Silver City and Dunbar’s Number

*Originally published as a column by Quest Lakes in the Mason Valley News in Jan. 2018.

Silver City, Nevada- I lived in Silver City for decades before finally understanding what was so different, and so special, about the community’s holiday gatherings – the Christmas dinners with visits from Santa, Easter luncheons with egg hunts in the park, Thanksgiving dinners with enormous turkeys cooked to perfection.

Silver City’s holiday gatherings reflect a concept known as “Dunbar's number,“ or the “cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships—relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person.” British anthropologist Robin Dunbar proposed this idea in the 1990s. His research indicated that humans can comfortably maintain about 150 stable relationships. In layman’s terms, he described it as “the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar."

So the unique feature of Silver City’s holiday gatherings is that in a town of less than 200, almost everyone knows one another, or knows “how each person relates to every other person.” The shared holiday meals are less like town events and more like reunions of extended family, and the School House (community center) has a welcoming atmosphere like that found in the home of kind grandparents. There’s an area with old fashioned toys where the kids can play while the adults linger over coffee and pie, and everyone always makes a fuss over new babies.

The other unusual aspect of the town’s holiday events that’s probably partly a function of the population size is that there is no performance of “charity.” I’ve never witnessed or heard of any gathering in which citizens of means made a point of serving a meal to their “less fortunate neighbors.” In Silver City, events are for the purpose of connecting, not dividing along class lines. Invitations often read, “bring a side dish if possible, and if not, please come anyway!”

Several years ago during a town meeting, locals developed a short description of the community that also reflects the stable social relationships found in a small population. They agreed that, “Silver City is a quiet, safe place to live and raise a family, and a town accustomed to standing up for itself. It is a community built on the values of knowing and caring for neighbors and for pitching in when need arises. We care for our kids, for our elders and for all others who can use a hand. Neighbor to neighbor, we stand by our community. Always.”

The Evolution of the Comstock’s Telephone System

Silver City, Nevada - Sometimes I forget how rapidly communication has changed, especially phone communication. Using the Comstock as an example, in 1975 the Silver City/ Gold Hill/Virginia City region changed from a magneto switchboard system in which operators were needed to connect calls, to a system where households had their own phone number and rotary dial phones. My husband recalls that his family’s crank telephone became obsolete. The old “party-line” system, which included the possibility that others were listening in on calls, disappeared.

In 1975, the Storey County Bi-Centennial Committee, inspired by an idea from Virgil Bucchianeri, published a “Comstock Commemorative Directory.” The directory began with a tribute to operators, including Susie Davis, who “faithfully performed her duties as a telephone operator for almost a half century...Her father was the first manager of the local telephone exchange.”

Creators of the Commemorative Directory lamented the fact that “it will no longer be possible to locate the whereabouts of other subscribers or misplaced persons by contacting the Operator...The new system will be considerably more time-consuming on your part, and will require patience. Let us hope that this is the last concession we must make to ‘progress’ and the 20th Century!”

According to the Directory, the first telephone exchange in Nevada opened in Virginia City in 1882, operating from the back of the J.M. Davis Book and Stationery Store. The Virginia City exchange eventually came to be owned by Nevada Bell, which built a new C Street office with a switchboard in 1959. A new and larger magneto switchboard was installed in the C Street office in 1963. Finally, on June 14, 1975, rotary dial phones went into effect for Silver City, Gold Hill and Virginia City.

Although changing to a rotary phone system was only the beginning of “concessions made to progress,” today the landline number my husband grew up with in Silver City is the very same number our family uses today. We were tickled to find it listed in the Comstock Commemorative Directory of only about 350 telephone numbers listed in 1975.

The cover of the 1975 Comstock Commemorative Directory, shown here, features an illustration by Jack Curran of the Comstock's magneto telephone switchboard circa 1940. Artwork for the Directory was commissioned by the Storey County Bi-Centennial Committee.

