My
guest today is author Sawyer Belle who says her romances were influenced by her
parents’ love and her heroes by her husband. She writes to entertain her
readers and has been writing since she was young. Today she is sharing with us the
fascinating story of the Nevada silver strike in the 19th century,
research she did for her book Silver
Nights with You.
Do leave a comment with your email as Sawyer is giving away a free copy of her story!
The Nevada Silver Strike
The word “Nevada” conjures mostly glittering images of Las Vegas. Reno and Yucca Mountain may also get an honorable mention. But what is rarely referenced is a little known mountain in the northwest part of the state that peaks at just under eight thousand feet, a meager height when compared to the towering Sierra Nevada Mountains nearby. It is a bland and uninteresting-looking mountain, brown and barren but for crusty mounds of sagebrush and creosote, and the odd cottonwood bursting at its base. It is unimposing, unassuming, and resting upon a designated National Historic Landmark. That mountain is Mt. Davidson, and what happened beneath it changed mining around the world, stirring up a wild reputation for the west in the process.
Everyone
knows about the California Gold Rush, but what is less commonly known is that
it was swiftly ended by the silver rush created by the discovery of the
Comstock Lode, the first major silver deposit discovered in the United States
and one of the largest in the world. So much silver rested there that it
muddied the ground with a blue-gray sludge, clogging machinery and processing
used by early gold prospectors in the area. They soon tired of the nuisance and
began casting the sludge over the cliff sides by the wheelbarrow full until a
California assayer announced that a small sampling of the “sludge” yielded more
than three thousand dollars’ worth of silver.
News spread by the next day and
the great “Rush to Washoe” began. The
discovery gave birth to Virginia City, the mother of all boomtowns.
In
its heyday, the city rivaled San Francisco for society and size, and even
helped finance the rising metropolis when its Bank of California agents worked
to snatch up significant portions of mining rights and mills. Such fortune also
ushered in statehood, political representation in Washington, and helped
Abraham Lincoln fund the Civil War. An estimated five hundred million dollars was
extracted in just two decades, and it drew residents and investors from all
over. Names like Carnegie, Hearst, Mark Twain, and Rockefeller ring a bell?
They all have a place in early Nevada history.
Besides the unprecedented amount of wealth flowing from this western enclave, the Comstock Lode gained notoriety around the world for technological advancements in mining. The bowels of Mt. Davidson were full of silver, with miners burrowing more than 3500 feet underground to claim it all. That’s the length of twelve football fields below the surface of the earth and was the deepest of any mines in the world at that time. Of course, this gave way to conditions never encountered before in mining.
Pools
and rivers of boiling hot water slithered beneath the mountain, feeding the
numerous hot springs of the region. Sometimes, mine shafts would be flooded by
the scalding water, taking lives. Gruesome newspaper headlines, such as “Seven
Miners Drowned and Cooked…” were sadly commonplace. The water’s presence catapulted the
temperatures of the deep tunnels to life-threatening heights of 140-160 degrees
Fahrenheit.
Miners would work in fifteen-minute increments before being hoisted back to the surface to cooling stations, where each man was allotted three gallons of water and ninety-five pounds of ice per day.
Miners would work in fifteen-minute increments before being hoisted back to the surface to cooling stations, where each man was allotted three gallons of water and ninety-five pounds of ice per day.
In addition, the ore was extremely soft, soft enough to be shoveled out, and the soil did not support itself. Large amounts of clay used to reinforce tresses would swell when exposed to air, closing in the walls on the miners.
Traditional mining tresses did not support the soft earthen ceilings, resulting in many devastating and deadly collapses. Poisonous gases would often flow through the tunnels, reaching deadly levels.
In
his book, Comstock Mining and Miners, Virginia
City miner, Eliot Lord, wrote, “[miners were]forced to breathe this suffocating
vapor till they often staggered forth from the station half blinded and bent
over by agonizing cramps.” Some men didn’t survive the fumes.
These and other dangers claimed the lives of at least 300 miners and maimed at least 600, prompting improvements in traditional mining processes and systems.
