Nevada State Metal – Silver

Silver – Nevada’s Official State Metal

Silver-Nevada state metal - Photo courtesy of the United States Geological Survey

With regard to the Comstock Lode, gold, having been discovered at the head of Six-Mile Canyon, Nevada, in 1859, was the first target of miners, but it soon became apparent that the real mineral of importance in the area was silver. Abraham Lincoln financed the Civil War domestically with fiat currency called Greenbacks, and overseas with silver, because of its acceptance as “real” money. He made Nevada a State in 1864 even though it did not contain enough people to constitutionally authorize statehood (Bush, 1992§).

As silver mines were developed, privately funded mine railroads were connected to the federally supported transcontinental railroad, which provided access to smelters and markets. Throughout the latter half of the 19th Century, Colorado, Idaho, and Montana became mining havens, and mining became so important to the western economy that the problem of competing claims, discussed above, resulted in the passage of the Mining Law of 1872, which regulated the procedures for staking claims on Federal lands, working claims, and obtaining title (privatizing) to the minerals.

Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey

A headrame, ore chute and shed is all that remains of this major silver ore producing mine in Gold Hill, NV at the fabulous Comstock Lode. Virginia & Truckee tracks in the foreground. - Image by RickC/Flickr

The History of SIlver Mining In Nevada

The early history of Nevada is, to a great extent, the history of the Comstock Lode. This vast deposit of silver in the vicinity of Virginia City, Nevada, was, in fact, responsible for Nevada‘s separate existence as a sovereign state. As H. H. Bancroft observed:

Nowhere else in the world do we find a society springing up in a desert wilderness, so wholly dependent on a mountain of metal, so ruled by the everchanging vagaries of its development, and which finally attained the full measure of a prosperous commonwealth * * *.

After the exhaustion of the Comstock Lode in the 1880′s, Nevada’smining industry declined precipitously, only to be revived by the discovery of precious metals in Goldfield, Rochester and Tonopah,Nevada, around the turn of the century. The Goldfield-Tonopahboom lasted until the early years of the Great Depression.
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[T]he current mining boom is based primarily on the pro-duction of gold and silver. Over the last 5 years, Nevada‘s gold production has quintupled. The state now produces over half theNation’s gold and, barring some unforeseen disaster, such as adramatic decline in price, gold production in Nevada is expected to continue to increase…

Unlike the mines on the Comstock Lode and other early mining areas, most of Nevada’s modern mines are open pit operations.In fact, the only major underground mine remaining in Nevada is the Sixteen-to One mine at Silver Peak, Nevada. Open pitmining makes it possible to use larger trucks and excavating machinery than could be used underground and to remove ore more efficiently.
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Mining is the mainstay of the economy in many parts of Nevada. Since it forms a part of the state’s “export base,” it contrib utes to the deveïopment of other sectors of Nevada’s economy. The deveîopment of new processes and the discovery of new deposits ensures that mining will continue to be important to Nevada for many years to come.

Source: Nevada State Legislature. “Mining in Nevada in the 1980′s, Background Paper 87-1″