Sutro.
Sutro is a town laid off at the mouth of the Sutro Tunnel by Adolph Sutro. Mr. Sutro claimed that his town would kill Virginia City, as all the reduction works would be located there, and all the miners would reside there, passing to and from their work through the tunnel. As there would no longer be any need of anyone remaining in Virginia, the place would be given up to bats and owls—coyotes would sit upon the peak of Mount Davidson and “bay the moon.” Believing Mr. Sutro to have got hold of the mantle of some ancient financial prophet, many persons were induced to flee the “wrath to come” (bats, owls and coyotes), and settle down at the mouth of the tunnel. There was quite a brisk little town there for a few years, but when the tunnel was completed and the miners discharged Sutro’s “bats and owls” came home to roost—they found no rest for the soles of their feet at Virginia. Once the men who had been engaged in driving the tunnel went away, there was nothing more to make or keep up a town than at any other point along the edge of the valley; for the big reduction works promised by Mr. Sutro were never built.