National Register #93000689
Chollar Mansion
565 South D Street At State Route 341
Virginia City

The Chollar Mine was one of the first big producers on the Comstock. A dispute with the Potosi Mine over the boundaries of their claims, was resolved with a merger which created the Choller-Potasi Mine.

Billy Chollar lived in a Virginia City Hotel until the mine financed the construction of the Chollar Mansion, designed by N.J. Coleman in the Italianate architectural style and built by H.E. Hill between 1862 and 1864. The building served as the mine office and a residence for William Chollar and Isaac Requa.

In 1870, when the building was found to be too close to the mining shafts, it was dismantled and moved approximately a quarter of a mile mile to the north.

Adapted from the NRHP nomination submitted in 1993.

Buildings that Moved

It's not just that the people of the American West are restless, the buildings themselves sometimes pack up and move when - for one reason or another - the neighborhood no longer suits them or the neighbors no longer want them or opportunity waits down the road.

And when buildings remain in place, they are often searching for their identities.

Of the buildings and structures we have visited, the original Reno Arch holds the record for number of moves. It has been moved five times since it was built in 1926.

Jax Truckee Diner holds the distance title. The building moved from New Jersry to Pennsylvanis in 1948, then from Pennsylvania to Califonia in 1992.

Probably the most ambitious relocation occurred on July 4th 1904, when the Southern Pacific Railroad loaded most of the town of Wadsworth, Nevada, onto rail cars and transported the town thirty miles west to create a new town which became known as Sparks.