February 14, 2024 • 17 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, straight out of a Horatio Alger novel, the Silver Kings (John Mackay, James Fair, William O'Brien, and James Flood) epitomized the rags-to-riches American dream story. Roger McGrath tells the story of the richest mineral discovery in American history - the Comstock Lode.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and everything in between, including your story. Send them to
our American Stories dot com. There's some of our favorites
in the Annals of American capitalism. There is probably no crazier, wilder,
(00:31):
more chaotic boom to bust and back again phenomenon than
the Comstock Load in the eighteen sixties, the richest couple
of square miles on Earth, This small section of dirt
changed the destiny of the United States. Here to tell
this Rags to Rich's frontier tail is Old West historian
Roger McGrath. Here's Roger.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
If ever there were real life figures who could have
been characters in Horatio alger novel, it was the Silver Kings.
John Mackee, James Fair, William O'Brien, and James Flood epitomized
the Rags to Riches American dream. John mackew is the
engineering genius of the Silver Kings. Born in Ireland in
(01:14):
eighteen thirty one, he immigrates with his family to New
York in eighteen forty. He reaches the California Goldfields in
eighteen fifty one. He enjoys hard physical work in mining
camp life. He has almost no formal education and had
stuttered badly when young, but he is blessed with extraordinary intelligence.
(01:36):
James Fair is a mind superintendent without peer and a
shrewd financier. Born in Ireland in eighteen thirty one, immigrates
with his family to Illinois during the early eighteen forties.
He has enormous energy, a trenchant mind, and a natural
aptitude for all things mechanical. He joins the Gold Rush
to California in eighteen forty nine. William O'Brien is born
(02:02):
in Ireland in eighteen twenty six and brought to New
York as a small child. By the time he joins
the Gold Rush of forty nine, he has grown into
a large man of erect carriage. He will soon have
a head of prematurely white hair. His size, posture and
hair give him a dignified appearance, unlike his partners. Is
(02:22):
soft spoken, with an avuncular, kindly quality about him. He
is the least forceful of the Silver Kings, but his
gregarious and genial nature make him the most popular and
ideal for public relations. James Fmutt is the only silver
King not to have been born in Ireland. He's born
(02:42):
in New York in eighteen twenty six, shortly after his
Irish immigrant parents arrive. He catches the gold Fiever in
eighteen forty nine and sails around the Horn to California.
Is a quick wit, a shrewd mind, a volatile temper,
and a powerful drive to succeed. Is a genius in
trading stocks and in finance. Macky Fear, O'Brien and Flood
(03:07):
all spend the early eighteen fifties prospecting and mining in California,
and each has some success with his earnings from the diggings.
O'Brien opens a marine supply store in San Francisco. Flood,
with the money he has made, opens a livery and
carriage shop just down the street from O'Brien. Both lose
(03:27):
their businesses, though in the depression of eighteen fifty five.
They then join forces and open a saloon. O'Brien reasons
the only thing that does not go down in a
depression is the consumption of alcohol. He's right, and their
saloon thrives. Flood handles the business and it operation while
(03:47):
O'Brien greets customers and serves roast beef sandwiches that come
complimentary with a drink. By the early eighteen sixties, Flood
and O'Brien are dabbling in mining stock, buying and selling
shares and mines. The tap into the Greek comstock lood
in Nevada, Flood is an uncannyability in stock trading. Within
(04:10):
a few years, he and O'Brien amass a small fortune.
In eighteen sixty eight, they opened their own stock brokerage
office in San Francisco. Maci and Fair, working separately, also
spent in the early eighteen fifties prospecting in California. Here's
comstock load historian Ronald James speaking to us at the
(04:31):
location of the Great comstock Load Strike, which was made
in eighteen fifty nine by two irishmen, Peter O'Reilly and
Patrick McLaughlin.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
The first miners who came here were after gold. Gold's easy.
