Virginia City

Virginia City, unincorporated town, seat (1861) of Storey county, western Nevada, U.S., on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada range, 20 miles (32 km) south of Reno. Settled in 1859 and named for a prospector, “Old Virginia” Fennimore, it became a booming mining camp after the discovery of the Comstock Lode (chiefly silver) on nearby Mount Davidson. When the Nevada Territory was created by Congress in 1861, Virginia City had more than three-fourths of the new territory’s population. In the 1870s its population reached 30,000, and there were 6 churches and more than 100 saloons. In 1875 the town was devastated by a fire that destroyed 33 blocks, including the entire downtown district.

The “bonanza barons,” such as George Hearst and John MacKay, who made millions in the mines, built Victorian-style mansions, and even public buildings were elaborately decorated. A reporter on the city’s newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise, during its boom period was Samuel Clemens, who first signed his well-known pen name, Mark Twain, to one of his newspaper stories. Bret Harte, another notable writer, also worked on the paper during Clemens’s time there.

After 25 years of frantic mining activity, Virginia City’s population dwindled as the ore was worked out in the 1880s. It nearly became a ghost town, although in 1935 new federal controls on the price of gold spurred a modest revival that included the paving of Virginia City’s main streets. The remaining 19th-century businesses—mainly saloons and popular museums—and some old mansions are maintained for the tourist trade. The Virginia and Truckee Railroad (1869), which tapped the Comstock, has been partially restored. The area has been designated a national historic district.