A couple Steve Dancy Tales take place in Carson City. I like the town. I like it today and I like historic Carson City. Since statehood, it has always been the capital of Nevada which made it a political town with pretensions of civility. Virginia City, however, was twenty miles away and it rightly deserves its reputation as one of the rowdiest mining towns of the Old West. Until the mines played out in the 1880s, the Comstock Lode made Virginia City and Carson City very wealthy.
Carson City acted as a freight center and supply depot for the mines. Extensive flumes carried pine logs down the eastern slope of the Sierras to Carson City. Sawmills to finish these raw logs were a major city industry and the finished lumber shored up mine tunnels and provided boards for building above ground. The short run Virginia & Truckee Railroad transported timber, people, and foodstuffs from Carson City to Virginia City. At its peak, thirty-six trains a day passed between the two cities. The pair of towns were bustling, with the best housing, food, liquor, and entertainment that money could buy.
Here’s a description of Carson City excepted from The Shopkeeper. Steve Dancy and Jeff Sharp are just riding into town.
Carson City had been settled as a trading post less than thirty years earlier, so I should not have expected the sophistication of Denver or St. Louis. I had visited both cities, and neither was the primitive hinterland a New Yorker might expect. Carson City, on the other hand, lived up to the image of a new-made town populated by people who had nothing but wanted everything.
After we passed the railroad station and approached the statehouse, the town began to look a bit more established. The main thoroughfare was crowded with wagons, horses, and people bustling about with purpose. Although the commercial district had the same disheveled look as most of the other towns in the West, the residences along the side avenues set Carson City apart. Radiating off the central artery were numerous tree-lined lanes with houses substantial enough to indicate that people intended to stay awhile. In fact, some of these homes were large and well designed.
I glanced up another side lane with nice homes set back from the street. “Looks like there’s some money in Carson City. Settled money.”
“For a mine to prosper, you need two things: lumber to shore up the shafts an’ a way to transport your bullion to market. Trees an’ trains. Carson City has a lock on both. Sometimes I think we miners just toil for a bunch of shysters in starched collars.”
“Which reminds me, I want to buy some clothes while we’re here.”
Sharp pointed ahead. “That’s the new state capitol building. Wherever ya find politicians, ya’ll find haberdasheries.”
The stately capitol building looked sturdy and permanent, as befitted the only pretense to law and order in a society struggling against anarchy. The structure sat in the center of a city block, surrounded by a pleasant park with footpaths, trees, and neatly groomed grass. A white cupola with a silver roof capped the two-story sandstone building, giving it a Federal-style appearance that I had seldom seen west of the Continental Divide.
“Looks impressive.”
“Looks deceive.” Sharp spit. “A more corrupt state government you will not find.”
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| Honest westerns filled with dishonest characters. |