Gold doesn't combine with many things, so you can actually
even pick it out of their washed dirt with tweezers,
and you hope for a nugget, but you find little
flakes of gold, and that's how you can pull the
gold out the two miners who are coming up here,
a couple of Irish immigrants. We're just looking for a
good place to dam up a natural spring so they
(05:05):
could get water. And they were hoping that they could
find some water, throw some dirt into their long toms,
which were these wooden boxes, and wash the dirt while
they were damming. A natural spring they found, which was
right up here. They started throwing some of the dirt
in there and found immediately that they were uncovering several
ounces of gold and a very good day. And it
(05:27):
was the first of many good days, in fact, twenty
years worth of good days. They were complaining for those
first few weeks after the strike in June of eighteen
fifty nine, these early miners complained about this blue mud
that gummed up their works. Because as you wash away
the lighter soil, it leaves gold behind. But it was
also leaving behind this blue mud that was really obnoxiously heavy,
(05:50):
and it was hard to separate it from the gold.
So after several weeks they took an ore sample over
to California and said, what exactly do we have here.
What they found was that if you had a ton
of this stuff, it would produce over eight hundred dollars
in gold when gold was selling for sixteen dollars an ounce.
(06:10):
But what was really surprising that it was said it
would produce over three thousand dollars in silver when silver
was selling for a dollar sixty an ounce. And so
that's really where everyone understood just how wealthy this or
body or using the cornish word load was. And then
it became known as the Comstock load.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
When they learn of the comstock load strike at Virginia City,
they had over the seers to Nevada.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
The people who came to the comstock were an international
body of people. Nevada actually had in the eighteen seventy
census more foreign born per capita than any other state
in the nation, more than the great immigrant states. You
think of Massachusetts, Boston, and New York, and how vibrantly
(06:57):
international those places were. Chicago, a lot of Europeans, obviously
a large group of Chinese lived here. They came from
all over They often arrived as single men, and so
it was a very masculine community.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
And when we come back more on the lives of
these four risk takers, the silver Kings, the story of
the Comstack Load continues here on our American Stories. Here
are our American Stories. We bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business,
(07:35):
faith and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country
that need to be told. But we can't do it
without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but
they're not free to make. If you love our stories
in America like we do, please go to our American
Stories dot com and click the donate button. Give a little,
give a lot, help us keep the great American stories coming.
(07:56):
That's our American Stories dot Com. And we continue with
our American Stories. In the story of John Mackie, James Fair,
James Flood, and William O'Brien the Silver Kings. Let's pick
(08:20):
up with Roger McGrath where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Mackey works as a pick and shovel miner for four
dollars a day, that is a timberman for six. Soon
he develops his own business, excavating and fortifying tunnels. Much
of his pays in the form of stock certificates. Now
most of these prove worthless, but IFEW give him enough
money to buy the Kentuck, a mine whose ore has
(08:45):
supposedly been exhausted, Mackie sinks a new shaft in the
Kentuck and hits a rich deposit. During the next several years,
the mind pays over a million dollars in dividends, huge money.
In the eighteen sixties. Mackie also has said he will
retire as soon as he has twenty five thousand in
(09:06):
the bank. Well, now he has many times that, but
his appetite has only been wedded for new adventures and enterprises. Well,
Mackie is working the Kentuck. James Fair becomes superintendent of
the Oopher, one of the richest mines on the Comstock.
In eighteen sixty eight, he enters into a partnership to
develop new mining properties with MACKI.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I'm standing at the base of the Opher pitt and
they called it over after o Fear the gold mine
of King Solomon in the Old Testament. By asserting that
this was the Ulfer mine, they were claiming that this
was a mine of biblical proportions. And they got it right,
because hundreds of millions of dollars came out of the
(09:51):
ground beginning right here.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Back in San Francisco, Jim Flood and Bibbel O'Brien take
notice of these two young up starts on the Comstock.
