What: State Historic Preservation Officer for the State of Nevada Ronald M. James signs and discusses his new book Virginia City: Secrets of a Western Past.
Where: Sundance Books and Music, 121 California Avenue, Reno, NV 89509
When: Thursday, September 27, 6:30 p.m.
About the Book: Spent cartridges. The pieces of an original Tabasco Pepper Sauce bottle. Shards of a ceramic pot, stained red. For archaeologists each of the thousands of artifacts uncovered at a site tells a story. For noted Comstock authority Ronald M. James, it is a story resulting from decades of research and excavation at one of the largest National Historic Landmarks in America, the Nevada town that, with the discovery of the Comstock Lode, became a boomtown microcosm of the American West.
Praise: “Framing his inquiry within the cultural context of a nineteenth-century urban mining community, Ronald James elaborates on the ways in which artifacts, ecofacts, architecture, abandoned cemeteries, probate records, journals, newspapers, and maps offer new directions for understanding the dynamic history of the American West’s great Comstock Lode and ‘people from another century.’”—Kelly J. Dixon, author ofBoomtown Saloons: Archaeology and History in Virginia City
About the Author: Ronald M. James is the long-term state historic preservation officer for Nevada and chairman of the National Historic Landmarks Committee of the National Park Service. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including The Roar and the Silence: A History of Virginia Cityand the Comstock Lode.
