five Burleigh air compressors: “Washoe District,” Mining & Scientific Press, October 24, 1874.
triple-decker safety cage: “A New Mining Invention,” Mining & Scientific Press, June 6, 1874; “The Consolidated Virginia Mining Company,” Mining & Scientific Press, September 5, 1874.
two hundred men at work: “Consolidated Virginia Improvements,” Mining & Scientific Press, August 1, 1874.
“soft” Sierra water: “Sierra Nevada Water,” Mining & Scientific Press, October 17, 1874.
“The sides and face of the drift”: “The Heart of the Comstock,” Mining & Scientific Press, November 7, 1874, citing recent issues of Gold Hill Daily News and Territorial Enterprise.
“hitherto unknown”: “The Exhaustless Comstock,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 9, 1874. See also Dan De Quille, History of the Big Bonanza, pp. 366–67.
The flurry of reports that emerged: “Nevada Mines,” Daily Alta California, December 6, 1874, citing Gold Hill News, December 3, 1874; “Washoe District,” Mining & Scientific Press, December 12, 1874, citing the same source.
“the great discovery”: “Financial and Commercial,” Daily Alta California, January 13, 1875.
“the Big Bonanza”: “The Big Bonanza,” Mining & Scientific Press, January 16, 1875, citing Territorial Enterprise, January 6, 1875.
ninety thousand tons of ore: “Consolidated Virginia. Annual Report of the Consolidated Virginia Mining Company,” Daily Alta California, January 20, 1875.
“We are running”: “The Big Bonanza,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 12, 1875.
Mackay must have realized: In February 1875, Mackay said, “We have not yet fairly started in upon the California. It will require steady work for at least six months to show what that mine really is” (De Quille, History of the Big Bonanza, p. 368); for prospecting the upper levels “very nearly completed” on June 17, 1875, see “Mining,” Daily Alta California, June 19, 1875, citing Gold Hill Daily News, June 17, 1875.
“stupendous mass of”: Raymond, Statistics of Mines and Mining in the States and Territories West of the Rocky Mountains; Being the Seventh Annual Report, 1875, p. 196.
“every foot of”: “Mining,” Daily Alta California, July 16, 1875.
returned $9.86 per ton: “To Settle a Bet,” Mining & Scientific Press, December 5, 1874.
“succeeded to his”: “The Mineral Rod Man,” Territorial Enterprise, February 10, 1871, article transcribed in the Ellin Berlin Collection, UNR, 90-87/Box 6.
“a certain amount of stock”: “Ai Peck Again to the Front,” Sacramento Daily Record-Union, February 20, 1875, citing Territorial Enterprise, undated.
marvelous reports emerging: “Nevada Mines,” Daily Alta California, August 1, 1874, citing Gold Hill Daily News, July 30, 1874; “Washoe District,” Mining & Scientific Press, August 15, 1874; also, “Mining Stocks,” Mining & Scientific Press, October 10, 1874, and “The Ophir Mine,” Mining & Scientific Press, October 31, 1874.
Ophir shares had more than doubled: “Stock Market,” Daily Alta California, September 26, 1874.
“continuous and united”: “Financial and Commercial,” Daily Alta California, September 26, 1874.
“disastrous”: William M. Stewart, Reminiscences of Senator William M. Stewart of Nevada (New York and Washington: Neale Publishing Company, 1908), p. 261; also, Makley, The Infamous King of the Comstock, pp. 93–94.
congratulated him on his victory: Alf Doten, The Journals of Alfred Doten, 1849–1903 (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1973), p. 1240, entry for November 3, 1874.
“Nevada enjoys the”: “Honor to Whom Honor Is Due,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 10, 1875.
more than 34,001 shares: With 34,001 shares added to Baldwin’s 20,000, it would have given Sharon control. “The Crash,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 26, 1875, reported that the Bank Ring had 56,000 Ophir shares at the mine’s December election, which implies it held 36,000 before buying Baldwin’s chunk.
“cold and selfish”: “Lucky Baldwin,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, March 4, 1909.
