View PDF
Rural Wranglers: Virginia City
Silver, saloons, mining lore, the Comstock, and Mark Twain: It's likely some or all of these words come to mind at the mention of Virginia City. The history of this northern Nevada gem is as wild, deep, and important as they come, and it also makes for a seriously fun destination.
View PDF
The Sagebrush School
In 1861, Samuel Clemens left his home in Missouri to adventure in the American West. In Carson City, he became obsessed with finding gold and spent 11 months galivanting across the desert. When he ran out of money, Clemens moved to Virginia City to be a newspaper reporter for the “Territorial Enterprise.” Three years later, he left Nevada with bright prospects and a brand-new pen name—Mark Twain.
View PDF
Frozen in Time
Everyone knows that museums are filled with exhibits, but what does it look like when the building itself is the exhibit? If you’re looking to do a bit of time travel, we’ve got a few locations around the Silver State to recommend.
View PDF
A Portal Through Time
Some structures are immediately identifiable: The Eiffel Tower, Westminster Abby, and the Space Needle among them. For Nevada ghost town enthusiasts and historians, it’s the façade to the Sutro Tunnel.
The tunnel and adjacent ghost town were closed to visitors for decades, yet the portal remained as a reminder of Comstock Lode and Nevada history. In 2021, Friends of Sutro Tunnel acquired the 150-year-old property, and today, visitors are invited to wander back in time to explore this historic site.
View PDF
The Sagebrush School
Nevada’s first generation of writers and journalists ushered in a golden age of literature in the West. BY CORY MUNSON On a cold December night in the town of Mormon Station, two men slotted the final components of their printing press into place. Their press assembled, they pulled out their letterboxes and set up, letter […]
View PDF
Sweet Saviors of Virginia City
In the 1860s, Virginia City was a rough and tumble mining camp, with 24-hour hustle and bustle. Men swarmed the streets and saloons, while miners labored deep within the tunnels underneath the town. The loud, constant clanking metal of stamp mills and jarring explosions echoed throughout the valley and mountains. It was a dangerous place, where rope and cable sometimes broke, sending cages full of miners falling to their deaths. Many an accident or fire in the mines or city left children as orphans.
View PDF
Haunted Nevada
When I heard we would be spending a night in the miner’s cabin at the Gold Hill Hotel—one of the most popular destinations for paranormal researchers in the state—and taking a walking ghost tour in Virginia City both in the same night, I was naturally (or supernaturally) elated.
View PDF
Nevada Outlaws Part 3
Another Round of Bad Boys The Wild West saw more than its fair share of criminal capers. BY RON SOODALTER Once again, we step out into the dusty street to face down a handful of early Nevada’s baddest bad guys. For those who have read the first two installments of the Outlaws of Nevada trilogy, […]
View PDF
Nevada Twilight
Mankind’s natural curiosity for the mysterious and unexplained spans our entire history. Where is the lost city of Atlantis? Will we ever know the identity of Jack the Ripper? How were ancient sites like Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids constructed? Is Bigfoot real? What actually caused the dinosaurs to go extinct? Do aliens exist? Nevada holds its own collection of myths and mysteries, peculiar and unexplained. Some are morbid, some are silly, but all require the reader to take a small step—or leap, if you like—into a “Twilight Zone” mindset. Sit back, relax, and enjoy, because you’ve just crossed over.
View PDF
Lincoln Union Club
African Americans on The Comstock fought for equality. BY ERIC CACHINERO Blood and silver soaked the earth in the mid 1860s. Seemingly just as quickly as the blood from Civil War battles was spilled in the eastern United States during the conflict’s culmination, silver was scooped from the recently formed Comstock district. This bizarre pseudo […]
View PDF
A Mysterious Murder On The Comstock
VIRGINIA CITY – A MYSTERIOUS MURDER ON THE COMSTOCK Unanswered questions loom after the murder of a notorious prostitute. BY ROBIN FLINCHUM It’s been 150 years since that dreadful January morning when Mary Jane Minieri left her little cottage on Virginia City’s D Street and stepped carefully through the mud to her friend and neighbor Julia Bulette’s […]
View PDF
A Bullish Bout you’d Barely Believe
In the 19th century, fights that pitted bears and bulls were a popular spectator sport. The strangest venue for such an event occurred in 1871 in Virginia City. The fight, held inside Piper’s Opera House, was the only such event ever held indoors.
View PDF
Mountain Bike Adventure
Dusty trails, wild horses, steam locomotives, old mining towns, and rowdy saloons. You’d have to be watching an old western movie, right? Not if you mountain bike in Carson City! Just saddle up your bicycle, load up some water and provisions, and ride up into the mountains. In early September a few of us did […]
View PDF
The Quaints of DeQuille
Reaching a daily circulation of more than 15,000 copies, Virginia City's Territorial Enterprise was at one time the largest newspaper west of the Mississippi River. Readers of this Nevada publication were treated to the prose and tales of famous journalist and author Samuel Clemens, who used the legendary nom de plume of Mark Twain. But another Enterprise reporter, renowned for his gymnastic vocabulary and whom some considered to be a better writer even than Twain, was William Wright.