THE DAILY HERALD EXTRA!...HORRIBLE CALAMITY. FIRE IN THE KENTUCK, CROWN POINT AND YELLOW JACKET MINES, AT GOLD HILL. TEN DEAD BODIES TAKEN OUT. FIFTY MORE PERSONS SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN BURNED OR SUFFOCATED...[caption title and first lines of text]

[San Francisco?]: Daily Herald, [1869].. Single sheet, 11¼ x 7¾ inches. Printed in two columns. Old folds, minor soiling. Very good. A rare and dramatic news broadside presenting ongoing updates for one of the worst mining disasters in Nevada history. On April 6th, 1869, a methane fire caused by an unattended lantern broke out in the 800 level of Virginia City's Yellow Jacket Mine, swiftly spreading to the nearby Kentuck and Crown Point Mines. The strength and heat of the flames precluded any hope of rescue, despite the efforts of firefighters and community members to recover the miners. Ultimately, over thirty-five miners perished in the fire, eleven of whose bodies were never recovered. While this broadside estimates that at least sixty would have been in the mines, the one faint silver lining of the accident is that it occurred during a shift change, and only half of the normal number of workers were present.

The tone of the text in this extra issue is heart-wrenching:

"Wives and children of miners at the hoisting works, shrieking in woe....There is great danger that the men below will all perish, the smoke and gas being dense and suffocating as to render it impossible to get their aid or operate to extinguish the flames....The scene at the works beggars description. Wives and children moaning and calling for missing husbands and fathers....It is supposed that there are at least fifty more miners in the three mines, and it is feared that none of them can be saved."

It also relates the gruesome and newsworthy (if dubious) story of a miner who was tragically decapitated by the hoisting equipment as he was pulled from the inferno. Unfortunately for Virginia City, its fire troubles were far from over - in October of 1875, a massive fire nearly leveled the settlement. We find no record of a HERALD newspaper in or around Virginia City (or in Nevada at all) at this time. It is likely that this was printed in San Francisco (or perhaps Stockton) as news updates came in from Nevada Territory by telegraph. In either case, we do not find this rare extra issue recorded anywhere.