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Mark TwainA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
By the time Twain makes his journey in Roughing It, the California Gold Rush has already ended. However, a new discovery of precious ore is about to send another wave of young adventurers westward. In 1859, the Comstock Lode was found beneath the slopes of Mount Davidson in Virginia City, Nevada. This deposit was the first significant silver ore discovery in America. To this day, Nevada ranks second only to Alaska as the greatest silver producer in the nation. The first bonanza of the Comstock Lode, the Ophir vein, would ultimately produce 70,000 tons of silver before being depleted in 1864. Five other bonanzas would follow within the first five years of the Comstock Lode’s discovery. Because the lode runs beneath the streets of Virginia City, an entire infrastructure developed at a subterranean level to support mining activities.
The news of the silver strike created another westward wave of immigrants eager to cash in. Twain arrived in Nevada in 1861 and was active in mining during the peak early years of the silver boom. It wasn’t necessary to work for a large mining operation to strike it rich. With silver ore veins branching out everywhere in the surrounding area, people in town begin staking claims to wildcat mines in their own backyards or root cellars. Most of these amounted to nothing more than speculative fancy, but every miner with a claim, no matter how small, could issue stock certificates. With newcomers to the area who were eager to share in the profit, stock prices soared, and paper millionaires abounded. In some ways, the silver boom was analogous to the dot-com bubble of the 1990s or the cryptocurrency bubble of the late 2010s. Twain himself amassed a significant amount of valuable stock but failed to sell it off before the bubble burst.
The silver boom attracted a certain type of person to Virginia City. The newcomers were largely young men who were willing to take risks. In addition, the promise of wealth attracted desperados. Crime was common, and murder was an everyday occurrence. While law courts existed, they rarely convicted or executed murderers. The cliché of a gunslinger out to build a reputation by “killing his man” found its real-life counterpart in the toughs who came to Virginia City to establish themselves.
The silver boom resulted in a peak population of 25,000 in Virginia City in the mid-1870s. However, by 1878, it was evident that the lode was being depleted. When the silver rush ended, Virginia City’s population decreased accordingly. Today, the city is home to only 787 people. While not precisely a ghost town, its dramatic decline parallels the boom-and-bust cycle that affected many gold rush towns in California and other silver boom towns in Nevada. Today, Virginia City’s economy depends on tourism. It attracts visitors eager to relive the glory days of the silver strike. Twain captures the essence of that time and of those men quite adeptly in Roughing It:
It was a driving, vigorous, restless population in those days. It was a curious population. It was the only population of the kind that the world has ever seen gathered together, and it is not likely that the world will ever see its like again (415).
By Mark Twain