Or at least their effluent. Mercury was used extensively in the process to extract silver and gold from the native rock mined around the Virginia Range to the east. At the beginning of the development of the Comstock Lode, several mills located in Washoe Valley used the abundant water from the Carson Range to the west in the process. The effluent, a mixture of whatever mercury was lost in the crude recovery process and other heavy metals leached from the ores was washed down the outlet of Little Washoe Lake into Steamboat Creek and eventually into the Truckee River.

The book “Distribution of total and methyl mercury in sediments along Steamboat Creek”, published in 2004 documents the process and the remaining elevated mercury levels along the route. The photo above is of the last remnants of a mill along Hwy 395 on the west side of Washoe Lake at the site of the ghosttown of Ophir.

We usually hear about elevated levels of mercury in the Carson River due to the mills there but Steamboat Creek shares a similar history. The “quartz mills” operated from about 1860 through 1873 when the newly completed Virginia and Truckee Railroad and new mills along the Carson River put them out of business.