VIRGINIA CITY: YA GOTTA GO

 

To some, the mere suggestion of being “politically correct” makes the hair on the back of their necks bristle. Those folks should go to the Oct. 3-4 Champion Outhouse Races in Virginia City, Nev., just for therapy. The rest of us should go because the two-day event is a downright kick in the pants.

During visits with family living in Reno, I have stopped in at the former mining boomtown three times — once to watch the Champion Outhouse Races and twice for just something to do.

Virginia City never fails to entertain. In the mountains 2,000 feet above Reno and Carson City, it is filled with shops, restaurants and colorfully named saloons. My favorite is the Bucket of Blood, a lively joint known for its red beers and local band.

Anytime is a good time to visit Virginia City, which is now a National Historic Landmark District. On any given day, you will find dusty old miners parking their donkeys at the city’s corners. Vendors hawking their food and wares squeeze under its wooden sidewalk coverings. You can pan for gold in a slough wedged between two downtown buildings or ride a steam engine train into the surrounding mining field.

The city’s calendar is filled with special events, including nearly monthly saloon crawls and parades, a Rocky Mountain Oyster Fry in March, Muckfest (mining, whiskey and cigars) in June, International Camel and Ostrich races in September, and a Zombie Run during the annual monthlong Hauntober celebration in October.

But the event that seems to grab the most worldwide headlines is the annual Champion Outhouse Races. This will be the 26th year of the two-day event, which begins with racing on Saturday, Oct. 3, and ends with the crowning of the champion outhouse racing team on Sunday afternoon.

Why does this event draw so many spectators, participants and news media? Because it is so WRONG. For a taste of how wrong it gets, consider the team during one race that “honored” California’s governor with an outhouse named the Urinator. Under a depiction of Arnold Schwarzenegger was the promise: “I’ll Pee Back!”

While politicians are fair game for this good-natured ridicule, other entries in the race included the Breaking Wind team and the Oldtime Saloon’s Precision Plungerette Drill Team. No doubt the already raging 2016 presidential campaign will provide plenty of red meat for this off-color event. In my mind’s eye I can see outhouses labeled Trump’s Dump, Christie’s Crapper, Rubio’s Cube and The Bushwhacker. Not to leave out the Democrats, how about Hillary’s Privy Server and Obama’s Presidential Library?

Legend has it that the idea for these races came from a day way back when the use of outdoor toilets was banned in Virginia City. Angry residents pushed, pulled and dragged their outhouses to the town hall in protest. But that may be just a good excuse for the present-day residents and business owners to give vent to their more than 100-year tradition of raunchy behavior.

About a 6 ½ hour drive from Bakersfield, Virginia City sprang up as a silver mining boomtown with the discovery of the massively rich Comstock Lode in 1859. At its peak in the mid-1860s, the city had a population of about 25,000. Now only about 855 people live in Virginia City. One of the nation’s largest historic districts, Virginia City soared to prominence in the 1960s when it served as the backdrop for the popular Western television series, “Bonanza.” Much of the good, bad and made-up history of the early city was chronicled by Samuel Clemens.

It is believed that Clemens first used his famous pen name, Mark Twain, while working in Virginia City as a reporter for the Territorial Enterprise newspaper. On the main street, across from a gift shop that once housed the Enterprise newspaper, is the Mark Twain Saloon. For the price of a beer, visitors will be told Clemens got his pen name from “ordering two drinks at once and asking that they be served on credit.” But historians claim the pen name really came from Clemens’ Mississippi riverboat days. Clemens worked for the Enterprise from 1862 to 1864. Reportedly he fled Virginia City to escape a duel threatened by an editor who was upset by his reporting. Many of Clemens’ Virginia City stories were later reprinted in his 1872 book, “Roughing It.”

No doubt Clemens made up and embodied much of the character of boomtown and present-day Virginia City. And his later observation about humor is spot-on when it comes to the city’s annual Champion Outhouse Races: “Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”

After a day spent cheering on the outhouse teams, few visitors are left standing. They crawl into their beds for a good night’s rest.

This article appeared in The Bakersfield Californian on Sept. 11, 2015.

https://www.bakersfield.com/archives/virginia-city-outhouse-races-you-gotta-go/article_e0da8f92-7a3d-56c3-95dc-44f2c607d907.html