Soon they are discussing joining forces, and in eighteen sixty
nine the San Francisco Stockbrokers and the comstock miners form
a partnership. By the early eighteen seventies, through wise investments
(10:15):
in daring gambles, the four Irishmen are challenging William Ralston
of the Bank of California for control of the Comstock.
In eighteen seventy two, they buy the Consolidated Virginia Mine
for one hundred thousand dollars from Ralston's right hand man
in Virginia City, William Sharon. Sharon gleefully reports to Ralston
(10:39):
the Irishmen have been taken. The Consolidated Virginia, says Sharon,
is a bankrupt piece of property. Over a million dollars
has already been wasted in the mind and fruitless exploration.
Maci and Fair have a hunch if they cut a
new tunnel at a deeper level, they will hit a
vein of war. Several months they tunnel, pouring two hundred
(11:02):
thousand into the consolidated Virginia, but hoisting up nothing but
worthless rock. William Sharing roars with laughter. Then one day
mackiing Fair in a delicately thin vein of ore. They
try to follow it, but it disappears. They find it again,
but again it disappears. They find it a third time.
(11:26):
This time the vein begins to widen to a foot
to several feet, to a half dozen feet to twelve feet.
Mackiing Fair send word to Flood O'Brien in San Francisco.
The stockbrokers quickly buy up as much outstanding consolidated Virginia
stock as they can. The deeper the new shaft is
(11:47):
sunk in the consolidated Virginia, the wider the vein becomes.
At the fifteen hundred foot level, the vein is more
than fifty feet wide. The ore is so rich waste
rock has to be at to do it, to put
it through the stamp mill. The irishmen have discovered the
very heart of the comstock load, what is called the
(12:09):
Big Bonanza. For the rest of their lives they are
known as the Silver Kings. Here again is Ronald James.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
In eighteen seventy three, they found what was called the
Big Bonanza. Here the comstock load. The combination of gold
and silver started expanding as they went underground, and at
its widest up to sixty feet wide of nearly pure
gold and silver. The problem is you cannot find a
log stout enough to span sixty feet even twenty feet
(12:44):
without snapping, because it has to hold up a mountain,
and mountains want to collapse in on empty space. So
they brought in a German immigrant by the name of
Philip Diidesheimer who developed the square set timbering method, and
it was basically a series of cube that could be
in modular fashion added to so that whatever the stope,
(13:07):
the empty space left over when you dug out all
the gold and silver, whatever that stope was shaped like,
you could fill it up with a stout framework of timber,
and then you would fill it back with waste rock
as you've dug even deeper inside the mine. So it
was a really nice stable way to support a mine
as you were pursuing precious metals, and that was exported
(13:29):
throughout the world. It's only the first of many inventions.
Flat wire cable, the safety cage. This was the first
place where dynamite was experimented with in a big way underground.
It was the first place where air compressed drills were used,
so it became one invention after the next that defined
(13:51):
international underground mining for the next fifty or sixty.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Years bikeing seventy five. The silver kings are fabulously wealthy.
The consolidated virgin is paying dividends of a million dollars
a month, something like one hundred million in today's money.
San Francisco is seized by a speculative mania. If the
Consolidated Virginia has hit the big bonanza, other minds might also.
(14:16):
Thousands of shares of mining stock trade daily. People make
and lose fortunes overnight. Char women buy the hotels, they
scrib floors in hack drivers give away the carriages to
live on the bill. Chinese gambling dens clothes because Chinese
are gambling in mining stocks instead of fan ten. From
(14:37):
eighteen seventy three to eighteen eighty two, the Consolidated Virginia
yields sixty five million in gold and silver and pays
forty three million in dividends, more than four billion in
today's dollars. Here again is Ronald James.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
The deepest shaft here dropped over three thousand feet three
two hundred feet. It's overl mile a straight elevator drop.
