“They found it on the property,” she said. I peered into the cabinet. In the dim light, I saw something round, dry and cracked — evidence of the many years it had spent beneath the earth. My eyes squinted further, revealing a pair of emptied eye sockets and a jaw missing most, but not all, of its teeth. As my reflection stared back at me in the glass, so too did a human skull. The tour guide whispered, “If you look closely, there’s a hole near the back of it. She was probably murdered.”
For one of the most haunted towns in America, Virginia City seemed when I arrived to be practically blessed. The hills basked in the unmasked glow of the Nevada sun. The air was as crisp as cowboys’ whiskey. The only apparitions to be seen were of storeowners opening their doors for the day. It seemed just like any other Western town I have visited in the past.
The first of many fascinating people I would meet that day was a kettle corn salesman. The gentleman, whose name I regret to forget, was what someone would imagine a cowboy would look like. “Stop in the name of kettle corn,” he bellowed as I stepped out of my car. His genial voice was coarse as roughened leather but retained a cheerful bounce. His face sported a beard that mustered the complexity of ordered messiness. His accoutrements, a hat and pair of boots, have probably seen more desert sunsets than a sugar maple. Had I been John Ford, I would have cast him on the spot.
1859 was a serendipitous year in the western reaches of what was then the Utah Territory. A large deposit of silver — what would become known as the Comstock Lode — was discovered beneath the Virginia Mountains. Soon enough, fortunes climbed taller than the mountains that produced them.
Out of the bonanza that followed, a boomtown was born. As boulevards of mine tunnels stretched to cross a subterranean network of silver ore, the streets of Virginia City welcomed thousands beguiled by the luster of silver. By 1880, the town had a population greater than large cities of its day, such as San Diego or Dallas.
Mining was as dangerous as it was promising. Many braved the miasmatic darkness of the silver mines only to be unspared from the all-too-common tragedy of mining accidents. And since survival was not guaranteed, life was celebrated with gusto. Miners spent whatever bucks they managed to scrape together the only ways they knew how: fraternizing with faro checks, seducing gin bottles or settling into the night within the bedsheets of a bordello.
But for every boom, there is a bust. In a few years, the deposits were depleted. And as the mines emptied, so did the town. Homes were left to history. Dirt paths were uncratered by horse gallops. Saloon songs gave way to lonely whispers. Only spirits remained.
Every hotel has a legend, every saloon has a myth and every home has a ghost. I needed to see for myself whether Virginia City lived up to this reputation. The more I looked, the more I believed it did.
After the train ride, I spent some time walking along C Street, the town’s main thoroughfare. The street is home to some of the most haunted buildings in Nevada: the Silver Queen Hotel, the Old Washoe Club, the Delta Saloon. Much to my chagrin, I had no time to enter them. I gave them passing glances — failed attempts in catching something out of the ordinary.
The time was closer to noon than it was to midnight, and yet the day seemed to have spent all of its energy with nothing left to offer but an eerie air of resignation. My parents and I walked downhill toward a quieter part of town. The air grew cooler as we felt more lonely. After spending a solemn moment at Saint Mary’s in the Mountains, we walked down the street toward our final stop in town: Mackay Mansion.
The mansion was a humble, two-story brick structure. It was shawled in a weary white wraparound veranda. Atop its roof, at its center, stood a solitary chimney that grew tired the more I looked at it. The mansion stood on a lonely street at the base of a hill. Although it was not a great distance from the bustle of town, silence pervaded the air. A whisper would have been irreverent.
From somber shadow emanated a voice, cheerful in tone and yet out of place. Our tour guide, Dawn, welcomed us from the porch. With an unhurried step, I entered.
An austere dimness suspended itself in the foyer. Sunlight seeped through the curtains sheepishly, as though it felt unwelcomed. Curios hid in shaded corners where no light dared enter. Dusted eyes in aged portraits cast unforgiving glances. We waited a while to see if anyone else would be coming. No one did.
Dawn began the tour with a history of the mansion. Built in 1859 by George Hearst, the home was later sold to the patriarch of the Mackay family, John William Mackay. He was one of the Silver Kings, a group of men who would strike it rich from the Comstock Lode.
As she told her story, she pointed to photographs and artifacts scattered throughout the foyer, like a cabinet which housed, among other things, a woman’s skull. The air felt heavier. Every breath I took felt burdened by an invisible weight. Then the stories began.
The mansion is home to a plethora of phantoms: two young girls, a woman in the parlor and a “shadow man” rumored to be Mr. Mackay himself. She had just finished recounting the ghostly experiences of previous tours when a loud bang jolted my ears.
Our heads darted toward the window. A shutter slammed into the air-conditioning unit. Examining the damage, Dawn looked at us and said, “It was just a gust of wind.”
She led us across the room to the mansion’s safe, ensconced cleverly behind a door. As the story goes, two robbers one night, hoping to steal the Mackay family’s store of wealth, broke into the home. Upon opening the door to the safe, they were shot at point-blank range by a guard who was sitting inside, waiting.
I walked into the safe. Tight and narrow, it was cold and uninviting. I stepped out as fast as I stepped in. Just then, Dawn looked at me and said, “They bled out where you were standing.” The floor creaked. I looked down to see my feet, without my telling them to, take a step back.
We ventured into the living room. A one-of-a-kind diamond dust mirror hung above the fireplace. Scattered about were chairs and cabinets whose only occupation was the gathering of dust. The electric wiring, installed directly by Edison and Bell, climbed through the walls unused and unhurried. After sharing more ghost stories, Dawn brought us to the staircase before sharing one last tale.
“Many people have caught a glimpse of Mr. Mackay climbing the stairs,” she said with a tone that made it seem like a common experience. Just then, a figure emerged from the stairs. I caught my gasp before it escaped my mouth. It was Dawn’s colleague coming in to fix the air conditioner. My heart raced that minute and tapped out a beat for the rest of the visit.
Dawn set us loose for the rest of our tour to explore the second floor and bottom floor by ourselves. We thanked her for a wonderful time and proceeded up the stairs.
The floor had a stillness that was more unsettling than it was soothing. We wandered down the corridor, our eyes glimpsing into rooms that seemed like windows into the past. The floorboard creaked beneath our steps, the air occupied only by our whispers. We saw no ghosts, but I constantly felt as though there was always something at the corner of my eye.
Stepping outside, the day felt brighter and the air livelier. We left the grounds and were back on the street. I lingered for a moment, taking one last photograph. My mother leaned over my shoulder. “I feel like we’re being watched,” she whispered. I looked. Nothing.
An hour later, we were eating lunch at Carson City while my mother scrolled through our photographs. Swiping through dozens, her finger suddenly stopped. She zoomed in. “Does that look like a face to you?” she asked. I squinted. There was something. Perhaps it was a shadow. Perhaps it was a foggy window. Perhaps it was not.
She swears the face looked thankful. I would like to think it was smiling out of gratitude for our company, for being respected and for feeling — just for a moment — alive again.