Pyramid City & Jonesville

Although some fishermen and prospectors found silver in the hills west of Pyramid Lake as early as 1860, it wasn't until 1876 that the potential for mining was recognized. On March 6, 1876, Dr. S. Bishop of Reno located the Monarch mine after having a specimen belonging to a sick miner assayed. The new Pyramid District was organized in April, and Bishop built a two-stamp mill, bringing an interest to the district. By the end of May, the Pyramid District had a store and a stage to Reno. A new townsite was also laid out below the mines, first to be known as Bishoptown before taking the name Pyramid City. Including Pyramid City, a total of five townsites were laid out; among these was Cold Spring(s), a few miles up the canyon, but it wasn'tmentioned after '76. Butte City was another, at the Juniper mine, but it only seems to have existed briefly in early 1877.

In spring of 1877, Pyramid City had two saloons, a Chinese laundry, store, and boarding house and optimists claimed the District would be a new Comstock. The Jones & Kinkead Gold and Silver Mining Co. slowly rose to the forefront of production, with ore shipped to the Douglas Mill at Gold Hill. Development of that company included a new townsite being laid out known as Jonesville (possibly at or near old Cold Spring). Expectations rose that soon Pyramid City would become the seat of Roop County. This high hope was squashed with the official dissolution of Roop County on January 18, 1883, and throughout the 1880s work in the Pyramid District diminished until it was all but abandoned in the 1890s.

By the turn of the century, a small revival was underway and about 20 miners were employed at Pyramid in 1901. A new eight-stamp mill, the Ten Broeck or Norton, was placed into operation on October 8, 1903. On May 16, 1914, the mill was destroyed by fire prior to its reopening after a remodel. Thus ended the last major development in the district, and only some occasional work has been done since. Not much remains at Pyramid City, but stone ruins can be found tucked amidst dense growth at old Jonesville.

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