Part 4

Owing to the steep slope of the mountain, the site of the town was by no means favorable, but, at great cost for grading, many fine, level streets were constructed. The principal streets were then filled in to the depth of a yard with waste quartz and other hard, flinty rock from the mines. This work was so well done that to this day the streets are hard, smooth, and dry. The Virginia Gas Company was early organized, and the streets and business houses lighted with gas. As early as 1862 a water company organized and brought a supply of water from several tunnels run into the Virginia Range west of the city. This water was conveyed to the town by means of wooden flumes and iron pipes, and distributed to customers throughout the place. The supply of water, however, at that time was not adequate to the requirements of the town, and the quality was poor, being much impaired by the deleterious minerals it held in solution. Mention of the present system of water works will be made in another place.

Meantime, while the town was building up, good wagon roads had been constructed in various directions at great cost. A number of fire companies had been organized (provided at first with hand engines, but afterwards with steamers), and Virginia City began to take on the appearance of a real “city,” not only in the number and substantial character of the buildings, and swarms of people it contained, but also in the number of conveniences it afforded, its many societies, churches, schools, theaters, clubs, orders, and organizations, usually considered the necessary adjuncts and requirements of civilized and intelligent communities. There were also several daily and weekly newspapers, telegraph, express, and all other similar offices required by business and mining men, and by the people at large. Indeed, in 1875 the area of the city was as great as at present, and much more populous, as at that time it was estimated to contain 20,000 people. Hundreds and thousands of these, however, were mere birds of passage, being neither business men nor owners of property. At and about Gold Hill at that time it was estimated that there were about 10,000 souls. The two towns, originally a mile apart, were connected by buildings—had grown together. Both towns were filled with mills and mining works, that gave employment to many thousands of miners, mechanics, and workingmen of all grades and classes.

The Great Fire.

Everything was thus flourishing and prosperous—the “Big Bonanza” was yielding its millions, and several other mines were working great and rich bodies of ore—when Virginia City was overwhelmed by a great calamity.

On the morning of October 26, 1875, a fire broke out in a frame lodging-house on A Street, in the western part of the town, just above all the great business blocks, and in a few hours all in an area of half a mile square was laid in ashes. Before the fire was subdued no fewer than 2,000 buildings—including mills, hoisting works, churches, business houses, and structures of all kinds—were swept away. Hundreds of families were left homeless and destitute. Owing to the early hour at which the fire started (six o’clock), and the fearful rapidity with which it spread in all directions, few persons were able to save any of their goods or valuables. In all, property to the value of over $10,000,000 was destroyed. Many great and destructive fires had before swept through and devastated the city, but this was the greatest ever experienced in the place. Scores of buildings that had always been rated as fire-proof melted away in the fervent heat like frost in the rays of the morning sun.

Almost in the start the court-house, the building of the Washoe Club, the International Hotel, and several other large buildings, were ignited and began vomiting pillars of flame that scattered sparks and cinders far and wide. As the fire progressed the millions of feet of lumber and timbers and the thousands of cords of wood about the mining works made fires that could not be successfully combated, and which nothing could withstand. At the Consolidated Virginia Hoisting Works and Mill alone there were on fire at the same moment, and in one mass, 1,250,000 feet of lumber and timbers, and 800 cords of pine wood, not to speak of the two great buildings, and all the stores they contained; also the adjoining assay office, and contents. Across the street the freight and passenger depots of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad Company were sending up immense pillars of flame, while just south Piper’s Opera House, an immense frame structure filled with all manner of very inflammable material, was a volcano, vomiting destruction on all sides. Between and about these large structures a score or more of smaller buildings were belching flames. This was the scene at but one spot. A few rods to the southward three tall churches (Catholic, Methodist, and Episcopal) were sending tongues of flame into the very clouds, amid whole acres of smaller buildings that formed a tumultuous sea of fire. At the same time to the northward the Ophir works, with fifty smaller structures, were wrapped in flame. In the same fierce way the fire was raging over half a mile square of the very heart of the town. Although there were scores of narrow escapes, only two persons lost their lives in the fire, and two or three were afterwards killed by falling walls.

