Comstock Foundation Doublespeak

The Comstock Foundation for History and Culture’s stated goals are: “to Protect, Preserve, Restore, Educate and Celebrate [sic] the historic structures, artifacts, landscapes and profound culture of the Comstock Historic District and our National Landmark for all to appreciate.” I could go on for a few hundred pages about why this is an astonishing assertion, but for the space of this column, I’ll offer a Cliff Notes brief summary.

To begin with, there’s not much space between The Comstock Foundation for History and Culture and Comstock Mining Inc. (CMI), which seeks to pit mine in and adjacent to historic Silver City, and in other areas of the Comstock that are also within the National Landmark. The Foundation’s website shows that CMI’s CEO is the board chair of The Foundation’s five-member Board of Directors. One of the Foundation’s recent Facebook posts was a giddy promotion for Corrado De Gasperis (CMI’s CEO) and his upcoming talk for the Foundation called “The Future of Gold Mining & the Yellow Metal.” The Foundation’s other board members are ardent and longtime supporters of and/or beneficiaries of CMI.

How does the Foundation’s stated goal to “preserve landscapes of the Comstock Historic District and our National Landmark” align with CMI’s goals to scoop and bulldoze our historic region for private profit? Seriously, someone explain that one. If Orwell was around today he might use it an additional example in his essay, “Politics and the English Language.”

Next, let’s consider the Foundation’s stated goal to preserve the “profound culture” of the region. One would think the history of the last half century would count. Since the 1960s, the communities in the National Landmark region reinvented themselves as tourism destinations (Virgina City) and cultural resource production centers (Silver City). At the same time, Comstock towns have worked hard to preserve their 19th century history “for all to appreciate.” Modern pit mining in and adjacent to residential communities is not a way to honor our “profound culture.”

Finally, I continue to wonder about The Foundation’s frequent erasure of Silver City in their public relations attempts. Often in their social media posts, videos, and press releases, they refer to the historic Donovan Mill, which they purchased, as being in Virginia City rather than in Silver City. For instance, in their 2019 promotional video, “The Donovan Mill: Preserving A Piece of Nevada Mining History”, the narrator performs verbal acrobatics in order to make it seem as if the Donovan Mill is in Virginia City, saying,“there’s a group that’s looking to bring back a piece of Virginia City’s past. This is the Donovan Mill.” Later in the video, Foundation director Steven Saylor chuckles about the townwide noise and vibration the Foundation plans to make with the old stamping mill at the Donovan (a machine that was used in the past to pound and crush ore as part of the process to extract silver and gold).

Preserving our history is the opposite of recreating the most unpleasant parts of it. Vibrating our surviving historic structures, promoting the bulldozing of our National Landmark, creating unwelcome townwide noise, and allowing modern robber barons to cosplay the Gilded Age has nothing to do with genuine motives to “protect, preserve, restore and celebrate the Comstock Historic District and National Landmark for all to appreciate.”

*Originally published as a column by Quest Lakes in the MVN in Sept. 2019.