Bonanza Kings

Bonanza Kings, John W. Mackay, James G. Fair, James C. Flood, and William S. O'Brien, organized the Consolidated Virginia Silver Mine in 1871 near Virginia City, Nevada, from a number of smaller claims on the Comstock Lode. The term "bonanza" was applied to the large ore body that lay in a vertical rift of the hanging wall of the Comstock Lode. For three years after large ore bodies were uncovered in 1874, the mines produced $3 million per month. Production began to fall off in 1879, but in twenty-two years of operation the mines yielded $150 million in silver and gold and paid more than $78 million in dividends.

Bibliography

Greever, William S. The Bonanza West: The Story of the Western Mining Rushes, 1848–1900. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963.

Peterson, Richard H. The Bonanza Kings: The Social Origins and Business Behavior of Western Mining Entrepreneurs, 1870–1900. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1977.

—Carl L. Cannon/H. S.

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In 1871, John W. Mackay, James G. Fair, James C. Flood and William S. O'Brien, organized the Consolidated Virginia Silver Mine near Virginia City, Nevada, from a number of smaller claims on the Comstock Lode. Later they added the near-by California mine. For three years after large ore bodies were uncovered in 1874 the two mines produced $3,000,000 per month. In 1876, for exhibition purposes, $6,000,000 was taken in one month from both mines. Production began to fall off in 1879 but in twenty-two years of operation the two mines yielded $150,000,000 in silver and gold, and paid $78,148,800 in dividends. Bonanza is a Spanish term, meaning a rich ore body; the large vertical ore body they discovered in the hanging wall of the Comstock lode became known as the big bonanza.

References

• Dictionary of American HistoryJames Truslow Adams, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940

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