[R. M. Evans, A Trip to Nevada, Gazlay's Pacific Monthly, March 1865]

 

A TRIP TO NEVADA.

__________

BY R. M. EVANS.

__________

            OUR voyage from New York to San Francisco having terminated, we find ourselves in the Queen City of the Pacific, and before we set out on our trip to Washoe, let us wander a little through the city. On reaching Montgomery street, you are perfectly astonished at the fine, substantial buildings — the banking-houses ; the stores filled with every kind of goods, from the richest dress-lace or tiara of diamonds ; the magnificent hotels, equal to and as well kept as any in the Eastern States. You exclaim, Can it be so ? The busy hum of trade greets the ear on every side. Warehouses, groaning with merchandise from every quarter of the globe; machine-shops, foundries, ship-building, carriage-factories, railroads, and every branch of industry, are to be found here in as great perfection as in any Eastern State—the people all busy at their various employments; the school-houses thronged with happy, healthy children ; the harbor filled with shipping ; markets groaning with every luxury, summer and winter, and that in a place only a few years ago a wilderness. You exclaim : What a rapid progress, truly, California has made !

            But as we are ready for a trip to Washoe now, (State of Nevada,) we will take the steamer Chrysopolis at Broadway Wharf, for Sacramento—a finer craft never floated—fare five dollars. We start at four o'clock P. M. ; so let us secure our berths. Steaming out into the bay, we have a fine view of San Francisco on the hills, and take a look around us—the Contra Costa Hills, Alcatras Island, with its frowing batteries; the beautiful bay, extending south nearly as far as San José ; and making our way into San Pablo Bay, north, we pass on till we reach Mare Island, the naval depot of the Pacific. Here Uncle Sam has erected fine ship-yards for repairing his extensive navy, and a large number of men are daily employed on all the works of a great navy-yard. You then pass on until you reach Benicia; here also is the Pacific Mail Steamship Company's depot. All the way up the Sacramento River you pass fishing-stations. Here is the finest salmon-catching part of the river, and Buena Vista is a regular fishing-station. You arrive in Sacramento early in the morning. This city is the capital of California—a poor location for a city, however, as experience in the way of floods has practically demonstrated.

            You take the cars here for Folsom at six o'clock A. M. All the country from Sacramento to Folsom is fine bottom-land, fine

(212)

A TRIP TO NEVADA.          213

farms and gardens; and on reaching Folsom, we take the Pioneer line of stages for Placerville. It is a most tedious road to Placerville ; the dust is prodigious, the passengers endeavoring to escape the torment in every conceivable manner. However, we arrive, after a tedious journey, in the city of Placerville, right side up with care. The city is finely situated in a fine mountain-valley, surrounded by high hills, and was esteemed the richest spot for the miner of early times; it is a beautiful place, having gardens and orchards encircling the houses, and on the hillsides vineyards are coming to a state of great perfection— plenty of fine hotels, of stone, brick or wood ; stores well supplied, with every thing that can be wanted ; fine livery-stables, and plenty of private ones—as the good folks of Placerville enjoy themselves hugely.

            This place has improved wonderfully since the hegira to Washoe, as every thing had to pass through it to reach there.  The merchants become wealthy, and no mountain town enjoys a more prosperous trade. The streets are lined with wagons, already laden with goods for Nevada ; it has numerous hydraulic mines, and you see the hills half-washed away in many places.  An immense amount of wealth has been taken out by the hydraulic process, and still yields well to the industrious miner.

            Of course, we will stop for the night at the Cary House—it being the stage-house to resume our jaunt in the morning. The longest part of the journey is yet before us.

            Along the road from Placerville are five stations, and we cross the south fork of the American River at Brooklis Bridge. All along the route the scene is nobly grand on both sides of the river, and we will enjoy it in recollection in after years. Look at that old visionary castle, towering and looming up like a castle on the Rhine ; you almost see the windows, and the folks stirring around. On the left side of the road are plenty of huge boulders. I named some of them, from their strange shapes, as early as 1860, the Senate-Chamber, the Hall of Congress, the Pulpit, and Altar; and some of them are known by these names yet.

