United States / Austin, NV

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Nevada Historical Marker #137

Hickison Summit. About one mile northwest lies a natural pass between two low buttes, which prehistorically, the aborigines may have used as a site of ambushing migratory deer herds. Three petroglyph panels are located in the pass. Concerted cooperative efforts of several families were necessary for successful trapping, killing and processing the deer. Petroglyphs suggest magical or ritual connection with hunting activities. They were added seasonally by the group's religious leader or shaman, as omens to insure a successful hunt.

Lincoln Highway, Austin, NV, United States

Nevada Historical Marker #59

Stokes Castle. Anson Phelps Stokes, mine developer, railroad magnate and member of a prominent eastern family, built Stokes Castle as a summer home for his sons.  After the castle (or the tower, as theStokes family always referred to it) was completed in June 1897, the Stokes family used it for two months.  Since then, with one possible exception, the structure has remained unoccupied.Stokes Castle is made of huge, granite stones, raised with a hand winch and held in position by rock wedging and clay mortar.  The architectural model for the castle was a medieval tower Anson Stokes had seen and admired near Rome.  This building originally had three floors, each with a fireplace, plate glass windows, balconies on the second and third floors, and a battlemented terrace on the roof.  It had plumbing and sumptuous furnishings.Stokes Castle has served for decades as an iconic Nevada building often photographed by enthusiasts of Western history.

Forest Rd 43242A, Austin, NV, United States

Nevada Historical Marker #176

The Surveyors. The federal government historically has supported numerous surveys for the purpose of measuring the domain which extended, after 1848, to the Pacific. These surveys sought railway routes, military relationships, water transport and wagon roads. The survey activity was extended to all territories, but not to states. Nevada, in part, was the site of two notable surveys. Honey Lake to Fort Kearny Wagon Road, completed in 1860 by Captain Lander, and the route surveyed by Lieutenant Simpson, Camp Floyd to Genoa, in 1859. Military engineers engaged in this activity included Stansbury, Marcy, Whipple, Beale, Simpson and Lander. The name of Captain F. W. Lander stands out as a contributor to Nevada’s history. He has been memorialized in the name of a prominent Nevada county. Nearby Simpson Park Mountains are named for Lieutenant Simpson.

, Austin, NV, United States

Nevada Historical Marker #66

Jacobsville. The site of Jacobsville is one-half mile north.  George Washington Jacobs, the first sheriff of Lander County, founded the town on the banks of the Reese River in 1859.  Jacobsville was the Overland Stage and mail station and became a Pony Express stop in 1860.  In the early 1860s, it had a population of about 400 people and boasted of having the first telegraph relay station, a post office, courthouse, three stores and two hotels.Jacobsville was the first county seat of Lander County which extended over most of northeastern Nevada.  The county seat was moved to the more populated town of Austin the same year it was established in Jacobsville.  The only remnants of the town are a few stones used in the foundations.  The Reese River, just west of here, was discovered by the exploring party of John Reese in 1854.

Lincoln Highway, Austin, NV, United States

Nevada Historical Marker #119

Reuel Colt Gridley “Citizen Extraordinaire”. This simple stone structure, opened to the public in late 1863, was originally operated as a general merchandise store by the firm of Gridley, Hobart, and Jacobs.  Gridley is best remembered for his 1864 wager that prompted the auctioning of a sack of flour for donations to the “Sanitary Fund,” the Civil War forerunner of the American Red Cross.  The flour was sold again and again throughout Nevada and California, then taken east and eventually auctioned at the St. Louis Sanitary Fair in 1864. In all, it raised about $275,000 for the fund.  Gridley died almost penniless six years later.