Sharon pried him loose: Smith, History of the Comstock Lode, pp. 162–63, citing Virginia Evening Chronicle, December 12, 1874; Dana, The Man Who Built San Francisco, p. 340; Lavender, Nothing Seemed Impossible, p. 376; Makley, The Infamous King of the Comstock, pp. 107–8. I surmise that the deal most likely went down between November 11, 1874, when “Brevities,” Daily Alta California, November 12, 1874, described the Ophir as “the centre [sic] of attraction . . . while the struggle over Lucky Baldwin’s promising mine continues,” and November 13, 1874, when “Financial and Commercial,” Daily Alta California, November 14, 1874, described the Ophir as “lower, selling down to $78, indicating a settlement of control,” and “Pacific Coast Items,” Sacramento Daily Record-Union, November 16, 1874, recorded control of the Ophir passing “from the management of Baldwin to that of Sharon & Co.”; the Ophir closed at $80 on November 13, 1874: “Stock Market,” Daily Alta California, November 13, 1875; although many sources claim this deal cemented Baldwin’s moniker, that likely isn’t the case—the Daily Alta California used it on November 12, 1874, before the deal closed. “Lucky” Baldwin took his proceeds and “retired from the fray,” according to Hubert Howe Bancroft’s hagiographic biography. He focused his energies on building the luxurious Baldwin Hotel at the corner of San Francisco’s Market and Powell streets and on developing an enormous forty-two-thousand-acre ranch at Santa Anita in the San Gabriel Valley, fifteen miles northeast of Los Angeles. A devotee of thoroughbred horseracing, Baldwin founded the Santa Anita Racetrack on the property. The Santa Anita’s Baldwin Stakes are run in his honor, and his name graces much Southern California geography, including the Baldwin Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. (Bancroft, Chronicles of the Builders, Vol. III, p. 347.)
“interested in mining”: “The Crash in Mining Stocks,” Mining & Scientific Press, February 13, 1875.
“They bought fine”: “How Much Have We Lost?” Sacramento Daily Union, February 10, 1875.
“Go and put”: De Quille, History of the Big Bonanza, pp. 368–70.
$300 million: “Perhaps There Is No,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 9, 1874.
A “free and easy talker”: “Deidesheimer. His Second Glance at the Great Bonanza,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 9, 1875. The article published the day after the sell-off started, but the content and tenor of the interview make it clear Deidesheimer had been spouting that advice since his visit to the mine with Dan de Quille in early December.
less than 1 percent of the total: Statistics for sales between December 31, 1874, and January 6, 1875: “Financial and Commercial,” Daily Alta California, January 9, 1875.
Ophir touched a high: “Stock Market,” Daily Alta California, January 7 and January 8, 1875.
shipped ten tons of bullion: “Nevada Items,” Los Angeles Herald, January 6, 1875.
leading thirty-one mines exceeded: “Valuation of Comstock Mines, January 1875,” Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, p. 409.
$70 million more: Smith, History of the Comstock Lode, p. 174.
“a reaction after”: “Financial and Commercial,” Daily Alta California, January 9, 1875.
market closed “firm”: “Financial and Commercial,” Daily Alta California, January 26, 1875.
Monday opened firm: “Stocks Down” and “Is There a Conspiracy to Steal the Bonanza?” San Francisco Chronicle, January 26, 1875; also, “Financial and Commercial” and “Stock Market,” Daily Alta California, January 26, 1875.
Tuesday was worse: “Financial and Commercial” and “Stock Market,” Daily Alta California, January 27, 1875; “Black Tuesday,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 26, 1875.
“whole bottom”: “Letter from San Francisco, February 8, 1875,” Sacramento Daily Union, February 10, 1875.
“like leaves from”: “How Much Have We Lost?” Sacramento Daily Record-Union, February 10, 1875.
The final slaughter: For the prices at the close of February
6, 1875, see “Stock Market,” Daily Alta California, February 7, 1875.
“rolling in imaginary”: “Freaks of Fortune,” New York Times, March 7, 1875.
“in the majority”: “The Crash in Stocks,” Mining & Scientific Press, February 13, 1875.
$2.5 million: Dana, The Man Who Built San Francisco, p. 340; general sources for the Ophir boom and bust: Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, pp. 314–17; Smith, History of the Comstock Lode, pp. 162–79; Lavender, Nothing Seemed Impossible, pp. 366–67; Makley, The Infamous King of the Comstock, pp. 107–9; Dana, The Man Who Built San Francisco, pp. 339–40.
