Land, mine

Harsh, stark and beautiful, the Nevada landscape has been a challenge for its inhabitants for thousands of years. While native tribes were able to live off the land in a sustainable lifestyle long before settlers arrived, the unpredictable weather and diverse ecosystem made conventional agriculture and exploration difficult. And to the outsider, the state didn’t offer much for enterprising folk seeking opportunity prior to the Gold Rush.

Alfred S. Doten, a Comstock journalist known for his Gold Rush ventures in California, called Nevada “a territory good for mining but not worth living in.” (In this quote, he’s referring to the Dayton area—sorry, Daytonians.)

Despite this, Nevada was once a hub for industry and development, according to William D. Rowley, an expert on Nevada history. Nevada inhabitants in the 1800s saw the land as an opportunity—and once precious metals were discovered, it wasn’t long before the Great Basin flourished.

“Nevada began from the ground up—literally,” Rowley said.

Rowley, also the Griffen Professor of Nevada and Western History at the University of Nevada, Reno, has written extensively on the subject of building and digging Nevada. On Dec. 4, Rowley gave a talk about Nevada’s transformation from boom to bust. The lecture was part of the Special Collections and University Archives Department exhibit, Can You Dig It? Building Nevada. Special Collections, part of UNR’s libraries department, facilitates exhibits on the notable history events and movements of the Great Basin. Can You Dig It? opened on Oct. 23, and features photographs, postcards, blueprints and other original and replicated documents tracking the development of industry from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s.

While much of this development was focused on mining, transportation also boomed. Any and all transportation options were explored—trolleys, highways, trains, and even station wagons made to hold up to eight people. The exhibit covers progress in this area, showcasing events such as the Lincoln Highway Association, established in 1913, which focused on building extensive highways throughout the West.

With mining came machinery, which enabled large-scale infrastructure projects and ways to better harness the landscape. In 1906, the Newlands Reclamation Act—facilitating construction of dams in Western American rivers—was founded. Although many of the documents featured evoke a sense of hope for the future—technology, expansion and innovation promised progress and profit—the boom inevitably busted.

Rowley refers to this as “the burden of the Comstock.”

“The boom of the Comstock involved a bust,” he said. “It refers to the boom of mining.”

This rendered many projects on the brink of success into ghost towns—notably, the town of Sutro in Lyon County. Founded by German-born Adolph Sutro, the town hosted the six-mile long Sutro Tunnel Co. When the tunnel was completed in 1878, the town was abandoned soon after. Other towns followed suit. While Virginia City is now primarily a haven for history buffs and tourists, it was “once the largest city between San Francisco and Chicago,” Rowley said.

Rowley acknowledges that some perceived—and still perceive—mining as an “evil enterprise,” he also notes that, despite the crash, it helped project Nevada into the 20th century.

“Building and digging in the earth requires engineering and ingenuity,” Rowley said. “There was this notion that ’We’re going to have to build something or dig something out of the earth.’ You aren’t going to grow it.”