            We proceed to Strawberry Valley ; this is the house of the road. Now, you would suppose, from its name, that you would get strawberries and cream here, but such is not, unfortunately, the case. It lies in the cleft of high hills—cold all summer—and strawberries would not grow here. It was called Strawberry after two brothers, who kept houses in this vicinity, on the road, of the name of Berry : one kept beds, the other had the floor of his house spread with straw; and being the best part to start from, so as to get over the summit in daylight, his place was called Strawberry. This place is noted for its large fire-place; and it is a rouser —big enough to keep all in the house warm on the coldest night. From here there is a fine road all the way to Tom Adrains—the last house before descending into Lake Valley. On reaching the summit, you have a fine view of Lake Tehoe, or what was once known as Lake Bigler ; so called after Fat John, once on a time Governor of California. You see this vast sea—forty miles long, fifteen miles in average width, and but six thousand two hundred and sixty feet above the level of the sea; the average soundings one thousand five hundred feet. You see, also, from this point Pyramid Peak, a rock shaped like a helmet. Looking down into Lake Valley, you would imagine it a finely laid out garden, finely watered and fantastically arranged, as if by the hand of man.

            Now hold your breath while we descend into Lake Valley, a beautiful fertile spot—fine farms and gardens. The road winds down the hills thousands of feet below the summit, very abruptly and steep, but a fine road all the way, and you reach a place called Yanks, change horses, take a glass of old rye, and on for Lake Tehoe, touching it at the south end, and at the house erected by Van Waggner in early Washoe times. Of late years, the shores of the lake have been much improved, and fine hotels have been erected. This lake is a great resort in summer-time for parties from all parts of California and Washoe. Now they have steamers, schooners and sailing-boats, for fishing-excursions. The trout caught here is delicious, and celebrated on the whole Pacific coast; many

214      GAZLAY'S PACIFIC MONTHLY.

of them weigh from twenty to thirty pounds, but the best eating are from four to six pounds. This is no fish-story, but an absolute fact.

            The steamers are to connect the Georgetown road on the west of the lake with the King's Cañon road on the east, which extends over the eastern summit, descending into Carson City at the upper end, where, having arrived, let us stop at the Ormsby House, rest our weary bones, and recruit our inner man. We are now in Washoe.

            Carson City, in 1858, was a place where the emigrant from the Eastern States, on the road to California, stopped to recruit himself and cattle for a start over the Sierra Nevada. Captain Ormsby and Jerry Long kept a store here, and supplied the trains with every thing they required. There were few settlers in these early days. The first pioneers of Carson bought up the land from a few Mormon settlers. The pioneers were Abraham Curry, Frank Proctor, Sayer Brothers, Phillips, Green, Comstock, Goodrich, and others. It was a hard winter for them in 1859: although a good many had joined them very late in the fall, there was very little accommodation for man or beast—hay selling for two hundred and fifty dollars per ton, and that only to be had at Van Sickles, near Genoa, in Carson Valley, fourteen miles from Carson.

            Carson City of 1864 is quite a large and important place. It has a large trade with all parts of the State, has the finest site for a town in the whole territory, and is, at present, the capital. A large quarry of stone having been discovered by Abraham Curry, the place now boasts of splendid stores, court-houses, and dwellings, built of this stone; fine hotels, family mansions, beautiful cottages, and, indeed, a place for Nevada to be proud of. It stands four thousand six hundred and fifteen feet above the level of the sea, has a fine climate, and the best water of any place in Nevada. They have fine stables of racehorses, a good course, and plenty of the oro.

