Lee and Ruby Carel, proprietors of the Silver Queen , wanted to honor the Comstock Lode, which yielded more than a billion dollars; worth of silver and made Virginia City one of the most prosperous places in America in the 1870s.
So they designed a picture of a beautiful woman fifteen feet high and eight feet wide, and put her in an evening gown made entirely of money. The low cut dress is wide and full, from just above her nipple line to the floor, it is made from 3,261 silver dollars, some of them minted in Carson City, and it is cinched at the waist with a belt of twenty-eight twenty- dollar gold pieces.
