Was Duane L. Bliss a business genius or a despoiler of natural resources? This is one of the major themes in this first-ever biography of one of the Pacific West's great entrepreneurial geniuses.
During the glory days of Nevada's Comstock era, from 1859 into the early 1890s, Duane L. Bliss's Carson & Tahoe Lumber & Fluming Company was the largest supplier of timber and lumber to the booming mining business. The company's products provided the framework for the Comstock's 135+ underground mines and supplied the lumber to help build the towns of Virginia City and Gold Hill. It also sold the...

Over 157 years ago--before there was a Reno, Nevada; before there was a state of Nevada; and even before there was a Nevada Territory--there was a bridge over the Truckee River at a narrow, deeply rutted cattle and wagon trail that would one day become Virginia Street. There was also a small rustic inn and tavern occupying a plot of ground at the southern end of the log-and-timber bridge, catering to thirsty cowboys, drovers, and miners. The inn and the bridge were the first two structures in what would one day be a bustling metropolitan area, and to this day they still form the nucleus of...