            Let us jog on toward Virginia City, seventeen miles distant. We first reach Curry's warm spring, two miles east from the town. This is a great resort for drinking the water and bathing: it possesses great medicinal qualities. Here is the great territorial prison, an immense stone edifice. It was built for strength, although only for Curry's own house. The prisoners work in the quarry, which is in the yard adjoining. A railroad connects the prison with Carson City, for the conveyance of the stone. Curry is the most enterprising man in Carson, and the people are indebted to him for the progress the city has made.

            We now start for Empire City, (or Dutch Nicks,) called after an old settler in 1860. It originally contained but two houses ; now fine mills are erected for sawing lumber and crushing quartz—the Mexican mill, a most extensive affair, grinding the rock from their claim in Virginia City. Here you hear, for the first time in the Territory, the ponderous stamps going day and night. Teams are going continually to the mine for rock to be crushed and the precious metals extracted. The Winters, Aitchenson and Mead mills, and others, are here, and it is now quite a place of importance ; it is situated on Carson River, northeast from Curry's. In a northerly direction; you pass over a fine road to the half-way house toward Silver City, through Spring Valley, and begin to ascend what is called the backbone of the range, on which the Comstock lode is found. A fine road has been finished all the way. You pass by the Daney Company's lode, and continue along till you come to the Cañon, on which road we will pass the mills at work—Gold Cañon being the one that drains Silver City, American Flat and Gold Hill. The Cañon is full of mills, crushing the quartz from all the above places. The great want here is water ; but that is being supplied in greater abundance, as the Gold Hill and Virginia Tunnel Company drain the mines. On it is located Silver City, about half way between Virginia City and Dayton, on the Carson River. Silver City is almost entirely dependent on the surrounding country for her support. Some of the finest mills in the country lie within her limits. Having a great abundance of granite and other building material, fine blocks of buildings have been erected, fire-proof, and very substantial; the private residences are tasty,

A TRIP TO NEVADA.          215                                                    

and many are adorned by both fruit and shade trees. All along the Cañon to Devil's Gate are mills at work on quartz from the various districts around. French's mill, situate in American Ravine, in Silver City, was built in 1860—size of building, ninety by seventy-five feet. It has twenty stamps and sixteen pans, with an engine of sixty-horse power, and reduces twenty to thirty tons of rock per day. There are a great many mills in this vicinity doing well, and a hundred others could have plenty of employment. To a person who never saw a quartz-mill at work, he can have no idea of the noise and clatter it makes ; the deafening sound, compelling great exertion to be heard; and I assure you a person needs all his breath here, for the rarefied air makes breathing pretty difficult.        

            Well, save your breath, and let us walk on to American City—American Flat — a flourishing place, only a few months old, boasting of churches and hotels. Residences have been erected as if by magic. There I am going to take you into an alabaster cave.

            Among the hills, west of American Flat, there is an extensive limestone formation, worn and crowded into precisely similar shapes as the limestone that forms so peculiar a feature in the geology of the counties of Tuolumne, Calaveras and Amador, of California. But a short distance from this limestone there is a beautiful cave of alabaster, from the roof of which, when first discovered, hung long pendent stalactites, of snowy whiteness and rare beauty, which visitors have, from time to time, carried away. The alabaster in this cave is so soft that it can be cut with a pen-knife. When a curious spot like this is discovered it should be made town property, and properly protected ; for the outside barbarian, who has no love for the beauties of nature, always carries off portions of the rock, and destroys the whole. My friend just pocketed a piece. I hope he will read this, and profit thereby.

            A short time ago it was predicted that the improvements would be such in this region that there would be a street lined with buildings for a distance of nearly eight miles. There is now no complete or dividing space between Virginia and Gold Hill, American and Silver City ; and the rapidity with which the intervening spaces have been built up is truly astonishing. These facts are remarkably strong in support of the opinion, that the time is not far distant when the main street of Virginia City will present a continuous double row of buildings from the north end of the city to Dayton. The next place we reach is Gold Hill in the Cañon.  

