Old Virginia City Jewish Cemetery
“During the height of the Comstock, this cemetery served the burial needs for Virginia City’s thriving Jewish community. The cemetery was established in 1863. As the Comstock mining activity ebbed in the late 1880s…Virginia City’s population began to shrink. As a result, the cemeteries, including the Hebrew cemetery, fell into disrepair and over the next 100 years desert vegetation reclaimed the landscape. Unfortunately, the cemetery has been the subject of anti-Semitic vandalism on several occasions during the last one hundred years. Headstones have been destroyed or defaced and the cemetery generally desecrated.” See more here. Other sources claim that the broken tombstones resulted from cattle grazing within the cemetery before it was surrounded by a fence. If that be the case, however, it is ironic that the sole unbroken tombstone, that of Amelia McCreadie, is one without a Jewish sounding name. Whatever the cause of the desecration in Virginia City, it did not survive as well as the Jewish cemetery in Prague, which survived largely intact after the murderous Nazi era.
Chabad arranges a group to clean up the cemetery each year in the spring, please contact us if you would like to volunteer.
Directions to the Jewish Cemetery in Virginia City from Carson City
Google maps: https://goo.gl/maps/
Follow Highway 50 eastbound out of Carson City to Mound House
Turn left on highway 341 to Virginia City. After you arrive in Virginia City - follow on through the town to the north end of the city.
On the right (east side) you will see a firehouse.
Continue north out of town for .9 miles on the same road.
At .9 mi you will come to a broad "turn off" with a road leading of to the right
Go right off of the highway onto the dirt road. Go down the hill .4 miles then go right
DO NOT take the first right turn - take the second right turn (there are two naked fence posts on the left where you make the right turn)
Then proceed .3 miles to the second ranch at the end of the road. The last ranch with the horses. Park where the road intersects with her driveway.
You can park there at the beginning of her driveway - on her dirt driveway
This is Mrs. Harrison’s ranch - do not drive up her driveway. Do not disturb her.
The cemetery is off to your right as you approach her driveway. You may park there off to the side of her road, but do not block the road or her driveway.
She has graciously let us park there, so be super considerate. She has been very friendly and cooperative - let us keep it that way.