George Hearst - Mining Career

Mining Career

When his father died in 1846, George took over the care of his mother, brother and sister. In addition, he did some mining and ran a general store. He first heard of the discovery of gold in California in 1849. Before deciding to depart, he continued to read further news on the subject so that he could be more certain it was true. Finally, in 1850, as a member of a party of 16, he left for California. After arriving in 1850, he and his companions first tried placer mining in the vicinity of Sutter's Mill on the American River. After spending a cold winter and making meager finds, they moved to Grass Valley on the news of a new lode. Using his mining education and experience in Missouri, George switched to prospecting and dealing in quartz mines. After almost ten years, Hearst was making a decent living as a prospector, and otherwise engaged in running a general store, mining, stock raising and farming in Nevada County.

In the summer of 1859, Hearst learned of the wonderful silver assays of the "blue stuff" someone had picked up over what was to become the Comstock Lode, and sent to a Nevada County assayer. Hearst hurried over to the Washoe dstrict of western Utah territore, where he arranged to buy a one-sixth interest in the Ophir Mine there, near present day Virginia City. That winter, Hearst and his partners managed to mine 38 tons of high-grade silver ore, packed it across the Sierra on muleback, had it smelted in San Francisco, and made $91,000 profit (or roughly $4,500,000 in 2011 dollars). It was the sight of the bars of Ophir silver that started the rush to Washoe.