            Gold Hill is emphatically a mining town. The ground underneath Virginia City is honey-combed by tunnels, drifts and excavations, which extend in every direction. But still there is little to be seen above the surface to give a stranger any idea of what is going on below. The streets and houses present the same appearance as the streets and houses of any other city, and it is only in a few localities in the outskirts of the town, as in the vicinity of the Ophir or Mexican lodes, that evidences of mining, carried on to any great extent, are to be seen. To be sure, wagons, hauling immense loads of quartz, are passing continually; but where their contents are procured is only a matter of conjecture.           

            But Gold Hill presents a far different aspect. All along the east side of the town huge piles of dirt, debris and pulverized quartz are visible, which have been raised out of the mines and left upon the ground, while the more valuable rock has been taken to the mill for crushing. In the hoisting-houses erected over the shafts, machinery is in constant operation, night and day, the screaming of steam-whistles is heard, and successive carloads of ore are run over railroads upon trestle-work, and sent down long, narrow chutes into wagons below, with a noise perfectly deafening. Leaving there, and passing through the town, the ears of the visitor are everywhere assailed by the thunder of stamps crushing in the mills and the clatter of machinery, until one would fain believe himself in a large manufacturing village in the New England States. The quartz-teams you see in Virginia City have tripled in number, and in places the streets are jammed with them, carrying loads of rich ore to the mills at Devil's Gate, Silver City and Carson River. As        

216      GAZLAY'S PACIFIC MONTHLY.

night draws on, and a shift of hands takes place, the workmen, who, for a number of hours, have been many hundred feet under ground, timbering up drifts or tearing down masses of glittering quartz, which compose the ledge, appear, and this conversation is utterly unintelligible to a stranger unacquainted with the locality and condition of the different claims. Remarks concerning the Sandy Bowers, the Plato, Uncle Sam, or Bullion, are Chinese to him; and he learns their position and character as he would acquire a knowledge of the streets and buildings of a strange city. If Gold Hill presents a singular aspect in the day-time, its appearance from the Divide at midnight is absolutely startling. Work at the mines, in the hoisting-houses and quartz-mills, is carried on without intermission or cessation ; and the flashing of lights, the noise of steam-engines and machinery, contrasted with the silence and gloom of the surrounding mountains, make up a strange and almost unearthly picture, and puts him in mind of what he has read of the residence of the "Gentleman in Black."

            The mines in Gold Hill proper are said to be very rich. We visited some of them, and were surprised at the extent of the work done. Every thing here looks as if fortunes had been spent, but the rich returns have warranted the outlay. Here we found banking-houses, refiners, assayers, and every business connected with mining ; every one attending to his own business. We will now go up the Divide, between Gold Hill and Virginia City.

            Virginia City, as you see it, coming over the Divide, has a strange look, and you are quite startled at the view before you. You are at once astonished at the size and importance of the City of the Hills, a place but of yesterday ; now second only to San Francisco on the Pacific coast.

            Virginia City differs from the towns you have passed through, because it is so much larger. It is built at the foot, or rather on the side, of Mount Davidson—all the principal mines are inside the city limits. The Gould & Curry tunnel is in the very center of the city, (see " Evans's Map of Virginia Mines,") although its mill is two miles away. The city which lies on the side of Mount Davidson is one mass of excavations and tunnels. There is a bluish earth, which is obtained from the mines, and this is dumped at the mouth of the tunnels ; so that the city, at a distance, seems speckled with these blue spots. The city boasts of fine buildings; stores filled with every luxury—every thing that can be procured for money. Day and night the mills are crushing the ore, making a deafening noise ; the silver bricks are carted around, as the people of the East do ordinary bricks, literally speaking.

