Nevada, and thence past the Colorado river into Arizona, is one of
the richest mineral belts in the world. Gold was found in Gold
Canyon near Dayton, Nevada, as early as July 1849. In 1859 the
discovery of the famous Comstock Lode in Western Nevada led
to the building of Virginia City, a prosperous community on the
side of a mountain where human beings under ordinary conditions
would not have lived, and eventually brought a new state into
existence. The mines of this one district had produced, up to 1902,
$371,248,288, of which $148,145,385 was in gold, $204,653,040 in
silver, and the remainder in unclassified tailings. For the years
1862–1868 inclusive, the average annual production was over
$11,000,000; in the second period of great productivity (1873–1878),
after the opening (by John W. Mackay and his partners, Flood,
Fair and O’Brien) in the Comstock Lode of the Great Bonanza
mine, the average annual yield was over $26,000,000. In 1877
the maximum annual output for the mines was attained, being
$36,301,537. For the three years 1875–1877 the production of gold
and silver in Nevada was more than the combined product of all
the other American states and Territories. After this last year
the output of the Comstock mines declined on account of the exhaustion
of the ore supply, the increased expense of mining at great
depths, and the decrease in the price of silver. The yield reached its
lowest point in 1899, but subsequently increased through the
application of improved machinery, while the tailings of the old
diggings were treated by the cyanide process with profitable results.
In 1859 the mines were worked only for their gold; the ignorant
miners threw away the “black stuff” which was really valuable
silver ore with an assay value four times as great as that of their
ores of gold; and when this was discovered there came a period of
unprecedented silver production. But the fall in the price of silver
led to a reaction, and from 1893 the gold output predominated. The
gold production of 1907 was valued at at $12,099,455; the silver production
at $4,675,178.
In connexion with the operation of the Comstock mines was built (in 1869–1879) the Sutro Tunnel, named in honour of its engineer, Adolph Sutro (1830–1898), piercing the mountain horizontally far below the mouth of the mines, and at a distance of nearly 4 m. striking the shafts of the Comstock Lode, securing ventilation and cool air for the miners, draining the mines above its level, and obviating much pumping and hoisting.[1] Two lateral tunnels were also constructed, making the total length 612 m.
Another mining region that attained importance in the early period was the Eureka District, in Eureka county, about 90 m. S. of the Southern Pacific railway. Ore was first discovered here in 1864, but it was five years before the mines became productive. By 1882 they had produced $60,000,000 of precious metals.
With the working out of the deposits in the Comstock region, the mining industry declined, and between 1877 and 1900 there was a period of great depression, in which Nevada fell from first to sixth place among the silver-producing states and Territories. In May 1900, however, very rich deposits of gold and silver were discovered in Nye county, near the summit of the San Antonio Mountains, and a new era began in Nevada’s mining industry. The village of Tonopah sprang into existence as soon as the rush of newcomers to this region began, and in 1903 it contained 4000 inhabitants. In two years $7,000,000 worth of gold and silver had been taken from the Tonopah mines and it was asserted that they would prove as rich as the mines of the Comstock Lode. The Tonopah ores were richer in silver than in gold, the respective values in 1904 and 1905 being approximately in the proportion of three to one. This discovery gave a new impetus to prospecting in south-western Nevada, and it was soon discovered that the district was not an isolated mining region but was in the heart of a great mineral belt. Tonopah is at the outcropping of a number of ledges which continue for several hundred feet below the surface for an unknown distance. In 1902, in Esmeralda county, 24 m. S. of Tonopah, rich ores were found in the Goldfield District, and within three years there were 8000 people in this region. During 1905 the town of Goldfield had a period of mushroom growth, then quieted, and finally revived to a healthy development. The value of the production of the Goldfield District in 1904 amounted to $2,3141,979. This discovery was followed in 1904 by that of the Bullfrog District, in Nye county, 60 m. S.E. of Goldfield, and within ninety days after its birth the village of Bullfrog, although 100 m. from a railway, had an electric-lighting plant, an ice plant and a hotel. In 1905 gold was discovered in Nye county, 29 m. N.E. of Tonopah, in what became known as the Manhattan District, and by March 1906 the village of Manhattan was a mile in length and contained 3000 inhabitants.
After 1902 the production of gold and silver steadily increased, being $4,980,786 in that year, $9,184,996 in 1905, and $16,774,633 in 1907. By far the greater portion of these metals came from the southern part of the state. In production of gold in 1907 Esmeralda county ranked first with $8,533,617 (nearly 70% of the total); Nye county’s output was $1,547,408, Lincoln county’s $929,775, and Storey county’s a little more than $250,000. In the production of silver Nye county ranked first in 1907 ($3,667,973, of which $3,544,788 was from Tonopah), Churchill county second ($432,617, from Fairview, Wonder and Stillwater), and Eureka county (with lead silver ores) and Storey county were third and fourth respectively. Copper, lead and zinc are produced in small quantities, being found in fissure veins with gold and silver. In 1907 the production of copper was 1,782,571 ℔, valued at $356,514. The output of lead in 1907 was 6,271,341 ℔ (valued at $322,381). The output of zinc was 2,168,783 ℔ (valued at $127,958).
