“The Infamous King of the Comstock: William Sharon and the Gilded Age in the West,” by Michael J. Makley (University of Nevada, 328 pages, $34.95)
The most spectacular of the West’s robber barons were the San Francisco men who controlled the banks, the railroads and the Comstock mines. William Sharon was the most ruthless of these. “It is probably impossible to find a really kind word that was ever said about Sharon and preserved in print,” a historian noted.
He was cruel to men and beast, once running a horse so hard in a race against banker William Ralston that the horse went blind. Sharon lost the race.
But it was his dealings with human beings that gave him his reputation as a merciless man. He was a genius in manipulating mining stocks, driving victims into bankruptcy and despair. At one time, he and his confederates, known as the Bank Ring, controlled most of the Comstock. And he was relentless is pursuing his enemies.
One was Adolph Sutro, who wanted to build a drainage tunnel that would aid all the Comstock mines. After years of fighting Sharon and his minions, Sutro finally built his tunnel, but by then the Comstock mines were on the decline. When running for Senate, Sharon tried to emphasize his good works, noting he had a fortune, but he couldn’t take it with him. Someone in the crowd yelled, “If you did, it would burn.”
Perhaps because Sharon has so few redeeming qualities – to his credit, it must be said that he hired black waiters, porters and chambermaids for his Palace Hotel, the first such institution in San Francisco to employ blacks in these positions; and his valet liked him – he’s never before been the subject of a full-scale biography.
Michael J. Makley fleshes out this ambitious man, showing both Sharon’s brilliant financial machinations and amplifying his few good points. Sharon rescued the Bank of California from bankruptcy, which not only would have caused a panic in San Francisco but in California and possibly the country. But he did so after refusing to help his old friend and mentor William Ralston, who was overextended and faced with losing his fortune.
In the end, Sharon was done in by a woman – Sarah Althea Hill, who claimed that the two were secretly married and produced a handwritten marriage contract. Rather than pay blackmail to “the Rose of Sharon,” as the press dubbed her, Sharon spent a fortune on litigation, paying for, among other things, experts who said the contract was a forgery. The public embarrassment drove his children away and probably contributed to Sharon’s early death.
“Jay Cooke’s Gamble: The Northern Pacific Railroad, the Sioux, and the Panic of 1873,” by M. John Lubetkin (University of Oklahoma, 400 pages, $29.95)
Jay Cooke was a robber-baron contemporary of William Sharon. Unlike Sharon, however, Cooke was not interested in money alone. He believed theft was a sin (not that he didn’t indulge in his share of illegal activity), and gave generously to the needy. He believed he was “God’s chosen instrument, especially in the financial work of saving the Union,” he said of himself.
Others agreed. Without Cooke’s fundraising, the Union would have foundered during the Civil War. But in his way, Cooke was as manipulative as Sharon – and less liberal. He didn’t allow blacks to ride on his trolleys.
As the country’s leading banker, Cooke took on the responsibility for raising funds for the Northern Pacific Railroad. But as fast as he raised it, the railroad’s officials and employees spent the money on shoddy work and double-dealing. The railroad, staffed with incompetent Civil War veterans and political appointees, was as steeped in a culture of greed and corruption as the recently built transcontinental railroad. Engineers routed the railroad through their land developments and contracts went to insiders and associates.
The Northern Pacific had additional challenges – 125 miles of Minnesota swamp on which rail had to be laid; opposition from Canada; and then there were the Sioux and Sitting Bull. They didn’t want a railroad built through their land. Among the soldiers sent to protect Northern Pacific surveyors was George Armstrong Custer.
Although Custer would get his, it was investors and other Americans who were scalped by the Northern Pacific. The railroad’s problems led to bank failures, a stock market crash and the panic of 1873. Cooke gave up his fancy house and spent 30 years living in a bedroom in his daughter’s home.
Sandra Dallas is a Denver novelist who writes a monthly column on new regional nonfiction.
