Bonanza Kings
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.
See alsoComstock Lode ; Silver Prospecting and Mining ; Virginia City .