Conflict between western hardrock miners and management has its roots in the Comstock. In May 1863, Comstock miners initiated efforts to form an association. The following year, the Storey County Miners' League became the first sustained attempt at unionization of miners in the American West. Organized during a local depression, the League called for a $4 minimum daily wage for underground work and demanded "closed shops," insisting companies hire only union members.

One of the greatest challenges the mining industry faces is the extraction of resources from ore, the material that encases valuable minerals. This task follows the better known first phase of mining, the retrieval of ore from the surface or underground. During the nineteenth century, Nevada industrialists revolutionized the milling of gold and silver ore.

The 1864 Nevada state constitution called for the founding of a school of mines. The creation of the University of Nevada School of Mines in 1888 makes it one of the oldest in the nation. The institution is a testament to the industry's importance to the state. The name "Mackay" honors Comstock silver baron John Mackay and the philanthropy of his family and especially of his son Clarence. The highly regarded school trained generations of engineers who plied their trade internationally.

Lucius Beebe and his lifelong companion, Charles Clegg, helped restore Virginia City, resuscitated the Territorial Enterprise, and promoted the Virginia and Truckee Railroad. Born in 1902 with Massachusetts aristocratic roots, Beebe flamboyantly disregarded authority from an early age. Although he won Yale's Richard Memorial Prize for Poetry, he was eventually expelled.