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Bigler:(July) 17th to day we had bad road and a great deal of brush to cut broke an axil tree — made 8 or 10 miles and campt at leek Spring a fine spring with plenty of grass and leeks about it Smith:Tuesday, July the 18.. …This afternoon those men that went ahead (this was […]

Poor Jacob Markley. Over a century and a half after his untimely death, the man who founded Markleeville remains largely a mystery. Still, a few details of his life remain: We know he was born March 6, 1821 in Dundas, a town in Ontario, Canada. He emigrated to Virginia in his youth. And in the […]

Silver Mountain City was a spin-off of the Comstock Lode, founded by eager miners hoping for the next big silver strike. And there were, indeed, traces of silver found. The lodes would never prove as promising as those of Virginia City. But from 1862 to about 1876, this rocky flat beside Silver Creek was home […]