F I R S TP R E V576NEXTLAST

Mini Series, Day 1 of 2
While it's not really in the Bay Area, Virginia City played an important part in the development of San Francisco. Located about four hours west of the Bay, Virginia City was the center of the billion-dollar Comstock Lode, a find that far exceeded the wealth of the 1849 Gold Rush. In 1859 a gold prospector named James "Old Virginny" Finney stumbled upon the richest discovery of silver ore in history. Unlike the pan-and-pick Gold Rush, the Comstock Lode's ore required heavy equipment and huge investments to mine. That money came from San Francisco and a group of investors who soon became the incredibly wealthy 'Bonanza Kings'. The magnitude of riches from the silver mine stock speculation and finance soon transformed San Francisco into a fabulous city filled with opulent Italian stonework mansions, world-class hotels, parks, and civic buildings. While the Gold Rush put San Francisco on the map, the Comstock Lode made it the "Queen of the Pacific."

Today Virginia City is a wood-planked sidewalk, tourist town that offers visitors a chance to pan for gold and silver, tour a mine, watch a staged gunfight, or drink and gamble in a real Old West saloon. Pictured above is Silver Queen Hotel with the large portrait of its namesake. Her dress is made out of 3,261 silver dollars and her belt is made out of 28 twenty dollar gold pieces.
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