Virginia City’s beginning is described by a Dr. Pierson in a letter to the Carson Tribune, dated August 1879:
“I visited the spot known as Virginia and found not a house, but two tents in the ground. One was owned by John L. Blackburn who died by an assassin’s knife. I saw the first mine and formed an acquaintance with Mr. Comstock, the man whose man is perpetrated everywhere mines ar known throughout the world.”
Dr. Pierson continues: “I also met old Virginia for whom the place is named. On that day in June (1859), the writer saw $1900.00 in black gold valued at $11.00 an ounce washed out of the surface ground at the Ophir.”
By the late 1860’s, Virginia City had more than 30,000 people. Not bad for a place that boasted only two-tents when it was first established.
Why the big turn around? It was a simple chance encounter that created the eventual rush from the California gold fields to the Comstock’s silver mines.
Most of the miners in the area were plagued by what was known as “that infernal blue stuff.” The soft, blue-tinted mud got in the way of their serious work — the mining of gold.
It was simply shoveled out-of-the-way and forgotten.
Then one afternoon a Carson rancher named W.P. Morrison, having heard of the strikes being made in Gold Canyon went to have a look for himself. There he found the unwanted mud and intrigued by it, collected some of it.
Months later, Morrison had the sample analyzed. He jus’ happened to have some of the stuff with him the day he rode into Grass Valley, California, where he decided to have it assayed.
The assayer, J.J. Ott took the sample and checked it for gold. It assayed out at $1600.00 and ounce — but he felt compelled to double-check his findings because of what else he’d found.
After the second assaying, he knew his first findings were correct. The “infernal blue stuff” yielded $4,971.00 a ton and it was simply being thrown away.
By the next morning the word had spread throughout Grass Valley and the rush east over the Sierra Nevada was on.
The Old Blog in the Desert 
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