Virginia City sprang up as a boomtown with the 1859 discovery of the Comstock Lode, the first major silver deposit discovery in the United States, and numerous mines were opened. At the city's peak of population in the mid-1860s, it had an estimated 25,000 residents. The mines' output declined after 1878, and the city declined. As of 2010 Census the population of Virginia City was about 855,[3] with 4,000 living in Storey County.