Wild West – June 2019

INTERVIEW

1 6 WILD WEST JUNE 2019

Californian Gregory Crouch has written
about mountain climbing in Patagonia (En-
during Patagonia) and World War II aviation
in Asia (China’s Wings: War, Intrigue, Romance
and Adventure in the Middle Kingdom During the
Golden Age of Flight). He sticks closer to home
in his latest book, a narrative nonfiction
account of industrialist John Mackay and
Nevada’s Comstock Lode that’s a lot more
than a biography. The Bonanza King: John
Mackay and the Battle Over the Greatest Riches
in the American West also takes in social histo-
ry, Irish-American history, the slums of New
York, Western mining towns, mine disasters,
strikes, bank kings, frontier justice, engineer-
ing and myriad other topics. Crouch spoke
with Wild West about the book and his interest in the Old West.

After writing about Patagonia and China,
what brought you home to the American West?
China’s Wings, my World War II flying story, was a fascinating
and all-absorbing project with one crucial problem—every time
I wanted to get the flavor of a location, it was on the far side of
the Pacific. I spent a month in China early in my research, but
I could only afford to go once. Visiting a few other times would
have been helpful. So when I needed a new story, I wanted
something closer to home. I live in Walnut Creek, about 15
or 20 miles east of San Francisco. Ferreting around in the early
history of San Francisco, I kept running into connections to the
old Comstock Lode. My mom had taken me to Virginia City
in the 1970s, when I was about 10 or 12, and I had really fond
memories of that trip. I decided to dig into it.

How did you settle on John Mackay?
He’s the only person who could carry the whole epic, from
common miner to Bonanza King. He’s the seminal figure in the
history of the Comstock Lode.

How did you go about researching the complex
history of the Comstock?
I read as much as humanly possible about every aspect of the
story. As a researcher, my goal is to so completely saturate my
brain with stories, language, photos, illustrations, impressions,
sensations and details that four-color visions form in my mind
in answer to the question What happened? Once I’m seeing the
story in my head—literally seeing it—I try and translate those

CHRONICLING THE COMSTOCK

GREG CROUCH’S NEW BOOK, THE BONANZA KING, DIGS DEEP INTO NEVADA’S

COMSTOCK LODE AND MAGNATE JOHN MACKAY BY JOHNNY D. BOGGS

images into language that tells the story.

I have a hard time writing without that.

Technologically, I was greatly helped

by the digitization of 19th-century news-

paper archives in the last decade or so. That

allowed me to process a large quantity of

information in a reasonable amount of time

—more than others have been able to get

through, I think. That made a huge differ-

ence. I wouldn’t have been able to do such

a thorough job with the old microfiche sys-

tem. That takes forever. You’d get frustrated

and cut things short.

What brought Mackay to

the West?

Hope. Mackay came West hoping that hard work and dedica-

tion would allow him to transcend the opportunities available

to an uneducated Irish immigrant in New York. If Mackay had

stayed in New York, more than likely he’d have worked as a

ship’s carpenter for the rest of his life, for meager wages. He

came west in late 1851, at the tail end of the Gold Rush, by

which time the details of California were well known to Eastern

audiences. He did not come West expecting easy-made riches.

By 1851 that California myth had long since been exploded.

How does Mackay compare to lode namesake

Henry Comstock?

Of the magnates, Mackay was the richest of them all, by a large

margin, and much more widely admired. Henry Comstock is the

foil to Mackay’s success. When Mackay had nothing in the early

days, Comstock was rich. Comstock owned several important

slices of the lode that came to bear his name. Comstock sold out

in the first season, squandered his money in ill-fated specula-

tions and was soon forced to return to prospecting. He spent

most of the next 10 years searching for “another Comstock” in

eastern Oregon, Nevada and the Idaho, Montana and Dakota

territories. He never found it. By 1870 $100 million had been

“raised” from the lode that bore his name. The man himself was

destitute. Outside of Bozeman, Montana Territory, in September

1870, Comstock clenched the barrel of a revolver between his

teeth and pulled the trigger. In the 10 years after his death another

$200 million came out of the Comstock mines. Mackay’s share

of that wealth made him one of the richest men in the world.

Read the full interview online at WildWestMag.com.