Steamscape: American Flat. The Virginia & Truckee Railway's Virginia City Train runs north (compass west) around the horseshoe curve, above the long-abandoned mill complex known as American Flat. As early as the 1860s, the "bowl" you see beyond the train held a mining community, but this location never really took off as a city. In fact, the community had pretty much died by the late 1800s. Then, in the 1920s, the United Comstock Mining Company built a large cyanide mill complex on this land, for processing low-grade ores. For just 6 years that complex operated until the dropping price of silver made both the mining and processing operations in the area uneconomical. The mill was abandoned in place in 1926, and it has remained a ghost town ever since. Although people sometimes visit the site today, the Bureau of Land Management has declared the place off-limits to the public. The crumbling concrete and hazardous waste make the the old mill a dangerous place to visit. This piece of Comstock history is best viewed from the V&T Passenger Trains that run from Mound House to Virginia City every weekend during the summer and fall season.
