Visit the good 'ol days

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Does it seem like folks are pining for the good old days? You can visit them and decide if they were actually “good.” I vote ‘nah’ because I am rather fond of indoor plumbing and clean water but to each their own.
- Cris

Virginia City, Nevada

Virginia City, Nevada: where the Wild West never really ended

There are ghost towns, and then there's Virginia City. Most so-called ghost towns are just a crumbling wall and a historical marker you read in thirty seconds. Virginia City is something else — a full, functioning town of about 1,200 people who have somehow kept the 1870s alive without it feeling like a theme park. Wooden boardwalks. Actual saloons. A noon siren that still goes off every day, a holdover from when it was the fire department's only alarm system. The locals have heard every wide-eyed tourist question imaginable and they'll answer all of them with a straight face. I wonder what THOSE interviews are like?

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The backstory is genuinely wild. During the silver rush of the 1860s, this mountain town at 6,280 feet swelled to as many as 28,000 residents. Over 100 saloons operated simultaneously — roughly one for every 32 people. John Mackay's Consolidated Virginia mine alone pulled in $300 million. Across 25 years, more than $700 million in gold and silver came out of the Comstock Lode. You can watch a live tour here.

This feels a little eerie given how quickly silver prices are climbing in 2026 and the (once again) fascination with owning gold and silver.

Then, in 1880, the money ran dry in what miners called a "Barrasa" — a Spanish term for a mining depression — and the population collapsed almost overnight.

What they left behind is the interesting part.

Going Somewhere? Protect Your Trip (and Your Sanity)

The buildings still standing along C Street are originals, not facades. A great fire in 1875 destroyed most of the town north of Taylor Street, so those buildings date from 1876. The ones to the south, some going back to 1860, survived. When you're walking the boardwalk and listening to your boots on the planks, you're doing exactly what miners did 150 years ago. That's not a recreation. It's just the building.

Mark Twain lived here for nearly three years starting in 1861. He came hoping to strike it rich in the mines, failed at that, and ended up as a reporter for the Territorial Enterprise newspaper instead. He covered mining news and politics and, somewhere in that stretch, became Mark Twain. Every copy of the paper with his early writing was destroyed in the 1875 fire, so no one knows exactly what those columns said. That mystery feels appropriate for a town this weird.

Personally, I would bet those columns were full of salacious gossip and someone threw the match to hide their family history. Or maybe not.

The weirdness is worth leaning into. Virginia City holds a World Championship Outhouse Race — yes, people race outhouses through town, and yes, it has a genuine history behind it. There are camel and ostrich races. A "Devil Made Me Do It" saloon crawl on Valentine’s Day. A ghost hunters' guide to the town, which has been cited as one of the three most haunted places in America. The Silver Terrace Cemetery at the edge of town runs its own walking tour, complete with tombstones that read things like "I told you I was sick."

The town asks visitors not to confuse it for an attraction. "We're not Disneyland," they'll tell you plainly. "We're a real place." It's open year-round, gets up to ten feet of snow some winters, and has free Wi-Fi. Two mines — the Chollar and the Ponderosa — still offer tours underground, even though most of the old tunnels have been sealed for nearly a century. Mining technically still happens in the area, just without the $300 million paydays.

It's about 40 minutes from Reno, up a winding road called Geiger Grade. The drive itself is a signal that you're leaving ordinary Nevada behind.

Virginia City rewards curiosity over comfort. If you go in expecting a polished tourist experience, you'll be confused. If you go in expecting a town that has genuinely seen everything and developed a sense of humor about it, you'll have a very good day.

I like places with a sense of humor.

See you next Wednesday.

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