As the walls of his “hotel” were constructed of nothing more substantial than a single thickness of cotton cloth, safer places might have been conceived of, in which to deposit such an amount of gold. At length, when the grand rush from California came, and adventurers of all kinds swarmed along the lode, Mr. Jones refused to any longer act in the capacity of banker to the Ophir folks, as he did not care to run the risk of having his throat cut for gold not his own,—in fact did not want his throat cut at all.
At first it was almost impossible to procure lumber of any kind for building purposes, and the houses erected were principally of canvas; though a few rough stone-houses were soon built and the miners constructed cabins of the rough rocks lying about on the sides of the hills. Many dug holes a few feet square in the sides of steep banks, and covering these with a roof of sage-bush and dirt announced themselves “at home” to their friends.
As winter came on, not a few who had been living in tents or the open air, betook themselves for shelter to the tunnels they had begun to run into the hills; widening out a place at some distance back from the mouth for bedroom and parlor.
Some of those who thus made habitations of tunnels did their cooking in the open air, under a brush-shed placed in front; others, displaying more industry and ingenuity, made a kitchen some distance back in their underground quarters, working a hole up to the surface of the earth, through which the smoke of their fire found egress, presenting the curious appearance of a small semi-active volcano, when seen at a distance by one who knew nothing of the subterranean lodging-house whence the smoke proceeded.
A Scotchman tunnelled into a hill of dry and soft rock near Silver City and excavated a habitation in which he dwelt for years, and in which he finally died. He worked out several chambers of considerable size in the rock, one of which was his library and contained three or four hundred volumes of books, principally of a religious character.
His place was on a secluded ravine, a mile from the town, and he led the life of a hermit; indeed, his home not a little resembled the rock-dwelling of Robinson Crusoe. He had been educated for the ministry in his youth, and now in his old age, became again a student and gave nearly his whole time to pious meditations. During pleasant weather, in summer, the ladies of Silver City frequently visited the recluse on the Sabbath, when, sitting on a bench at the mouth of his subterranean habitation, he would talk beautiful sermons to them.
In 1859, when the discovery of silver was made, the only wagon-road in all the country was the old Emigrant Road; coming in across the Plains, passing through Carson Valley and thence ascending and crossing the Sierra Nevada Mountains to California, by the way of Placerville.
Virginia City being situated on a sort of sloping plateau, on the eastern face of Mount Davidson, at the height of over 6000 feet above the level of the sea, was a place difficult of access. Wagons could be used in the surrounding valleys, but Virginia City could receive no freight except such as could be carried up the mountain on the backs of pack-mules. Soon after the discovery of silver, however, companies located routes for wagon-roads to the place, and began the difficult work of building them, blasting out passage-ways in many places through solid rock along the sides of cañons shut in by almost perpendicular walls. Men swarmed on these roads during their construction, the explosion of heavy blasts was almost constant along the cañons, and it was not many months before they were completed, when lumber, timber, and many other much-needed articles, that could not be packed on the backs of mules, poured into Virginia City whose streets were soon crowded with huge “prairie schooners”—as the great mountain wagons are called—drawn by long lines of mules or horses, all musical with bells.
The completion of a practicable wagon-road to Virginia City was at that time considered a great achievement, but now locomotives rush and shriek round the mountain steeps up which the patient mules tugged and groaned in former days.
While the wagon-roads were being built, the miners were not idle. Supplies for their use could readily be packed up the mountain, and the rich silver ore, securely sewed up in canvas bags, made convenient return loads for the trains of pack-mules. In a month or two the several companies working on the Comstock discontinued the use of rockers and arastras. The richest of their ore was sacked up and sold for shipment to Europe, and that of a lower grade was piled up in dumps and ore-bins to be worked in mills in the country at some future day.