The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Hamilton (Nevada)

HAMILTON, a city and the county seat of White Pine co., Nevada, situated in the S. W. part of the county, 230 m. E. of Carson City and 215 m. S. W. of Salt Lake City; lat. 39° 15' N., lon. 115° 27' W. ; pop. in 1870, 3,913, of whom 160 were Chinese. It is built at the N. base of Treasure hill, 8,000 ft. above the level of the sea, and 120 m. S. of the Central Pacific railroad, in the midst of the White Pine mining district, which comprises three parallel mountains, viz.: White Pine, 11,000 ft. high, and Babylon and Treasure hills, each 9,000 ft. high. Treasure hill contains rich chloride silver ores, while the other two yield complex ores, embracing carbonates, oxides, and sulphites. All the valuable minerals abound here except tin and platinum, and the ores assay as high as $1,500 a ton in silver. The climate of Hamilton is rigorous, but very healthful. Insects and reptiles are unknown. Stages run daily to Palisade on the railroad and to the mining districts S. of the city, and there is a tri-weekly line to the east. It contains a court house, an Episcopal and a Roman Catholic church, a public school with two departments, a weekly newspaper, a bank, two hotels, and a brewery. In the neighborhood are nine quartz mills with 155 stamps, extensive smelting works, and an incomplete refinery. The streets are graded, and water is supplied by works erected at a cost of $300,000.—Hamilton owes its origin to the discovery of silver in Treasure hill in 1868, followed by a great influx of population and extensive operations. But business was soon paralyzed by litigation concerning titles, coupled with the refusal of speculators to work their claims, and by the failure of the smelting works through ignorance of the proper treatment. The city consequently dwindled, until, after being nearly destroyed by fire in June, 1873, it contained only 600 inhabitants; but it is now (1874) recovering.