Ep. 15 - Virginia City Historian Ron Gallagher

Transcript

Drew (00:14):
Welcome to Whiskey Lore, the interviews. I'm your host, drew Hamish, the Amazon bestselling author of Whiskey Lord's Travel Guide to Experience in Kentucky Bourbon. And I want to welcome you to an encore interview that I did back in 2020 back when I was trying to research about the old West and trying to figure out the drinking habits of people in the 19th century. So you watch old movies and you see the cowboy come in his spurs of jingling. He wanders up to the bar after going through the butterfly doors, it's dusty. The bartender comes over, says, what do you want? Give me a shot of whiskey, throw the bottle down and throw a shot glass down. Then the guy pours it himself. Is that really what saloons were like in the old West? Well, that was my mission, and it was also the mission of my friend Chris Wimmer of the legends of the Old West Podcast to learn more about Virginia City itself.

(01:17):
And what we found was that Virginia City was a very cosmopolitan type city. I mean, it was up there with San Francisco at that time period. There was a lot of money there. And the money was because of the Comstock Load, which was a silver mining expedition that went on for years, not only during the Big Bonanza, but after the town, Virginia City just kind of faded there for a while until along comes this show featuring the Cartwright family called Bonanza. And when that came out, well all of a sudden there was more interest in Virginia City again. So my guest is a man named Ron Gallagher, and Ron is a local historian. He has lived in the Virginia City area his entire life, and so he remembers some of those old saloons that were still standing and he actually walked around some of them.

(02:16):
He's going to relate some of those memories for us during this episode and also talk a little bit more about the archeology that they did there at the Bucket of Blood Saloon. Right behind that is a parking lot where underneath they did an archeological dig and a book called BoomTown Saloons by Kelly Dixon is the way I found out about this. And it's a fascinating read and it tells you all about the Boston Saloon, which is what was at that spot underneath that parking lot. It was a black-owned saloon and it was a high class saloon. And what it really did was it gave us an opportunity to see a different side of the old West. And so I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation. And my experience with Virginia City unfortunately is zero. I wanted to go out there pandemic. I wasn't able to, but I feel like after listening to Ron talk about the area, he paints a really great picture of what Virginia City is today and what it was in the past. So I'm going to start this conversation off by asking Ron about his earliest recollections of Virginia City.

Ron (03:45):
I was born in 1941. I'm, I'm coming toward that magic age of 80. So my earliest recollections are probably in the late forties before BB and Clay got there before it became what it is today as the tourist long before Bonanza might add. So I remember it as a town that had tourists, and by the way, there were tourists coming to Virginia City in the 1870s during the boom period when the railroad was completed to Reno and then to Virginia City. We had tourists coming to see the town because it was so unique. So tourism isn't brand new to the Comstock, but my earliest recollections were somewhere around Memorial Day. We started to get cars coming in. My folks ran a grocery store, so it was right on the main street. So I watched the cars come in, and then June, July, August, got to Labor Day, the town shut down, and it was just a little town of about 700 people. Oh, wow. And school had, in high school there were 30 kids, grammar school, 70 or 80. A lot of us went to school together for 12 years because it was a close-knit community of people that had hung around and been there for a long time. So as I say, my earliest recollections would be riding the horse with my dad somewhere in 48, 49, 50 and learning to drive and whatever when I was about 10 or 11 back in the good old days. So

Drew (05:27):
Did it look like a ghost town at that? What did C Street look like back then?

Ron (05:32):
Well, it's funny because the liveliest ghost town in the west, to us, it was just our town and there were a lot of buildings that had no businesses in 'em. They were just storefronts. My folks store was almost in the middle of town at the south end, so it was just Virginia City. It's where we grew up. You went to the Crystal Bar or you went to the Saac bar, and I could go in and play the pinball machine, or if I got really bored, I could play the nickel slot machine. I think the statute of limitations is gone. Yes. And the Delta a Smokery was there, the bucket of blood, some of the ones that she mentioned, if you wanted to go somewhere, you went to Carson first and then you went to Reno. So it was just a small Nevada town at that point in time.

Drew (06:34):
So your family's been there since 1865?

Ron (06:40):
My mother's side, Wilson's as near as I can determine doing some ancestry stuff. They got there around eighteen sixty one, sixty two. My grandfather was born, the house is still there in 1865, and his brother was born in 1864 in that same house. So that's my mother's side. The Gallaghers were newcomers. They didn't get there until about 1871 or 72. So yeah, I have a pretty good thread on the Comstock.

Drew (07:19):
So did you have any fun stories that kind of got passed down from generation to generation?