To rebuild the town at once was the universal determination. The insurance on the property destroyed amounted to $2,500,000 (the loss at the Bonanza Mines alone was $1,461,000), which was something to begin with; besides many persons whose property was destroyed had plenty of money left with which to rebuild. There was not a moment’s delay. The next morning the work of clearing away ruins preparatory to putting up new buildings was begun in all parts of the city, water being thrown upon the red-hot bricks to so cool them that they could be handled. Rebuilding began the morning after the fire, and hardly ceased day or night until all the ground of the burnt district had been again covered. The big mining companies were especially active. Although engaged in rebuilding the mills and works destroyed, the Consolidated Virginia Mining Company paid its regular dividends of $10 a share in November and December, the two amounting to $2,160,000. In less than thirty days from the time of the fire new works replaced those destroyed by fire, and the machinery was in place and ore hoisted on Thanksgiving-day. In sixty days after the fire the business streets of the city were rebuilt, and with larger and finer structures than those that had been destroyed. The whole burnt district was so soon covered with new buildings that strangers arriving in the city looked about them in surprise and asked, “Where was your big fire?” That was a busy time on the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, no fewer than forty-five trains a day passing over the road during the great building rush. But for the railroad the city and mining works could not have been rebuilt that year.

Virginia City at Present.

Although Virginia City covers as much ground and contains larger and finer buildings than before the great fire, it is not so populous as in the old flush times of the “Big Bonanza.” In those days every hotel and lodging-house was filled to overflowing; now most of those in the city are permanent inhabitants and property owners—those who formerly composed the grand army of “sports,” adventurers, and idlers have gone to other fields. At present the city contains a population of only about 9,000 persons, but nearly all those now in the place have permanent homes and some legitimate and remunerative employment. As about one-fourth of the male population is constantly at work under-ground in the lower levels of the various mines, the streets do not present so thronged an appearance as those of a non-mining town containing the same number of inhabitants. The place, however, presents a very different appearance on a holiday when all the mining works are shut down and the miners are on the surface.

The first care of the people of the city after rebuilding the place was to guard against the recurrence of such a sweeping conflagration. A number of huge water tanks were constructed high above the town on the side of the mountain, with a proper system of mains and hydrants extending through all parts of the city. The pressure is so great at these hydrants that the firemen are able to throw a stream over the flag-staff of the tallest building in the city through a nozzle of the largest size. A few paid firemen now fight all the fires that occur in the city. As the hydrants are always ready the firemen have only to get to them, attach their hose, and at once they have powerful streams steadily playing on the fire. “Promptness of action” is their motto. They seldom allow a fire to get out of the building in which it originates. Usually they have a fire out before a steam fire-engine could get up steam.

The fire mains are distinct from those which supply water for domestic purposes, and those again from such as furnish water for use at the mills and hoisting works of the mines. There is a system of gates whereby the water may be shut off from the hydrants of any block in the city and turned to any other block or blocks of buildings. This system is so perfect that employes of the water company working in conjunction with the firemen are able to at once turn the water to any part of the city in which it may be required, at the same time shutting it off from all other parts.

All the churches, halls, district court-house, theater, and other public buildings are finer than those destroyed in the big fire, and again are seen trees and grounds of handsome appearance in various parts of the city. In the city are several school-houses that cost from $20,000 to $60,000, besides which there are a number of private schools, and the fine school of the Sisters of Charity. There is also a hospital—St. Mary’s, a commodious brick structure—under the charge of the Sisters, as well as a large and well-conducted county hospital. Both are located beyond the eastern suburbs in quiet and pleasant places. The halls belonging to the many societies and secret orders are elegant and costly. The city now has electric lights, two daily newspapers, and one weekly.

The mills and hoisting works are a striking and characteristic feature of the place. The immense waste dumps, high trestle-work car tracks, trains of ore cars on the railroad, clouds of black smoke belched from many tall stacks, trains loaded with wood and timber, all tell that mining is the great industry of the city; then much of the street talk heard is of mines and mining stocks.

The International Hotel is the oldest in the city. It was founded in 1860, when it was a mere frame shanty fronting on B Street. The hotel destroyed by the big fire was a commodious brick structure, but the present building is far finer. It now extends from B to C Street, is constructed of brick, stone, and iron, and is six stories in height. It is capable of accommodating in excellent style a large number of guests.

Views from the City and Vicinity.

Though the landscape visible from the city cannot be called beautiful, yet it is grand and picturesque. On all sides except the east, the town is shut in by near ranges of high, rocky, and barren mountains. To the eastward the eye reaches over a vast area composed of tracts of sandy desert, valley lands, dark and rocky hills, and rugged and towering mountain ranges. The chief of these is the Humboldt Range, seen blue or purple in the distance, from 150 to 190 miles away. These mountains and their snow-clad peaks stand out against the dark-blue of the sky far beyond the green cottonwood groves that follow the meanderings of the Carson River, far beyond the Forty-mile Desert and the lake and sink of the Carson, and beyond Humboldt Lake and Sink.

