Comstock Lode & Sutro Tunnel – Virginia City NV 1878 Mining Map

Description: These are simply the best posters available! You will be thrilled with the image quality, vivid colors, fine paper, and unique subjects. This is an original image that has been transformed into a beautiful poster - available exclusively from Posterzilla.OUR POSTERS ARE SIZED FOR STANDARD OFF-THE-SHELF FRAMES, WITH NO CUSTOM FRAMING REQUIRED, PROVIDING HUGE COST SAVINGS!This beautiful reproduction poster has been re-mastered from an 1878 lithograph map showing the mines of the Comstock Lode and the Sutro Tunnel, in the great mining boom town of Virginia City Nevada.The vibrant colors and detail of this classic image have been painstakingly brought back to life to preserve a great piece of history.The high-resolution image is printed on heavy archival photo paper, on a large-format, professional giclée process printer. The poster is shipped in a rigid cardboard tube, and is ready for framing.The 13"x19" and 16"x20" formats are excellent image sizes that look great as a stand-alone piece of art, or grouped as a visual statement. These posters require no cutting, trimming, or custom framing, and a wide variety of these frames are readily available at your local craft or hobby retailer, and online.A great vintage print for your home, shop, or business!HISTORY OF THE COMSTOCK LODE & THE SUTRO TUNNELThe Comstock Lode is a lode of silver ore located under the eastern slope of Mount Davidson, a peak in the Virginia Range in Virginia City, Nevada (then western Utah Territory), which was the first major discovery of silver ore in the United States and named after American miner Henry Comstock.After the discovery was made public in 1859, it sparked a silver rush of prospectors to the area, scrambling to stake their claims. The discovery caused considerable excitement in California and throughout the United States, the greatest since the California Gold Rush in 1849. Mining camps soon thrived in the vicinity, which became bustling commercial centers, including Virginia City and Gold Hill.The Comstock Lode is notable not just for the immense fortunes it generated and the large role those fortunes had in the growth of Nevada and San Francisco, but also for the advances in mining technology that it spurred, such as square set timbering and the Washoe process for extracting silver from ore. The mines declined after 1874, although underground mining continued sporadically into the 1920s.While there was a scarcity of water on the surface, there was an excess of water underground in all the mines. Floods in the mines were sudden and miners narrowly escaped being drowned by vast underground reservoirs that were unexpectedly tapped. Intrusion of scalding-hot water into the mines was a large problem, and the expense of water removal increased as depths increased. To overcome these troubles, Adolph Sutro conceived the idea of running a drain tunnel under the Comstock Lode from the lowest possible point. A survey was made by Schussler and work commenced in October 1869.THE SUTRO TUNNELThe Sutro Tunnel was completed from the valley near Dayton through nearly four miles, 20,589 feet, of solid rock to meet the Comstock mines approximately 1,750 ft (530 m) beneath the surface. Two drain laterals were dug, the north one 4,403 feet long and the south one 8,423 feet long. The tunnel was 9.5 ft (2.9 m) wide and 7.5 ft (2.3 m) high, inside the timbering. Drain flumes were sunk in the floor and over these were two tracks for horse carts. It required eight and a half years to reach the Lode. The tunnel drained up to 4,000,000 gallons daily.The tunnel provided drainage and ventilation for the mines as well as gravity-assisted ore removal. However, by the time the tunnel reached the Comstock area mines, most of the ore above 1,650 ft (500 m) had already been removed and the lower workings were 1,500 ft (460 m) deeper still. Although virtually no ore was removed through the tunnel, the drainage it provided greatly decreased the operating costs of the mines served. The ventilation problems were solved at about the same time by compressed air for the use of pneumatic drills. The tunnel connected with the Savage claim on July 8, 1878. All of the Gold Hill mines stopped pumping water by March 1882, and water was allowed to rise to the level of the tunnel. The Combination Shaft ceased pumping below the tunnel on October 16, 1886.

Price: 19.95 USD

Location: Wrightwood, California

End Time: 2024-09-11T18:21:21.000Z

Shipping Cost: 3.95 USD