Ron (07:26):
I was privy to stories and to buildings and two oyster shells and bottles. One of our jokes is that we grew up shooting things. One is it was a town or you started with a 22 and you hunted. And then we also were a great basketball town, so we were the shooting hoops or you were shooting guns. But probably when I grew up, we could take off, didn't think a thing of it, go hunting in the morning and come back and go to school with the gun in the car. And one of our jokes, I've had this with some of my friends, is we probably growing up in this little town where you just took off and walked around and was very centralized, there weren't any outlying houses you had to worry about. We probably shot up a million dollars worth of bottles. Wow. Because if you saw a bottle, you took your 22 to see if you could shoot it. And some of those were probably back in those days, if we had known it, they might have been five, 10, $15,000 bottle. So wow. That's how we spent our time.

Drew (08:38):
Well, it really was growing up in the Wild West for you then, wasn't it?

Ron (08:42):
Well, it was from the standpoint, I guess, yes, in that terminology, but in our case, it was just the way, and by the way, Virginia City, of course prejudice is the greatest industrial mining center in the world, and truly a unique place, but not unlike many small towns where kids just, it was a different time, a different era, and guns were part of the culture and you did it right. And other towns in Nevada, you could go out to Austin or you could go to Eureka or Elco or wherever. Kids were growing up the same way. Not like today, but back in those days, it was a neat place to grow up.

Drew (09:26):
When you watched Westerns, we get kind of that romantic old west feel when we watch a Western. Did you get that same kind of, do you get that same kind of feel out of watching old westerns or is it kind of like, I see that every day?

Ron (09:42):
Well, actually when I watched old westerns in the broad term, it's watching a joke to me because Virginia City growing up was not a cowboy town. Virginia City was a mining town. Now you had Buckaroos for Carros down. Well, you were in Genoa, Carson Valley, Eagle Valley, Virginia City was on the side of a mountain. And when we grew up, cowboys weren't other than to go to the movie and laugh about hop along Cassidy and Roy Rogers and all of those, we never had a picture that we were in any way a wild west. Everybody had a horse and everybody had a gun. It was a mining town. And that's what my mom and dad and family would talk about. Well, back in the days, and there wasn't much mining grow going on when I grew up. It really all stopped in 1942 when the War Powers Act came in and shut down the couple of mines that were operating. Most of the people they lived in Virginia City, the stores and the bars were operated by locals. And then a huge number worked for the state of Nevada and Carson City or went to Reno to work for construction companies. And so never when Bonanza, what came on in 19 58, 59, everybody just chuckled.

Drew (11:12):
Okay. Yeah.

Ron (11:13):
It had no, well, we watched Bonanza, enjoyed the show, don't misunderstand me, but it had no relevance to Virginia City riding across from Lake Tahoe. We just laughed at that. It

Drew (11:28):
Was, history was not being accurately portrayed is basically what you're saying.

Ron (11:35):
No, and really when you look at Virginia City today, for those of us that are natives, my view is that I view bonanza as a blessing and a curse because it put Virginia City on the map from a tourism standpoint, and that's the reincarnation of Virginia City from the greatest industrial mining center in the world to a tourist location. So from that standpoint, people then came in to start businesses. They redid storefronts. They've done work that held the buildings up that if another 10 years had gone by, they may have fallen down. But by the same token, the curse part is that Virginia City with its unique, truly unique history is kind of lost in the shuffle.

Drew (12:28):
So let's talk a little bit about what brought people to Virginia City initially. Was it gold, was it silver? And what is the Comstock load? We hear that term and some people are probably like, what does that mean?

Ron (12:45):
Well, what brought people to Virginia City was the lure of gold. It was the greatest silver mining area in the world, but isn't what brought them up the canyons. They were plaster mining, looking for gold flakes when there was enough water to pan. And if you look at where Virginia City sits, it's sort of the perfect storm. California started in 1849, and of course all of the people were coming across the country, leaving Carolina, leaving New York to find riches in California. And one of the main trails, the immigrant trail follows what's called the Carson River comes through Lovelock, comes across Interstate 80 to some extent, and as people were on that trail, they would stop and they were looking for gold and they looked up at what was called Sun Mountain. That's where Virginia City is, and they would go up and pan for gold. The Mormons, by the way, if you were in Genoa, that of course that was the Mormon community to begin with, they had found traces of gold in the 1850s, long before 1859. But it was looking for gold that people went up the canyons over the years, if they could make $3 a day, which was one ounce of gold that you'd acquire in a week, by the way, that's how you talk about hardworking $3 a day. They thought they were making good money compared to what you were making back in the East coast.

(14:30):
Finally, in 59, there was the two gold strikes in that or year, and that's what brought people there. But it was the silver that actually made Virginia City what it was.

Drew (14:46):
Okay,

Ron (14:46):
Silver, far out gold in terms of total tonnage and value, the Comstock load, because of course it was named after Comstock, and that's a whole story. He's not the one that made the original discovery, but his name got attached to it. Comstock Load is really the area of Virginia City and Gold Hill, which is probably no more than about five or six miles by two or three miles if you do length and width. Yeah. So when you say, well, the Comstock load, normally that attaches to Virginia City, but it also should attach to Gold Hill, which is they're virtually side by side only down the mountain a bit.