To combat the issue of cave-ins, German engineer, Philipp Deidesheimer, designed a support system that allowed miners to tunnel safely without fear of a cave in (pictured below). Modeled after the scheme of a honeycomb, Deidesheimer created “square-set timbering,” a sort of wooden trellis of stacked wooden cubes which supported each other. This method, pioneered in Virginia City, was soon used around the world.
Square set timbering |
Other innovations include massive hydraulic pumping systems and stations to relieve water. However, pumps quickly became inefficient at greater depths and bulkheads, drills, and lateral tunnel schemes were employed to reroute the water.
The greatest of these tunnels was the Sutro Tunnel, named after its mastermind, Adolph Sutro. This massive tunnel traveled six miles underground to reroute water to a nearby town. Though its construction took too long and was never used, it was still an historic feat of engineering and ingenuity for the time.
Sutro Tunnel |
With so much prosperity, the appeal of the city was infectious, and people poured in. The good and the bad. The town quickly grew a reputation for raucousness. Any western fable will likely have a true counterpart in Virginia City. Shootouts, lynchings, robberies, suicides, gambling, mad men and Madams…you name it and Virginia City had it; plenty of drama and plenty of hope and despair and everything that makes life raw and wild. Mark Twain once reflected on his days as a journalist for the city’s newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise:
“The seemingly tranquil ENTERPRISE office was a ghastly factory of slaughter, mutilation and general destruction in those days.”
The
population plummeted to less than three thousand by the turn of the century and
it hovers around two thousand now, but it is far from a ghost town. Several
original buildings remain open for business. Original hotels are available to
spend the night in. Relics, re-enactments and tall tales abound in any open
saloon.
The glory days live on through its residents who share this small, yet
significant, slice of history with tourists from all over the world who have
come to see a glimpse of the real birthplace of the Wild West.
Thanks
for joining us today, Sawyer, and sharing the amazing story of this time in
America’s history.
And
for readers, you will want to check out Sawyer's story set against the backdrop of the greatest silver boom in the history of America, Silver Nights With You, reviewed in my post below.
You can find Sawyer on her Website, Twitter and Facebook.
You can find Sawyer on her Website, Twitter and Facebook.
Thank you, Regan!
ReplyDelete"Drowned and Cooked" - yikes! Apparently the silver was worth it...
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for stopping by, Caytea!
DeleteThose were my thoughts, too, when I read that headline, Caytea. Yikes, indeed! I think I'd get over "silver fever" real quick if I read that.
DeleteAnyone reading this will understand why I can't wait for Sawyer's next book. They are full of history as well as being entertaining!
ReplyDeleteJanet, romances filled with history are the ones I like, too! And the ones I write. Thanks for commenting.
DeleteThank you so much for your compliments, Janet!
DeleteHi Regan and Sawyer,
ReplyDeleteWhat an informative post. I love learning about historical facts behind stories written by so many talented authors. This particular novel sounds pretty interesting. Sawyer, you're a new author for me... so I guess I'll be heading over to Amazon and look you up. :)
So glad you stopped by, Liette. Thanks!
DeleteHi, Liette! Thanks for taking the time to read about my research. Don't hit the "buy" button on Silver Nights With You just yet...there is still a giveaway going this afternoon! I hope you enjoy what you find from me. Thanks again!
DeleteMy first encounter with Sawyer Belle was her amazing book, "Love of a Lioness," and it took me away...far away...I read it while on vacation and I couldn't wait to get back to it when something else demanded my leaisure time ( like my family)! Silver Nights is my 2nd favorite, right behind "Love of a Lioness."
ReplyDeleteThank you, Teke! So happy you've enjoyed my stories!
DeleteThanks so much for commenting, Teke. I know that Sawyer appreciates your love of her stories!
DeleteFor any who see the post after this, Sawyer has selected the winner... it's Liette Bougie. Congratulations, Liette!
ReplyDeleteExtremely interesting! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Genny!
DeleteThanks, Genny, for stopping by and letting Sawyer know you liked the post on Nevada silver mining!
DeleteVery interesting. I would love to win a copy to read. Ilean Fulton ileanfulton@gmail.com
ReplyDelete