Silver City is a census-designated place (CDP) and small residential community in Lyon County, Nevada, United States, near the Lyon-Carson border. It is located in Gold Canyon, on Nevada State Route 342, approximately four miles (6.4 km) north of U.S. Route 50. The town is about two miles (3.2 km) south of Gold Hill and approximately 3.7 miles (5.9 km) south of Virginia City. The population was 111 in 2023.
Silver City became an important mining and industrial settlement, serving as a milling and supply center for the mines of Virginia City, the Devil's Gate district and surrounding mining areas, and the ore-processing mills along the Carson River. Although the town hosted many productive mines during the 1860s and 1870s, none produced major ore bonanzas comparable to Virginia City and Gold Hill.
The town was the site of one of the first steam-powered quartz mills on the Comstock Lode, Paul's Pioneer Mill, which began operating in August 1860. The mill used a 40-horsepower engine and twelve 800-pound stamps, producing custom milling and crushing about 20 tons of rock per day.
The Nevada Foundry, the first and largest iron foundry in Nevada, was moved to Silver City from Johntown in 1864. It initially employed about 75 workers, increasing their number to 100 as demand grew. In 1872, a fire destroyed the foundry except for its outer walls. The owner, left with little but his patterns and tools, relocated his business to Virginia City and purchased the Fulton Foundry.
The Virginia and Truckee Railroad, which bypassed Silver City to the west, was completed in 1869. The railroad ended the town's role as an important freight center and contributed to its eventual decline.
For several years, an official toll station operated at the gate, and the passage was widened in the mid-19th century when the outer rock face was removed by blasting to accommodate wagon traffic. The settlement had limited local resources and depended on activity in the Comstock mines for economic survival. At its peak, the town included two hotels, two stables, a brewery, an express office, a post office, a barber shop, two shoe shops, a blacksmith shop, a general merchandise store and several saloons.
Following the demise of the Lyon County Sentinel, which operated from 1864 to 1866, Lyon County had no newspaper of record, until July 4, 1874, when Frank A. Kenyon issued a new paper, which he called the Lyon County Times. Based in Silver City, Kenyon, its sole proprietor and editor, published a tri-weekly consisting of 24 columns, most filled with advertisements. From 1875 to 1877, Harry J. Norton joined Kenyon as associate editor. Famed Nevada newspaper writer Dan de Quille [William Wright] wrote of Silver City in his 1876 western classic, The History of the Big Bonanza:
At Silver City, about five miles below Virginia City, on Gold Canyon, are a considerable number of fine mills, in all of which steam is the motive power. A branch of the Virginia & Truckee Railroad runs to Silver City and supplies these mills with ore, wood, and all other articles required. Near the town are several mines - the Silver Hill, Dayton, Kossuth, Daney, and Buckeye . . . and a southern continuation of the Comstock is supposed to pass through the ground on which the village stands. It is already a lively camp, boasts a tri-weekly newspaper - the Lyon County Times - and should the hopes of the mining companies now at work in the vicinity be realized, will soon be one of the leading mining towns of the state.
The ambitions of the town of Silver City were reflected in the newspaper, which quickly increased in size. In 1876, the Lyon County Times began publishing as a daily, only to cut back to a tri-weekly after three months, and to a semi-weekly by 1877. Kenyon sold the paper in 1878 and sailed to Guatemala and died en route. The paper was sold again, but by 1880, the town could no longer support a newspaper, and in December 1880 the owner, John M. Campbell, moved the press to Dayton, where he continued the Lyon County Times as a four-page Republican weekly. Fred W. Fairbanks joined Campbell as a partner in 1883 and took over as sole proprietor and editor in 1885. Fairbanks continued publishing the Times in Dayton until 1901 when he moved the paper to the more populous Yerington. Fairbanks remained the editor until he sold the paper in 1907 to R. Leslie Smith who changed its name to the Yerington Times. The latter passed through the hands of a number of owners until J.A. McCarthy took it over in 1919; he ran the Times until its final suspension in 1932.