Drew (15:33):
And there were several mines through this area, correct.

Ron (15:37):
Many, many mines and literally thousands of claims.

Drew (15:41):
So how many people were in this town, because I've heard numbers that have ranged from 15,000 up to somebody said 85,000. This is getting into a metropolis by that

Ron (15:52):
Time that that's too high. But I guess my answer would be, and I've had that discussion with Ron James, I grew up with, and remember that this is passed down and where my folks got it, Virginia City and Gold Hill had somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000 people, 25 in Virginia City and 15 in Gold Hill. That is a gross exaggeration in all probability because Ron has done the census. 18 70, 18 80. There was a Nevada census in mid 1870s, probably the Virginia City in the neighborhood of approaching 18 20,000 in Gold Hill, 5 67. So maybe 25,000 total in the big bonanza time, which would've been 18, 72, 73, 74, 75. But if you ever get a chance, and hopefully you'll come out, you have a standing invitation to come to. Thank you. I have a bar top from the old Virginia Hotel in Virginia City, so you'd love to have a drink. Oh,

Drew (17:01):
Very nice. I'm sure.

Ron (17:02):
Yeah, put your elbows on it. And if I have a couple of drinks, I'll make up some people that I'm sure leaned on it back in the 18 hundreds. But it just a fascinating place and time. And we have some pictures where they were taken above Virginia City and it's literally wall to wall buildings, many of them being apartment houses. So there were a lot of people jammed into really a one mile main street north to south, and probably less than that, east to west, but lots of people mining drove it, but there were clothing, fine dress shops, multiple religious Jewish establishments. It was a fascinating multicultural city. And that sometimes gets lost in the translations. Well,

Drew (17:57):
It's interesting because we think of a mining town, or we think of these little towns that popped up all across the west as boom towns and how they were mostly just men and they were coming to do their mining and the town was just kind of thrown up to support the miners and then it would collapse after everything was over. But it sounds like Virginia City actually was like a city, it was probably a lot more men than women, but that there would've been women in the town as well.

Ron (18:34):
Two things. One is that that's your depiction of a lot of the small mining towns in Nevada. That's pretty accurate. They were truly boom towns for 2, 3, 4, 5 years, eight, nine years maybe. And they came and they went, the misconception about Virginia City is that, well, all the men and all the hookers, the ladies of the night, et cetera, et cetera, when it first started out, that's not really correct. And Ron James points that out. And there's also another book I'm giving you reading material, but it's called The Bonanza King by a gentleman by the name of Gregory Crouch. And it's a story of John Mackey who was the richest man in the world, or of the second or third, if not the richest, as they point his crouch's research points out. And Ron James and many others. Yes, it was mining guys, hard-nosed prospectors, hardworking guys.

(19:38):
That was their job was to find gold. But from the earliest 1860 timeframe after the winter of 59 discovery, there were a lot of minors in there, multiple hundred and up to a couple of thousand. But there were also women, but there were families up there from the very beginning because they had come from Grass Valley and Nevada City, California, and they came across with their husbands and they brought the children with them. So the number of Ladies of the Night, they were certainly there, but if you read about their history, they didn't just run off to the next mining boom because so many of them fizzled as we talked about a few minutes ago. And they weren't going to uproot a good business in Grass Valley to come to Virginia City. So it wasn't until Virginia City got established and the population continued to grow during the 1860s, that you really did get a broader cross-section of families and more ladies of the night to take care of all those single hardworking minors.

Drew (20:54):
Yeah. And so this is what was really interesting about reading Kelly's book, is that when you read it, it almost gives you the opposite impression. I read a book by historian named Si Martin, it was written in the 1970s about brothels and saloons in the old West. And the way he described them, you didn't have a saloon without having a brothel somewhere nearby, which was kind of the focus of his book. So that's probably why he gave that impression. But after reading Kelly's book, I got more of an impression that yes, there were some saloons that had this, but there were other ones that were like old pipes that was a little more upper class or that catered to a different clientele that may not have been as interested in that kind of activity.

Ron (21:50):
She was right on, because the idea that there was a place to go upstairs after a couple of drinks, there were certainly saloons that catered to that. The Barbery coast is one of an area of a couple of blocks that was the original hardcore bad area in Virginia City, probably starting in the late 1860s and seventies. And that's where the one had the shooting gallery in it. And that building was still there. By the way, when I was a kid, you asked me about recollections and I was too damn dumb. Go down and check off the saloon. Oh man. It was just another band in saloon. Who knows what I would've found when the building was still there if I had picked around. And that's where they did one of the digs. But anyway, the perception that there was a brothel attached to every, and there were certainly ladies, but they were not all prostitutes that worked in those places. There were also all kinds of small bars that catered to the Irish or catered to the Cornish, and they served food to entice the miners to come in. They had cigar bar that was so big, and some days they served champagne and oysters. Are you familiar with the term the one Bit saloon and the two bit saloon? I think she mentioned that in her.

