Pioneer Pieces: Gold in Them Hills?

The discovery of gold in Nevada was to change the entire history of the West, finance the Union cause in the Civil War, and make the name "Comstock" a worldwide phrase.

But wait - it wasn't GOLD they found in Nevada, it was SILVER - and silver that wrote the destiny of Nevada (the Silver State, the Hard Money State, the One Sound State).

Let's back up to the beginning for a moment...in 1859, in Washoe Digging (original name of Comstock), a prospector found a heavy, dark ore on his claim on the side of Mt Davidson.  He sent it to his friend, Judge James Walsh of Grass Valley, California.  The judge took it to Ott's Assay Office in Nevada City and the rest, well you know what happens next...

The Judge saddled his horse, loaded his mule with provisions and headed out that very night for western Utah, via Donner Summit.  So far this discovery had been kept a great secret - until morning came and the Judge looked behind him to see the entire town following on his trail. The Silver Rush to Washoe was on...

Next Time...Nevada or Bust

Pioneer Pieces: Over the Mountains and Through the Sage Brush...

Well, we have overstayed our welcome in San Francisco, so let's move back East over the Sierra Mountains where the availability of recoverable riches were soon to make NV the center of the world's attention.

From the shadows of Mt Davidson, the wealth produced in the mines in Nevada impacted the economy of the country and once again took hold of the pioneer spirit.

Prior to 1859 Nevada held little place in American history.  Green valleys along the High Sierras had been settled by the Mormons but by that time Morman Station (once the area of Deseret and later named Genoa) had become nothing more than a staging station where stages and freight traveled through on the Pony Express route.  Mormon Station consisted of a blockhouse, stables and scattered dwellings by 1859.

The Old Immigrant Trail along the banks of Carson Water was a station for changing the stage horses of George Chorpenning and Absolan Woodward.  Dayton, a four corner township known as "Pause and Ponder" was known as a place where pioneers could pause and make up their mind whether to take a chance on digging for riches in Gold Canyon or travel on to the proven Mother Lode across the mountains in California.

For a decade, poor pioneers earned their Saturday night whiskey in Gold Canyon but little more.  During that decade they mined the five miles of sage brush toward Gold Hill to make a discovery that would change the entire course of history in the West.

Next time...There's Gold in Them Hills!

Pioneer Pieces: Mining Town News

The Territorial Express was the first newspaper published in Nevada territory and set the pattern for all frontier newspapers thereafter.

Began in 1858 in Genoa, the Express moved to Carson City and finally to South C Street in Virginia City.
Joseph Goodman and Dennis McCarthy wee the gun toting, whiskey drinking editors with Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) as an early reporter.

Editors of this period were often attacked and even murdered for their editorials.  Most were forced to carry guns for personal protection.

All of this was considered normal activity for a newspaper editor who's main job was to print the opinions of the rough and ready mining towns.  Often his opinion was not shared by the citizens and measures were taken to show the editor was the true opinion of the town was. In one such instance,  Joseph Goodman and rival editor Tom Fitch of the Virginia Daily Union met for a duel in which Fitch hit Goodman  in the kneecap, crippling him for life. Such was the life of the early newspaper editors in the West.

Next time we travel to Nevada to discover the Comstock Lode

Pioneer Pieces: Stick em Up!

It didn't take long berfore Stagecoaches were easy targets for bandits out to make some fast cash.  In fact, stagecoach robbers were elevated to popularity because the robbers themselves were such personalities.
One such personality was Black Bart, a mild-mannered type of guy who sported a bowler hat and always worked alone.  He robbed stages carrying gold and silver and was reported to be Wells Fargo's worse nightmare.

One day put a flour sack over his hat, grabbed a shotgun and took to robbing stages as a career from that day forward.  Black Bart always left a calling card - he was a poet - so he left his verses at the scene of the crime to identify himself.

"Here I lay down to sleep
to wake the coming morrow
perhaps success, perhaps defeat
and everlasting sorrow.
I've labored long and hard for bread
for honor and for riches
But on my corns too long you've tred
You fine, hard sons of bitches.
Let come what will and I'll try it on
My condition but be worse
And if there's money in that box
That's money in my purse."

Newspapers made him a celebrity for many years, and most all stagecoach robberies were attributed to Bart, whether he did them or not!  He was finally caught in San Francisco, in the 1870s by a laundry mark on his shirt and served a "short sentence" before disappearing from public life.

The last known stagecoach robbery was by Pearl Hart in 1899 in Arizona.

Next time - colorful newpaper editors

Pioneer Pieces: Want to Ride the Box, Sir?

Stagecoaches were the "aristocratic" way to travel in the West - with drivers thought of as highly refined and cultured.  It was a privilege to be invited to "ride the box" with well known drivers like Hank Monk of Wells Fargo.

Stagecoaches were designed to be taken in "stages" from one destination to another, where like the Pony Express, the team of horses and sometimes the drivers were changed.

For the first time, a simple trip to the next town was more comfortable for the ladies with enclosed seating, regardless of the bumpy ride it really was.  It kept out the dust, dirt and some of the smell of the open roads of the new West.  Women and children were safer inside the coach than in a farm wagon or a buckboard.  It was far less cumbersome that the covered wagon for family trips and faster as well.

Of course the fares to take a coach were usually reserved for special trips if you were not of means but it was an option welcomed by most women.

There was just one problem with stagecoaches...robbery.  Next time...