The Comstock Lode
Storey County, Storey County, Nevada
Marker Inscription
The Comstock Lode. Near this spot was the heart of the Comstock Lode, the fabulous 2 ½ mile deposit of high-grade ore that produced nearly $400,000.00 in silver and gold. After the discovery in 1859, Virginia City boomed for 20 years, helped bring Nevada into the union in 1864 and to build San Francisco.Several major mines operated during the boom. Their sites are today marked by large yellow dumps, several of which are visible from here – the Sierra Nevada a mile to your left, the Union, Ophir, Con Virginia and, on the high hill to the southeast, the combination. The Lode was worked from both ends, north up Gold Canyon and south from the Sierra Nevada Utah mines.
Erected by Nevada State Historic Preservation Office
The Story
In 1859 prospectors struck the Comstock Lode, a 2½-mile band of fabulously rich silver and gold ore, and Virginia City exploded into one of the West's great boomtowns. For twenty years its mines poured out wealth that helped bankroll the building of San Francisco and pushed Nevada toward statehood in 1864. The yellow tailings dumps still visible across the hills mark where legendary mines like the Ophir and Con Virginia burrowed into the earth.
Why it matters
The Comstock's silver reshaped the American West and the national economy, and its timing helped admit Nevada to the Union during the Civil War.
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Related events
- · Nevada statehood
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Nevada's First Gold Discovery
Lyon County, NV
In July 1849, Abner Blackburn, a former member of the Mormon Battalion, made what is regarded as the first gold discovery in present-day Nevada near this spot, followed by William Prouse's find up Gold Canyon in 1850. Convinced California's riches were greater, most emigrants pressed on, but by 1851 some 200 placer miners—among them James "Old Virginny" Finney—were working the canyon. Their continuous presence at Gold Canyon's mouth made Dayton Nevada's first non-Native settlement.
Dayton
Lyon County, NV
Dayton is among the oldest settlements in Nevada, born as a riverside resting spot where California-bound emigrants paused after crossing the desert. In 1849 Abner Blackburn plucked a gold nugget from the mouth of Gold Canyon, sparking the prospecting that a decade later uncovered the fabulous Comstock ore bodies at Gold Hill and Virginia City. The town cycled through several names before settling on Dayton in 1861, honoring John Day, who surveyed its streets, and it thrived for decades as a milling and trading hub and as the Lyon County seat until 1911.
Dayton Chinatown
Lyon County, NV
Dayton holds the site of Nevada's first Chinatown, settled as hundreds of thousands of immigrants from China, Japan, and Korea crossed the Pacific in the mid-nineteenth century — pushed by upheaval at home and pulled by the promise of gold and work in the Rocky Mountain West. In August 1857, Edward Rose hired Dayton's Chinese laborers to dig the four-mile Rose Ditch, carrying water from the Carson River to the placer miners at Gold Canyon. Facing steady discrimination but drawn by the work, they mined the canyon and settled along the river, and the community remained a vital hub for Chinese Americans in Nevada into the 1880s.
The Winters Ranch (Rancho Del Sierra)
Washoe County, NV
Completed around 1864, this large Gothic-style mansion was the home of Theodore and Maggie Winters and their seven children, built with proceeds from the Comstock on land the Winters brothers purchased from earlier Mormon settlers. Theodore expanded the property to some 6,000 acres, breeding outstanding race horses while also running a large dairy and raising cattle, work horses, and sheep. Active in politics, he was elected a territorial representative in 1862.