Pioneer Pieces: 1875 was a Good Year After All

By the mid 1870s, Virginia City, Nevada,  had grown to be a major center in the Old West.  With a population of 25,000, the city was bursting at the seems.  Then disaster struck...

In 1875, the city was almost completely destroyed by fire.  Fire was always a common threat to mining towns because the buildings went up so quickly, and built of wood, they made easy targets for a fast wind to spread a single spark throughout a city.  This era is known by the fires of San Francisco and Chicago.  Virginia City was no different.

But Virginia City had something in its favor though - wealth.  Within several months of the fire, the Comstock fortunes had rebuilt the town with bricks and stones to replace those earlier shacks and boardinghouses.
Like pre-fire Virginia City, culture became a major portion of the town.

Fine new theaters rose against Mt Davidson. The International Hotel, with the first elevator west of the Chicago's Palmer House, rose six splendid stories against the Nevada skies to become the pride of Nevada.

On the other side, back again were the saloons and bordellos - 100 guady saloons like the Sazarac, the Smokey Mountain, the Delta and the Bloody Bucket became legendary in the Old West.  To mine ore, you needed to be able to find a saloon, it seems...

The city now had four wards - each ward had its own police, fire department and school.  Millionaire Row on B Street was the home of silk top hats and fine carriages - the mine superintendents and stock speculators.  Their wives wore gowns from Worth in Paris by special delivery to Virginia City.

Virginia City's telephone exchange was only the second one west of the Mississippi River (San Francisco was the first), and served the city's many business houses and stately residents.

So, Post-Fire Virginia City was much more than the normal mining town, and it attracted many important and wealthy people to its streets.  Next time we'll look at some of those characters...