And keep in mind this is in eighteen seventy eighteen eighty,
when most people have never ridden an elevator anywhere, and
to imagine these people being dropped down over half miles
(15:15):
straight down, it really is something. There was a law
on the Nevada books that said it's against the law
to talk to a hoist operator. He was a fellow
who was running the spool as it lowered the cages down,
and it's illegal to talk to a hoist operator while
he's working because if you distract him and he's off
by ten feet, that could be fatal to the guys
(15:35):
in the cage as they drop down.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
The Silver Kings all live righteously well and die with
multimillion dollars. States William O'Brien. Contributes to charities and supports
all his close relatives, especially the MacDonnal and Coleman families
of San Francisco. James flood By San Francisco Real Estate,
erects numerous buildings, funds new business fans, and establishes the
(16:01):
Nevada Bank. The Nevada Bank later merges with Wells Fargo.
He donates large sums to charities. He and his wife
and their children live on the fabulous thirty five acre
estate at Menmo Park. James Fair is elected to the
US Senate from Nevada, but spends most of his time
(16:22):
accumulating in real estate in San Francisco. He becomes the
city's largest taxpayer. He also establishes two banks and a railroad.
John Mackie forms a telegraph company, lays a cable across
the Atlantic, and breaks the Western Union monopoly. He makes
more millions during his lifetime. He gives away more than
(16:43):
five million in gifts. He also tears up IOU notes
worth more than two million, like for giving two hundred
million in today's money. When the Great Fire of October
eighteen seventy five destroys the central part of Virginia City,
including the town's Catholic church, Saint Mary's of the Mountains,
(17:03):
Mackie donates much of the money to have Saint Mary's
rebuilt bigger and better than ever. During a slow period
on the comstock, Mackie secretly pays a Virginia City grocer
to supply provisions to any minor out of work. He
also is the largest contributor to Sisters Hospital, requiring only
(17:25):
that his donations be kept confidential. John Mackie, James Fair
William O'Brien and James Flood demonstrate that Horacio Alger characters
were not confined to novels, but were found for real
in America.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
And there you have it, the story of the Silver Kings.
This is Lee habiebe the Silver King's story. Here on
our American stories.
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and everything in between, including your story. Send them to
our American Stories dot com. There's some of our favorites
in the Annals of American capitalism. There is probably no crazier, wilder,
(00:31):
more chaotic boom to bust and back again phenomenon than
the Comstock Load in the eighteen sixties, the richest couple
of square miles on Earth, This small section of dirt
changed the destiny of the United States. Here to tell
this Rags to Rich's frontier tail is Old West historian
Roger McGrath. Here's Roger.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
If ever there were real life figures who could have
been characters in Horatio alger novel, it was the Silver Kings.
John Mackee, James Fair, William O'Brien, and James Flood epitomized
the Rags to Riches American dream. John mackew is the
engineering genius of the Silver Kings. Born in Ireland in
(01:14):
eighteen thirty one, he immigrates with his family to New
York in eighteen forty. He reaches the California Goldfields in
eighteen fifty one. He enjoys hard physical work in mining
camp life. He has almost no formal education and had
stuttered badly when young, but he is blessed with extraordinary intelligence.
(01:36):
James Fair is a mind superintendent without peer and a
shrewd financier. Born in Ireland in eighteen thirty one, immigrates
with his family to Illinois during the early eighteen forties.
He has enormous energy, a trenchant mind, and a natural
aptitude for all things mechanical. He joins the Gold Rush
to California in eighteen forty nine. William O'Brien is born
(02:02):
in Ireland in eighteen twenty six and brought to New
York as a small child. By the time he joins
the Gold Rush of forty nine, he has grown into
a large man of erect carriage. He will soon have
a head of prematurely white hair. His size, posture and
hair give him a dignified appearance, unlike his partners. Is
(02:22):
soft spoken, with an avuncular, kindly quality about him. He
is the least forceful of the Silver Kings, but his
gregarious and genial nature make him the most popular and
ideal for public relations. James Fmutt is the only silver
King not to have been born in Ireland. He's born
(02:42):
in New York in eighteen twenty six, shortly after his
Irish immigrant parents arrive. He catches the gold Fiever in
eighteen forty nine and sails around the Horn to California.
