Rich history

Territorial Enterprise, Jan. 6, 1863

Local Column

“Free Fight - A beautiful and ably conducted free fight came off in C street yesterday afternoon, but as nobody was killed or mortally wounded in a manner sufficiently fatal to cause death, no particular interest attaches to the matter, and we shall not publish the details. We pine for murder – these fist fights are of no consequence to anybody.”

VIRGINIA CITY, Nev. – Samuel Clemens had recently taken the nom de plume of Mark Twain when he wrote the above dispatch during his 22-month stint as a young reporter in Virginia City.

Things are a bit more family-friendly today down on C Street, though you’re still likely to pass a group of pretend cowboy gunslingers on the way to steal the strongbox on the Virginia & Truckee Railroad. The train is invariably robbed. The gun smoke is real but the bullets are not in the ensuing shootout, in which the lawmen blast the outlaws, playing to the tourists aboard the train.

Virginia City stands today as the largest historic district in the United States. Much of the town is preserved and restored to the way it was when it was rebuilt from a consuming fire in 1875. Saloons, casinos and mercantile shops line C Street. Horse-drawn carriages clop along behind rumbling motorcycles. The wooden sidewalk, patched with tin-can lids, rises and falls like a hill-country road.

The statue of Lady Justice that adorns the Storey County Courthouse, still used today, defies convention by wearing no blindfold. Perhaps the law felt the need to keep a close eye on this rambunctious town. A local at the time reported it mattered not, as sand carried on the Washoe zephyrs would soon blind her anyway.

The gold strike in 1859 drew miners and prospectors who had to cope with the sticky, bluish-gray mud that clung to their boots and equipment. It contained silver ore, the richest deposit in the country — so much silver that it helped fund the Civil War, made bankers fabulously wealthy and paid for much of the Victorian splendor of San Francisco.

The riches of the mines were one reason President Lincoln declared statehood for Nevada in 1864. The Comstock Lode eventually spilled $400 million into a young, westward-expanding nation.

Lest the old saloons and cowboy shootouts remind you of a theme park, take a daybreak stroll in the Silver Terrace Cemeteries up the hill. Walk among the spirits and earthly remains of some of the settlers who came from Ireland, England, Germany and China to work the mines and settle and die in Virginia City.

A deer browses and a coyote stalks a rabbit on the quiet, arid hillside. Ornate, soaring marble statues guarded with wrought iron stand with faded, anonymous wooden tombstones, falling-down fences and peeling paint.

Virginia City is a town with a history as rich as its famous silver vein. The mines dug by the sweat- and dust-covered laborers and the stately mansions paid for by their toil remain for exploration today.

Tours depart from the Delta Saloon parking lot. If you prefer your own saloon tour, you might visit the Bucket of Blood, the Red Dog, the Delta and the Mark Twain. The Ponderosa Saloon even offers guided tours of the Best & Belcher mine below.

Museums aplenty keep history alive, from The Way It Was Museum, the Comstock Firemen”s Museum and the Nevada Gambling Museum to the Julia Bulette Red Light Museum, which chronicles the life of Virginia City’s most famous prostitute.

After panning gold from an outdoor sluice, you can stop in the Mark Twain Museum in the Territorial Enterprise building. In the dingy basement pressroom, visitors can see Twain’s rough-hewn desk and ponder the wit from which his sometimes wildly embellished reportage sprang.

Mark Twain Books down the street is reported to be an excellent source for Twain’s writings, maps and Western lore. The proprietor is quoted as saying, “Samuel Clemens was born in Missouri, but Mark Twain was born in Virginia City.”

Stop in and see the Virginia & Truckee Railroad Bullion Car No. 13. The armored rail car was specially built in 1874 to transport the riches from the mines. Today it is the office of the Comstock Wild Horse & Mining Museum and Gift Store, a nonprofit bound to preserve and protect the local wild horses.

This is a good source for a city guide with map and directions to the depot, where you can catch a ride on the Virginia & Truckee Railroad. The short trip to nearby Gold Hill is narrated by a conductor and passes the legendary Comstock mines. If the sheriff gets on with a strongbox and some deputies riding shotgun, be ready for action. The Chollar Mine along the route also offers tours.

The well-preserved architecture speaks of the splendor and utility of a century and a quarter ago. The Victorian Fourth Ward School Museum was a marvel in its day when built in 1876. The soaring Church of St. Mary’s in the Mountains is one of the prominent landmarks of Virginia City that can be seen from a distance. Built in 1868, it was rebuilt after the great fire, and services are still conducted there.

Astute businessmen became instant millionaires here and built mansions suitable to their station. Those that can be toured include the Castle, a replica of a Normandy castle completed in 1868 and boasting European furnishings, and the Mackay Mansion, built by John Mackay, the richest man of his day in Virginia City.

Burned twice and now restored, Pipers Opera House was the cultural center of Virginia City for the well-heeled. It was a stopping-off place for the superstars of stage of the era from America and Europe.

There always seems to be something happening in town, including parades, fireworks, rodeo, endurance horse races, motorcycle races, arts fairs, and reindeer and camel races.

The latter began as a hoax with a fictitious story in the Territorial Enterprise. The first race held on C Street was attended by Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe and director John Huston, who were filming “The Misfits” nearby. Huston won, on a camel leased from the San Francisco Zoo. The tradition endures and now draws competitors from Australia, Africa and Saudi Arabia.

Twain may have been thinking of Virginia City and the Comstock Lode when he wrote, in “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”: “There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.”