Bad Guys on the Comstock 1800 style

    Most people interested in Comstock history never give much thought to the criminal activity that occurred here in the 1800's.  Breaking news....it wasn't cowboys doing shootouts in the streets. Remember, this was a mining town, not a cowboy town.

All sorts of criminal acts took place during the bonanza years.  Theft, claim jumping, burglaries, fraud, stock manipulation, rape,  assault, robbery, counterfeiting, and the big one, homicide.

During the period 1861 to 1880 Virginia City experienced no less than 58 homicides.  During that same period, Nevada as a whole, experienced at least 402 homicides.  At one point Virginia City had a higher homicide rate than San Francisco.  The singular root cause...reckless bravado....rarely over money owed.  Generally intoxicated at the time, they would argue over wives, girlfriends, land titles, claim jumping, resisting arrest, various challenges of all sorts, or "no cause" at all.  The early years were during the great Civil War, yet only a few were the result of political arguments.  Just about everybody of the time carried either knives of varying sizes or pistols of varying sizes and calibers.  "Reckless Bravado" fueled by alcohol seemed to be the primary cause of the larger proportion of homicides.  Most were either never prosecuted or were sent off to prisons.  Hangings were very rare.

    

Referring to the 402 homicides in Nevada;  29 were acquitted; 23 went to state prison; 8 were hung and 1 was fined.  30 were caused by strong drink; 30 about gambling and drunken quarrels; 28 due to money or land quarrels; 15 over women; 13 resisting arrest and 11 in self defense.

   

Homicides always got the headlines but so much other nefarious activity occurred on the Comstock that it is difficult to recount much of it.  Stock manipulation was a profitable and successful way to make money by those in the know.  At the time there was no federal controls on the stock market, or what there was wasn't enforced much.  Wm. Ralston, owner, Bank of California, was an effective manipulator of the stock market relating to Comstock mining stocks. That would be a good story for another time.

   

Perpetrators of all sorts were not always cooperative in their arrest.  Going after the bad guys was not always easy, even into the mid-1900's.  In March, 1955, a funny quip appeared in the then published Territorial Enterprise newspaper in Virginia City. 

 

 

 

 I quote:          

            "Stopping speeders at night in a dingy beat-up pickup truck marked "Fire Chief" and trying to convince them that your're a policeman sometimes poses problems.  Night Officer Everett Schropshire complained to the County Commissioners at their meeting Tuesday evening.  The truck ought to look more official and impressive, he said, so that they won't just laugh.  The Commissioners promised to consider the matter of making his vehicle more authoritative-looking".  I guess they finally fixed the problem.