Virginia City: Secrets of a Western Past

Notes

131 Notes Introduction Deetz, “Discussion,” 94. See also his pathfinding work In Small Things Forgotten. 1. Dixon, Boomtown Saloons, 39–40, 95–97. 2. Orser and Babson, “Tabasco Brand Pepper Sauce Bottles”; Shane Bernard and Ashley Dumas, personal communication, 2002. 3. Dixon, Boomtown Saloons, provides the most accessible source for information on the Shooting Gallery and Saloon and on the Hibernia Saloon. See also Hardesty, “Public Archaeology”; and Hardesty et al., “Public Archaeology on the Comstock.” The author participated in all the excavations described in this volume, so many observations are from personal recollection. 4. Bernard and Dumas, personal communication. 5. For observations about Virginia City society, see R. M. James, Roar and the Silence. For insight into Nevada’s foreign-born residents, see Shepperson, Restless Strangers. 6. Dixon, Boomtown Saloons, 140–42. 1. Gold and Silver! 1. White and James, “Little Rathole.” Artifacts were left for curation at the Nevada State Museum, but the then-curator of anthropology discarded the material for an undetermined reason. 2. For overviews of Comstock history, see Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners; G. Smith with Tingley, History of the Comstock Lode; R. M. James, Roar and the Silence; and Shinn, Story of the Mine. 3. Butterfield, Whig Interpretation of History, was one of the first to address the shortcomings of documents. 4. For sources on the development of mining technology, see Brown, Hard-Rock Miners ; Paul, Mining Frontiers of the Far West; Wyman, Hard Rock Epic; and Young, Western Mining. 5. Hardesty’s masterwork appears in a new edition titled Mining Archaeology in the American West. 6. Hattori, Northern Paiutes on the Comstock; see also his article “‘And Some of Them Swear.’” For Virginia City boys and their scavenging activity, see Waldorf, Kid on the Comstock. 7. Smith, History of the Comstock Lode, 298–99; R. M. James, Roar and the Silence, 256–57. 8. Makley, John Mackay, 28–30. 9. Young, Western Mining, 79–89. 10. Young, Western Mining, is an excellent source for details of the mining and milling process. 11. R. M. James, Roar and the Silence, 129; Young, Western Mining, 182–90. 12. Young, Western Mining, 175. 132 Notes to pages 11–27 13. Again, Young, Western Mining, is an excellent source on the methods of nineteenthcentury mining and was used throughout this discussion. Hardesty, Mining Archaeology in the American West, is also invaluable. 14. Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 86–90; R. M. James, Roar and the Silence, 47–49. 15. Young, Western Mining, 69–71; Hardesty, Archaeology of Mining and Miners, 9–10, 39. 16. Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 54; R. M. James, Roar and the Silence, 11, 46. See also R. M. James, “Mark Twain’s Virginia City.” 17. Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 309–12; De Quille, Big Bonanza, 362–63; R. M. James, Roar and the Silence, 107–9. 2. A Crowded City on the Mining Frontier 1. Information like this is available from local tourism flyers, interpretive plaques, and the testimony of bartenders (and bar patrons). Each of these requires a great deal of source criticism, particularly on the Comstock, where many hold truth in little regard. Still, these sources can yield a great deal of insight. 2. Julie Nicoletta in Buildings of Nevada, 90, asserts that these types of capitals are Egyptian Revival, but that appears to be incorrect. I take responsibility for this error since I wrote the Storey County entries for Nicoletta’s book. Since 2000 I reevaluated these and similar pilasters at Piper’s Opera House, in consultation (2009) with the staff of the National Register Programs at the National Park Service in Washington, dc, and have concluded that they are not Egyptian Revival. 3. Basso, Washoe Club. 4. Hundreds of interviews with local informants by the author span from 1983 to 2010. The folk history of the Washoe Club as well as other places featured throughout this text are based on these ongoing discussions. Sanborn Perris Fire Insurance maps dating to 1890, 1907, and 1923 provide details about the community as it changed after the Bonanza Period (1860–80). For the Sanborn Perris Fire Insurance maps, see collections at the Comstock Historic District Commission, Virginia City; the Nevada Historical Society, Reno; and the Special Collections Department, University of Nevada, Reno, Library, which also has the collection online: http://tinyurl.com/3gj4qly, accessed May 22, 2010. The prefire, 1875 “Bird’s Eye View” by August Koch also provides useful information, particularly about a place like the...