Virginia and Truckee Railroad The Virginia and Truckee Railroad is one of the most famous short lines in American history. It was incorporated on March 5, 1868 by the “Bank Crowd” to serve the mines of the Comstock. A railroad was deemed necessary because of the high cost of freighting goods by wagon into and […]
Characters
Performance
With the growth in population of Virginia City, Nevada came a thirst for musical and theatrical entertainment, and variety theatres featuring minstrelsy, burlesque, and vaudeville, appealing to both more genteel audiences as well as to rough miners, proliferated. When Virginia City sprang up, Thomas Maguire recognized the opportunity resulting from the new found wealth created […]
Lumber Industry
Early Lumber Industry Wood was essential to development in the nineteenth-century Great Basin. Unfortunately, forests were scarce, particularly when construction needed straight grained pines. Mines required wood for building, to fuel furnaces, and to assemble support systems underground. Beginning in the 1860s, booming communities such as Virginia City inspired lumbering in the Sierra Nevada. W.S. […]