American Flat Reinterpreted

One of the first uniquely Comstock things my husband took me to see after we met was American Flat and the United Comstock Merger mill site - it had been abandoned in 1926 due to the collapse in the price of silver. We hopped on his three wheeler and took a low speed, leisurely ride to the historic spot, which was beautiful in a bizarre and wabi sabi sort of way. We were sad to see it demolished a few years ago, but glad that Bureau of Land Management (BLM) preserved some of the local memories and historic photos and facts about the place in a documentary.

In the film, Dr. Ron Reno of Silver City, an industrial archaeologist and architectural historian, explains, "The American Flat Mill is one of the touchstones for people that live up here on the Comstock. It's someplace everyone ends up going to repeatedly, and everyone is drawn to it. There's nothing like it anywhere in the region and it has a sort of aesthetic effect that is very powerful. And you can see anything from just local teenagers to professional photographers and artists that keep coming out here and being drawn to the Flats."

He’s right. Over the years, my husband and I took a number of visiting family and friends to see the ever-changing artwork at the site.

Internationally acclaimed artists such as New Zealand born photographer Frances Melhop have staged photos there, most notably her striking photograph of New York City’s American Modern Ensemble.

Gary Short, and award-winning poet who lived at American Flat for several years, wrote a poem called “American Flat” which includes the lines, “under the high hunger of the hawks,/I’ve been walking in Nevada./ In the Republic of sage where/shoe leather and femur of cows endure.”

Foundation Professor of Arts at UNR, Peter Goin, is also interviewed in the film. He notes, "When I look at American Flat, this is something new, this is something different.This is something where mining landscapes have been appropriated and incorporated, reinterpreted. They become alive. The landscape now has its own ongoing historical narrative. And its unpredictable. It's engaging. And its very dynamic..."

Goin is onto something. Virginia City’s tourism industry offers a version of history tailored for out-of -town tourists, but places like American Flat offered a glimpse of authentic Comstock history, and showed how more recent residents of the Comstock re-imagined the ruins as a place of unusual beauty and freedom.

This Saturday, October 6th at 1pm at the Silver City School House (385 High Street, zip 89428), the public is cordially invited to a free screening of the BLM’s film and a one day pop-up show featuring locals’ photos of the historic site. Alicia Jensen of the Bureau of Land Management will introduce the film and describe efforts to preserve the history of the site. The film will be followed by a lecture about the architecture and unique features of the mill site by consulting architectural historian and industrial archaeologist Ron Reno, PhD. The event is co-sponsored through Silver City Arts group, Bureau of Land Management and the Silver City Volunteer Library. Light refreshements will be available.

For more information, contact Quest Lakes at 847-0742.