Is a quick wit, a shrewd mind, a volatile temper,
and a powerful drive to succeed. Is a genius in
trading stocks and in finance. Macky Fear, O'Brien and Flood
(03:07):
all spend the early eighteen fifties prospecting and mining in California,
and each has some success with his earnings from the diggings.
O'Brien opens a marine supply store in San Francisco. Flood,
with the money he has made, opens a livery and
carriage shop just down the street from O'Brien. Both lose
(03:27):
their businesses, though in the depression of eighteen fifty five.
They then join forces and open a saloon. O'Brien reasons
the only thing that does not go down in a
depression is the consumption of alcohol. He's right, and their
saloon thrives. Flood handles the business and it operation while
(03:47):
O'Brien greets customers and serves roast beef sandwiches that come
complimentary with a drink. By the early eighteen sixties, Flood
and O'Brien are dabbling in mining stock, buying and selling
shares and mines. The tap into the Greek comstock lood
in Nevada, Flood is an uncannyability in stock trading. Within
(04:10):
a few years, he and O'Brien amass a small fortune.
In eighteen sixty eight, they opened their own stock brokerage
office in San Francisco. Maci and Fair, working separately, also
spent in the early eighteen fifties prospecting in California. Here's
comstock load historian Ronald James speaking to us at the
(04:31):
location of the Great comstock Load Strike, which was made
in eighteen fifty nine by two irishmen, Peter O'Reilly and
Patrick McLaughlin.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
The first miners who came here were after gold. Gold's easy.
Gold doesn't combine with many things, so you can actually
even pick it out of their washed dirt with tweezers,
and you hope for a nugget, but you find little
flakes of gold, and that's how you can pull the
gold out the two miners who are coming up here,
a couple of Irish immigrants. We're just looking for a
good place to dam up a natural spring so they
(05:05):
could get water. And they were hoping that they could
find some water, throw some dirt into their long toms,
which were these wooden boxes, and wash the dirt while
they were damming. A natural spring they found, which was
right up here. They started throwing some of the dirt
in there and found immediately that they were uncovering several
ounces of gold and a very good day. And it
(05:27):
was the first of many good days, in fact, twenty
years worth of good days. They were complaining for those
first few weeks after the strike in June of eighteen
fifty nine, these early miners complained about this blue mud
that gummed up their works. Because as you wash away
the lighter soil, it leaves gold behind. But it was
also leaving behind this blue mud that was really obnoxiously heavy,
(05:50):
and it was hard to separate it from the gold.
So after several weeks they took an ore sample over
to California and said, what exactly do we have here.
What they found was that if you had a ton
of this stuff, it would produce over eight hundred dollars
in gold when gold was selling for sixteen dollars an ounce.
(06:10):
But what was really surprising that it was said it
would produce over three thousand dollars in silver when silver
was selling for a dollar sixty an ounce. And so
that's really where everyone understood just how wealthy this or
body or using the cornish word load was. And then
it became known as the Comstock load.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
When they learn of the comstock load strike at Virginia City,
they had over the seers to Nevada.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
The people who came to the comstock were an international
body of people. Nevada actually had in the eighteen seventy
census more foreign born per capita than any other state
in the nation, more than the great immigrant states. You
think of Massachusetts, Boston, and New York, and how vibrantly
(06:57):
international those places were. Chicago, a lot of Europeans, obviously
a large group of Chinese lived here. They came from
all over They often arrived as single men, and so
it was a very masculine community.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
And when we come back more on the lives of
these four risk takers, the silver Kings, the story of
the Comstack Load continues here on our American Stories. Here
are our American Stories. We bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business,
(07:35):
faith and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country
that need to be told. But we can't do it
without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but
they're not free to make. If you love our stories
in America like we do, please go to our American
Stories dot com and click the donate button. Give a little,
give a lot, help us keep the great American stories coming.