“badly hurt”: “The Crash,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 26, 1875.
in the mansion he’d built: “Pen and Scissors,” Territorial Enterprise, April 21, 1874.
may have simply lost touch: The author finds the common historical story of Sharon “putting up” the Ophir deal to finance his senatorial campaign difficult to credit. Rather than that “Sharon kept boosting the stock” until his election, as claimed by Grant Smith and other historians, it seems much more probable that the bonanza in the Con. Virginia seeming likely to extend through the California into the Ophir started and sustained the Ophir’s price rise, and escaping knowledge that it did not—that the Ophir was working an independent, lower-quality ore body—caused the collapse and destroyed the wonderful fiction of unlimited wealth in the lower levels of the Comstock mines. Besides, Sharon’s election to the state legislature happened four days after the Ophir began its long slide. Considering the state of nineteenth-century political campaigns, that Sharon liberally distributed Ophir shares among candidates standing for the state legislature seems very likely—stock in a skyrocketing mine would have been an even more generous gift to a “friend” or potential “friend” than gold coin. That Sharon “put up” the market and then smashed it as part of an evil plan seems less likely. He probably bought the mine hoping it shared in the Big Bonanza and then sold when he learned that it did not.
“It is no affair”: De Quille, History of the Big Bonanza, pp. 368–69.
“the roar of”: “The Consolidated Virginia Mill,” Daily Alta California, citing Territorial Enterprise, undated.
retorting room by two-thirds: “The Big Mill,” Mining & Scientific Press, January 2, 1875; “Completion of the Consolidated Virginia Mill,” Sacramento Daily Union, January 4, 1875, citing Virginia Evening Chronicle, December 20, 1874; “The Big Bonanza,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 12, 1875; “The Consolidated Mill,” Sacramento Daily Union, January 14, 1875, citing Virginia Evening Chronicle, January 12, 1875; “The Consolidated Virginia Mill,” Daily Alta California, citing Territorial Enterprise, undated.
“a crime against”: “The Free-Love Ticket,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 14, 1872.
“It makes nothing”: Eliot Lord, “The Mackay Memorial Statue,” World’s Work, Volume 13, 1906, p. 8161.
The first battle—a change: Angel, ed., History of Nevada, pp. 122–30; Smith, History of the Comstock Lode, pp. 204–6; Makley, John Mackay, pp. 79–81.
its own lumber company: “Financial and Commercial,” Daily Alta California, July 3, 1875.
“build my own damn railroad”: The Reno Journal reported Mackay and Fair contemplating construction of a narrow-gauge railroad from Virginia City to Reno in late April: “Nevada Items,” Sacramento Daily Union, April 24, 1875, citing Reno Journal; Davis, The History of Nevada, p. 419; Makley, John Mackay, p. 81.
the institution’s “soul”: “O. F. Bank vs. Sharon,” Daily Alta California, December 20, 1884.
Belcher dividends combined: In 1873 and 1874 combined, the Belcher paid $12.1 million in dividends ($6.76 million in 1873: “Weekly Stock Review,” Mining & Scientific Press, January 31, 1874; $5.304 million in 1874: “The Mining Interest in 1874,” Mining & Scientific Press, January 23, 1875). Before 1875, the Union mills had netted Darius Ogden Mills more than $2 million and paid in excess of $4 million each to Sharon and Ralston: Bancroft, “Life of William Sharon,” Chronicles of the Builders, Vol. IV, p. 57; the V&T paid its first dividend on July 20, 1874: Lavender, Nothing Seemed Impossible, p. 331.
“the need . . . of a nail”: “O. F. Bank vs. Sharon,” Daily Alta California, December 20, 1884.
before construction reached: Bancroft, “Life of William Sharon,” Chronicles of the Builders, Vol. IV, p. 63.
pushed the total workforce: “Work on the Palace Hotel,” Mining & Scientific Press, September 26, 1874; “An Ill-Advised Revolt by a Portion of the Industrial Army,” Sacramento Daily Union, September 30, 1874.
ash from Oregon: “Our Great Hotel,” Mining & Scientific Press, August 22, 1874.
“Where is this”: Eldridge, History of California, Volume V, Special Articles, p. 437.
“pull in his”: Makley, The Infamous King, p. 112, citing Albert W. Atwood, Francis G. Newlands: A Builder of the Nation, p. 13.
Construction costs rose: Benjamin E. Lloyd, Lights and Shades in San Francisco (San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft, 1876), p. 52.
$6.5 million: Bancroft, “Life of William Sharon,” Chronicles of the Builders, Vol. IV, pp. 63–64.
“gigantic enterprise”: “An Ill-Advised Revolt by a Portion of the Industrial Army,” Sacramento Daily Union, September 30, 1874.
“a dark menace”: Lavender, Nothing Seemed Impossible, citing San Francisco Real Estate Circular, November 1874.
