1875 Comstock Millionaires Club and the Lady in Blue
112 South C Street, Virginia City, NV 89440
Age
All Ages (some night programs 21+)
Cost
$$
Self-guided audio tour and daytime museum visit run roughly $20 adult; ghost tours and overnight investigations are priced separately and require advance booking.
Access
Limited Access
Three floors connected by a long freestanding spiral staircase; uneven historic flooring
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1876 · Comstock Lode Mining History · Virginia City Historic District · Nineteenth-Century Members' Club Architecture · Ripley's Believe It or Not Spiral Staircase
Virginia City rose on the Comstock Lode, a silver-and-gold deposit identified in 1859 that produced one of the most concentrated bursts of mineral wealth in nineteenth-century American history. The town reached a peak population near 25,000 in the 1870s, and the resulting concentration of mining wealth supported an unusual quantity of institutional infrastructure for a Sierra Nevada mining camp.
The Washoe Club was chartered as a private members' club on June 1, 1875, with a roster of sixty initial members and a membership cap of two hundred. The charter list included Comstock mining executives, San Francisco bankers, and Pacific Coast political figures. Visiting members included President Ulysses S. Grant and the writer Samuel Langhorne Clemens, then writing under the name Mark Twain after a period working at the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise.
The club's first building on B Street burned to the ground in the Great Fire of October 1875, an event that destroyed most of Virginia City's central commercial district. The club reorganized and rebuilt in 1876 on the floors above a popular tavern on C Street. The 1876 structure includes the long freestanding spiral staircase that Ripley's Believe It or Not later cited as the longest of its kind without a central supporting pole.
The upper club floors closed to membership operations in September 1897, by which time Comstock production had declined sharply and Virginia City's population had collapsed. The ground-floor saloon continued in operation. The building changed hands repeatedly through the twentieth century and was operated variously as a saloon, a museum, and a regional cultural venue. The current Washoe Club Museum and Saloon program combines historical interpretation with the paranormal-investigation programming for which the building has become widely known.
The Crypt, a stone-lined basement room used to store the dead during Virginia City's deep winters before spring burial, remains accessible during tours and is among the property's most-reported paranormal locations.
Sources
The Washoe Club has been featured on Ghost Adventures, Ghost Hunters, and other national paranormal-television programs over the past two decades. The building's most-cited single figure is the lady in blue, an apparition in a long blue dress most often reported at the top of the long freestanding spiral staircase. Tour operators identify her as Lena, a former Virginia City resident whose biographical details are reconstructed primarily from tour-program narrative rather than from independent archival research.
Reports from the Crypt include drops in temperature concentrated near the original stone shelving where bodies were stored across the winter months, the sound of footfalls on the stone floor when the room is empty, and EVP recordings cited in tour-program promotional material. Investigators have produced photographs of shapes interpreted as figures in nineteenth-century clothing in the upper rooms, particularly the billiard room and the members' parlor.
Visitors and staff have reported swinging interior doors, barstools tipping without apparent cause in the ground-floor saloon, and the sensation of being touched during the climb up the spiral staircase. The combination of the long staircase, the upper-floor warren of small members' rooms, and the basement Crypt produces an architecturally complex environment that supports an active investigation program.
The Washoe Club's tour program is the property's principal commercial focus, with daytime museum visits and structured evening investigations available year-round. The property's reputation among paranormal-tourism communities is one of the highest in the Mountain West.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
A self-paced visit through all three floors of the 1876 club building, including the saloon, the long freestanding spiral staircase that once held a Ripley's Believe It or Not record, the upper-floor members' rooms, and the Crypt body-storage area used during Virginia City's deep winters before burial.
A guided evening tour through the club's three floors with a focus on the spiral staircase, the Crypt, and the upper-floor billiard room. The lady in blue, identified by tour operators as a former resident named Lena, is most often reported at the top of the spiral staircase.
Locked-down overnight investigations across all three floors of the club, with access to the upper-floor rooms typically closed during daytime hours. Programs are scheduled in advance through the museum's booking page.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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