Did Virginia City, Nevada, ever have any notable gunmen?
Alexander Young
Crestwood, Kentucky
The first notable gunman who comes to mind is Andrew Jackson Davis, better known as “Big Jack” or “Smiling Jack.” After moving to the Comstock Lode in 1859, he bought a stamp mill in Six-Mile Canyon near Virginia City, Nevada, and organized an outlaw gang. His men robbed stagecoaches, trains and wagons hauling bullion west of town, on the narrow Sierra Nevada Mountain roads David used his mill

True West December 2018
In This Issue:
Features
- True West’s Ultimate Historic Travel Guide: Southern Prairie and Plains
- Death at his Elbow
- True West’s Ultimate Historic Travel Guide: Northern Prairie and Plains
- True West’s Ultimate Historic Travel Guide: Great Basin and Rocky Mountains
- Betting on the Baby on the Bar
- True West’s Ultimate Historic Travel Guide: The Desert Southwest
- Doc Gets Hammered
- Manipulated into His Own Death
- True West’s Ultimate Historic Travel Guide: The Pacific Coast
- True West’s Ultimate Historic Travel Guide: Eat, Drink and Sleep Where History Happened
- Battle-Tested in the Rockies
Western Books & Movies
Departments
- Were all the Witnesses at the Spicer Hearing Sworn in?
- What History Has Taught Me: John Boessenecker
- Cochise, Cowboys and Cavalry
- The Black Father of Fort Worth
- Doc Gets Hammered
- Kingsville, Texas
- What’s the History of Yuma, Arizona?
- Tombstone 25—A Western Classic’s Reunion
- Norman Rockwell’s Duke
- Raised from the Dead
- How did Old West Pioneers Acquire Honorific Titles?
- A Thirst for Destruction
- The Boss Drink
- What History Has Taught Me: Myron R. Deibel
- Did Virginia City, Nevada, ever have any Notable Gunmen?