Nevada Lore Series: the Birth and Death of the American Flats near Virginia City

Most people who were raised in the area spent some period of their teenage years creeping around the ruins of the United Comstock Merger Cyanide Mill, known as the American Flats near Virginia City.

Unfortunately, they were demolished in 2014 by the BLM, but still live on in our Comstock loving hearts.

The flats were a looming, colorful colossus, a network of buildings half destroyed by time, which intrigued photographers from across the world, thrill seeking climbers, graffiti artists, angsty teenagers, and historical buffs alike.

The decision to demolish the flats was a heated one, and many petitions sprung up to try and save it. But the BLM came to the decision that it was a safety hazard (despite the fact that only two people had ever died — one when the mill was still in production in the 1920s, and another in 1996 when a man attempted to ride at ATV up a stairwell and flipped).

The mill was actually only in production for four years after its completion in 1922. Cyanide was used in the process of extracting silver ore, but when the price of silver collapsed, the mill collapsed as well.

American City popped up in the area near Virginia City, just south of Gold Hill, during the boom of the late 1800s, and for a brief moment in history, was actually being considered as the capitol after Nevada became a state in 1864.

However, after the demolition of the flats, nothing of American City actually remains today.

In World War II, most of the metal was stripped from the buildings to help with the war effort, and the skeletal concrete bones were left behind, becoming a haven for artists.

The Fine Grinding and Concentration building was the one known to most, with its towering ceilings and open floors. Groups of thrill seekers would compete against each other to see who could climb the highest and leave their art work and graffiti tags on the top most portions of the concrete ruins.

The Ore Bin and Coarse Crushing plant was the entrance to the site in a way, a two story building half buried in the ground, with mermaid green pools that seemed bottomless, and decades worth of spray paint cans floating on top of the still waters.

The Precipitation and Refining Building was an easy challenge to conquer. The way inside was to climb to the open second story, and descend down a rickety iron ladder into the dark, cool belly.

Then, there were the tunnels beneath the Cyanide Plant, where huge water tanks once stood.

Some people say they went down seven stories, others twenty; realistically I don’t know myself because the lower tunnels were often hidden under deep water, or collapsed by rubble and stone. It was a labyrinth of pitch black, short and narrow tunnels that sloped further and further down into the earth, and people often reported spotting ghostly figures at the ends, always just out of site, or darting around corners.

People from across the world came to leave their artistic mark on the flats. Each year, the previous art would be covered up with new graffiti. Some were the tags of the unofficial climbing clubs to note that they had made it to new, more impressive heights, some silly markers of attendance, and as the years went by, sweeping massive murals that could cover the entire exteriors of the concrete buildings.

Naturally, the actual ruins were strictly off limits, and patrolled by federal rangers.

Once, I took my younger cousins and a few of their friends there as a right-of-passage, as I had been taken as a teenager myself. A park ranger spotted us climbing up through the subterranean tunnels, and detained us.

He was particularly unhappy when we said that yes, we had known it was prohibited to be in the ruins. He then called each parent of the minors, growing more and more frustrated with each parent asserting that yes, they knew where their kids were, and yes, they knew it was off limits, but it was the flats! They had all been taken there as teenagers.

I walked away with a $75 trespassing fee as the only adult on scene. But, it was worth it, to know that a younger generation was able to enjoy the dangerous, historical playground before it was fully demolished a few years later.

For additional photos of the flats, visit Atlas Obscura’s article here.

The BLM also commissioned a documentary before the demolition occurred, which you can view here on YouTube.

— The Nevada Lore Series focuses on the legends of Nevada and the surrounding areas that help build our culture, from ancient Washoe stories, to Old West ghostly visions, to modern day urban legends.

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