View towards the south of Virginia City, Nevada during the 1890s.

Virginia City, Nevada , situated along the spine of  Mt.Davidson at 6,200 feet above sea level, was a mid 19^thcentury mining town built on a desert-like mountainside which produced millions of dollars in silver and gold. The average Comstock family made their living mining silver ore or from the miner’s dollar. When gold was discovered in 1859, it took only a few years before the sloping mountainside of Virginia City was lined with roads carrying men and supplies into the bustling town. 

Churches, saloons, banks, general stores, and schools were constructed for hundreds of people willing to try their luck on mining an area reputed to be the richest in the world. Virginia City grew above and below C Street, the main transportation artery through town.  The land upon which the town was built sloped and buildings were constructed to accommodate the change in topography.  Larger homes, which contained the wealthier inhabitants, were perched above C Street.  The entertainment and red light district was organized along D Street, just below the main transportation artery.  Brothels and single room cribs, along with the first Piper’s Opera House, were concentrated in the central portion of town to entertain the locals and visitors.  The Virginia and Truckee Railroad bisected Virginia City from north to south between D and E streets.  On the other side of the tracks, down the hill, were the worker’s homes.  An international community of men, women, and children lived in both single family cottages and boarding houses.  Immigrants from around the world traveled to the Comstock to fulfill their dreams of American wealth and adventure.  Irish miners, German brewers and butchers, Chinese launderers, and others lived in neighborhoods down the hill from C Street. 

 Using archaeological clues and artifacts, Jim Schablitsky recreates what the home at 18 North G Street would have looked like before it burned in 1875.  The building operated as a dressmaker shop in 1873 and served as a single family home to a British immigrant family of five.  An archaeological excavation of the home revealed expected and unexpected finds including straight pins, melted French perfume bottles, buttons, a pipe bowl, and a shattered French porcelain tea set (below).  Archaeologists were surprised to uncover a ritual cache from the 1860s consisting of a Civil War military boot, champagne bottle, Florida water bottle, iron padlock with heart shaped escutcheon, a hat, and a scored piece of shoe leather.  The deposit was interpreted as a protective ritual to bless the house.  Additional finds included a glass hypodermic syringe and hard rubber urethral irrigator.  Forensic tests revealed the syringe injected morphine in at least four men and women, one of whom was probably of African descent.  

 Virginia City, Nevada began and ended in the same manner as other mining towns.  The difference between the Comstock and other districts was the amount of wealth and sustainability produced by the mines.  The Comstock lode surrendered 300,000,000 dollars in gold and silver in a twenty-year period.  Not one mining venture in California produced anywhere near this wealth .  Virginia City reached a population around 20,000 people during the 1870s.  The presence of saloons, boarding houses, entertainment establishments, banks, schools, and churches illustrated that Virginia City was an urban community where one could raise a family and take opportunity by the hand.