The Infamous King of the Comstock: William Sharon and the Gilded Age in the West by Michael J. Makley

Abstract

are not familiar names. Their practices were confined to Washington, but theyhad a lot to do and theydid it well. Among these,of course, isClark Eldridge, the designer of "Galloping Gertie." After the disaster in 1940, Eldridge, presumably a broken man, lefthis home in Washington and took a job with contractors working on a defense project inGuam. Captured and imprisonedby the Japaneseforthe remainder ofthe war (three years and nine months) Eldridge assumed he had outdistanced his associa tion with "Galloping Gertie." One day... a Japanese officer walked up and said simply, "Tacoma bridge" (p. 86). The book is a nice publication with excel lent photographs and very useful plans and drawings. Eric DeLony, thedean ofAmerican bridge historians, has contributed an essay at theend ofthe book summing upWashington's best bridges. There isa glossary ofbridge terms and a thoughtful bibliography to round out this delightful book. Ward Tonsfeldt Bend, Oregon THE INFAMOUS KINGOF THE COMSTOCK:WILLIAMSHARON AND THEGILDED AGE IN THE WEST by Michael J. Makley University ofNevada Press, Reno, 2006. Illustrations, photographs, notes, bibliography, index. 305 pages. $34-95 cloth. William Sharon was not a very nice man. Hav ing made a fortuneconsolidating andmanipu lating the legendary silvermines ofNevada's Comstock Lode, Sharonwielded hiswealth and power with an unvarnished ruthlessness that earned him many enemies, few admirers.Yet, fromafreemarket, "greed isgood" perspective, Sharon's merciless brand of entrepreneurial capitalism also created jobs and economic wealth and played an important part in the settlement ofNevada and thewider develop ment of theAmerican West. Given Sharon's importance and influence on California and Nevada from the 1860s to his death in 1885, it isa bit surprising that ithas taken so long for a full-scale biography to appear. Others made richand powerful by theComstock?William Stewart andWilliam Ralston, toname but two ? have long since found theirBoswells, as have themines themselves and the rambunctious Virginia City.With this biography, Michael Makley goes a long way toward remedying thishistorical slightingofyet another William made famous ? or infamous ? by the chance geological accumulation of silver-bearingores on the eastern slopes of the SierraNevada. Makley's work relies heavily on published secondary sources toput flesh on thebones of Sharon's life,thoughhe does use some primary resources from theBancroft Library at Berke ley and contemporary newspaper accounts. Poring through the voluminous historical material on thehistory of theComstock, San Francisco, California, and the like, Makley has turnedupmany valuable nuggets of informa tion about Sharon.What emerges isa detailed storyof one of the West's earliest bigmining capitalists, aman who succeeded inbuilding a sizable empire by tying together mine, mill, timber, and water operations, mostly with financial backing from one of the West's first greatfinancial institutions ? theBank ofCali fornia. Sharon, Makley argues, was a "visionary capitalist" among Comstock miners, a man who "created a verticalmonopoly to control activities from the collecting of rawmaterials through the shipping of thefinal product" (p. 2). In this light, Makley concludes thatSharon can justlybe compared to such better known captains of industryasAndrew Carnegie and JohnD. Rockefeller,whose corporate empires later"employed strategiesanticipated by Sha ron" (p. 3). Unfortunately, Makley does not domuch to sustain or prove thisargument in thebody of thebook. Had he been able todo so, thebook would certainlyhave been of greater value to academic historians.Makley, however, tends to Reviews 637 favor narrative over analysis. Throughout the book, brief attempts toplace Sharon's story in broader historical perspective and to engage the current historical literaturegenerally remain undeveloped. For example, Makley startshis seventh chapter on "The Ophir Debacle" with the observation that American economic devel opment had longdepended on government aid and thuswas rarelyan example of the laissez faireindividualismmen likeSharon supposedly characterized (p. 103). True enough. Yet, the chapter actually saysalmost nothing about the federal government's role in thedevelopment of theComstock. These brief nods toward the broader historical context often feel like later additions to the book, leaving them poorly integrated into the overall narrative. Indeed, contrary to Makley's assertion,Rockefeller and Carnegie arguably created a typeof corporate capitalism that was a significantdeparturefrom Sharon's largely traditional, ifhypertrophied, approach tobusiness. Ifhis evidence indicates otherwise, thenhe fails tomake the case here. Nonetheless, Makley has some good stories to tell.The book provides...