Drew (23:19):
She did mention that, but I forget exactly what the connotation was for that.

Ron (23:24):
Well, the connotation was if it was a one bit saloon, it was lower price. Didn't ma mean that it was just a dumb, and then the two bit saloon was one that had a little better label on the whiskey bottle, I guess, or served a little better food. But if you look at the number of saloons, and some would say in Gold Hill in Virginia City, it probably approached 80 to a hundred, and I think that's probably correct. But it was also a town. There was also a population of 20 something thousand. She also points out, and so does Ron James in his research, that if you looked at the number of people and the number of saloons in what they probably consumed, it really wasn't a whole heck of a lot different than a lot of other cities around the country. It, it's been glamorized that it was just a hard drink. Everybody drank, and that's not quite correct. So,

Drew (24:20):
Well, you had some people, as she pointed out, that were teetotalers, so they weren't going to be drinking whiskey anyway, and that they would have alternate drinks for them to enjoy it. In fact, she goes into one thing talking about how some of them would drink bitters, not realizing that bitters actually have alcohol in them.

Ron (24:41):
Yeah. Again, Virginia City had the whole cross section of whether you wanted to compare it to Denver or you wanted to compare it to San Francisco. It was a marvelous city with all the elements. Some very poor people, some Native Americans that were just kind of living on the side of the hill, and some very wealthy folks that were there. So neat, neat, neat place. And the bars catered to all of those various groups. Everything from the little neighborhood bar that was mainly Irish to Piper, to the International Hotel. Of course, when was, particularly when it was rebuilt after the fire of 75. So I'd love to go back about 18 76, 77 and wander around.

Drew (25:36):
Yeah. Well, how much of the town burned during the great fire? Because there were, as I understand it, there were several fires that occurred in Virginia City, but this one was mostly devastating, although it happened in the middle of a boom. So rebuilding terribly difficult to do, I guess.

Ron (25:55):
Well, you're absolutely could there. The Steve Freddy has written any number of books on fires in Virginia, they call it the Fire Fiend because the fire of 75, October of 75 was the biggest fire, and it took out multiple blocks and literally probably hundreds of buildings in one way or another. So that was the great fire of 75. There were many other fires that took structures, hotels, et cetera, et cetera. But the fire of 75 was the big one and took the church. And in fact, part of Virginia City burned and was rebuilt in 75. And that's all still there today. But there are buildings that were built in the 1860s south of where that fire started that are really old Virginia City. When you walk up the street, the War Show Club being one in her book, the SAAC or the 62 bar, et cetera, those go back to the earliest days. In fact, the saac, which is now, forget the new one, they changed the name. That was the Bank of California building. Oh,

Drew (27:20):
The, that's

Ron (27:22):
That building has a history that is amazing.

Drew (27:24):
Very, oh, is the Ponderosa

Ron (27:26):
Ponderosa Now, why couldn't I think of that guy? But it was a saac when I grew up, but it was originally the Bank of California building, and that's where Sharon made his money, et cetera. And

Drew (27:37):
That's a very interesting one because they actually do tours of the mines underneath and there's a bank vault in there still, from what I understand.

Ron (27:46):
So you've done your homework? Yes. That's an interesting story. It's actually my cousin's husband that put that tunnel in and it's absolutely authentic, but of course there was not a tunnel layer to begin with that was put in the late 18 or 1960s or seventies. And it's a great hundred 50, 200, 250 foot walk. Everything is authentic. Couldn't do that today

Drew (28:15):
That

Ron (28:16):
By the ocean, whatever. But it was a little easier back there. And he was son of a son of a minor, Greg. And so he put it in, and there are only two tunnels to go through that one, which is an absolute reincarnation of a real tunnel. And then there's one that's opened the Golden Curry, or no, the Come On Run. It's below the Fourth Ward school. And that goes back to the earliest days that tunnel was there and there was a huge mill there, and it's open at least during the summer.

Drew (28:56):
So in that area, the mines have all basically been closed up and that you don't really get to tour any of the old mines that were there.

Ron (29:05):
No, one of the great sadnesses, Judy, my wife and I have traveled a bit. We've gone up, for example, to Butte, Montana, and you go into Butte, and there's no question, it's a mining town now. They're not operating now, but there are the galls frames and the mills, and they're fenced off. And there are several that are open. And you just know it's a mining town. When you go into Virginia City today, other than seeing the dumps, we just don't have any true remnants of the mining heritage. They were all burned down or were the steel and the parts were all taken to various other locations over the years. And so, no, it's just a shame that you can't go in and say, oh my God, what a wonderful mining town.

