The individuals who amassed the most colossal fortunes from the Comstock Lode were rarely the everyday prospectors who first found the claims, but rather shrewd financiers, stock speculators, and business tycoons known as the "Bank Crowd" and the "Bonanza Kings." Figures like William Sharon, John William Mackay, James Graham Fair, James C. Flood, and Mackay's partners utilized control of local banks, water companies, and stock exchanges to consolidate mining shares and extract immense generational wealth from the district's silver bonanzas.