In the last half of the 19th century, Virginia City, Nevada was overrun with some 200,000 diverse people who came in search of the vast deposits of gold and silver of the fabled Comstock Lode. In the Hollywood version of the West in general and boomtowns in particular, the saloon was a wild place for hard living men and loose women. The real story is much more complex as archaeologist Kelly J. Dixon shows us in this captivating study of four very different saloons.
Piper’s Old Corner Bar was a fancy German-owned establishment that catered to the city’s elite. The Boston Saloon was an African-American business. The Hibernia Brewery and Costello’s Saloon and Shooting Gallery were Irish owned and located in a disreputable part of town. Taken together, they illustrate the diverse nature of Virginia City’s surging population.
Kelly excavated at Piper’s and the Boston Saloon in the late 1990s and early 2000s while working for the Comstock Archaeology Center. The Irish salons were investigated by Donald Hardesty between 1993 and 1995. All thee excavations yielded remarkable assemblages of artifacts that, along with written history, tell a story of life on the Nevada frontier. It’s not a tale of vice and violence, but one of people amusing themselves with dice and cards while enjoying a drink and a smoke.
Boomtown Saloons illustrates how historical archaeology is evolving into a scholarly discipline that can expand upon written history. Today, Virginia City is a living ghost town that attracts tourists seeking the Old West. This delightful study gives us a better picture of life in a Nevada boomtown than we have ever had before.