(07:56):
That's our American Stories dot Com. And we continue with
our American Stories. In the story of John Mackie, James Fair,
James Flood, and William O'Brien the Silver Kings. Let's pick
(08:20):
up with Roger McGrath where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Mackey works as a pick and shovel miner for four
dollars a day, that is a timberman for six. Soon
he develops his own business, excavating and fortifying tunnels. Much
of his pays in the form of stock certificates. Now
most of these prove worthless, but IFEW give him enough
money to buy the Kentuck, a mine whose ore has
(08:45):
supposedly been exhausted, Mackie sinks a new shaft in the
Kentuck and hits a rich deposit. During the next several years,
the mind pays over a million dollars in dividends, huge money.
In the eighteen sixties. Mackie also has said he will
retire as soon as he has twenty five thousand in
(09:06):
the bank. Well, now he has many times that, but
his appetite has only been wedded for new adventures and enterprises. Well,
Mackie is working the Kentuck. James Fair becomes superintendent of
the Oopher, one of the richest mines on the Comstock.
In eighteen sixty eight, he enters into a partnership to
develop new mining properties with MACKI.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I'm standing at the base of the Opher pitt and
they called it over after o Fear the gold mine
of King Solomon in the Old Testament. By asserting that
this was the Ulfer mine, they were claiming that this
was a mine of biblical proportions. And they got it right,
because hundreds of millions of dollars came out of the
(09:51):
ground beginning right here.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Back in San Francisco, Jim Flood and Bibbel O'Brien take
notice of these two young up starts on the Comstock.
Soon they are discussing joining forces, and in eighteen sixty
nine the San Francisco Stockbrokers and the comstock miners form
a partnership. By the early eighteen seventies, through wise investments
(10:15):
in daring gambles, the four Irishmen are challenging William Ralston
of the Bank of California for control of the Comstock.
In eighteen seventy two, they buy the Consolidated Virginia Mine
for one hundred thousand dollars from Ralston's right hand man
in Virginia City, William Sharon. Sharon gleefully reports to Ralston
(10:39):
the Irishmen have been taken. The Consolidated Virginia, says Sharon,
is a bankrupt piece of property. Over a million dollars
has already been wasted in the mind and fruitless exploration.
Maci and Fair have a hunch if they cut a
new tunnel at a deeper level, they will hit a
vein of war. Several months they tunnel, pouring two hundred
(11:02):
thousand into the consolidated Virginia, but hoisting up nothing but
worthless rock. William Sharing roars with laughter. Then one day
mackiing Fair in a delicately thin vein of ore. They
try to follow it, but it disappears. They find it again,
but again it disappears. They find it a third time.
(11:26):
This time the vein begins to widen to a foot
to several feet, to a half dozen feet to twelve feet.
Mackiing Fair send word to Flood O'Brien in San Francisco.
The stockbrokers quickly buy up as much outstanding consolidated Virginia
stock as they can. The deeper the new shaft is
(11:47):
sunk in the consolidated Virginia, the wider the vein becomes.
At the fifteen hundred foot level, the vein is more
than fifty feet wide. The ore is so rich waste
rock has to be at to do it, to put
it through the stamp mill. The irishmen have discovered the
very heart of the comstock load, what is called the
(12:09):
Big Bonanza. For the rest of their lives they are
known as the Silver Kings. Here again is Ronald James.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
In eighteen seventy three, they found what was called the
Big Bonanza. Here the comstock load. The combination of gold
and silver started expanding as they went underground, and at
its widest up to sixty feet wide of nearly pure
gold and silver. The problem is you cannot find a
log stout enough to span sixty feet even twenty feet
(12:44):
without snapping, because it has to hold up a mountain,
and mountains want to collapse in on empty space. So
they brought in a German immigrant by the name of
Philip Diidesheimer who developed the square set timbering method, and
it was basically a series of cube that could be
in modular fashion added to so that whatever the stope,
(13:07):
the empty space left over when you dug out all
the gold and silver, whatever that stope was shaped like,
you could fill it up with a stout framework of timber,
and then you would fill it back with waste rock
as you've dug even deeper inside the mine. So it
was a really nice stable way to support a mine
as you were pursuing precious metals, and that was exported
(13:29):
throughout the world. It's only the first of many inventions.
