Author Nicholas Clapp featured at Mark Twain Center
Where else but in Virginia City could a penniless Irish miner in a few short years amass a fortune greater than any of America’s robber barons, simply by dint of hard work and intuition, and remain a humble, caring human being?
Documentary filmmaker and award-winning writer Nicholas Clapp, author of the book "Virginia City to Dance with the Devil" will be the featured writer at Mark Twain Community Center, 500 Sam Clemens Ave., Dayton, on Wednesday, Feb. 24. The free presentation is hosted by Storey County Library. It begins at 7 p.m. Purchase a $5 raffle ticket for a chance to win a copy of the book.
Learn how Mark Twain discovered and honed his comic voice, and notorious badman Sam Brown was lined with lead, with a coroner’s jury concluding, “It served him right.” Hear also of Julia Bulette, a kindly harlot beloved of the city’s firemen, who was the toast of a rowdy Fourth of July parade.
In Virginia City mines, men plunged into the scalding, hazardous heart of the earth, tantamount to partnering with hell’s dread demon, so that they could enjoy five Shakespeare companies performing at once, food rivaling Delmonico’s in New York, and frocks ordered directly from Paris that could be worn in this barren, windswept middle of nowhere. Virginia City’s twenty turbulent bonanza years—what a time it was!
Clapp has explored, filmed, and written about the deserts of the world. In Arabia, he led an expedition that discovered and unearthed the lost city of Ubar, celebrated in both the Bible and the Arabian Nights. Closer to home, he has written about and roamed the deserts of the American West, with particular interest in the history of mining camps.
His grandfather Daniel was a miner and when Nick was 12, he tagged along on a shift working at the 800-foot level in the same mine where his grandfather later died in an underground accident. His great uncle George was the proprietor of a minstrel show touring mining camps, and Hannah Clapp was an 1850s Nevada schoolmarm. It was only natural then, that Nick, along with his wife Bonnie, was drawn to Virginia City and a quest to recount and graphically illustrate the day-in, day-out story—and excitement—of a ramshackle desert settlement destined to become the richest place on earth during its boom years.
"Nick Clapp’s book has it all — great photographs, wonderful illustrations, a beautiful layout and delightfully written. What a wonderful book," said Robert A. Nylen, curator of history, Nevada State Museum." It is a must-have for anyone interested in the history of Virginia City."
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