What’s Next for Virginia City, the Millers and the Firehouse Saloon?
A recap of our recent reporting plus bonus content.
The visit Virginia City website has as its slogan “Step Back in Time.”
For one visitor, recently, that meant experiencing despicable racism.
The viral video seen around the world by @UncleRickyD1 has now been taken down from TikTok due to “community guidelines,” while three members of the Miller family, including the parents, owners of the building which houses the Firehouse Saloon, spent part of their Wednesday in detention.
The result of the charges they face will be up for scrutiny, with concerns of past chumminess with the Storey County Sheriff’s Office, as will the future of the Firehouse Saloon, which initially insinuated on social media they didn’t know the Millers.
Their Facebook has been down this week, and their Yelp no longer allows new reviews after sinking to the lowest one star average overall rating. “While racism has no place on Yelp and we unequivocally reject racism or discrimination in any form, all reviews on Yelp must reflect an actual first-hand consumer experience (even if that means disabling the ability for users to express points of view we might agree with),” Yelp wrote as a public attention alert for those trying to post new reviews.
Social media sleuths found photos of employees there wearing miniature nooses as lapels, a reminder of horrific racial violence and lynchings of the past, which in recent years have become a new burning cross in terms of hateful symbolism.
Virginia City, a former Comstock Lode silver boomtown, which had a population of about 25-thousand people in the mid-1870s, and less than 1,000 now, relies heavily on tourism, and hosting events such as Hot August Nights, when this hate-filled altercation took place.
On local social media, many have said they’ve felt increasingly unwelcome there, with the types of messages they see in stores, flags and on tee-shirts, or sometimes hear in conversations, and go less or have stopped going entirely or taking visitors there. Several have called for a boycott of the historical town.
On Facebook groups promoting Virginia City, meanwhile, it seems they want to move on.
“It's been suggested to me by quite a few of you that we get back to what this group is all about--Virginia City, its history, its happenings its events and yes ghosts, its hauntings. So here we go...I am going to repost a lot of stuff that some you have already seen and some you haven’t,” independent historian and author Janice Oberding wrote on the Virginia City, Nevada public Facebook page which has 38k members.
“THE VIRGINIA CITY LABOR DAY PARADE IS BACK ON!” The Virginia, City, Nevada public group Facebook page indicated. “After much debate and input from the community, it has been determined that the parade will proceed as previously scheduled. There will be a Civil War battle from 12 noon to 1p.m. The Labor Day Parade will follow directly after celebrating the American worker who have built this city and country! Come on down for a fantastic time!”
Neither Virginia City page seemed to have any news or conversation concerning the arrests.
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