Flat wire cable, the safety cage. This was the first
place where dynamite was experimented with in a big way underground.
It was the first place where air compressed drills were used,
so it became one invention after the next that defined
(13:51):
international underground mining for the next fifty or sixty.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Years bikeing seventy five. The silver kings are fabulously wealthy.
The consolidated virgin is paying dividends of a million dollars
a month, something like one hundred million in today's money.
San Francisco is seized by a speculative mania. If the
Consolidated Virginia has hit the big bonanza, other minds might also.
(14:16):
Thousands of shares of mining stock trade daily. People make
and lose fortunes overnight. Char women buy the hotels, they
scrib floors in hack drivers give away the carriages to
live on the bill. Chinese gambling dens clothes because Chinese
are gambling in mining stocks instead of fan ten. From
(14:37):
eighteen seventy three to eighteen eighty two, the Consolidated Virginia
yields sixty five million in gold and silver and pays
forty three million in dividends, more than four billion in
today's dollars. Here again is Ronald James.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
The deepest shaft here dropped over three thousand feet three
two hundred feet. It's overl mile a straight elevator drop.
And keep in mind this is in eighteen seventy eighteen eighty,
when most people have never ridden an elevator anywhere, and
to imagine these people being dropped down over half miles
(15:15):
straight down, it really is something. There was a law
on the Nevada books that said it's against the law
to talk to a hoist operator. He was a fellow
who was running the spool as it lowered the cages down,
and it's illegal to talk to a hoist operator while
he's working because if you distract him and he's off
by ten feet, that could be fatal to the guys
(15:35):
in the cage as they drop down.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
The Silver Kings all live righteously well and die with
multimillion dollars. States William O'Brien. Contributes to charities and supports
all his close relatives, especially the MacDonnal and Coleman families
of San Francisco. James flood By San Francisco Real Estate,
erects numerous buildings, funds new business fans, and establishes the
(16:01):
Nevada Bank. The Nevada Bank later merges with Wells Fargo.
He donates large sums to charities. He and his wife
and their children live on the fabulous thirty five acre
estate at Menmo Park. James Fair is elected to the
US Senate from Nevada, but spends most of his time
(16:22):
accumulating in real estate in San Francisco. He becomes the
city's largest taxpayer. He also establishes two banks and a railroad.
John Mackie forms a telegraph company, lays a cable across
the Atlantic, and breaks the Western Union monopoly. He makes
more millions during his lifetime. He gives away more than
(16:43):
five million in gifts. He also tears up IOU notes
worth more than two million, like for giving two hundred
million in today's money. When the Great Fire of October
eighteen seventy five destroys the central part of Virginia City,
including the town's Catholic church, Saint Mary's of the Mountains,
(17:03):
Mackie donates much of the money to have Saint Mary's
rebuilt bigger and better than ever. During a slow period
on the comstock, Mackie secretly pays a Virginia City grocer
to supply provisions to any minor out of work. He
also is the largest contributor to Sisters Hospital, requiring only
(17:25):
that his donations be kept confidential. John Mackie, James Fair
William O'Brien and James Flood demonstrate that Horacio Alger characters
were not confined to novels, but were found for real
in America.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
And there you have it, the story of the Silver Kings.
This is Lee habiebe the Silver King's story. Here on
our American stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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