16 Tons and What Do You Get?

One of the earliest to arrive at the Comstock diggings in Nevada was George Hearst, California entrepreneur and father of the future newspaper tycoon.  George paid $3500 for the original miner's, McLaughlin's,  share of the mine and it was returned to him thousands of times over.  Henry Comstock sold out for $10,000 while the other original miner, O'Riley,  was a better businessman who held out for $40,000. 

Most of those who came to Virginia City did very little mining, but rather bought and sold claims instead.  The quartz and silver deeply embedded in the mines took machinery to extract and miners for the most part lacked the equipment.  One prospector said, "Nobody had any money, yet everybody was a millionaire in silver claims.  Nobody had any credit, yet everybody bought thousands of feet of glittering ore."  Occasionally someone made a real killing in the speculation - one easterner turned a $1000 investment into $20,000 in just a few months without ever lifting a pick and shovel.

Gradually the fever subsided and the smart money from San Francisco arrived, claims were bought, consolidated and the heavy mining machinery moved in.  By 1870, shafts had been dug thousands of feet into the mountains.  Deep underground, in only shoes and breechclouts, miners labored in 120 degree temperatures while steamy water bubbled up around their feet from thermal springs.  There were occasional deaths, but the men came through for the most part. 

The cost of labor was high, but the profits for the mine owners were even higher.  Gold and silver from the Nevada mines helped finance the Union army during the Civil War.  Before it gave out, the Comstock had given over $300 million in precious metals.

Next time...A couple of Virginia City characters...
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On this Day in Pioneer History:  "On August 7, 1869, George Davidson, a prominent astronomer and explorer, impresses Alaskan Native Americans with his ability to predict a total solar eclipse.
  
 

What's That Stuff??

Henry T. P. Comstock was a natural at loafing - but he was an old hand at prospecting.  In June 1859 he was riding his mule along the eastern Sierras in now Nevada when he came across a spring, Old Man Caldwell''s with two prospectors working, Peter O'Riley and Patrick McLaughlin.

Dan DeQuille documented what happened, "Comstock saw at a glance the unusual quantity of gold that was in sight.  He was soon running his fingers through the gold and picking into the mass of strange looking "stuff" exposed.  Conceiving at once that a wonderful discovery had been made, he straightened himself up and coolly proceeded to inform the astonished miners that they were working on land that belonged to him."

Comstock was claiming the land, not only for himself, but also for his partners, "Old Virginian" Finney, and Manny Penrod.  "Old Pancake" as Comstock was called convinced the miners to join his partners and him in a five-man partnership to work the lode.  Comstock soon bought out Finney's share for a bottle of booze and a blind horse, by the way.

The partners found some gold, but they soon found a vein of heavy bluish quartz from which the metal was extremely difficult to extract.  They sent some to an assayer in California who found that each sample contained $1000 in gold and $3000 in silver.  The two original miners had stumbled across one of the richest sources of precious metals ever found!

Soon the entire surrounding area became known as the "Comstock Lode" because Comstock spent most of his time bragging about "his mine" and "his gold".  By 1860, there were 10,000 prospectors in Virginia City (named after Old Finney).  The town had 154 businesses including a theater, a music hall, four butcher shops, and eight law offices.  Six physicians kept busy polluting the water with significant traces of arsenic along with the gold and silver...can't make this stuff up!

Next time...Silver fever explodes
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Today in Pioneer History: "On August 1, 1774, dissenting British minister Joseph Priestly, author of Observations on Civil Liberty and the Nature and Justice of the War with America, discovers oxygen while serving as a tutor to the sons of American sympathizer William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne, at Bowood House in Wiltshire, England.