History of the big bonanza

by Dan De Quille

To rebuild the town was the one thought of all. The next morning after the fire the work of cooling down and clearing away the ruins of buildings was in progress in hundreds of places; lumber was coming in by rail and was being hauled up on the still smoking ground. From that time forward the work went on almost day and night, and in all kinds of weather. A week after the fire a tornado blew down and demolished a great number of the newly erected and partially completed wooden buildings, but the moment the storm ceased the wrecks were cleared away and building was again resumed. The mining companies whose works were destroyed showed undaunted spirit and indomitable energy. The Consolidated Virginia Mining Company’s hoisting-works and mill, and the California Mining Company’s stamp mill, were a loss of over a million dollars at one fell swoop.

The Consolidated Virginia hoisting work’s assay-office, 1,250,000 feet of lumber and timbers, 800 cords of wood and the stock of mining supplies on hand was a loss of $800,000.

The loss by the burning of the Consolidated Virginia mill was $431,000; battery mill of the California Company, $80,000; hoisting-works and building of the Ophir Company $150,000; a total loss to the bonanza mines of $1,461,000. Large as were the losses of the several mining companies they had hundreds of men at work the day after the fire at clearing away the still burning ruins preparatory to immediate rebuilding. There was not a moment’s hesitation.

In November the Consolidated Virginia Company declared their usual dividend (No. 19), of $10 per share on their capital stock, aggregating $1,080,000; and again in December a dividend (No. 20), amounting to the same great sum was declared. Thus did this Crœsus of mining companies pay out to stockholders the princely sum of $2,160,000 during the time they were engaged in the costly business of rebuilding their works and filling them with expensive machinery. That they could do this must seem incredible to persons unacquainted with the almost inexhaustible deposits of rich ore in the bonanza mines.

The withholding of one of these dividends would have furnished more than enough money to have rebuilt both hoisting-works and mill, but having millions in sight in the lower levels of the mine which could be rapidly taken out when once the works were again running, the company gave the stockholders their regular dividends, just as though nothing had happened. The California Company had both their stamp-mill and their pan-mill almost completed and in a short time, but for the fire, would have been extracting ore. Their pan-mill (an improvement on the big mill of the Consolidated Virginia Company), one of the finest in existence, was saved, being nearly half a mile to the eastward of the mine and the scene of the fire. The shafts of the Ophir and Consolidated Virginia mines were blocked up and filled in with earth about their mouths when it was seen that the buildings covering them were doomed to destruction, yet the fire worked its way some distance down the latter and was with difficulty extinguished. Had the fire reached the immense masses of timbers in the underground works it would perhaps have gone through the whole of the mines on the northern part of the Comstock range, when the loss would have been many times greater than that of all that was destroyed on the surface, counting in all that was swept away in the town as well as on and about the mines.

In San Francisco the wildest excitement prevailed on California Street[Street] and, indeed, in all parts of the city as soon as it become generally known that a great fire was raging in Virginia City, and that the mining-works were in danger. Those who first received news of the fire did not make it public, but began selling their stocks on the street. Ophir, which closed at $52.75 on Monday evening, October 25, was offered, Tuesday morning, October 26, at $50, and considerable amounts of the stock were sold at this figure. As the news spread all stocks fell, and before the panic ended Ophir sold as low as $36 per share, but before night rallied to $41. Thousands upon thousands of shares of stocks were sold on California Street[Street] (the grand rallying place for dealers in stocks) before the Stock-Boards opened, the street being a surging mass of pale-faced and excited humanity. In the San Francisco Board, when the calling of the list of stocks began the place instantly became a perfect bedlam.

In the evening, when the full extent of the damage done by the fire had reached San Francisco, the people became quiet and began to gain courage. They reasoned that although the surface-works of the leading companies had been destroyed the mines were still there and as rich as the day before the fire; that the resumption of the extraction of ore was only a matter of time and all would be going on as usual in from forty to sixty days. Finally all retired for the night, greatly reassured, and the terrible panic was over. The people of San Francisco were correct in their estimate of the energy of the men who were at the head of the affairs of the mining companies—Col. James G. Fair and John Mackey, of the Consolidated Virginia and California, and Capt. S. T. Curtis, of the Ophir. In less than thirty days new buildings stood in the place of those that had been burned, both at the Consolidated Virginia and Ophir mines; and on Thanksgiving Day, just thirty days after the fire, the hoisting engine of the latter was started up amid the rejoicings of some hundreds of persons who had collected at the works, and (merely to be able to say that it was done) a few car-loads of ore were hoisted from the 1,300 foot level, though the business of regularly hoisting ore was not resumed until after the starting of the large pump and the proper draining of the mine, some time afterwards.

Before the expiration of the sixty days allowed (by close calculators at the time of the fire) for the rebuilding of the Consolidated Virginia hoisting-works, they were not only put up in better style in all respects than before the fire, but they were again taking out ore at the rate of over $1,500,000 per month. The Ophir Company were also soon after hoisting ore as before the fire, and ere long the work of extracting the vast stores of immensely rich ore (hitherto untouched) standing in great squares in the mine of the California Company was begun, giving full employment to the splendid mill of that company and, with the yield from the Consolidated Virginia, adding $3,000,000 per month to the hard-money wealth of the world.

In order to guard against a recurrence of such a calamity as that described in this chapter, the people of Virginia City at once set about the construction of a series of large reservoirs upon the side of the mountain above their town which, with a proper system of mains and hydrants, should afford them better protection against fire than they had ever before enjoyed. In sixty days after the fire the principal streets running through the burnt districts were again lined with business houses, the majority of which were of a better class than those destroyed, and dwellings once more covered what a few weeks before a good deal resembled the bottomless pit. The gap left in the city by the fire was again filled, and was not readily distinguished by strangers, except by its striking resemblance to a new patch placed on a pair of old pantaloons.

But for the Virginia and Truckee[Truckee] Railroad all this work could not have been done in a year. Indeed it would have taken the whole winter, with all the teams that could be pressed into the service, to have hauled from the mills in the mountains sufficient lumber to rebuild the mining-works alone. Nearly all of those whose homes were destroyed would have been obliged to seek shelter in California, and it would have been a difficult matter to bring in enough provisions and other supplies to comfortably keep such as remained in those parts of the city left intact.