“vast pile”: “A VERY . . . ,” Marin Journal, October 7, 1875.
impact of the economic depression: Between January 1 and August 1, 1875, $19 million went east from California; $2.3 million had gone east during the same period in 1874: “Suspension of the Bank of California,” Daily Alta California, August 27, 1875. In the year ending August 1, 1875, $26.891 million had gone east: “Financial and Commercial,” Daily Alta California, August 27, 1875.
Ralston sold his half of the Palace: “Financial and Commercial,” Daily Alta California, May 13, 1875; “William C. Ralston,” Los Angeles Herald, May 18, 1875; “Real Estate Items,” Daily Alta California, June 3, 1875.
largest real estate owner: “Pacific Coast Items,” Sacramento Daily Record-Union, June 3, 1875; “Real Estate Items,” Daily Alta California, June 3, 1875.
“worth at least”: “City Property,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 2, 1875. Although one of Ralston’s biographers said Sharon returned the deed two weeks later, never having paid the money (Dana, The Man Who Built San Francisco, p. 348), the registering of the transaction was announced in several newspapers. The author could find no contemporary retraction, which surely would have been interesting news.
“unrelenting” . . . “passed quietly into”: “Death of Mrs. Wm. Sharon,” Daily Alta California, May 16, 1875.
at her San Francisco bedside: “Brevities,” Daily Alta California, May 15, 1875; “News of the Morning,” Sacramento Daily Record-Union, May 15, 1875.
Sharon’s father died: “Brevities,” Daily Alta California, May 28, 1875.
“a large interest”: “The Stock-Jobbing Juggernaut,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 20, 1875.
“Probably there is”: “A Financial Shock,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 20, 1875.
Speculation before the Water Board: “Calaveras No More,” Daily Alta California, June 8, 1875.
“a farcical pretense”: “The Water Supply Farce,” Daily Alta California, May 24, 1875.
“white heat of opposition”: “Brevities,” Daily Alta California, June 4, 1875, citing San Jose Mercury, undated.
questioning the solvency: Other Spring Valley Water Company sources: “Pacific Coast Items,” Marysville Daily Appeal, June 3, 1875; “The Remedy Is with the People,” Daily Alta California, June 3, 1875; “Cowslips,” Daily Alta California, June 7, 1875; “Brevities,” Daily Alta California, June 8, 1875; “The Water ‘Job,’ ” Daily Alta California, June 8, 1875; Gray Brechin, Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), pp. 84–89; Lavender, Nothing Seemed Impossible, pp. 3
70–72.
he watched the examiners: Makley, The Infamous King of the Comstock, p. 114, citing the opinion of Superior Court Judge T. H. Reardon in Odd Fellows Savings Bank vs. William Sharon, December 19, 1884, and the Thomas Bell Statement, 1886.
board of supervisors formally rejected: “Spring Valley’s Ultimatum” and “Is the Dog Dead or Only Lamed?” Daily Alta California, July 31, 1875.
overissued Bank of California stock: “O. F. Bank vs. Sharon,” Daily Alta California, December 20, 1884; Makley, The Infamous King of the Comstock, pp. 114-115.
Mills “relieved” Ralston: “The Bulletin and the Bank,” Daily Alta California, September 5, 1875; “The Affairs of the Bank of California,” Daily Alta California, August 28, 1875. Sharon and Mills probably paid $823,000 for stock worth $1.5 million.
“Son, do you”: George Lyttleton Upshur, As I Recall Them: Memories of Crowded Years (New York: Wilson-Erickson Inc., 1936), pp. 92–93.
“final dicker”: “The Crash,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 26, 1875. The story says negotiations for the sale had started about a month before. It also described Ralston and “Senator Jones” representing the Bank Ring, when they surely meant “Senator Sharon.”
Oriental Bank of London: Eldridge, History of California, Volume V, Special Articles, p. 438.
sold sixteen thousand acres: “Pacific Coast Items,” Sacramento Daily Union, August 25, 1875.
“nearly akin to”: “The Crash,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 26, 1875.
“those stocks most”: “Financial and Commercial,” Daily Alta California, August 26, 1875.
“the existing pressure”: “Financial and Commercial,” Daily Alta California, August 25, 1875.
“belonging to the”: “The Crash,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 26, 1875.
$500,000 in coin: Eldridge, History of California, Volume V, Special Articles, p. 438.
$1.4 million of the missing bullion: Lavender, Nothing Seemed Impossible, p. 372; $1.4 million worth of bonanza bullion: Grant Smith, “The Bank of California Suspends,” Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 2, Folder 8, p. 448, citing an article in The Spirit of the Times reprinted in News Letter, April 22, 1876; also, Upshur, As I Recall Them, pp. 93–94.
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