Nevada Spent 9 Years Digging a Tunnel to Save Its Silver Mines. It Broke Through as Silver Ran Out

In 1869, Adolph Sutro began digging a tunnel nearly four miles long beneath the Nevada desert. It was meant to drain the flooded silver mines of the Comstock Lode, the richest silver strike in American history. Mine owners fought him, bankers tried to stop him, and it took nine years of digging before the tunnel finally broke through into the Savage Mine in 1878. The tunnel worked exactly as promised. But by the time it opened, the Comstock was already fading. Sutro sold his shares, moved to San Francisco and became its mayor, while the investors who had trusted him were left holding stock that would soon be nearly worthless. This is the story of the Sutro Tunnel, and of the man who walked away from it just in time. #SutroTunnel #ComstockLode #NevadaHistory #AbandonedTunnel #MiningHistory