Prussian immigrant Adolph Sutro, a tobacco merchant and skillful engineer, succeeded in solving the drainage, ventilation, and access problems in the mines at the famous Comstock Lode in the Nevada Territory.
Sutro owned a thriving tobacco and import company in San Francisco, but in 1859, news of a huge gold and silver strike east of the Sierra Nevadas reached the coast, and he left for the “Washoe Country.” The Comstock Lode lured most men with its gold, but Sutro was lured by its problems. He felt confident after viewing the mines that he could develop a more efficient process for extracting gold and silver from the quartz ores. By 1863 he had established a substantial mill and assay office. He began working the tailings and frequently got out more value than had been taken from the ore originally by the inferior methods. The Comstock mines were desperately fighting ever-present water, and the Ophir Mine, the richest of the Lode, was having real trouble with floods of hot water trapped deep within the mountain. Sutro realized the water problems of the Comstock Lode must inevitably get worse as the mines descended deeper into the earth, and the Cornish pumping and the drainage adits were already fighting a losing battle. His solution was both simple and ingenious. He proposed to run a tunnel four miles long to the arc of the mines, then extend headings laterally north and south beneath the Lode. Such a tunnel would not only drain and ventilate all the mines but would permit cheap underhand stoping and economic ore removal. In 1866, Congress signed the Sutro Tunnel Act granting the right of way, and in 1878, the Sutro Tunnel was completed. Its portal still exists as a monument to its creator.
In 1881, Sutro purchased the famous Cliff House near San Francisco, and in 1892, began another enormous engineering feat: the Sutro Salt-Water Baths, which became one of the most distinguished bathing pavilions in the world. Adolph Sutro was dedicated to beautification projects and civic affairs, and in 1894, was elected mayor of his beloved “City By the Bay.” He is well remembered in San Francisco as the man who turned a town into a gracious city.
