dealt in silver-mining shares, and controlled and ran a number of Comstock mines over the years, notably the Consolidated Virginia Mining Company. These four men were among the "Bonanza Kings" or "Silver Kings" of the Comstock. George Hearst, a highly successful California prospector, became a partner in Hearst, Haggin, Tevis and Co., the largest private mining firm in the United States, which owned and operated the Ophir mine on the Comstock Lode, and other gold and silver mining interests in California, Nevada, Utah, South Dakota and Peru. Hearst was a member of the California State Assembly and became a United States senator from California. George Hearst was the father of the famed newspaperman William Randolph Hearst. Copper King Marcus Daly, a mining engineer, met Hearst while working for John Mackay and James G. Fair. He later went on to found the Anaconda Mining Company, a Butte, Montana copper corporation. William Chapman Ralston, founder of the Bank of California, financed several mining operations, repossessed some of those mines as their owners defaulted, and ultimately made enormous profits from the Comstock Lode. William Sharon, a business partner of Ralston, was the Nevada agent for the Bank of California, and acquired Ralston's assets when his financial empire collapsed. William Sharon became the second United States Senator from Nevada. William M. Stewart, who abandoned mining to become an attorney in Virginia City, Nevada, participated in mining litigation and the development of mining on the Comstock Lode. As Nevada became a state in 1864, Stewart assisted in developing its constitution, and became the first United States Senator from Nevada, where he helped pass the General Mining Act of 1872. Silver baron Alvinza Hayward, known in his lifetime as "California's first millionaire", held a large interest in the Comstock lode after 1864. Writers and artists While most who worked the mines did not gain great fortune, a number went on to be notable in their own right in the area of writing. The Sagebrush School of journalists and writers arose out of the Territorial Enterprise and other newspapers in Virginia City. A young William Wright and Samuel Clemens both tried their hands at mining at Comstock; not prospering at this, they landed jobs at the Territorial Enterprise where they began writing under the pen names Dan De Quille and Mark Twain. The poet and politician John Brayshaw Kaye, also worked in the mine for a short