Drew (29:55):
Right. Well, I've been to Butte. I actually went last year. And it's interesting when you drive around the bend and all of a sudden you look and you see that the town is built on what looks like strip mining. So yes, it's very obvious that Butte is still has some activity going on there. And what I find interesting about these mining towns too is that they're built on the side of mountains or large hills like Jerome, Arizona, outside Sedona or Butte. Yeah,

Ron (30:30):
Yeah,

Drew (30:31):
Yeah. I mean, these places are fascinating.

Ron (30:34):
Bisbee, you go down to Bisbee, Arizona. Yeah.

Drew (30:36):
Yeah. So when you're in Jerome, there's actually the old jail is sliding down the mountain. So do you have any quirky stuff like that going on? Because I mean, I'm sure you get lots of exercise in Virginia City, but are there any buildings that are kind of traveling on their own?

Ron (30:55):
Well, that's an inter, yes, I'm sure there are. Virginia City is at 6,250 feet above sea level. And so if you walk around Virginia City on a regular basis, you're either going to be very healthy or die. And of course, that's one of the things that the tourists run into is that they come from sea level and they start to walk around and go, oh my, oh my God, my God, my God.

Drew (31:21):
But

Ron (31:23):
It, it's estimated that under Virginia City and including Gold Hill, there are six to 700 miles of tunnels. Now, many of those have been backfilled because there was no ore, and they did the square set timbering and all of that good stuff. So it's not as if we're on, the whole town is on a forest underground, but there are sections where truly we are resting on some open ground and the dirt moves downhill. So over the years, there have been buildings that have slipped and are not there anymore. Hopefully that will not happen. But yeah, there's there isn't probably of the old buildings, there's not a level floor in Virginia City.

Drew (32:14):
Yeah, it's interesting to look at pictures of it when you go, I guess the way the streets are, the alphabetized streets are not, I mean, you could walk down Sea Street and it looks like from the pictures I've seen that you are basically walking fairly level ground through that whole

Ron (32:34):
Walk. Yeah, a little slope, but nothing that would kill you. Correct.

Drew (32:36):
Right. But if you decide to go down to D Street up to or to, I guess it's down to B Street and up to do they go up or down,

Ron (32:45):
Actually you would go from C up to B and to A, and then down to D E F G and so on.

Drew (32:50):
Okay. I hear there's no J Street. Was there a reason for that?

Ron (32:55):
Yeah, there isn't. And I'm sure there was a reason, but I

Drew (33:02):
Actually started counting on my fingers to see if maybe that was the 13th letter, but it's the 10th letter. So I don't know. I don't know if it has something to do with tens or not. That stuff like that always in intrigues me.

Ron (33:16):
If we could go back and talk to somebody,

Drew (33:19):
Abso, oh man, I run into that problem all the time. So one of the most famous residents of Virginia City was Mark Twain. And Mark Twain has a quote, I haven't found the exact quote, but it's something to the extent of if you get a glass of water and a glass of gin, drink the gin and throw out the water because the water in that area just was not of good quality. Do you think that's part of the reason why saloons became so prominent in that area?

Ron (33:55):
Well, it's certainly, one water was such a fascinating subject on the Comstock because there was minimal water from the springs that came down. And not only did you need that water, and that's why sometimes in the summer you couldn't even prospect back in the day because the water was that scarce. So whiskey was a viable substitute in the beginning for many reasons, including water wasn't that prevalent. But what happened, which is a story in and of itself that gets lost, is that when the big bonanza began, and they found the huge claims in the 18 71, 72 timeframe, they had to get water, more water because of course, that processed the ore. And as people were pouring in, they couldn't survive. And that's where, if you've heard of Marlet Lake, which sits above Lake Tahoe, we get our water in from Marlet Lake, and that was viewed as the eighth wonder of the world when it was constructed in the 1860s.

(35:12):
He said, how do we get water to Virginia City? Well, water doesn't run uphill from the Carson River. We don't know what we're going to do. No, we can't get it from, they call it the Sierra, it's actually Carson Range. All of a sudden in the early 1870s, they asked again, we've got to get water. And there was an engineer, Schussler, who had done work out of on the West Coast down by San Francisco. He said, we can do this. And from the time he said, we can do this, it was about 18 months, less than two years that they built both pipe and wooden plum from this lake sitting above Lake Tahoe, down across what we call Washoe Valley, some 20 something miles and brought water into Virginia City

Drew (36:08):
Man.

