Early in the week of May 3, persons unknown erected a sign near the junction of Main Street, Silver City (Highway 342), with the Truck Route (Highway 341) blaming Comstock Mining Inc., the Storey County Commissioners and the Nevada Department of Transportation for the closure of the highway (342) between Silver City and Gold Hill. Before dawn of the third day afterward, the sign had been obliterated and removed by a second party of persons unknown.
For erecting the sign without a permit, public opinion assigns responsibility to critics of pit mining in the Virginia City National Historic Landmark.
For trespassing on private property in the dark of night and destroying someone else’s belongings, suspicion is divided.
Could it have been NDOT, stung by the suggestion (“Slow to Learn”) that putting a highway over a mine shaft isn’t smart? This was the fifth or sixth collapse in that location. . . .
Nah, if NDOT works at night they bring bright lights, flagmen and orange traffic pylons.
It’s comical to think of Lance Gilman, Marshall McBride and Jack McGuffey scuffling around in the dark to bring down the aspersion against them and their predecessors (“Lack of Oversight”). This seems to suggest the collapse could have been prevented if they’d paid some attention. But how likely is it that even one of them would break the law outside Storey County?
So I guess we’ll never know who did it . . . just another unsolved petty crime.
David Toll
Gold Hill
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