The Bonanza King: John Mackay and the Battle over the Greatest Riches in the American West by Crouch Gregory

Author:Crouch, Gregory [Crouch, Gregory]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2018-06-18T16:00:00+00:00

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I . Animals in Los Angeles had “the horse disease” by March 21. By the end of April, the epizootic had swept all of California.

CHAPTER 15

The Big Bonanza

Firefighters pose next to a hand-pumped engine. The high winds that blew through Virginia City could spread flames across the town and doom the mines in a matter of minutes.

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It makes a poor man sick to look at it.

—Unidentified visitor to the Consolidated Virginia Mine, San Francisco Chronicle , December 9, 1874

W hile in her heart, Louise Mackay hadn’t wanted to be so far from her husband, she hadn’t wanted to leave Europe, either. But John missed his family. Willie was three years old, and while John was in Europe the previous summer, he and Louise had conceived another baby. She was pregnant when she returned to the United States. John knew his wife had no desire to return to Virginia City. Having her and the children in San Francisco seemed a good compromise. She’d be happier in the most civilized city on the Pacific Coast, at some remove from the Comstock’s remembered horrors, and for John, having his family in San Francisco would be an immense improvement on Europe. On January 8, 1874, Mackay paid $31,000 for a three-story house in an upscale but not extravagant part of town at the corner of O’Farrell and Polk streets. Affluent tradesmen, professionals, and their families constituted the majority of the neighborhood. With business affairs likely to bring Mackay down from “above” on a regular basis, and the journey from Virginia City to San Francisco via the Virginia & Truckee and Central Pacific railroads requiring less than a day, the O’Farrell Street house was a solid, conservative purchase in which his family could enjoy the best of San Francisco. It was also by far the biggest house John or Louise Mackay had ever owned or inhabited. She decorated in the ornate French style popular with Americans pressing to expand the footprint of “civilization.”

With the benefit of hindsight, many felt Mackay erred when he bought the house on O’Farrell Street—considering what the future held, Louise wouldn’t find it satisfying—but when John bought it for Louise’s homecoming, it suited the family of a man unsure of the extent of his fortune. Although Con. Virginia developments continued to reveal good ore and good indications, the true dimensions and contents of the ore body remained unplumbed.

Carnage in the national economy rendered the decision to buy a house well within their means even more sensible. In late 1873 and early 1874, banks and railroads were failing across the country. The Mackays had witnessed events firsthand when they passed through New York just a few months before. Trouble had been building among heavily indebted American railroads for a long time. Many lacked the revenue to cover both operating expenses and interest payments. Only new loans kept them afloat. That worked until the ocean of easy credit that had buoyed them up began to evaporate in early 1873. The Coinage Act that returned the United States to a gold standard tightened the money supply.

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