Ron (36:08):
And it was as viewed as the eighth wonder of the world because they used wooden plumes part of the way, and they drilled a tunnel up above the mountains, and then they had to get the water across this valley to Virginia City. So they used iron pipe made in San Francisco. And the engineering part of this, what made it such a marvel is that the vertical drop from where they put it in the pipe down to the bottom of the valley and then through centrifugal force, whatever, it went up and then into a wooden flume. That was twice what had ever been done in the world. The vertical drop was close to 2000 feet, and the pounds per square inch on the pipe was twice what had ever been engineered in the world. It was something like 450 pounds per square inch, and this was 900. That's a story that doesn't get told about why Virginia City was such the greatest industrial mining center in the world because things like that were done. You wouldn't find the permit offices to build that today in 18 months. Well,

Drew (37:28):
And nobody would've wanted to stay if there was a water issue all the way through. I mean, there would've been no reason to continue a town there. It would've been a boom town just like the rest that just kind of dissolved into history. I would imagine

Ron (37:42):
It had to have water to survive, both from the mining standpoint and processing the ore. And from the people standpoint, the interesting thing is that they were pumping two and 3 million gallons of water from the underground mines each day into the Sutra tunnel, or that's why the Sutra Tunnel was built. But we had so much water that was arsenic and bad that we couldn't do anything with that screwed up the mines and made it very expensive to work underground and no water on top of the ground that we could use. So it was kind of an interesting dichotomy there. Too much water and not enough water, but we handled, my ancestors handled both of those problems.

Drew (38:26):
So it's really interesting to me because knowing about how whiskey is made and also knowing that iron is really bad for whiskey, it will turn whiskey black. Trying to figure out if they were making their own whiskey or if they were bringing whiskey in from other places, and we're talking about oyster shells, and I'm thinking there's no real sea close by. How are they getting all of these oysters into Virginia City?

Ron (38:59):
Well, that's a whole story in and of itself. Now, there were several breweries in Virginia City. I don't know that they made whiskey on the Comstock. It was brought in as far as I know. And of course that was from Placerville and over Carson Pass. And that prior to the time that the railroad was completed to Virginia City in 1870, and then it became pretty easy. The oyster shells are kind of a fascinating story in and of themselves. When I grew up, there were oyster shells all over. Now people have built some homes up there and they, they're not as prevalent, but oysters were a symbol of the wealthy and the miners that were making $4 a day and thought they were rich by comparison to what they had left on the East coast, they said, well, if oysters are good for those folks that are running the mines, by God, they're good for us.

(40:08):
So champagne and oysters became kind of a staple. And when the Virginia Hotel opened, well, it burned in 75, and when the bottom floor was opened in, I think it was late 76 before the main hotel opened in 77, they called a lot of those, the bars, chop houses and cigar bars. And the first day that they opened, they sold 2000 oysters. And so the question is how did they get them there? Well, from what I've read, some came from the West coast, but they transported them from the east coast and they came across by rail and they were packed in ice and sawdust.

Drew (40:50):
Oh wow. Okay. Interesting. Yeah, I mean the more I was reading Kelly's book, the more I was like, oyster shells. Oyster shells. Wait a second, this isn't San Francisco.

Ron (41:01):
And the funny part of it is Drew, when I grew up and you walked around, as they say, all over where there were houses there, and of course they didn't have a central dump back in those days. They had the outhouse and they had the stuff they dumped out alongside the house. Oyster shells were all over.

Drew (41:22):
So let's talk about some of the individual saloons and whether they're still in operation. Were they around and operating before Bonanza came in and created this boom, the Piper's Opera House? Was that always running and the old corner bar, were those still working? No. When you were, okay. No. Okay.

Ron (41:48):
I Opera house in, when I grew up in the forties and the fifties, the iconic buildings of the Comstock, they were quite literally falling apart. And there was a delightful lady who loved the, don't Ask Me, I remember some of this stuff, but as far as the Piper's is concerned, no, the bar was not open. She would sit up at the entrance to the Piper's Opera house with a little tin box in the summer, and she would charge people 25 cents to walk up into the Opera House, anything to pay for a window that was broken, et cetera, et cetera, etcetera. The restoration of the Opera House, the restoration of the Presbyterian Church, the Respira restoration of the Fourth Ward, all of those things did not occur until well into begin to occur well into the fifties and the sixties. And Ron James being a huge part of that because he was able to get the grants to do the work.

Drew (42:52):
Oh, wow.

Ron (42:53):
He's a story in and of himself

Drew (42:55):
It sounds like. Is he from there?

Ron (42:58):
Yeah, Reno and an Irish folklorist by trade.

Drew (43:05):
Okay.

Ron (43:05):
Studied in, I think it was Dublin, just a delightful gentleman. He and his wife are back in Iowa now, and he continues to do research and write books. He not only writes about the West and Virginia City, but he's written some other marvelous books. So fascinating personality, if you ever get to talk to him.

Drew (43:21):
Nice.

Ron (43:22):
Do it.