Finding Irene and Harry

Silver City, Nevada - Prolific poet Irene Bruce and her husband, Harry Bruce, a Ragtime Dixieland pianist, lived in Silver City for many years. Some of Irene's highly regarded poetry can be found in her three published books of poetry, as well as in Desert Wood, Shaun Griffin's anthology of Nevada poetry, and in Cheryl Glotfelty's Literary Nevada: Writings from the Silver State. Watch for the first of three articles related to Irene and Harry in the Mason Valley News column "Silver City Neighbors" next week. The first column will focus on Irene, the second on Harry, and the third will provide details about the fascinating current use of the Silver City house Irene sold in 1971. The links below are to photos from the Gus Bundy Collection at the University of Nevada Reno Special Collections. http://unrspecoll.pastperfectonline.com/

Follow this link http://unrspecoll.pastperfectonline.com/photo/FB977DAB-53A4-4925-851D-136062283900 to see
Harry Bruce entertaining New Year's Eve visitors, including poet Irene Bruce and writer Walter Van Tilburg Clark.


The seven pictured in the foreground of this photo (link to photo below), including Irene Bruce (center, on stool), Walter Van Tilburg Clark, Duncan Emrich, Roger Butterfield, Charles Clegg, and Lucius Beebe, were lights of the literary and art world in Northern Nevada in the 1940s-1960s who lived on or frequently visited the Comstock during that period. They were brought together for this photo taken at the Delta Saloon in Virginia City for an article on Author's Day, Sept 17, 1949 or 1950. Maruss Emrich is also in the photo.
Follow this link http://unrspecoll.pastperfectonline.com/photo/913F2A06-DA9F-4D45-9364-006402100030 to see Irene Bruce and other "lights of the literary world."

The last photo here, from the collection of Sandra McCormick, is a hint about who bought Irene Bruce's Silver City house in 1971.

Allison Rasmussen Awarded Artist Residency in Silver City

Silver City, Nevada - The winter 2018 visiting artist at the Resident Artist Program in Silver City is Allison Rasmussen of Carson City, Nevada.

She's creating a permanent artwork for the Program, using Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet David Lee's poem "Silver City Dawn Psalm" as its focus. During his 2016 visit, Lee wrote the poem about watching the sun rise in Silver City - it was later nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

March 3 Reception: A reception for the artist will be held on Saturday, March 3 from 2:30pm -5:30pm at McCormick House (the housing for visiting artists with the Resident Artist Program). Rasmussen's new artwork will be unveiled during the reception, which will include refreshments plus live music by Mylo McCormick.

About the Artist: Allison Rasmussen is an honors student at Argent Preparatory Academy, studying art at Western Nevada College through their early college entry program, "Jump Start College". She will complete an Associate degree this year at age 18.

Each year, the Resident Artist Program in Silver City hosts at least one young emerging artist, as well as established artists.

Recent established artists awarded Residencies in Silver City have included internationally acclaimed photographer Frances Melhop; UK artist Stewart Easton (his work has been on view at the Tate Modern in London); Michigan-based artist Brian Schorn who currently has a show at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno; Oakland-based writer/artist Scott MacLeod; and former Utah Poet Laureate David Lee. The Program has also hosted established artists, writers and dancers from Denmark, England, New Zealand, California, and Indiana.

About Silver City and the Resident Artist Program: Silver City is located within one of the nation's federally designated historic landmarks, three miles from Virginia City and 29 miles from both Reno and Lake Tahoe. The town's irreplaceable historic buildings and sites, and its crystal clear views of the Sierras and the Comstock, attract visiting plein air painters and photographers from around the West. Recently declared an "Arts and Cultural Resources Production Center," Silver City is already home to a surprising number of Nevada's highly productive artists, musicians, artisans, academics and other innovative thinkers and unique souls. The Resident Artist Program provides a venue for those from other parts of the U.S. and the world to engage with the town and the Northern Nevada region through the arts. Visiting artists reside at the Resident Artist guest housing in exchange for offering free public performances, exhibitions, workshops, etc.

More about the Resident Artist Program:
https://www.facebook.com/silvercitynevadaresidentartistprogram/