To the northeast are seen several sharp and splintered peaks, while to the southeast, from twenty to fifty miles away, rise the huge and grand peaks of the Como Mountains. From the Divide (the dividing ridge between Virginia and Gold Hill) may be obtained a magnificent view of the main Sierra Nevada Range and its many mighty snow-capped peaks as they trail and circle away from west to south till they are lost to view behind lower interior ranges at a point over 150 miles away.

The View from the Summit of Mt. Davidson.

From the peak of Mount Davidson may be obtained a grand and extensive view of the country in all directions. To the westward is seen Washoe Lake and the green meadows and fields by which it is surrounded. Although Washoe Valley and its lake seem to be just at the foot of the mountain they are from eight to ten miles distant. Beyond and high above the valley tower the pine-clad Sierras, with, along their line, several giant granite peaks, snow-capped the greater part of the year. Prominent among these stands out Bald Mountain, just north of Lake Tahoe, and within plain view Mount Lincoln, Job’s Peak, Silver Mountain, and many other peaks that have names. Twenty miles to the northward are to be seen the green pastures and alfalfa fields of the Truckee Meadows, while to the southward we have the Sierra Range and Eagle and Carson Valleys. Carson City is hid by intervening low hills. To the eastward are the same deserts and mountains that compose the landscape viewed from the city, but from the top of the mountain the eye ranges over a vastly wider field.

The Virginia and Truckee Railroad.

From our elevated position on the peak of Mount Davidson we may trace nearly the whole course of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad. This road runs from Reno to Virginia City _via_ Carson City, and is fifty-two miles in length. Besides being in one part the most crooked railroad in the world, its whole course is a great curve. The distance from Virginia City to Reno as the crow flies is only about seventeen miles, and but twenty-two by wagon road, yet to connect the two points by rail required a road fifty-two miles in length.

From Reno, where the road connects with the Central Pacific, its course is southward through Truckee, Meadows, and Steamboat, Washoe and Eagle Valleys, to Carson City, a distance of thirty-one miles. From Carson City the road runs east down the Carson River about nine miles, when it leaves the river and, turning to the north, begins to climb the mountains to Virginia. From the river to Virginia the distance is thirteen miles and the maximum grade is 116 feet. In climbing the mountain there are many very short curves. The maximum radius of curves is 300 feet. By adding together all these curves it is found that a passenger on the road actually travels seventeen times round a circle between Virginia and Carson City. On the road are six tunnels, whose united length is 2,400 feet, and there are numerous deep cuts in very hard rock. The only high bridge is the trestlework on which the road crosses Crown Point Ravine, at Gold Hill. This bridge is eighty feet in height.

Ground was broken on the road February 19, 1869, and eight months thereafter the most difficult part of it was finished and trains were running to Carson—twenty-one miles. The construction of this twenty-one miles of road cost $1,750,000, the greater part of which sum was expended on the first thirteen miles. In round numbers the whole fifty-two miles cost $3,000,000. The road does an immense business in the transportation of Comstock ores to quartz mills on the Carson River, and in carrying back from the valley wood, lumber, and timbers for the mines; it also carries from Reno to Virginia great quantities of all kinds of goods and merchandise—coal, ice, provisions, fruit, and machinery—with mails, express, and many passengers daily. The road connects with the Carson and Colorado Road at Mound House, eleven miles below Virginia City. The road and its many side-tracks and switches constitute a lasting monument to the engineering skill of the late I. E. James.

The Days of “Bull Teams.”

Before the Virginia and Truckee Railroad was built all freight was transported by teams. Ore was hauled to the mills by teams, and teams brought to the mines all the wood, lumber, and timber required. Teams also hauled over the Sierras all the mining machinery and supplies required by the mines and mills, and all the goods and merchandise needed by various kinds of stores, shops, and business houses. When the Central Pacific was completed this hauling of merchandise was from Reno, _via_ the Geiger grade wagon-road. Hundreds of teams of all kinds were required to handle the goods and merchandise, other hundreds the ore, wood, lumber, and timbers, and still others to do the miscellaneous hauling of the country. When the big reduction works of the Ophir Mining Company were in operation near Franktown, in Washoe Valley, lines of teams from one to three miles in length were to be seen moving along the Ophir grade. On all other roads it was much the same. Teams of from ten to sixteen horses or mules hauled trains of from two to four loaded wagons. At times so many teams thronged Virginia City that blockades occurred which could not be broken for hours. Stages, omnibuses, delivery wagons, drays, carts, buggies, carriages, and all kinds of vehicles were inextricably mingled in a jam that filled the principal streets for blocks. With all the cursing of “mule-punchers,” “swampers,” and “bull-teamsters,” it would often be two or three hours before the wheels of traffic again began to revolve. When these blockades occurred about noon, teamsters would often get out their dinner pails, spread their meal on their load of wood, brick, or lumber, bring out from the nearest saloon a measure of beer, and in a leisurely way partake of the midday repast. Then all passengers and all mail and express matter were carried by stages, and so great was the rush of travel and business that the coaches went out and returned in droves, five and six in a string. In 1859, 1860, and 1861, great quantities of goods were transported across the Sierras from California on the backs of mules. Some of the pack-trains were composed of fifty, eighty, and even as many as one hundred mules. They brought over all kinds of freight, even huge casks of liquor and large pieces of mill machinery. On the return trip they often carried passengers. In those days the “hurricane deck” of a mule was not to be despised.

