The discovery and mining of the Comstock Lode in Nevada forever
changed the mining culture of the American West. Using the pen name
Dan De Quille, in 1876 William Wright published "The Big Bonanza,"
the best-known contemporary account of the Comstock Lode mines.
Previously, however, in nearly fifty newspaper accounts from 1860
to 1863, De Quille had documented the development of the early
Comstock with a frankness, abundance of detail, sense of immediacy,
and excitement largely absent from his book. Donnelyn Curtis and
Lawrence I. Berkove have gathered those accounts for the first time
in "Before" The Big Bonanza.
De Quille describes the amazing transformation of the Comstock
in less than four years from miscellaneous tent camps and primitive
mining sites to an incredible complex of underground shafts and
tunnels beneath a group of wealth-producing cities, with modern
buildings, state-of-the-art mills, orderly streets, and traffic
jams. He captures the vitality of the inhabitants' resolution and
resourcefulness as they survive destructive storms and being cut
off from supplies and entertainment, and he chronicles the events
that kept Nevada and California in the Union. While reporting the
prevailing violence of brawling and dueling and anti-Indian
prejudice, De Quille at the same time conveys his thoughtful
observations on the significance to democracy and civilization of
the existence of such license.
This trove of columns, collected from a variety of newspapers,
is history in the making and additionally casts new light on the
life and rapidly developing art of De Quille, the biographer of the
Comstock and one of the most versatile and accomplished authors of
the Old West.
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