The Bonanza King

';A monumentally researched biography of one of the nineteenth century's wealthiest self-made AmericansWell-written and worthwhile' (The Wall Street Journal) it's the rags-to-riches frontier tale of an Irish immigrant who outwits, outworks, and outmaneuvers thousands of rivals to take control of Nevada's Comstock Lode. Born in 1831, John W. Mackay was a penniless Irish immigrant who came of age in New York City, went to California during the Gold Rush, and mined without much luck for eight years. When he heard of riches found on the other side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1859, Mackay abandoned his claim and walked a hundred miles to the Comstock Lode in Nevada. Over the course of the next dozen years, Mackay worked his way up from nothing, thwarting the pernicious ';Bank Ring' monopoly to seize control of the most concentrated cache of precious metals ever found on earth, the legendary ';Big Bonanza,' a stupendously rich body of gold and