Virginia City Experiences for Families Itinerary
Teaching kids to love history is easy when it’s something they can experience for themselves. Make your first stop the Visitors Center, located at 86 South C Street, to purchase discounted attraction and museum passes. Then head out to explore!
Virginia City offers two mine tours, the Chollar Mine and the Ponderosa Mine Tour, both kid-friendly. The Ponderosa Mine Tour features the Best and Belcher mine shaft and it’s conveniently located just a few doors down from the Visitors Center in the back of the Ponderosa Saloon, which used to be the Bank of California building (you can still see the original vault). The tour guide takes your group into the depths of the mine and lets you experience what it was really like down there, including when your candle blew out!
Once you emerge into the daylight, let the kids discover another kind of mining – panning. Just across the street from the Ponderosa, the Virginia City Mining Company offers kids, and adults, the chance to strike it rich panning for either gems or gold. Eureka!
All of that mining work probably worked up an appetite, and Virginia City is famous for treating kids to all the sugary goodness they can handle. Head north on C Street a block or so to Red’s Old Fashioned Candies for candied apples in a variety of flavors you didn’t even know possible. Yes, you can pick up a sandwich for lunch, too. Then head to Grandma’s Fudge Factory for some chocolate samples and amazing fudge flavors, then finish off the splurging at Barrels of Candy where kids’ eyes pop at the sight of so much sweet goodness.
Ponderosa Mine Tour
The Best and Belcher Mine tour is a 25-minute guided tour featuring over 300 pieces of antique mining equipment on display. See complete underground mine workings – tunnels, crosscuts, drifts, stopes, raises, winzes and shafts. The Ponderosa Mine is located in the Ponderosa Saloon, formerly the Bank of California.
Season:
Year-round
Cost:
$12 per Adult/$5 per child
Contact:
106 South C Street
P.O. Box 314
Virginia City, NV 89440
775-847-7210
Virginia City Mining Company
Bring the family and pan for gold and gems on the Comstock.
Season:
Currently closed
Contact:
171 S. C Street
Virginia City, NV 89440
775-847-7744
Saw Dust Trails Shooting Gallery
Sawdust Trails Shooting Gallery is similar to the ones you’ve played at Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, and even some sporting goods stores. Step right up and see how well you can shoot. You “shoot” at the targets with our unique laser light system and when you hit the target, the animatronics react and give you a show. Fun for the whole family!
Season:
Year-round
Cost:
$2 for 20 shots
Contact:
164 South C Street
775-847-0106
Shoaf’s Ghost Town
Shoaf’s Ghost Town is a fun, family friendly walk through attraction. A series of hallways lead you through various scenes of a “ghost town”. Fun for all ages!
Season:
Year-round
Cost:
$4 per person
Contact:
164 South C Street
775-847-0106
Red’s Old Fashioned Candies
Red’s is the oldest operating candy factory and mercantile in Nevada and continues to make a wide variety of fudges, brittles, chocolates, toffees, caramel apples, turtles and specialty hard candies daily. With a selection of more than 40 different ice cream, yogurt and sherbet flavors, you’ll find the waffle cones filled to the brim at prices that can’t be beat. Red’s also has a full-service sandwich parlor.
68 South C Street
775-847-0404
Grandma’s Fudge Factory
Grandma’s Fudge Factory first opened its doors in 1971 and their master candy makers are still making fudge the old-fashioned way. Grandma’s Fudge is cooked in large copper pots, paddled by hand and while still warm, poured on a temperature-controlled table and paddled to yummy perfection. The fudge is made with only natural ingredients. Want some delivered to your doorstep? Not a problem. Grandma’s Fudge happily ships.
20 North C Street
775-847-0770
Barrels O’Candy
Choose from more than 60 flavors of salt water taffy and more than 60 Jelly Belly flavors. In addition, Barrels O’Candy has 16 flavors of ice cream, numerous slushies, fancy truffles and nut bars. How about root beer barrels, Chick-O-Sticks, Sixlets and all the candies you remember as a child? Barrels O’Candy has you covered.
13 North C Street
775-847-9500
