part of the silver they extracted for themselves and refusing to make an accounting. In 1920, the United Comstock Mines Company was organized by prominent Comstock mining engineers Roy Hardy and Alex Wise with financial backing by New York businessman Harry Payne Whitney. United Comstock consolidated ownership of the entire Gold Hill section of the Comstock Lode, representing 5,000 feet of strike length and a mill site in American Flat. This enterprise constructed the 2,500 ton-per-day capacity American Flat cyanide mill, the largest in the world at the time, and drove a tunnel 9,585 feet from the mill under Gold Hill. The economics of this project were tenuous, and with a drop in silver prices, it closed in 1924. In 1934, the federal government raised the price of gold from $20.67 to $35 per ounce, which vastly improved the economics of projects on the Comstock. Several companies embarked on substantial projects, including: Arizona Comstock Company in 1933 began underground mining through the Hale & Norcross tunnel, followed quickly by a surface mine known as the Loring Cut and located across from the Fourth Ward School. Arizona Comstock processed its ore at a 330-ton-per-day flotation plant located near the Hale & Norcross portal, but the flotation method alone turned out to be relatively ineffective at recovering Comstock gold and silver and this operation shut down by 1938. Dayton Consolidated The Dayton Consolidated Mill in Silver City processed ore from its own mine, as well as operating as a "custom" mill for a number of mines in the area. Con Chollar The Con Chollar Mining Company built a 135 ton-per-day flotation mill near the south end of Gold Hill to re-process tailings from several nearby mines. It later processed ore from the Overman Pit in the same section of the Lode. Sutro Tunnel Coalition/Crown Point Mill After several years of exploration and development on the Crown Point claim in Gold Hill, the Sutro Tunnel Coalition built a 100 ton-per-day cyanide mill to process both underground and surface mined ore in 1935. The mill and mine development was accomplished with a $160,000 loan from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which was paid back in under 3 years of operation. The Crown Point Mill operated profitably, treating primarily ores from the Crown Point and Yellow Jacket claims, until it was shut down by War Production Board Order L-208 in 1942. Exploration and production on varying