Dan de Quille - Legacy

Legacy

As a journalist and author Dan DeQuille contributed significantly to Americans' understanding of the events in Nevada and the procurement of vast fortunes from the Comstock Lode in the late 19th century. As a humorist he also made a significant contribution the lore of the Wild West. During Virginia City's heyday, DeQuille was one of the most widely-read journalists on the Pacific Coast because of his wit coupled with his ability to explain in non-technical terms the significance of events on the Comstock Lode.

The style of humor that flourished in the in United States during the latter half of the 19th century was shared by DeQuille, Artemus Ward, Orpheus C. Kerr, Petroleum V. Nasby, Major Jack Downing, and most notably Mark Twain. It has since been theorized that America's hunger for this type of humor sprang from a sort of national psychic need from the aftermath of the American Civil War, the grief over the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, and the hardships of industrial pioneering in the West.

Historical interest in Virginia City's past has continued throughout the 20th century. The town has become a popular tourist attraction with one of its features being the building which housed the Enterprise and on display therein the desk once used by DeQuille, Mark Twain, Bret Harte, and other frontier journalists.

In 1946 publishing house Alfred A. Knopf announced that in conjunction with the upcoming California centenary, it would reprint a series of five books that were historically significant in portraying the early days of California statehood, but which were difficult to find. The first book on their list was DeQuille's History of the Big Bonanza. Editor Oscar Lewis wrote a biography of DeQuille as the "Introduction" to The Big Bonanza, published in 1947.

In 1950 DeQuille was represented in an anthology of Western Americana entitled Comstock Bonanza, collected and edited by Duncan Emrich and published by Vanguard. More recently Richard A. Dwyer and Richard E. Lingenfelter published Dan De Quille, The Washoe Giant. A Biography and Anthology, featuring the fullest collection of his journalism and a checklist of all his writings (University of Nevada Press, 1990). English professor Lawrence I. Berkove collected the best of DeQuille's works and published them in 1990 as The Fighting Horse of the Stanislaus: Stories and Essays (University of Iowa Press).

In 2005, DeQuille's The Big Bonanza was used as the basis for a new American opera entitled The Big Bonanza, with music by Monica Houghton and libretto by Jon Christensen.