The Ignominious Story Behind Virginia City's Loring Cut

Virginia City's Loring Cut

   While much of Virginia City’s 19TH and early 20th century mining activity was underground, one of the most ambitious efforts to extract previous minerals from the region using open pit mine techniques was attempted in the early 1930s by mining engineer William J. Loring.

   In 1933, Loring partnered with a California mining syndicate to lease a half-mile of once-productive Comstock Lode property that included the workings of the Chollar, Potosi, Savage and Hale & Norcross mines. Their plan was to recover enough low-grade ore near the surface to make the endeavor financially successful.

   For some context, this all happened at a time when mining experts believed that silver and gold ore was still to be found in Virginia City, especially if newer mining technologies were employed.

   The Loring group decided to use a relatively new concept, flotation, which involved crushing ore and using wetting agents (such as cyanide) to separate and concentrate the mineral content, which could then be extracted. The process is similar to how open pit mines operate even today.

   Initially, the syndicate planned to mine underground, as had traditionally been done on the Comstock. The restarting of mining in the region was lauded in local newspapers as the beginning of a “new era” on the Comstock.

   But after about 16 months, the group found that mining underground did not produce sufficient ore and decided to develop a large open pit mine. By May 1934, massive amounts of dirt and rock were being crushed and a large hole began to take shape at the south end of Virginia City, across from the Fourth Ward School.

   Despite the increased amount of earth-moving, the whole operation did not prove as profitable as Loring, who was in charge of the effort, had previously promised. Additionally, the primary mining company backing the project became embroiled in a stock scandal so money began to dry up.

   Loring also faced a third challenge—the pit, carved into the side of Mt. Davidson, suffered several large landslides that carried both ore and waste into the pit, meaning it became increasingly expensive to once again separate out the valuable dirt from the waste dirt.

   By 1937, Loring’s mining effort was losing vast amounts of money and, on June 1, 1938, the company ceased operations. After kicking about Virginia City for a number of years, the broke and disappointed Loring ended up living in Tonopah, where he died in 1952 at the age of 84.

   As for what became known as the Loring Cut or Loring Pit, it passed through several owners during the next several decades without anyone actually working the mine. In the 1970s and early 1980s, it was revived as an open pit mining operation by the United Mining Corporation (UMC) but did not prove productive.

   In the 2015 “Mining Journal History,” historian Ron Limbaugh wrote that the chief geologist for UMC estimated that some 419,000 tons of low-grade ore remained on the surface of the site in the dumps, tailings and the pit itself. Since that time, however, according to Limbaugh, “anything resembling ore has been buried by landslides and reclamation efforts.”

   Today, visitors to the historic Fourth Ward School often wander across the street (after looking both ways!) to a make-shift wooden platform filled with old mining equipment, an English telephone booth, and a rusted truck to look out into the cut. Adjacent is a 300-foot deep mining ventilation shaft (with a sturdy metal covering to keep onlookers from falling in) that was apparently dug in 1970. A wooden plaque explains the story of the ventilation shaft but makes no mention of Loring’s folly.