Virginia City sits directly above the Comstock Lode, the silver deposit that produced over $700 million in ore between 1859 and 1919 and bankrolled a significant portion of the Union effort in the Civil War. Several mine tours give visitors access to the actual tunnels, and they are among the more viscerally informative ways to understand what the silver rush actually involved.
The Ponderosa Mine Tour and the Chollar Mine both offer guided underground walks into working-level tunnels, showing original mining equipment, ore veins, and the timber support systems that held up hundreds of metres of mountain above. The tight, dark, wet tunnels make the abstract history concrete very quickly. Tours run throughout the day; the Ponderosa Mine entrance is beneath a bar on C Street, which is either atmospheric or disconcerting depending on your temperament.