Next week I’ll get into the economic results of the Comstock, but there’s one more name I want to mention about the characters of Virginia City, and that is Adolph Sutro. Born in Germany in 1830, he immigrated to America, and became a cigar maker in San Francisco. Hearing about the possibilities of riches in Virginia City, he arrived there in 1859. The first thing he did was take a tour of the workings, and was outraged at the miserable, wasteful way things were going. Profit taking, was all the mine operators and owners were concerned about, and Sutro saw that only the richest ores were being milled and turned into actual silver bars. Less rich ore was simply being dumped anywhere a spot could be found, and he saw hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of waste everywhere he looked. Miners were sinking shafts straight down to follow the leads and fissures, and then timbering up enormous underground chambers, a thousand and more feet below. To Sutro, it was obvious that hauling the ore up a couple of thousand feet, and then taking it down a couple of thousand feet to the mills at Carson City, was a total waste of money.
Sutro proposed a six mile long tunnel, which would allow the ore to be taken out at almost the Carson City mill and smelter level, thereby saving gobs of money. He was met with ridicule and laughter. Not only would such a tunnel carry ore out of the mines, but the tunnel would ventilate the mines also, with clean air entering the tunnel and exhausting at the surface. More derision. Sutro also observed that the mines were spending even more money pumping water out of the diggings, and the lower they went to find more ore, each foot deeper got more and more water. It even became hotter the deeper they went. Sutro’s tunnel would also drain the mines as well as saving money hoisting it to the Virginia City surface, only to carry it down to the mills and smelter at Carson City. The Ophir mine was the first to buy a huge 15 horsepower steam powered water pump, in the hope of getting ahead of the ever increasing water problem deep down in the mine. It pumped extremely well, but couldn’t keep up with the ever increasing floods. Sutro, once again pointed out that his tunnel would drain the water, stop the waste of hoisting ore to the surface, and even ventilate mines. He proposed to pay for his tunnel and its operating costs by charging $2 a ton for ore carried out. No one accepted his offer. He tried to raise the money by going to Congress in Washington, to the Nevada State Legislature, and he even to Commodore Vanderbilt and William B. Astor. No help.
In 1869, a disastrous fire at the Yellow Jacket mine cost scores of miners their lives. It was obvious that if Sutro’s tunnel had been in existence, those lives would have been saved. The tunnel would have been an underground fire escape. With the miners behind him, he sold some shares and scraped enough money to begin his tunnel, but progress was slow, mostly due to financial difficulties. Virginia City was experiencing another boom period, and Sutro had difficulty in hiring men to work on his tunnel, since they could make more money mining. A new railroad had been built, the Virginia and Truckee, which could take the ore down the hill far cheaper than the previous ox or horse and crude wagon. By 1878, he was working 2,000 feet below Virginia City, and almost at the level of Carson City. The mines were encountering floods of hot water which no amount of pumps could handle. Four of the biggest mines, the Hale & Norcross, Best & Belcher, Savage, and Crown Point, agreed to pay Sutro his royalty if he could finish it quickly, before they were ruined. The biggest and richest two, the Con-Virginia and California, decided they didn’t need Sutro’s tunnel, as their water problem wasn’t too severe, and they were rolling in money anyway. Sutro was only 640 feet from the nearest operations of a mine, which could easily be connected to the rest. On July 8th, he set off the final dynamite blast, which allowed hot water to begin gushing out. Sutro had spent 13 years fighting, begging, and digging his dream, and it finally came true. It had cost $5 million to build, and over the years it has drained in excess of three trillion gallons of water, not counting freight charges eliminated and hoisting charges as well. Sutro’s tunnel operated until; 1940 when all mines in Virginia City closed, having reached borrasca. Sutro sold his tunnel at a huge profit, retired handsomely, want back to San Francisco, contributed to many charities and causes, was elected mayor and was a beloved San Francisco character. He died in 1898.
In Colorado, a few miles north of Silverton, Red Mountains One, Two and Three, had many mines full of rich ore. The Guston, Yankee Girl, Genessee, and others, like in the Comstock, had drilled straight down to get to the ore, and eventually struck water, which had to be pumped to the surface, as well as hoisting ore to the surface, to be carried to the mills and smelters by the Silverton Railroad. The tunnel was called The Joker Tunnel; it worked, and its boarding house still stands today, quite visible from U.S. Hiway 550. The offices and steam plant are long gone, but the 25 mile long Silverton Railroad, made so much money for its owner and founder, Otto Mears, that he was giving solid ornate silver or silver and buckskin yearly passes to his best customers. He was charging passengers a dollar per mile, and he purchased the most fancy, ornate, splendid narrow gauge passenger cars then available. One could even board a sleeper from Red Mountain Town to Denver! The line was torn up in 1925, but remnants of its right of way are still clearly visible. – Don Stott 1-888-786-8822