The Roar and the Silence: A History of Virginia City and the Comstock Lode

5: A Time of Bonanza

5: ATIME Of BONANZA The lid, so to speak, ofthat wonderful orecasket , termed commonly the Big Bonanza, had been lifted off. ... The plain facts are as marvellous as a Persian tale, for the young Aladdin did not see in the glittering case ofthe genii suchfabulous riches as were lying in that dark womb ofrock. The miner's pick and drill were more potent than the magician's wand. -Eliot Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners When enumerators for the 9th U.S. Census began working on the Comstock in June 1870, they found a mining district radically different from the one documented ten years earlier. Gone were the Mexican packers, the prospectors, the thrown-together buildings, and the society in which women were a scarce curiosity. The Comstock was now a place ofindustry and engineers, boasting almost four hundred men employed in milling , nearly three hundred in the manufacturing industries, and roughly three thousand working in the mines. The Comstock also included, however, a wide variety of nonmining businesses and services. While the ranks of miners, like those employed in most occupations, had increased since 1860, their proportion of the overall workforce had decreased from more than 70 percent to about 43 percent in 1870 (table 5.1). Furthermore, the variety of professions had increased phenomenally. Besides the men involved in the large corporate industries, the census recorded twenty-two bakers, forty-nine butchers, five people operating confectionery stores, two oyster vendors, a coffee 5.1 Occupations for Comstock Men, 1860 and 1870* Percentage of Percentage of Number Number Workforce Workforce Ratio of Occupation in 1860 in 1870 in 1860 in 1870 1860 to 1870 Mining 1,984 2,808 71.4 42.6 1: 1.4 Construction 221 325 8.0 4.9 1:1.5 Teamsters/Packers 176 146 6.3 2.2 1:2.1 Service 125 499 4.5 7.6 1:4.0 Mercantile 124 766 4.5 11.6 1:6.2 Saloons 61 234 2.2 3.5 1:3.8 Manufacturing 24 623 0.9 9.4 1:26.0 Infrastructure 23 126 0.8 1.9 1:5.5 Mills 7 381 OJ 5.8 1:54.4 Railroad 44 0.7 Other 1 498 7.6 1:498 None 32 148 1.4 2.2 1:4.6 Total 2,778 6,598 1:2.4 Sources: 8th U.S. Manuscript Census of 1860 for Virginia City and Gold Hill, Utah Territory; 9th U.S. Manuscript Census of 1870 for Storey County, Nevada. 'Men are defined as 15 years or older. The total population for Virginia City and Gold Hill during the census of 1860 was 3,017; in 1870 the population of Storey County was II,JI9. vendor, and one man who ran a peanut stand. There were also nineteen people involved in the theater, including actors, actresses, managers, and a "tragedian." The census recorded fourteen musicians and two gymnasts , and there were gardeners, a librarian, photographers, milk dealers, tailors, stockbrokers, politicians, federal tax agents, doctors, lawyers, and several people in jail. Along with these pursuits, the enumerators listed dozens of other livelihoods. Besides offering more diversity in occupation, Comstock communities had transformed in other ways. In 1860, there were almost three thousand adult men on the Comstock.' By 1870 that number had more than doubled. The truly spectacular examples of growth, however, occurred in other parts ofsociety. There were now twenty times as many women and children. Of course, the nature of the nineteenth-century mining town attracted single men, and bachelors would remain a solid block in the district for decades. Still, by 1870 the Comstock was an established community with churches, schools, and hundreds of families. Wives and mothers together with their single sisters pursued a variety of occupations ranging from domestic service and dressmaking to laundry work and teaching 92 The Roar and the Silence (table 5.2). In addition, eight Daughters of Charity now cared for eighty children in their orphanage.2 There were also seven actresses and as many teachers, as well as several saloon tenders, waitresses, milliners, cooks, an upholsterer, and a melodeon operator. Prostitutes appeared in force by 1870 after apparendy waiting to make certain that the new Comstock Mining District was worth the trip. The presence of 160 ladies of the evening working in Gold Hill and Virginia City during the census testifies to the fact that these women...