GREAT FIRE AT VIRGINIA CITY. NEVADA.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 473, 21 December 1875, Page 3

GREAT FIRE AT VIRGINIA CITY. NEVADA.

(New York Herald ) San Francisco, October 26. Great fire in Virginia City, Nevada. Everything north of Taylor street is burned. The branch bank of California, the Virginia and Truckee railroad buildings, Consolidated Virginia Works, including everything—hoisting works and machinery. The fire is still spreading rapidly. The telegraph wires are all down.

ESTIMATED LOSS -EIGHT MILLIONS. San Francisco, October 26. A special to the California Alf a says: - The Ophir Works are totally destroyed. Ail the principal business portion of the town is gone, and very many of the finest residences. A space of a mile by three-quar-ters is burned over. Two men were killed this afternoon by a falling wall. There was a tremendous gale blowing all the forenoon, and but little could be done. One steamer and a Babcock engine were burned. The estimated loss will probably reach 8,000,000 dol. Hundreds of people are utterly destitute, and hundreds of men have been thrown out of employment. The Catholic, Presbyterian, and Episcopalian Churches are destroyed. The other churches and schoolhouses are thrown open for the sufferers. The city authorities and citizens are doing all they can, but the ruin is fearful. The city looks as though it had been blasted by both fire and earthquake. The most ghastly sight in the city is the tremendous machinery of the mills and hoisting works, standing out like spectres in the smoke. There are many sick in the city, and many touch ing sights were witnessed. Among the storm of fire the scene from the heights tins morning was most terrible ; hotels, churches, mills, hoisting works, newspaper offices, Opera House, business stores, and residences presented the appearance of a sea of lire. The wind blew a gale, and sometimes in whirlwind. Explosion followed explosion in rapid succession.

Many buildings were blown up, but on the east and nortli nothing stopped or checked the flames until there was nothing to feed upon. It looks now as though people generally were bankrupt, and it will take a long time for the city to recover from the disaster. The only portion of the city saved is that from Wells, Fargo and Co’s, which includes the works of the Could and Curry, Savage, Hale and Norcross and Chollar, but these works are just now working with few men, on account of water in the mines. There are 4000 or or 5000 destitute people who have to find homes for the winter outside of Virginia City, for what was this morning Virginia City is now but a ruin. In a single sentence, we are in the midst of a calamity so fearful that the strongest minds cannot yet realise its dreadful magnitude. The amount of insurance written in the burned district has not been ascertained, but it is supposed to aggregate in the neighbourhood of 1,000,000d01. No reports of the losses have yet been received by the insurance agents, and it is impossible to state the proportion ofjthe losses to the risks.