Discovery of Silver 1859 Virginia City, Nevada

This is a pocket watch fob commemorating the discovery of silver in Virginia City, Nevada in 1859.

Mining began in Nevada on the heels of the California gold rush in 1849 before Nevada was even a state. The major discovery of silver, known as the Comstock Lode, happened a decade later in 1859 and brought great changes to the area as miners rushed into the region and boom towns including Virginia City, Aurora, Unionville and Austin were born. Over the next 20 years, almost $1 billion of gold and silver were produced by Nevada mines. The wealth of Nevada mines, the population surge they created and the ongoing American Civil War prompted Abraham Lincoln to declare Nevada the 36th state in the Union on Oct. 31, 1864.
By the 1890s, however, the production of gold and silver had slowed significantly and one in three Nevadans left the new state in search of jobs. This lull in the Nevada mining industry would prove to be short-lived, though. The turn of the twentieth century would see several new strikes throughout the state. Silver at Tonopah, gold at Goldfield and copper in White Pine County all contributed to an upswing in mining production.

The fob is attached to an 18 size coin silver watch case by the AWW Co. O'Hara Patent.

Thanks for looking,
Dave