Gold Hill (Comstock)

A mining town on the Comstock

Gold Hill sits in Gold Creek Canyon. The 1991 amendment to the Virginia City Historic District nomination says the steep, rocky terrain shaped the town, and that its main buildings are arranged in a line along the winding single major road, State Highway 341. Gold Hill is one of five communities in that 14,750-acre National Register district.

Sources differ on the details of the founding. HistoryNet says prospectors found the outcrop at the head of Gold Canyon in January 1859, and that it resembled a hill of gold, hence the town’s name. Nevada Expeditions says the town was founded in early 1859, with placer mining under way by April. HistoryNet says miners found silver on the Comstock in June 1859, about a mile north of town. Nevada Expeditions also dates the discovery of the Comstock Lode to June 1859. Nevada Expeditions counts 179 structures and 638 residents by August 1860, and says the town incorporated on December 17, 1862.

Nevada Expeditions says the Virginia and Truckee Railroad was built in 1869. That year was also the year of the Yellow Jacket mine fire. HistoryNet dates the fire to April 7, 1869, and says it killed at least 35 men, possibly up to 45. Nevada Expeditions calls it Nevada’s worst mining accident.

The sources do not agree on when the town peaked. Nevada Expeditions gives about 8,000 people in 1873, and HistoryNet gives roughly 8,000 around 1875. The nomination gives no Gold Hill figure. It says only that the smaller villages had similar, though reduced, growth during the Big Bonanza. HistoryNet says traditional hard-rock mining ended in the late 1880s and counts 191 residents in 2005. Nevada Expeditions says the post office closed in 1943, after 81 years.

What remains

The nomination describes losses through attrition from 1900 to 1942. Sanborn maps from 1907 and 1930 note buildings being moved away and pulled down for fuel yearly, and by 1930 most of the commercial row was vacant or in ruins. The 1873 wood frame schoolhouse burned in the early 1940s. The nomination counts 32 contributing and 25 noncontributing buildings in Gold Hill.

Listed contributing buildings include the Bank of California Building, Vesey’s Hotel (now the Gold Hill Hotel), the Lynch House, the Toll House and the Virginia and Truckee depot. Nevada Expeditions dates the depot to 1872 and the Lynch House to 1869. HistoryNet calls the hotel Nevada’s oldest operating hotel. The same source says the 1880s Yellow Jacket headframe stands on the site of the 1869 fire. Nevada Expeditions reports that the Keystone shaft headframe was torn down around 2011 or 2012. The two headframes are different structures. The nomination also mentions the Houston pit, an open-pit mine in Gold Hill.

Visiting today

Gold Hill is still a lived-in community, and the nomination describes mine buildings and an open pit within it. Most buildings are private or in use, so view them from public roads and do not enter mine works or closed property. HistoryNet says tourist trains occasionally stop at the restored depot. None of the sources give hours, fees or road conditions, so check with the hotel, the railroad and Storey County before going. Leave any artifacts where they are.