In June 1859 in Gold Canyon, a second group of prospectors found the outcropping of what became one of the richest gold and silver deposits ever discovered, and the Washoe Diggings soon developed into Silver City, Gold Hill, and Virginia City, helping lead to Nevada’s admission as the 36th state. The Comstock Lode was discovered on June 8, 1859, in the Washoe Mining District near the head of Six Mile Canyon, with Ethan Allen Grosh and Hosea Ballou Grosh credited with its discovery, followed by Patrick McLaughlin and Peter O’Reilly finding silver ore on ground claimed by Henry T.P. Comstock and James Fennimore. After Virginia City was destroyed by fire in 1875, it was quickly rebuilt into a metropolis of 25,000 people, served by stage lines, Wells Fargo Bank and Express Company, and later the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, while the Territorial Enterprise became a celebrated western newspaper with Joseph Goodman, Mark Twain, Rollin Daggett, Dan DeQuille, and C.C. Goodwin on its staff, and famous theatrical stars appeared at John Piper’s Opera House. Mining advances were central to the city’s growth: Phillip Deidesheimer’s square-set timbering, invented in 1860, made deep mining of large bonanza ore bodies possible and was used without loss of life or property through defects in the system, while Adolph Sutro drove a 4 mile adit and more than 4 miles of laterals into Mt. Davidson to drain the mines. A separate parallel ore body east of the Comstock, known as the Brunswick Ledge and associated with the Monte Cristo and Occidental lodes, was located in 1863, cut by Sutro Tunnel crews in 1872, extended to by major Comstock mines in 1895, and produced two million dollars in ore during its peak years from 1896 to 1914. More than one-half billion dollars were extracted from the Comstock, water was brought 30 miles from the Sierra Nevada to Virginia City, and Comstock production altered world monetary standards, helped keep the United States solvent during the Civil War, created Nevada, enabled the two Senate votes needed to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, helped build San Francisco before and after the 1906 fire, and created fortunes and influence for figures including William Ralston, William Sharon, John W. Mackey, James G. Fair, James G. Flood, William O’Brien, George Hearst, and William M. Stewart.