lifted to keep several mills in operation. In fact, DeQuille 

asserted that more mines “were producing paying ores” than anytime in the history of the


19 

Comstock. Most of those he listed were mines that had enjoyed small to large bonanzas 

in the previous quarter century. The point to be emphasized is that in this late mature 

cycle more mines were being worked but new bonanzas did not materialize. The 

assessments reveal that production rose from over $2 million in the early 1880s to 

between $5 and $6 million in the late 1880s and then it began to slide until it bottomed 

out at less than a half million dollars by the end of the century. The new ore bodies found 

in the old mines that inspired DeQuille’s optimism a well as others simply did not pan 

out. Mining had a way of deceiving and deluding: “In working these small bonanzas are 

sure to be encountered – scattered plums in the pudding – which will assist in sending up 

the average.” And almost as an after-though with new processes and new technologies 

“Present expenses will shortly be still further reduced.” 12 

And the search has continued down to the present day. In an ironic twist, as 

Roland James has pointed out, the Houston Oil and Mineral Company began large-scale 

excavations in the late 1970s on the edge of Gold Hill. Over a period of several years the 

company created a huge open pit, the edge of which bordered on the old municipal 

boundary of Gold Hill. The irony is that “this new departure” (to borrow from DeQuille) 

was a form of surface mining, not lode mining, and was closer to how the Comstock 

began. The dimensions of the “hole” were almost as staggering in their own way as the 

Comstock true bonanzas were a century earlier: 450 feet deep, 800 feet wide and 1,600 

feet long. This was dug at a time that gold was selling for $600 an ounce, and mining 

companies like Houston thought that they could make a profit from small rivulets of ore. 

They could not make a profit, and in the early 1980s the project with abandoned followed 

a tiny reclamation effort. The hole, although overgrown, remains. 13 As I write this final 

chapter, gold has once again reached $800-$1,000 per ounce with market mavens 

predicting $2,000 per ounce. Silver falls in the range of $14 to $15 per ounce. Will that 

be the launching pad for another “new departure” on the Comstock? Or has the Lode, 

often described in terms of infinite riches, come to its final repose? 

The story of the Comstock stands as one of the extraordinary mining experiences 

in the American West and even in the New World. The Comstock was not the richest or 

the biggest strike, but to make the strike as big and rich as it was required that deep lode 

mining be pushed to a scale unknown before. Occurring at the time that it did the 

Comstock embodied the triumphs and excesses of an age driven by venture capital, 

mechanical and technological change and business concentration. For better or for worse 

Comstock miners extracted a third to a half a billion dollars in gold and silver (in many 

billions today) in a quarter of a century. The personal testimonies of the capitalist, the 

worker and the citizen defied the odds that a mining camp could create a mining 

economy that built a mining city that was as wealthy and cultured as any city in the West. 

But mining economies can exact a toll. Ore defined creation and growth, personality and 

behavior and accomplishment and power; ore would also define the demise. The 

exhaustion of the ore ended the economic system that the ore had spawned and endowed 

12 

DeQuille, A History of the Comstock Lode and Mines…. (Virginia City, NV: F. Boegle, 1889), 92-93, 

94-96. 

13 

James, The Roar and the Silence, 269-270 with photograph on p. 270.


20 

future generations with environmental burdens that in nominal dollars may exceed what 

was removed. 

APPENDIX 

Several datasets used in the analysis of the Comstock can be downloaded: 

Go to https://home.comcast.net/~richardgarner09/databank.html [ctrl-click] 

Important: Users should take time to read explanatory notes attached to data files. I have 

rearranged the way in which the annual data are assembled. 

• Nevada Survey-General's Biennial Report, 1867 

• Bullion Records, Consolidated Virginia Mining & California Mining Cos., by 

Mills, 1873-1881 

• Story County Ore Assessments, 1875-1885 

Nevada Controllers' Biennial Reports:1867 

• 1869 

• 1871 

• 1873 

• 1875 

• 1877 

• 1879 

• 1881 

• 1883 

• 1885 

• 1887

the comstock: economic history of mining bonanza - Inside My Desk

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