            Now let us descend into the bowels of the earth ; and as going down a shaft will be a novelty to you, we will try the experiment, and get a little nearer to the regions of Pluto. We will descend by one in the old primitive way, where you put your foot in a bight at the end of a rope. Let us suppose the shaft to be two hundred feet deep, and two men at the windlass. Place yourself upon the platform which covers the mouth of the shaft. Nearly the whole of the rope is wound round the windlass, except a few feet that hangs over the abyss, with a noose on the end. You grasp the rope with one hand, having a candle in the other, and the men begin to lower away. Here the fun begins. You trust yourself to the rope—at first with confidence, but immediately you lose that, and feel an all- overishness, as if you would back out, but you do not like to. Now the windlass begins to revolve, and down you go into the darkness, like one sinking into the waters of the sea. Down, down you go, not steadily, but by short, unpleasant jerks. You are utterly powerless and helpless, feeling certain that you are dangling at the end of a most rotten, worn out rope, certain it will break if you wink your eyes or draw a breath. Your foot strikes the side of the shaft— a sort of galvanic shock runs through your frame, and you shiver, and grasp the rope much tighter than ever, as if that would prevent your swinging across the shaft, and striking against the opposite wall, where you plainly see you are going. You would stick out your right foot, and keep yourself off but you are afraid to try it. Bump you go against the wall, and start, catch your breath, and start across

A TRIP TO NEVADA.          217

against the opposite wall. You do not fancy this, and try to prevent it happening again. Delightful feeling — very ! Now you go round, first one way, then the other way, like an orange at the end of a string. It is rather unpleasant; and another motion troubles you--you are going down, down. Pretty soon you get back to the pendulum motion again, and go bang against the wall ; then, as you go down by nervous and stated jerks, in sympathy with the cranks above, you spin about again. Your candle flares about strangely—sometimes almost going out, and again giving out a streak of flame, apparently to your excited imagination several feet in length. You vote it a bore, and would drop it, only you are afraid that the rope will break if you do so. Finally, with all this whirling and thumping, you become bewildered, and imagine you have descended several miles. At last, just as you are about to give up, and consider yourself as one doomed to descend forever toward the center of the earth, without reaching it, your feet touch bottom. You grasp the rope tighter than ever, and take a look, to make certain you have reached terra firma in reality. You continue to hold on until your foot is out of the noose—these fellows above may take a notion to hoist you up again, hanging by the foot. It is wonderful you think of this—yet you do. The workmen come out of the drifts to see who you are, and their lights blind you, and you stagger here and there, winking your eyes like an owl, and looking very sheepish. As you are on solid ground, and may put on airs, without fear of a relapse, you try to appear unconcerned. You say, "How do you do ?" to the miners, in a friendly way, attempt a sickly joke, and wish you was out again. All this lasts about two minutes by the watch —you think it a month.

            Shareholders in our mines have queer notions about the necessary qualifications of superintendents of mines. A successful barber, or an affluent dealer in peanuts, is supposed to possess all the knowledge requisite for the successful working of a mine. They send such men to oversee their mines, and when they fail to make them dividend-paying in the course of six months, sit down and howl against Washoe, rend their beards, tear up their stock, and almost curse God and turn Turks. Now, a case in point, and a fact, as we can prove : A short time ago, a man who was the superintendent of one of our big mining companies walked into one of our principal hardware-stores on C street, Virginia City, and asked for some gads. He was told gads were not kept in hardware-stores, but were made by the blacksmith, who bought the steel from the hardware-merchant.

            " Oh ! no !" said Mr. Rosewater, superintendent of the Grand Nip and Tuck—" Oh! no ! you are mistaken ; there is a whole pile of gads "—pointing to a lot of picks. "Pile of gads !" exclaimed the clerk, poorly concealing his astonishment. " Why, those are picks !" "Oh ! picks, are they ? Well, them's the things I want." No wonder some stockholders in our mines are weary of paying assessments, and weary of waiting. We lately saw some work— a lot of useless inclines and drifts—ordered to be done by one of these imbecile rosewater gents, at a coat of fifteen thousand dollars, which were being filled up as eyesores by the present superintendent, a competent and practical man. Because a man has made a fortune in the soap and axle-grease line, is no reason he should be able to properly develop and manage a mine, or tell a pick from a gad.

