112 South C Street, Virginia City,
Part of the largest historic district in the state of Nevada, the Old Washoe Club is home of Virginia City’s oldest saloon! With bad timing, the Washoe Club originally opened for business just four months before the Great Fire that destroyed most of town. The Saloon was rebuilt, however, and opened a second time later in 1876. Aside from being a bar, the Washoe Club was designed to be the meeting ground for Virginia City's elite. By the mid 1870s, Virginia City was booming; the Comstock pumped out millions of dollars in profitable, high grade silver, and the upper crust of the American West set their sights on Virginia City. The most skilled miners, famous prostitutes and gunslingers, writers, performers and businessmen flocked to the Comstock, hoping to get in on the action.
The rich wanted a place to meet and formed the Old Washoe Club, also known as the Millionaires Club. The Club’s exclusive quarters were on the second floor, above the Crystal Bar, and housed luxuries only imagined by the rest of the American West: the finest library east of San Francisco, a lavish billiard room, a parlor adorned with Italian marble and bronze statuettes, a wine room made from carved black walnut sideboard, and even a reading room in the shape of a grand piano. This elite social club met regularly, but in order to get in you had to meet one small criteria: you had to be a millionaire. The Club’s membership roster included people famous from the Comstock like John Mackay, and other nationally significant members like Ulysses S. Grant, actor Edwin Booth, and railroad magnate Darius Ogden Mills.
The Saloon on the bottom level of The Washoe Club continued to operate long after the Club had come to a demise, though the second and third floors sat empty for decades. Lavish amenities were stripped over time, specifically in relation to a renovation gone wrong in the 1980s. Though the second and third stories haven’t been in use for more than 100 years, that isn’t stopping the ghosts. Paranormal investigators from all over the globe are drawn to The Washoe Club, reporting this is the most haunted place in Virginia City, if not the entire state.
Visitors can take one of the hourly Ghost Tours, or even spend the night in the Old Washoe Club for an Overnight Investigation, locked down for the evening with access to all three floors of the Washoe Club, including The Crypt and Spiral Staircase: the longest freestanding spiral staircase ever built (featured in Ripley's Believe it or not), which is said to be haunted by a resident spirit named Lena.
Visitors can take one of the hourly Ghost Tours, or even spend the night in the Old Washoe Club for an Overnight Investigation, locked down for the evening with access to all three floors of the Washoe Club, including The Crypt and Spiral Staircase: the longest freestanding spiral staircase ever built (featured in Ripley's Believe it or not), which is said to be haunted by a resident spirit named Lena.