Gold Hill is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

in Storey County, Nevada, located just south and downhill of

Virginia City Virginia City is a census-designated place (CDP) that is the county seat of Storey County, Nevada, and the largest community in the county. The city is a part of the Reno– Sparks Metropolitan Statistical Area. Virginia City developed as a boom ...

. Incorporated December 17, 1862, in order to prevent its annexation by its larger neighbor, the town at one point was home to at least 8,000 residents. Prosperity was sustained for a period of 20 years between 1868 and 1888 by mining the

Comstock Lode The Comstock Lode is a lode of silver ore located under the eastern slope of Mount Davidson, a peak in the Virginia Range in Virginia City, Nevada (then western Utah Territory), which was the first major discovery of silver ore in the Unit ...

, a major deposit of gold and

silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...

ore Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically containing metals, that can be mined, treated and sold at a profit.Encyclopædia Britannica. "Ore". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 7 Apr ...

. Mines such as the Yellow Jacket, Crown Point, and Belcher brought in over $10 million each in dividends. Historical remnants of the town can still be seen, including the Gold Hill Hotel, promoted as Nevada's oldest hotel, in existence since 1861; the former

Bank of California The Bank of California was opened in San Francisco, California, on July 4, 1864, by William Chapman Ralston and Darius Ogden Mills. It was the first commercial bank in the Western United States, the second-richest bank in the nation, and considered ...

building; the restored

Virginia & Truckee Railroad The Virginia and Truckee Railroad is a privately owned heritage railroad, headquartered in Virginia City, Nevada. Its private and publicly owned route is long. When first constructed in the 19th century, it was a commercial freight railroad ...

depot; the Depression-Era Crown Point Mill; and remains of several of the mines and residences in various states of restoration and repair. Although in the shadow of neighboring

, Gold Hill, nonetheless enjoyed a lively entertainment industry. The ''Gold Hill News'' was established in 1863, and Gold Hill enjoyed a theater by 1862. The demographic mirrored Virginia City where one third of the population was engaged in mining and the Irish immigrant dominated numerically. Newspaperman Alfred Doten is associated with the town. His numerous journals, available at the University of Nevada, Reno Special Collections, provide a rich and detailed history of his experiences in the American West during the nineteenth century. One of the main settlements for the Cornish on the Comstock lode was in Gold Hill. The Gold Hill post office remained in operation until 1943. Today Gold Hill exists as a shell of its former self; its population in 2005 was 191. It is part of the

Reno Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the ...

– Sparks

Metropolitan Statistical Area In the United States, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is a geographical region with a relatively high population density at its core and close economic ties throughout the area. Such regions are neither legally Incorporated town, incorporate ...

. A later mining complex in the area operated from 1927 until 1942, when mining operations were shut down by

War Production Board The War Production Board (WPB) was an agency of the United States government that supervised war production during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established it in January 1942, with Executive Order 9024. The WPB replaced the Sup ...

order L-208, shutting down all nonessential gold mines in the United States. Just under a hundred million dollars' worth of ore was extracted after 1930. Active mining has returned to lower Gold Hill, with the start of production at Comstock Mining's Lucerne, Hartford and Billy The Kid mines. In 1976, Bob Gray, a former Marine Corps photographer in World War II and admirer of the

since he was a teenager, bought a section of the abandoned railway line between

and a point about two miles south. He laid track on that right of way and began operating a steam-powered tourist railroad. The track was extended to Gold Hill in 1992, and in 1994 the Gold Hill Historical Society was established to preserve the Gold Hill depot, one of the few wooden structures in the region that survived the 1875 fire in Virginia City. After ten years of applying for grants, lobbying, and collecting steel rail donations by the Gold Hill Historical Society, the mayor of Carson City approved the letting out to bid of a contract to reconstruct the railroad between Gold Hill and the Carson River, fifteen miles away.''Railroad Project On,'' Virginia City Register, Volume 4 Issue 29, January 16, 2004 Today Gold Hill is a stop on this tourist railroad, which operates historic steam trains attracting thousands of tourists each year. Gold Hill is the birthplace of

Marion Jones Farquhar Marion Jones Farquhar (née Jones; November 2, 1879 – March 14, 1965) was an American tennis player. She won the women's singles titles at the 1899 and 1902 U.S. Championships. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in ...

(1879-1965), Olympic bronze medal winner and two-time U.S. Open tennis champion.

References

External links

Picture of Gold Hill
as a sprawling town circa 1875
History of Gold Hill, Nevada
at Western Mining History
The Virginia and Truckee Railroad
and its history.
Gold Hill Hotel 360 Walk through - The Haunted Explorers
{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Storey County, Nevada History of Storey County, Nevada Populated places established in 1862 Reno, NV Metropolitan Statistical Area Virginia City, Nevada 1862 establishments in Nevada Territory Unincorporated communities in Nevada