Other minerals exist in great variety. Salt deposits are extensive and commercially important in Washoe and Churchill counties. After 1900 the production of salt rapidly increased up to 1906, when it was 11,249 bbls.; in 1907 it was only 6457 bbls., all graded as “common coarse” and all obtained by solar evaporation from brine. Borax marshes are numerous in the west and south-west, but they are no longer commercially productive. Large beds of mica are found in the east. Gypsum occurs in a number of places, the best known being in the north-west. Veins of antimony are worked in the Battle Mountain District and in Bullion Canyon, 15 m. south of Mill City. There are veins of bismuth near Sodaville. A little graphite is produced in Humboldt county. A sub-bituminous lignite is mined in Esmeralda county (800 tons in 1906; 330 tons in 1907). Considerable quantities of the following minerals have been found: barytes (heavy spar), magnetite (magnetic iron ore), and pyrolusite (manganese dioxide) in Humboldt county; roofing slate in Esmeralda county; cinnabar (ore containing quicksilver) in Washoe county; haematite in Elko and Churchill counties; cerussite and galena (lead ores) in Eureka county; and wolframite (a source of tungsten) at Round Mountain, White Pine county. In 1903 and 1907 Nevada ranked second among the American states in the production of sulphur, but its output is very small in comparison with that of Louisiana.
Manufactures.—The manufacturing interests of Nevada are unimportant. Of the manufacturing establishments in the state in 1900, 109, or 47·8%, were situated in Reno, Carson City and Virginia City, named in the order of their importance. These places employed 35·9% of the labour engaged in manufacturing, and the value of their products was 38·8% of the total for the state. Manufactures based on the products of mines and quarries (chemicals, glass, clay, stone and metal works) constituted about one-fifth of the whole product. Car construction and general shop work of steam railways was the leading manufacturing industry in 1905; next in importance were the flour and grist milling industry and the printing and publishing of newspapers and periodicals. Such statistics of the special census of manufactures (under the factory system) of 1905 as are comparable with those of 1900 show 99 factories in 1900 and 115 in 1905, an increase of 16·2%. Their capital in 1900 was $1,251,208 and in 1905 $2,891,997, an increase of 131·1%. The value of their products in 1900 was $1,261,005, and in 1905, $3,096,274, an increase of 145·5%.
Transportation.—In its industrial development Nevada has always been hampered by lack of transportation facilities. There are no navigable waterways, and the railway mileage is small. Until the completion of the trans-continental railway in 1869, wagon trains were the only means of transporting the products of the mines across the desert. An unsuccessful attempt was made, beginning in 1861, to domesticate the camel for this purpose.[2] The railway mileage in 1880 was 739 m.; in 1890, 923 m.; in the following decade railway building was at a standstill. Since 1900, however, there has been considerable development, and the total mileage on the 1st of January 1909, was 1,866·92 m. The state is crossed from east and west by three main lines of railway, parts of the great transcontinental systems, the Southern Pacific and the Western Pacific in the northern part of the state and the San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake in the southern. The oldest of these trunk lines, the Southern Pacific (formerly the Central Pacific), follows the course of the Humboldt and Truckee rivers. It is met at several points by lines which serve the rich mining districts to the south; at Cobre by the Nevada Northern from Ely in White Pine county in the Robinson copper mining district; at Palisade by the Eureka & Palisade, a narrow-gauge railway, connecting with the lead and silver mines of the Eureka District; at Battle Mountain by the Nevada Central, also of narrow gauge, from Austin; at Hazen by the Nevada & California (controlled by the Southern Pacific) which runs to the California line, connecting in that state with other parts of the Southern Pacific system, and at Mina, Nevada, with the Tonopah & Goldfield, which runs to Tonopah and thence to Goldfield, thus giving these mining regions access to the Southern Pacific’s transcontinental service; and at Reno, close to the western boundary, by the Virginia & Truckee, connecting with Carson City, Minden, in the Carson Valley, and Virginia City, in the Comstock District, and by the Nevada-California-Oregon, projected to run through north-eastern California into Oregon, in 1910, in operation to Alturas, California. The Western Pacific railway, completed in 1910, extending from Salt Lake City to San Francisco, and running entirely
- ↑ Apart from their commercial uses, the Sutro Tunnel and the shafts of the Comstock Lode have been employed for scientific investigations, with the object of classifying igneous rocks, determining the variations of temperature, and the character of electrical manifestations beneath the earth’s surface, and the relation between the structure of rocks and their rate of cooling.
- ↑ It is interesting to note that in 1875 the Nevada legislature passed an act forbidding camels or dromedaries to run at large. This law remained on the statute books until 1898, when it was formally repealed.
