My great-great-grandparents lived in San Francisco's Cosmopolitan Hotel during1879-1880 while inspecting the silver mines they owned. Where the mines were located I have no idea Is this still in existence, and possibly the guest register, could you search for a B.B. and S.A. Hill?

-- Richard Paar (trollstare@yahoo.com), February 23, 2004

Answers

1901 San Francisco city directory listed the Cosmopolitan Hotel at 100 5th Street, an area that burned during the 1906 fire. One might assume the hotel records were also destroyed during the fire. Good luck in your search for your silver mine.

-- will (willstaiger@yahoo.com), February 23, 2004.

This may be a far fetch but Virginia City, Nevada is famous for it's Silver Mines and is called the Comstock It probably was not that unusual for visitors to room in San Francisco, the Gold country, etc. on the way to Reno Carson City and Virgina City.

-- MHG (thebigm@sbcglobal.net), March 23, 2004.

I want to add this, as I think about it,----I am reading a book "The Diary of a 49er" that is supposed to be a true account of the Gold Rush from a miner's real diary. This miner worked the Yuba River near Nevada City, and they traveled to Sacramento (in 1850's it was a city of 5000 tents!) and they also traveled from the foothills to San Francisco to purchase land. That is why I do not think it would be that unusual for them to travel over the Sierra in summer to visit Virginia City and Carson City. There is even a water tunnel built called the "Sutro Tunnel" in those days that had to do with the Silver Mines. I think Sutro is very San Francisco, not sure if it was a man or just a title as in the Sutro Baths.

-- MHG (thebigm@sbcglobal.net), March 23, 2004.

MHG: Diary of a Forty-Niner is a great read with a lot of history and insight into what daily life might have been like in the 1850-1852 California gold fields, but one needs to remember that the book was fiction, written in 1906 by Chauncey Canfield.

Sutro's tunnel and Virginia City came much later, and yes, it's the same Sutro; he made his name in Virginia City but made his money in San Francisco through land speculation deals of enormous proportions. An interesting man, I would recommend reading a couple of biographies on him. I think Richard Dillon (Head Librarian of San Francisco's Sutro Library) has a good one in his book Humbugs & Heroes: A Gallery of California Pioneers.

-- will (willstaiger@yahoo.com), March 23, 2004.

I found this while doing a search for California history/silver mines. Taken from a site about Mexican mining history www.cr.nps.gov/history....so I have discovered they were mining silver prior to the Gold Rush. Plus, information on the San Francisco capitalists who bought up the silver mines....

"By 1868, news of the rich silver deposits had circulated throughout California. Mortimer Belshaw and other San Francisco capitalists formed the Union Mining Company and quickly bought out most of the Mexican claim holders. Joaquin Almada, for example, exchanged his title for one-fifth ownership in the new smelter built by Belshaw. Not long after, Belshaw bought Almada's interest and became one of the two "kings of the mountain." The other mogul was Victor Beaudry, another San Francisco merchant who had established a store at Cerro Gordo in 1866. Through attachments for overdue accounts, Beaudry also acquired extensive mining property from Mexican prospectors. Jose Ochoa was one of many who lost their valuable claims to Beaudry. Another victim was Jesus Lozano whose general store was absorbed by Beaudry. Mexicans continued to be important at Cerro Gordo after 1870, but only as the principal source of wage labor. They continued as workers until the demise of Cerro Gordo in th e 1950s."

-- MHG (thebigm@sbcglobal.net), June 24, 2004.