Drew (43:23):
So the Territorial Enterprise was the newspaper where, I guess this was really Mark Twain's first meandering into, he had worked around newspapers his whole life from what I understand, but this was really his first time being a journalist. Is this, is any of that still in existence?

Ron (43:46):
Well, he came in as Samuel Clemons before he was Mark Twain and came with his brother who was getting a job with, before it was, Nevada was a state, I believe. And his influence on the Comstock, of course, because he's associated with it, is huge. His amount of time on the Comstock was quite minimal, but he did ride for the enterprise. And of course when there wasn't real news, he made news up. That was fascinating.

Drew (44:15):
And so is the building still there that he worked in or has that lost in the fire?

Ron (44:21):
That was lost in the fire. Okay. It, and it's not where the current territorial enterprise museum building is. He, and again, Ron James has researched all of this, but the building was a, oh, a block or two away. But yes, he was on the Comstock. Yes, he did go to Gold Hill. Yes. There was supposedly a dual that there was going to take place. And then of course he wrote about it and became famous after he left. But we have benefited from Samuel Mark being on the Comstock for a couple of years.

Drew (44:57):
And so the other bars that you have in the area, Delta Saloon, so I understand is the longest continually operating bar. This is something I run into in the whiskey industry with distilleries that will say, we're the oldest continuously running. And then you start researching the history and you find out that, well, actually during Prohibition, they couldn't produce anything. So they really weren't continuous through that time, but had the longest life. Was the Delta around when you were a kid?

Ron (45:29):
Oh, the Delta was there. The War Show Club was changed hands a few times and it, it's still operating the Delta. Before it was the Delta was the Smokery, and it was operating in the thirties and into the forties and by the Petr family. Angelo just sold it a few years ago. So it, it's changed because they enlarged it and et cetera, et cetera. But it's still open. The Silver Queen that became the Silver Queen more in probably the fifties, but it was the Malin Hotel. So that bar had been there and sits almost next to where the International Hotel was. So it's been around a long, long time. So yeah, they, they've changed hands, but there are several up there. The Bucket of Blood was the Senator at one time, and then the McBride family's had that since about 1931. So there are some old timers and some new timers up there.

Drew (46:41):
And it was called the Senator. The buckets of Blood was called Senator First before it became buckets of Blood

Ron (46:48):
Back in the day. And I don't remember the exact history of that, but it had been a bar

Drew (46:54):
Okay

Ron (46:55):
Before. And the same thing with the Delta, which was the Smokery. And it was there when I was a kid as a smokery. And if we walk the street someday, they've changed the names, but it's been a bar for as long as I can remember and long before that, some of them that are on the street right now.

Drew (47:19):
And it's the buckets of Blood where behind that they discovered the remains under the parking lot of the Boston Saloon, which I think is a fascinating story because it shows the different mindset that people had in that day where we think, yes, we think of segregation. I did a story on even Sammy Davis Jr. In Las Vegas and how segregation was going on then. But in this town, not only were people not so segregated, although you had your particular bars that attracted a certain clientele, but this was a black owned bar that was actually a very high class,

Ron (48:10):
Upscale,

Drew (48:11):
Upscale bar. Yeah. So did anybody in the town know about this beforehand? How did they discover it?

Ron (48:19):
I don't know who was doing the research. Probably Ron James. And he's been an influence on so many people, including Kelly. I did not know that Saloon was there when I was growing up. It was just the back end of the bucket of Blood. And in fact, one of the stories that I, I'm always don't like to make stuff up, it's not on purpose, but I'm sure Bob James told me this. There was a black saloon operating down the street from where the bucket of blood is on the main street and the lot is still there, and it actually burned in the fire of 75. But one of Mark Twain's friends that I guess he knew perhaps from back east, so to speak, as we say out here, was the ran a black saloon in the early days in the 1860s. He actually ran a saloon and was a friend of Mark Twains. Virginia City was both benevolent and nasty, all of the same things. Blacks were accepted, some were Chinese, of course were had their own area in Virginia City, some two or 3000 at one time. So it a real cross section. A lot of blending and a lot of not blending. Yeah.

Drew (49:53):
You think because it's a very interesting that just the Chinese had their own section of town. Do you think that's because they just kind of huddled amongst themselves and that just was a comfort thing for them? Or was that the only segregation that was really going on in the town?

Ron (50:09):
It was the largest chunk of segregation that I know of because they truly did have Chinatown and was segregated. Now, there were certainly corner sections of town and Irish sections of town and probably Italian sections of throughout history in the United States. So you got your feet on the ground, you tended to go where people look like you or people talk like you did or whatever, but the Irish and the Cornish, and they had their own military sig, field guards and whatever. So they were somewhat segregated, but yet they also worked underground together. So you better get along with the guy regardless of where he came from. If you're 2000 feet underground and it's 135 degrees and Dynamite's going off, black powders going off, yeah, you better trust that dude.

