Mc Cone's Foundries
Storey County, Storey County, Nevada
Marker Inscription
Mc Cone’s Foundries. In 1862, Ivy Mead, John McCone and Mr. Tascar established a foundry at Johntown, two miles southeast of here in Gold Canyon. After two years they moved their operation to this point and erected a large granite building. John McCone became the sole proprietor of the foundry in 1866.A fire on May 15, 1872 left nothing standing but the walls of the foundry.McCone then bought the Fulton Foundry built in Virginia City in 1863. McCone made it possibly the largest foundry in the state. The foundry manufactured all the early castings of the Virginia and Truckee Railway. He employed 110 men at its peak.The largest casting poured on the Pacific Coast was made at Fulton’s on December 11, 1880.
Erected by Dan Indermuhl
The Story
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.
Why it matters
McCone's foundry shows the heavy industry that grew up alongside the silver mines—the unglamorous ironworks without which the Comstock's railroads and mills could not run.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the 1860s, the Comstock Lode had turned this stretch of Nevada into one of the most feverishly productive mining districts on earth. Silver and gold drew thousands, but the ore itself was only the beginning. To pull metal from rock you needed mills, pumps, hoists, and rails — and all of that required iron cast and machined on the spot, because hauling heavy machinery across the mountains was slow and ruinously expensive.
That need created a whole tier of heavy industry alongside the mines. Foundries sprang up to pour the castings that kept the district running: the gears and frames, the stamp-mill parts, the fittings that no one romanticizes but without which the whole enterprise ground to a halt.
This was the West of the Civil War and Gilded Age years, when American industry was expanding at breakneck speed and a remote mining region could, almost overnight, support factories rivaling those back East. Storey County's ironworks were a frontier expression of that national industrial surge.
People & events
The venture began modestly. In 1862, Ivy Mead, John McCone, and a partner named Tascar set up a foundry at Johntown, a short way off in Gold Canyon. After two years they moved the operation and raised a substantial granite building — a sign they meant to stay and grow with the district.
By 1866 John McCone had become sole proprietor, and the business became bound up with his name and drive. Then came disaster: on May 15, 1872, fire swept through and left nothing standing but the walls. For many a frontier businessman that would have been the end. McCone instead bought out the Fulton Foundry, which had been built in Virginia City in 1863, and poured his energy into making it possibly the largest foundry in the state.
At its height the works employed 110 men and turned out all the early castings for the Virginia and Truckee Railway — the line that tied the Comstock's mines and mills together. The crowning achievement came on December 11, 1880, when the shops poured what was said to be the largest casting ever made on the Pacific Coast: a moment that announced this remote foundry as a genuine industrial powerhouse.
Its place in the American story
McCone's foundry is a window into the unglamorous machinery of the mining boom. The silver of the Comstock is famous; the ironworks that made its extraction possible are almost forgotten. Yet without foundries like this one, the mills could not have crushed ore and the railroads could not have rolled.
The tie to the Virginia and Truckee Railway is especially telling. Railroads were the great connective tissue of Gilded Age America, and here you can see one being literally cast into being by local hands. A frontier foundry supplying a frontier railroad is the industrial revolution playing out in a single Nevada canyon.
And the arc of McCone's career — partnership, sole ownership, catastrophic fire, bold recovery, and finally a record-setting casting — is a distinctly American story of persistence and scale. It reminds us that the West was built not only by prospectors but by founders, machinists, and the men who worked molten iron.
If you visit
Come to this spot ready to use your imagination, because heavy industry rarely leaves gentle ruins. Look for the setting itself — the canyon country where a large granite building once stood and iron ran white-hot. Picture 110 men at work, the roar of the furnaces, the ring of hammers, the smell of scorched sand from the molds.
The marker anchors you two miles from where the story began at Johntown and places you in the heart of Comstock country. This is prime territory for a history-minded road trip: nearby are the famous mining towns and the route of the very railway whose castings were poured here. Let the marker be a prompt to see the whole landscape as a workshop, not just a scenic overlook.
Stand a moment and consider the date December 11, 1880 — the day the largest casting on the Pacific Coast was poured somewhere in this district. There's no gleaming monument to it, only the knowledge that at this edge of the country, men built things at a scale that surprised even themselves.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · John McCone
Themes & tags
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