Virginia City, NV

Virginia City is a Storey County census-designated place built around the 1859 discovery of the Comstock Lode. The mines turned the settlement into one of the West’s major silver centers; by the mid-1870s, Virginia City and nearby Gold Hill had grown into a major urban center of the West. Mining declined after the late 1870s, but over 400 historic buildings, mine openings, and old streets remain within the Virginia City Historic District, a National Historic Landmark. The Way It Was Museum, Fourth Ward School, and restored Virginia & Truckee Railroad keep different parts of the Comstock story visible. Virginia City is a Nevada mining town whose boom is over, but whose physical map still shows the scale of what happened here.