Online Nevada Encyclopedia

William Sharon

Virginia City and Gold Hill

Virginia City was known as the Queen of the Comstock, the internationally famous mining district. Founded in 1859, the settlement was the focus of a gold rush and within a year, it became the region's largest community, a status it maintained in Nevada into the 1890s. Virginia City was incorporated under the Utah Territory in 1861.

Joseph Goodman

Joseph Goodman was born in Masonville, New York in 1838. He traveled to California with his father in 1856 and secured employment with Rollin Daggett, typesetting for The Golden Era, a San Francisco literary weekly. Goodman met fellow-printer Denis McCarthy, and the two traveled to Virginia City in 1861, where they acquired interests in the Territorial Enterprise.

Welsh: Nineteenth-Century Immigrants from Wales

For centuries, the Welsh gained international fame as miners. Nevertheless, they were slow to come to Nevada's mines. This was largely due to the fact that coal dominates Wales's industry, giving its workers experience more useful in the coal fields of the eastern United States than in western hard rock mines.

Comstock Mining District

In 1849 while passing through the Great Basin to California, Abner Blackburn discovered gold at the junction of Gold Canyon and the Carson River, a place eventually called Dayton. He continued on his way, but his find marked the area for future exploration. The next year, placer miners began working gold-bearing sands in Gold Canyon.

Comstock Lode

The Comstock Lode is one of the most important mining discoveries in American history, in output and in significance. It was the first major silver discovery in United States history: of the total ore taken out from the district, best estimates are that 57 per cent was silver, yet it was a considerable gold camp, given that the remaining 42 per cent was of that metal.

Bonanza Group

The term Bonanza Group, together with the names "Big Four" and the "Irish Four," refers to a group of immigrants who outmaneuvered William Sharon and broke the monopoly of his Bank of California until they controlled much of the Comstock Lode.

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 Chapman Ralston

William Ralston was a California investor who assembled the means to monopolize the Comstock Lode during the 1860s. Born in Ohio in 1826, Ralston moved to San Francisco in 1854 and became a rising star as part owner in a steamship company. Beginning in 1860, he turned his attention and his investments to Comstock mines.

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.

William Stewart

William Stewart was the most prominent lawyer in the early years of the Comstock, and he represented Nevada as an important, controversial United States senator for twenty-eight years. Born in rural New York State, he briefly attended Yale before leaving for the California gold fields in 1850. His attempts at mining were not particularly successful, so he studied law and entered politics, serving for a time as Acting Attorney General of California.

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