Outposts of Civilization
Sketches of Early-Day Camps, People, and Happenings

The Big Bonanza

The designation heading this article has sometimes been applied to the whole great Comstock lode.  
More properly, however, it was originally used to designate one huge find of under-ground 
unlimited wealth, as set forth in the following:

James G. Fair was superintendent of the Hale and Norcross and Savage mines, while Mr. Mackey had 
charge of other mines on Gold Hill.  The Hale and Norcross and Savage mines had a vast amount of 
undeveloped ground.  Mr. Fair, like the wise and far-seeing manager he was, ran lateral drifts 
and crosscuts all about him searching for the hidden ore bodies he believed to exist there.  
Incidentally by a long and confusing circuitous route he drove a drift to the undeveloped 
territory lying north of him.

He encountered ore - he expected it or he probably would not have driven there for it.  He had a 
splendid boss in this part of the mine, a man who held the highest admiration for his 
superintendent and his phenomenal "nose for ore."  He also attended stricley to his own business 
and never alloved the secrets of the  underground world within his charge to escape him.  One 
morning when the drift had a full face of seemingly good ore Mr. Fair entered the drift and said: 
"Well, Steve, how is she looking?"  "Fine," responded Steve.  "Well, my son," said Fair, "It's a 
pity such fine-looking ore is no good.  We'll quit this place and go to work where there is 
something.  Pull the timbers, Steve, we can use them some other place.  

The timbers were pulled, the work stopped and a cave soon thereafter rendered the long drift 
inaccessible.

During the following two years Fair and his associates quietly bought up any stock offered in any 
of the mines comprising the group they were so desirous of owning.  It cost them $50,000 to secure 
control - about three fourths of all the stock.

Immediately upon securing control they began the sinking of a large shaft, while at the same time 
by arrangement with the Gould and Curry and Best and Belcher, they drove a level through these 
mines into Consolidated Virginia ground, several hundred feet below the crooked drift previously 
run from the Savage mine and again encountered ore.  In driving this shaft a clay seam was cut and 
followed, which eventually led to the ore body on this level.  It was small at first but it 
rapidly widened.  This was at a dept of 1,167 feet from the surface - Meantime the shaft was 
sinking nearly 160 feet a month.

It is scarcely likely this shaft would have been sunk at the same time that the long and expensive 
drift was being run under ordinary circumstances, for the firm had only a short time previously met 
with serious losses in the Bullion mine, and was not over flush with money.  The knowledge gained 
by the crooked drift, however, seemed a sufficient incentive to do this development work as quickly 
as possible.

The strike in Consolidated Virginia at first attracted no unusual attention.  Far better things 
apparently had been discovered on the Comstock time and again.  It was generally admitted that they 
had a good showing for a paying mine.  Month after month the development preceded under Fair's 
competent direction and day by d ay the known extent of the ore body became greater.  

It was larger at 1,300 feet than at 1,200.  Still larger and richer at 1,400 and greater still at 
1,500, continuing vast mass of gold-silver ore in one place measured over 360 feet in width.  Nearly 
100 feet of this was ore worth several hundred dollars per ton.  Some of it ran into the thousands.  
Never before had great masses of ore of such richness been displayed in a mine.

The people not only of Virginia City, but of the whole Pacific Coast went wild, and the fever of 
speculation cast into the shade the excitement of a few years previous which resulted from the 
discovery of bonanzas which produced only $20,000,000 or some such matter.

				--------------------
Probably there never was a wilder era of mining stock speculation than during those years.  How 
fortunes were made almost overnight is apparent from this short review of variations of market prices 
of some of the principal stocks:

Sierra Nevada stock sold in 1877 at 75 cents, in 1878, $261.

Union sold for $3 in the summer of 1878, a few months later for $193.

Ophir sold for $8.87 in 1874, in 1875 the same stock sold for $315.

Con. Virginia - 17 cents in 1871, for $160 in 1872 and for $7.80 in 1875.

Gould and Curry jumped for 50 cents to $1000 in less than six months.

Savage went from a couple of dollars to $800 in a few months.

Crown Point from $2 in 1870 to $1825 in 1872.

Yellow Jacket from $24 in l870 to $325 in 1872.

Belcher from $1 in 1870 to $1525 in 1872.

Con. Virginia sold for 5 cents in 1885 and the next year for $55.

The Inyo Register, Bishop, Inyo County, California
Thursday, March 15, 1917
Transcribed by Pat Houser for Inyo County GenWeb, February 27, 2005