Visit Virginia City in Nevada.

Travel with Bennett-Watt and learn about Virginia city in Nevada.

Male1: The Comstock Lode mined out of the hills around Virginia City Nevada financed the Union army during the civil war. Male2: Virginia City was pretty wild and wooly, bars, gravels, gambling halls, pawning houses, traditionally about a 90% male population at least in the age of 60s. Miners, the mines are running three shifts, the mills were running three shifts. It was a good place to be an industrial miner. You could make four dollars a day labors which was Bureau of Industrial labors in that time. Virginia City is the center of the Comstock Mine Industry from the 18th, first founded about 1859. Some miners were wintering over rather than going back to California because they were beginning to find silver and then by the spring of 59 it was blooming. And a honky-tonk little mining town grew up around it. It grew eventually into a mid metropolis because as many as 20,000 people live in there. There is still a lot of the 19th century town left. Male1: Once the Lode played out, Virginia City managed to hang on long enough and preserve its original 1870s Main Street to become a popular tourist spot. Early in May, the town celebrates Cinco de Mayo where the chili cooked off. Male3: This is the oldest longest continuing chili cook off in Nevada. It has been running for more than a dozen years. When we judge the chilies, we are looking for a smooth overall flavor where the good what we call a fudan taste which is your first taste and then a transition for the after taste. We like to see the flavor permeated within the meat, aroma has something to do with it, color green chili out to be green, red out to be red. The meat should not be mushy and it should not be tough. The spices should permeate the meat and there are no fillers in the chili that is there are no beans, there is no spaghetti, there is no pasta. Female1: That is basically what green chili is supposed to start looking like. Male4: We understood when we got here that there are two classes of competition. One is chili and one is salsa and so we’ve made salsa but when we come to one of these events, we usually come to feed the whole damn town as supposed to just a little so we need broth cubes taste out on top of them. Male3: It cooks calm from all over and I have been into competition chili for more than 20 years. The best friends I have right now is chili. Male1: Moving east outside Fallon Nevada along what has been described as the loneliest road in America, Nevada’s— Female2: A lot of people come out here to ride their quads and their sand rails and various ATVs and their bikes and many family groups, mostly family groups because it is a very clean place to come. They come out here to have a good time rides, spend the weekend, a lot of them are from California about 85% we have determined. This is only like a four-hour drive from Sacramento. We have a nice weekend. Holidays are crazy. If you want to come out here, do not come out on the major holidays because it is not very peaceful and it is dangerous because there are a lot of people on the sand. Last year was 42,000 and we have already reached mid year for the fiscal year 41,000 so we think we are going to be between 51,000 or 60,000 this year. And it is mostly people for this activity with their ATVs and such all-terrain vehicles but we do have people who come out—photographers and sand borders as well. We have a Stark of Pony Express Station just down the road a mile a real Pony Express Station that was built here at the base of the dunes. And when the telegraph came out, that was the end of the Pony Express Station. They preferred orphans as they said so it was a dangerous job. Way laid by robbers all the Native Americans not happy with people going through their area. It was a rough life. And the one here the Pony Express Sand Springs, they even had it rough. It is kind of just the harshest conditions out here. There is very little water out here. It is brackish anyhow and there is none in this area here at the dunes a lot of people have asked for it. I do not know if we can provide it in the future. Let us see what happens but a lot of people say, “Do not develop it that is why we are out here.” The way people go somewhere else you know they want to be out here and have a good time. Male1: Though perhaps the most lonely road in America, there is a raw beauty to the high desert accentuated by a passing storm.