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Gold Hill is an unincorporated community in Storey County, Nevada, located just
south and downhill of Virginia City. Incorporated December 17, 1862, in order to
prevent its annexation by its larger neighbor, the town at one point was home to at
least 8,000 residents. Prosperity was sustained for a period of 20 years between 1868
and 1888 by mining the Comstock Lode, a major deposit of gold and silver ore. Mines
such as the Yellow Jacket, Crown Point, and Belcher brought in over $10 million each
in dividends. The Gold Hill post office remained in operation until 1943. Today Gold
Hill exists as a shell of its former self; its population in 2005 was 191. It is
part of the Reno-Sparks Metropolitan Statistical Area. Historical remnants of the
town can still be seen, including the Gold Hill Hotel, promoted as Nevada's oldest
hotel, in existence since 1861; the former Bank of California building; the restored
Virginia & Truckee Railroad depot; the Depression-Era Crown Point Mill; and remains
of several of the mines and residences in various states of restoration and repair.
The population of Gold Hill was largely Cornish and was one of their main settlements
in the Comstock area.
A later mining complex in the area operated from 1927 until 1942, when mining
operations were shut down by War Production Board order L-208, shutting down all
nonessential gold mines in the United States. Just under a hundred million dollars'
worth of ore was extracted after 1930. Active mining has returned to lower Gold Hill,
with the start of production at Comstock Mining's Lucerne, Hartford and Billy The
Kid mines.
In 1976, Bob Gray, a former Marine Corps photographer in World War II and admirer of
the Virginia & Truckee Railroad since he was a teenager, bought a section of the
abandoned railway line between Virginia City and a point about two miles south. He
laid track on that right of way and began operating a steam-powered tourist railroad.
The track was extended to Gold Hill in 1992, and in 1994 the Gold Hill Historical
Society was established to preserve the Gold Hill depot, one of the few wooden
structures in the region that survived the 1875 fire in Virginia City. After ten
years of applying for grants, lobbying, and collecting steel rail donations by the
Gold Hill Historical Society, the mayor of Carson City approved the letting out to
bid of a contract to reconstruct the railroad between Gold Hill and the Carson River,
fifteen miles away. Today Gold Hill is a stop on this tourist railroad, which
operates historic steam trains attracting thousands of tourists each year.
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