- Title
- Virginia City, Nevada. Parade of Company B, Emmet Guard
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- Description
- Parade of Company B, Emmet Guard, in dress uniform, down street of Virginia City Nevada. Onlookers on both sides of street, either on the street or looking from buildings. Inscription on front of photograph: "Co. B Emmitt (sic) Guard Virginia City, Nevada." Title supplied by cataloger.
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- Format Extent
- 1 postcard : b&w ; 9 x 14 cm
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- Subject
- Parades--Nevada--Virginia City; Militia--Nevada--19th century; Irish Americans--Nevada--Virginia City; Streets--Nevada--Virginia City; Commercial buildings--Nevada--Virginia City
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- Note
- Formed in 1864, the Emmet Guard of Virginia City was an outgrowth of a Feinian organization there, and this Irish-American militia unit marched in its first parade on July 4 of that year. It, as many Irish-American military units, was named after that hero of Irish nationalism, Robert Emmet. In 1859, gold was discovered in the Virginia City, Nevada, area, and by 1860 the city was well established as the center of Comstock Mining District, named after one of the early miners, Henry T. "Pancake" Comstock. The partnership of four Irishmen, John Mackay, James Fair, William S. O'Brien, and James Flood, made the most significant discovery on the Comstock Lode, hitting the "Big Bonanza" at the Consolidated Virginia, a silver strike in 1873 that yielded a profit of 166 million dollars by 1878. Their mining interests appropriately became known as the "Bonanza Firm." Virginia City and its surrounding area grew as well, and by 1875 had a population of 25,000. After 1878 the bonanza days withered as the veins ran out or declined in quality. The introduction of the cyanide method in the mid 1890s for extracting gold and silver ore helped maintain Comstock's mining, although not at previous levels. By the 1940s mining had played out, and Viriginia City survived as a tourist attraction. Virginia City was part of a web of mining towns that developed in eastern California and western Nevada in the late nineteenth century. The towns of the Owens Valley were linked to this web by social ties and often economic ones.
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- Collection
- J. D. Black Papers, CSLA-15, Series 3: Photographs, Subseries A: Photographic Postcards, Box 16, Sleeve 33
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- Type
- ["Photographs","Postcards"]
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- Language
- eng
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