            Once again in the streets of Virginia City, we took a look at all the wonders to be seen, and were really astonished at seeing such an immense crowd of people, from every nation and every clime, all eager after their "pile of bricks"--silver; of course. After dinner we wandered into a tunnel, and were soon in a labyrinth of under-ground streets, extending and running in every direction, like the streets of Boston—twists here, there, and in all directions. As we lost our way, we had to be conducted to daylight by a gent we met.

            Now is the time to make the ascent of Mount Davidson. Every one who can afford the time, and labor, and spirit enough for the grand task, ought to make it. You go up the Cañon road, and approach the summit from the rear. Following this route, in company with our friend

218      GAZLAY'S PACIFIC MONTHLY.

and two bottles, we accomplished it. Arrived at the topmost pinnacle of the mountain, a single drink thickened the atmosphere pleasantly, which is very thin up here, and a portion of the light smoke having cleared away, which was waving about in the valleys below, like a blue-crape sea in a theater, a scene of great grandeur and beauty lay spread out before us. Gold Hill and Silver City on the right, Washoe Lake in the background, patriotic hills, of red, white and blue, on the left, the gloomy fortress of the Sugar Loaf in front, and beyond, in the gap of the Cañon, seen as through an open door, the yellow velvet mat of the Desert, with its dilapidated fringe of green trees vaunting the silver thread of Carson River through its tatters; and far in the distance a ghostly pile of snow, looking down at itself in the twin mirrors of Carson Sink and Humboldt Lake. These things were observed while the bottles were elevated at an angle of forty-five degrees. Upon bringing them down to a perpendicular, we happened to catch a glimpse of Virginia City, in miniature, as if seen through the small end of a spy-glass — caught a glimpse of it away down in the dim world below ; but only roofs, nothing but innumerable little squares of flat roofs and dots of chimneys, with no houses under them—like a check-shirt spread out to dry. A dense silence reigned over the mighty picture, intermingling with a subdued throbbing of quartz-mills and the gurgling of champagne. Our emotions were so grand and bewildering, that, had it not been for the wine, we could not have stood it. We only gazed and mused, and whistled in a loose, aimless way, both of us being too full for articulate utterance. We imbibed frequently and often, which made us still more inanimate, " if any thing." At this point we climbed the flagstaff to get a more extensive view.

            And behold the world lay spread out beneath us. The top of the flagstaff is the only place from which a surpassing grand and exceedingly extensive prospect can be obtained, after all. Carson City, reposing in the foreground, Lake Bigler, glittering in the sun behind it, Sacramento City and San Francisco, to the imagination, thrust their steeples into the distant clouds, and even the great Pacific, reduced to a blue ribbon, lay in the verge of the picture.

            To the east, Salt Lake City was indistinctly visible, and Brigham Young and his wives, with their "lots of children," walking in the garden ; and beyond the Rocky Mountains, the great plains lay like a placid sea seen through a simmering mist — the mist growing dense as it extended farther east, until it became a cloud of blackness and shut out the seat of war entirely from view. About this time the world began to turn slowly round— using that flagstaff as an axis—and increasing its speed every moment, until it finally got to spinning round at such a rate that one could not tell Salt Lake from San Francisco, when they whipped by in chase after each other. We recollect nothing that occurred after this, as both of us fainted in the midst of the " whirlwind," and slid down from the flagstaff When we recovered the motion had subsided sufficiently to enable us to roll gradually down the mountain, till we fell into the shaft of the Gould & Curry, when, rubbing our eyes, we opened them on a sight enough to make a man's hair stand on end. We were immediately taken hold of by some of Satan's imps, and hurried into a dreary cavern—Satan himself administering to us something out of a huge black bottle, and asking, in a voice of thunder, whence we came. Gaining courage, we answered : " What's the difference, anyhow ? where the devil are we, old fellow ? " And there stood Charley Strong, the superintendent of the mine, as large as life.

            We will continue, in a future number, our observations around Virginia City and the mines of Nevada generally.