Online Nevada Encyclopedia

Adolph Sutro

Sutro Tunnel

Entrepreneur Adolph Sutro believed that a tunnel, excavated to intersect with the lower levels of the Comstock, would efficiently drain and ventilate the mines. After a failed early proposal, he incorporated the Sutro Tunnel Company with a legislative charter in 1865. His astonishing plan called for an excavation 20,489 feet or over three miles in length. It would climb one and a half percent from the Carson River Valley near Dayton, intersecting with Virginia City's mines at the 1,640-foot level.

Jewry and Judaism in Nevada

Jews were among the first to provide the essential mercantile infrastructure for Nevada's mining towns and camps. Their numbers grew to nearly a thousand by the late 1870s. Even as the state's population declined from 1880 to 1910, small numbers of Jews or a single Jewish-owned store could be found in nearly every town and mining camp. The first permanent synagogue was erected in Reno in 1921 and the second in Las Vegas in 1963.

German and Austrian Immigrants

Generalizing about German immigrants living in nineteenth-century Nevada is difficult for several reasons. Before 1870, various German states were autonomous, and people coming from these principalities often identified with individual states more than with the concept of a German nation.

Bank Crowd

"The Bank Crowd" refers to the group of entrepreneurs who dominated the economic life of the Comstock from 1867 to 1875. The name refers to the Bank of California, which was opened in San Francisco, on June 5, 1864, by William C. Ralston and Darius Ogden Mills. Ralston and Mills in November 1864 established a branch in Virginia City, with William Sharon named as manager.

William Sharon

William Sharon played an important role in early Nevada. Born in Ohio on January 9, 1821, he practiced law in St. Louis then pursued business in Illinois. With the 1849 Gold Rush, Sharon traveled to California where he engaged in business and real estate, but he lost his earnings in stock speculation.

Yellow Jacket Disaster

Gold Hill's Yellow Jacket Disaster was probably the worst mining accident in Nevada history. On the morning of April 7, 1869, fire spread at the 800-foot level. As the day crew descended, smoldering timbers collapsed, flooding poisonous air into the Yellow Jacket and neighboring Kentuck and Crown Point Mines. Fortunately, shifts were changing or casualties would have been higher. Nevertheless, survivors described horrible scenes of miners desperately struggling for life.

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