HistoricSiteMarkers
Civil WarReconstruction & Gilded Age

Chollar Mine

Storey County, Storey County, Nevada

Marker Inscription

Chollar Mine. First located in 1859, the Chollar was consolidated with the Potosi in 1865. As the Chollar-Potosi, it was one of the leading producers on the Comstock.  The Nevada mill was erected here in 1887 to process low-grade Chollar ore.  It was the last to use the Washoe pan process, but the first on the Comstock to generate and utilize electric power.

Erected by Nevada State Historic Preservation Office

The Story

First located in 1859, the Chollar was one of the Comstock Lode's leading mines, consolidating with the Potosi in 1865 to form the storied Chollar-Potosi. The Nevada mill was built here in 1887 to work low-grade Chollar ore, and it holds a notable double distinction: it was the last mill on the Comstock to use the old Washoe pan amalgamation process, yet the first to generate and use its own electric power.

Why it matters

The Chollar mill sits at a technological hinge point, where the Comstock's pioneering silver-milling methods gave way to the electrified industry of the modern age.

Own a business near here? Add it to the map.

Related events

  • · Comstock Lode

Themes & tags

Nearby & related markers

The Great Incline Of The Sierra Nevada

Washoe County, NV

On the mountain above stood the "Great Incline of the Sierra Nevada," a 4,000-foot steam-powered cable railway completed in 1880 by the Sierra Nevada Wood and Lumber Company. Using 8,000 feet of wire cable wound over massive bull wheels, it hauled cordwood and lumber 1,800 feet up the slope to a V-flume that carried it down to Washoe Valley. From there wagons delivered the timber to the insatiable mines of the Comstock, moving as much as 300 cords a day.

Ophir

Nye County, NV

High in the canyon above stand the massive stone foundations of Ophir, once a thriving silver camp. Ore discovered in 1863 led to the Murphy Mine and, in 1865, a $200,000 twenty-stamp mill that housed the first experimental Stetefeldt furnace ever built, anchoring the town of Toiyabe City and its 400 residents. After a decline in 1869 and a revival in the 1880s, the mines yielded more than three million dollars in gold and silver before the town was deserted by the 1890s—yet in its heyday it boasted schools, a church, lodges, and plenty of saloons.

Savage Mansion

Storey County, NV

Built around 1861 in the French Second Empire style, this elegant Comstock mansion housed the Savage Mining Company's offices on its first floor and served as the residence of the company's superintendents on the upper two stories. Its most famous moment came on October 27, 1879, when former president and Civil War commander Ulysses S. Grant, honored with a town parade, addressed the townspeople from its second-floor balcony.

Mc Cone's Foundries

Storey County, NV

In 1862 Ivy Mead, John McCone, and a partner opened a foundry in Gold Canyon, moving it to this granite building two years later to serve the booming Comstock mines. McCone took sole ownership in 1866 and, after an 1872 fire, absorbed the Fulton Foundry to build what may have been the largest foundry in Nevada, employing 110 men. Its shops cast the early machinery of the Virginia and Truckee Railway and, in 1880, the largest casting ever poured on the Pacific Coast.