Ghost Signs of the Old West

On the eastern slope of Mount Davidson sits the town that won the Civil War for the North.

(The discovery of silver in the Comstock lode here in 1859 financed much of the war effort.)

Today, Virginia City's main street is a collection of souvenir stores and merchants selling everything from leather hats to knives to salt water taffy. (Seriously. There's a lot of salt water taffy for sale.)

There are also a number of restaurants and museums.

It's the first place Samuel Clemens used the pen name Mark Twain.

Few of the signs painted on the walls date back to the 1860s, because of a series of fires, including the Great Fire of 1875, destroyed much of the town.