Drew (51:10):
So going back into the world of saloons, I, let's finish on this idea of authenticity in portraying what Virginia City was, which saloon or set of saloons would you say seem to give off an authentic character more than, because we go to, a lot of these towns will sometimes try to get very kitchy about how they're doing things and they'll try to advance the lore that we've heard all our lives about what the old West would be like. W which one or which ones do you think are best representative of what a saloon might have been like back then?

Ron (51:58):
Well, if you walk in the Washoe Club, as I walk down the street, the Washoe Club, of course has been there forever and was documented. And there are pictures in Kelly's book, the Crystal Bar, which was really moved out of the Washoe Club in the 1920s by Bill Marx. That's now the visitor center. But if you walk in there and you look at the bar itself and you look at the chandeliers that is authentic back from the earliest day, it's not a saloon right now, but if you just walk in to see the brass rail you could put your foot on and what was there, and it, it's fascinating as you walk down the street, they were all saloons, so a lot of the furnishings are authentic. I don't know that all of the owners know as much about the history of the building as some of us would like them to. But when you would walk in to have a drink, you're walking in and putting your arm on a bar that's been there for a long, long time. And that would be true of the Delta and the Bucket of Blood, which was the Senator before it. If you go into Connie Carlson's, which is the Silver Queen, put your foot up on the bar that's been there in one form or another. It was a brass rail for a while, and it's where I took my first steps when I was a little boy. So the story coach Oh wow. Learned to walk behind the bar. Nice.

Drew (53:39):
Got started early. Yeah,

Ron (53:40):
Great story, great story. And then when you go down to what is now the Red Dog, which used to be the Comstock, that bar is authentic and has been there for forever and ever. So I'm probably not answering your question, but the buildings are authentic. Most of the bars would be now the Bonanza, for example, that was a service station, and my Italian cousin made it into the Bonanza Club when he realized what Bonanza was doing for Virginia City. So it's got a great view and it's got a great bar, but it's not an original bar. It was a garage, but most of the others are pretty authentic. One quick story about just the saloons, the bars in Virginia City, the one bit, the two bit, when I grew up, you had bartenders and you had mixologists and bartender was great and you knew him and all the rest of it. But there were one fella's name was Drysdale, and that's from, he tended bar behind the bar that I have down here in our house that was saved after the fire in 1940. He was a mixologist, always had, was upscale in terms of the way he treated. You always had a white shirt on and a tie, and when you walked in, when you hit the door, it was a martini with two olives or whatever. And by the time you sat down, your drink was there.

(55:20):
There were a few that took the profession of bartending saloon keeping to a different level. And I always found that interesting. And that's probably what was more prevalent in, for example, Piper and whatever, you were treated as an upscale patron by a mixologist.

Drew (55:43):
Well, it's interesting too because if in reading some of Mark Twain's writings about saloons, he would talk about the fact that if you wanted to meet the most important person in town, it was usually the bartender, not the mayor or not the sheriff. Everybody would be gathering there. And he said if you really wanted to gain a great reputation, you would become a bartender before you would become anything else because they were the most respected people in town. So yeah, it's interesting to see how these things have evolved. And Virginia City's an interesting case because it was big enough as a town that there were so many saloons. My research on saloons has basically shown me that in these really small boom towns, the saloon was the first thing to be set up. Whether it was just set up on two logs with a board across them and a barrel, so could from that outside a tent, all the way to it being the place where the stage coach would let passengers off because it was seen as the center of town. That's right. That's where you went before you went anywhere else. You got your food there, you got your drinks there, you might get some companionship there. It was all in one spot

Ron (57:07):
And then maybe a little place to sleep. That's absolutely correct, because the barrels of whiskey were in Virginia City in 1859 after the first discovery that you could always sell liquor. Yeah. Yes.

Drew (57:25):
Amazing times. Well, I really appreciate you sharing all this great information with me, and it is definitely some good stuff to help me move the story forward, so I appreciate you.

Ron (57:39):
Good, good. I'm glad you're doing

Drew (57:40):
It, taking the time on that.

Ron (57:42):
Thank you, drew, and hopefully we'll be in touch. And as I say, whe when you come west, just give us a call.

Drew (57:49):
Will do. All right. Okay. Cheers. Have a great day. Take care. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Ron Gallagher. And if you want to learn more about Virginia City, then check out the Whiskey Lore Podcast in season three, you'll hear the two-part miniseries along with my friend Chris Wimmer from Legends of the Old West. A big thank you to Amy Demuth, the Virginia City Tourism for helping me track down Ron, also for introducing me to Ashley and Colby Frey. You can learn more about Virginia City also at visit Virginia city env.com. I'm your host, drew Hamish. And until next time, cheers and SL JVA Whiskey Lords of Production of Travel Fuels Life, L L C.