Meantime, while the town was building up, good wagon roads had been constructed in various directions at great cost. A number of fire companies had been organized (provided at first with hand engines, but afterwards with steamers), and Virginia City began to take on the appearance of a real “city,” not only in the number and substantial character of the buildings, and swarms of people it contained, but also in the number of conveniences it afforded, its many societies, churches, schools, theaters, clubs, orders, and organizations, usually considered the necessary adjuncts and requirements of civilized and intelligent communities. There were also several daily and weekly newspapers, telegraph, express, and all other similar offices required by business and mining men, and by the people at large. Indeed, in 1875 the area of the city was as great as at present, and much more populous, as at that time it was estimated to contain 20,000 people. Hundreds and thousands of these, however, were mere birds of passage, being neither business men nor owners of property. At and about Gold Hill at that time it was estimated that there were about 10,000 souls. The two towns, originally a mile apart, were connected by buildings—had grown together. Both towns were filled with mills and mining works, that gave employment to many thousands of miners, mechanics, and workingmen of all grades and classes.
The Great Fire.
Everything was thus flourishing and prosperous—the “Big Bonanza” was yielding its millions, and several other mines were working great and rich bodies of ore—when Virginia City was overwhelmed by a great calamity.
On the morning of October 26, 1875, a fire broke out in a frame lodging-house on A Street, in the western part of the town, just above all the great business blocks, and in a few hours all in an area of half a mile square was laid in ashes. Before the fire was subdued no fewer than 2,000 buildings—including mills, hoisting works, churches, business houses, and structures of all kinds—were swept away. Hundreds of families were left homeless and destitute. Owing to the early hour at which the fire started (six o’clock), and the fearful rapidity with which it spread in all directions, few persons were able to save any of their goods or valuables. In all, property to the value of over $10,000,000 was destroyed. Many great and destructive fires had before swept through and devastated the city, but this was the greatest ever experienced in the place. Scores of buildings that had always been rated as fire-proof melted away in the fervent heat like frost in the rays of the morning sun.
Almost in the start the court-house, the building of the Washoe Club, the International Hotel, and several other large buildings, were ignited and began vomiting pillars of flame that scattered sparks and cinders far and wide. As the fire progressed the millions of feet of lumber and timbers and the thousands of cords of wood about the mining works made fires that could not be successfully combated, and which nothing could withstand. At the Consolidated Virginia Hoisting Works and Mill alone there were on fire at the same moment, and in one mass, 1,250,000 feet of lumber and timbers, and 800 cords of pine wood, not to speak of the two great buildings, and all the stores they contained; also the adjoining assay office, and contents. Across the street the freight and passenger depots of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad Company were sending up immense pillars of flame, while just south Piper’s Opera House, an immense frame structure filled with all manner of very inflammable material, was a volcano, vomiting destruction on all sides. Between and about these large structures a score or more of smaller buildings were belching flames. This was the scene at but one spot. A few rods to the southward three tall churches (Catholic, Methodist, and Episcopal) were sending tongues of flame into the very clouds, amid whole acres of smaller buildings that formed a tumultuous sea of fire. At the same time to the northward the Ophir works, with fifty smaller structures, were wrapped in flame. In the same fierce way the fire was raging over half a mile square of the very heart of the town. Although there were scores of narrow escapes, only two persons lost their lives in the fire, and two or three were afterwards killed by falling walls.
To rebuild the town at once was the universal determination. The insurance on the property destroyed amounted to $2,500,000 (the loss at the Bonanza Mines alone was $1,461,000), which was something to begin with; besides many persons whose property was destroyed had plenty of money left with which to rebuild. There was not a moment’s delay. The next morning the work of clearing away ruins preparatory to putting up new buildings was begun in all parts of the city, water being thrown upon the red-hot bricks to so cool them that they could be handled. Rebuilding began the morning after the fire, and hardly ceased day or night until all the ground of the burnt district had been again covered. The big mining companies were especially active. Although engaged in rebuilding the mills and works destroyed, the Consolidated Virginia Mining Company paid its regular dividends of $10 a share in November and December, the two amounting to $2,160,000. In less than thirty days from the time of the fire new works replaced those destroyed by fire, and the machinery was in place and ore hoisted on Thanksgiving-day. In sixty days after the fire the business streets of the city were rebuilt, and with larger and finer structures than those that had been destroyed. The whole burnt district was so soon covered with new buildings that strangers arriving in the city looked about them in surprise and asked, “Where was your big fire?” That was a busy time on the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, no fewer than forty-five trains a day passing over the road during the great building rush. But for the railroad the city and mining works could not have been rebuilt that year.
Virginia City at Present.
Although Virginia City covers as much ground and contains larger and finer buildings than before the great fire, it is not so populous as in the old flush times of the “Big Bonanza.” In those days every hotel and lodging-house was filled to overflowing; now most of those in the city are permanent inhabitants and property owners—those who formerly composed the grand army of “sports,” adventurers, and idlers have gone to other fields. At present the city contains a population of only about 9,000 persons, but nearly all those now in the place have permanent homes and some legitimate and remunerative employment. As about one-fourth of the male population is constantly at work under-ground in the lower levels of the various mines, the streets do not present so thronged an appearance as those of a non-mining town containing the same number of inhabitants. The place, however, presents a very different appearance on a holiday when all the mining works are shut down and the miners are on the surface.
The first care of the people of the city after rebuilding the place was to guard against the recurrence of such a sweeping conflagration. A number of huge water tanks were constructed high above the town on the side of the mountain, with a proper system of mains and hydrants extending through all parts of the city. The pressure is so great at these hydrants that the firemen are able to throw a stream over the flag-staff of the tallest building in the city through a nozzle of the largest size. A few paid firemen now fight all the fires that occur in the city. As the hydrants are always ready the firemen have only to get to them, attach their hose, and at once they have powerful streams steadily playing on the fire. “Promptness of action” is their motto. They seldom allow a fire to get out of the building in which it originates. Usually they have a fire out before a steam fire-engine could get up steam.
The fire mains are distinct from those which supply water for domestic purposes, and those again from such as furnish water for use at the mills and hoisting works of the mines. There is a system of gates whereby the water may be shut off from the hydrants of any block in the city and turned to any other block or blocks of buildings. This system is so perfect that employes of the water company working in conjunction with the firemen are able to at once turn the water to any part of the city in which it may be required, at the same time shutting it off from all other parts.