Water Street, Austin, NV, United States

Nevada Historical Marker #136

Toquima Cave. Toquima Cave is an extraordinary Great Basin Native American archaeological site. Toquima Cave’s walls and ceiling are covered with pictographs in a variety of abstract and geometric designs painted with white, red, yellow, and black pigments. The meanings of these ancient designs may be as ceremonial markers, depictions of hallucinations, and art.  Western Shoshone Indians historically occupied this region, and their ancestors most likely painted the Toquima Cave pictographs. Toquima Cave is located in a basalt outcrop on the east side of Pete’s Summit in the Toquima Range about 12 miles to the east.  The cave is accessed by a half-mile hiking trail from the US Forest Service Toquima Cave Campground.  In order to protect the pictographs from vandalism, visitors are separated from the cave walls by a cage-like structure.

, Austin, NV, United States

Nevada Historical Marker #135

New Pass Station. The rocks composing the walls of this stage station and freighter stop were in neat array and roofed with bundles of willow twigs in July 1861, when John Butterfield’s Overland Mail & Stage Company began traversing this Central or Simpson Route between Salt Lake City and Genoa, Nevada.The spring on the hill was inadequate for both humans and horses.  However, Division Superintendent Thomas Plain’s support ranch, one mile to the west, kept this important team-watering and replacement-stop operating.Completion of the first transcontinental railroad spelled the eventual demise of the Overland Stage line.  Butterfield sold out to Wells, Fargo & Company in 1866, which suspended all operations on the Central Route in February 1869.  The company continued to operate their diverted equipment on other lines until the early 1870s.STATE HISTORIC

Austin Highway, Austin, NV, United States

Nevada Historical Marker #159

Ione. Ione Valley had a dense and permanent aboriginal population, dating back about 5,000 years. Unusual property arrangements and agricultural methods were practiced later by the Shoshone and Northern Paiute Indians. Silver was discovered in 1863, and in 1864 Ione City was named first county seat of newly created Nye County. Over 600 people worked in this prosperous town until Belmont wealth attracted most of the miners in 1865, and the county seat in 1867. Alternately prosperous and poor, yet never completely deserted, Ione suffered mining depressions, milling difficulties, and the loss of miners to richer strikes throughout its history.

NV-844, Austin, NV, United States

Nevada Historical Marker #208

International Hotel. FIRST COMMERCIAL BUILDINGCONSTRUCTED IN AUSTIN1863This structure was built of lumber from the first International Hotel, constructed in Virginia City.David E. Buel constructed the hotel after being refused a free lot in Clifton at the mouth of the canyon below.  Buel, Frederick Baker, W.C. Harrington, and John Veatch located and recorded the original townsite of Austin.STATE HISTORIC

Main St, Austin, NV, United States

Nevada Historical Marker #8

Austin. Austin sprang into being after William Talcott discovered silver at this spot on May 2, 1862.  Talcott came from Jacobsville, a stage stop six miles to the west on the Reese River. He was hauling wood out of Pony Canyon, directly below, when he made the strike that set off the famous “Rush to Reese.” A town called Clifton flourished briefly in Pony Canyon but fast growing Austin soon took over and became the Lander County seat in 1863. Before the mines began to fail in the 1880s Austin was a substantial city of several thousand people.  From Austin, prospectors fanned out to open many other important mining camps in the Great Basin.

Lincoln Highway, Austin, NV, United States

Nevada Historical Marker #67

Austin Churches St. Georges Episcopal Church, to the east, was consecrated in 1878. The Reverend Blackiston used an eloquent, enthusiastic Easter sermon in 1877 to secure pledges for church, retaining wall, pipe organ, and bell and for a twenty-dollar gold piece from every employee or a local mine. The organ was shipped around the Horn and hauled by wagon from San Francisco. St. Augustine’s Catholic Church, to the west, was built in 1866 of native brick and stone. Father Monteverde, the first pastor, conducted the first mass at midnight Christmas Eve, 1866. Admission of $1 per person was charged to limit the number of people attending. The Methodist Church, to the north, was built in 1666. A canny minister formed the Methodist Company, and sold stock as Far away as the East Coast to finance the building of the church. Lectures and entertainment were part of the church scene for benefit purposes. Emma Wixom attended Sunday school here. Later, as world-famous Emma Nevada, she brought her troupe to Austin and gave a benefit concert in the church.

Main Street, Austin, NV, United States