[1][3] In May 1860, the town was laid out by Eugene Angel and others, who named it Empire City.

[3] "The Mexican" was the first of the mills and was established in 1860 to process the ore from the Comstock Lode.

One estimate had the total number of mills operating as 186,[4] with names like "Brunswick," "Merrimac," "Santiago," "Vivian," and "Yellow Jacket."

On October 23, 1863, Mark Twain wrote a hoax article called "A Bloody Massacre near Carson" (alternatively, the "Empire City Massacre Hoax") about a man who purportedly killed his wife and nine children.

The hoax article stated that the alleged perpetrator lived in the "great pine forest which lies between Empire City and Dutch Nick's."