THE COMSTOCK SYSTEM OF WATER SUPPLY.

The Virginia City and Gold Hill Water Works.

When silver was first discovered on the Comstock, the flow of water from natural springs was sufficient to supply all the wants of the small communities then constituting the towns of Gold Hill and Virginia City. As the population increased, wells were dug in many places (distant from springs), and the domestic needs of many families were for a long time supplied by water-carts that peddled the water of both wells and springs. Presently the water of several tunnels added to the available stock, but as mills and hoisting works multiplied, the demand for water for use in steam boilers became so great that it was impossible to supply it without creating a water famine among the people of the two towns, now thousands in number, with hundreds of new arrivals every week. In this emergency the Virginia City and Gold Hill Water Company was formed. Outside of mining companies it is the oldest incorporation on the Comstock Lode. The only available supply of water at that time was that flowing from a few tunnels that had been run into the mountain above the city for mining purposes. This was collected by means of ditches and wooden flumes, and stored in large wooden tanks, whence it was distributed about the city through iron pipes. When this supply became insufficient, as it soon did, tunnels were run for the express purpose of tapping water. As these drained out the hills and failed, new ones were run in the range both north and south of the city for a distance of several miles.

Finally every device was exhausted, and the hills above the level of the city were thoroughly drained. It then became necessary to look to the main range of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In those mountains was an inexhaustible supply of the purest and best water to be found in the whole world, but between the lakes, creeks, and sparkling fountains of the Sierras and the range on which stood Virginia City, lay Washoe Valley, an immense trough nearly 2,000 feet in depth. How to get water over such a depression was the question. Mr. H. Schussler, an engineer of great repute, and who had planned the Spring Valley Water Works of San Francisco, was brought to Nevada to view the situation. He said the deep valley could be crossed, and in the spring of 1872 surveys were made and an order given Eastern manufacturers for the construction of a large wrought-iron pipe. The first section of the big pipe was laid June 11, 1873, and the last on the twenty-fifth day of July of the same year.

The Big Water Pipe.

The total length of the pipe is 7 miles and 134 feet. The pipe has an interior diameter of 12 inches, and is capable of delivering 2,200,000 gallons of water in twenty-four hours. The inlet of the pipe is on a spur from the main Sierra Nevada Range, and the outlet is on the crest of the Virginia Range of mountains. The pipe lies across the valley in the form of an inverted siphon. At the lowest point, the perpendicular pressure on the pipe is 1,720 feet, or about 800 pounds to the square inch. The inlet being 465 feet higher than the outlet, the water is forced through the pipe under tremendous pressure. The water is brought to the inlet from the sources of supply in two large covered flumes, and at the outlet end of the pipe is delivered into two large flumes, which carry it to Virginia City, a distance of twelve miles.

This pipe was constructed of sheets of wrought iron riveted together. Each section was fastened with three rows of rivets. At the point of greatest pressure the iron was five-sixteenths of an inch in thickness, but near the ends, upon the sides of the two opposite mountains, it tapered down to one-sixteenth of an inch. In the construction of the pipe there were used 1,150,000 pounds of rolled iron and 1,000,000 rivets, while 52,000 pounds of lead were used in securing the joints of the sections. At each joint the sections were inserted into cast iron sleeves, and it was within these sleeves that the lead was used. The total weight of the sleeves was 442,500 pounds.

The first flow of water through this pipe reached Gold Hill and Virginia City on the evening of August 1, 1873, amid the greatest rejoicings of the people of both towns. Cannons were fired, rockets sent up, and bands of music paraded the streets. Never before in any part of the world had water been conveyed under a pressure so great; and it still remains the greatest. Previous to this, 910 feet was the greatest perpendicular pressure under which water had ever been carried through an iron pipe. This had been accomplished by Mr. Schussler, at Cherokee Flat, California.

Additional Great Pipes.

In 1875 the water company laid alongside the first pipe a second having an inside diameter of ten inches. This pipe is lap-welded, and, there being no friction of rivet heads upon the water, the flow through it is equal to that through the twelve-inch pipe,—2,200,000 gallons every twenty-four hours.