A History of the Comstock Silver Lode & Mines: Nevada and the Great Basin Region; Lake Tahoe and the High SierrasDe Quille, Dan
History
A History of the Comstock Silver Lode & Mines: Nevada and the Great Basin Region; Lake Tahoe and the High Sierras
De Quille, Dan
Comstock Lode (Nev.); Frontier and pioneer life -- Nevada; Nevada -- Description and travel; Silver mines and mining -- Nevada -- History
The International Hotel is the oldest in the city. It was founded in
1860, when it was a mere frame shanty fronting on B Street. The hotel
destroyed by the big fire was a commodious brick structure, but the
present building is far finer. It now extends from B to C Street, is
constructed of brick, stone, and iron, and is six stories in height. It
is capable of accommodating in excellent style a large number of guests.
Views from the City and Vicinity.
Though the landscape visible from the city cannot be called beautiful,
yet it is grand and picturesque. On all sides except the east, the town
is shut in by near ranges of high, rocky, and barren mountains. To the
eastward the eye reaches over a vast area composed of tracts of sandy
desert, valley lands, dark and rocky hills, and rugged and towering
mountain ranges. The chief of these is the Humboldt Range, seen blue or
purple in the distance, from 150 to 190 miles away. These mountains and
their snow-clad peaks stand out against the dark-blue of the sky far
beyond the green cottonwood groves that follow the meanderings of the
Carson River, far beyond the Forty-mile Desert and the lake and sink of
the Carson, and beyond Humboldt Lake and Sink.
To the northeast are seen several sharp and splintered peaks, while to
the southeast, from twenty to fifty miles away, rise the huge and grand
peaks of the Como Mountains. From the Divide (the dividing ridge between
Virginia and Gold Hill) may be obtained a magnificent view of the main
Sierra Nevada Range and its many mighty snow-capped peaks as they trail
and circle away from west to south till they are lost to view behind
lower interior ranges at a point over 150 miles away.
The View from the Summit of Mt. Davidson.
From the peak of Mount Davidson may be obtained a grand and extensive
view of the country in all directions. To the westward is seen Washoe
Lake and the green meadows and fields by which it is surrounded.
Although Washoe Valley and its lake seem to be just at the foot of the
mountain they are from eight to ten miles distant. Beyond and high above
the valley tower the pine-clad Sierras, with, along their line, several
giant granite peaks, snow-capped the greater part of the year. Prominent
among these stands out Bald Mountain, just north of Lake Tahoe, and
within plain view Mount Lincoln, Job’s Peak, Silver Mountain, and many
other peaks that have names. Twenty miles to the northward are to be
seen the green pastures and alfalfa fields of the Truckee Meadows, while
to the southward we have the Sierra Range and Eagle and Carson Valleys.
Carson City is hid by intervening low hills. To the eastward are the
same deserts and mountains that compose the landscape viewed from the
city, but from the top of the mountain the eye ranges over a vastly
wider field.
The Virginia and Truckee Railroad.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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