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 #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 #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 #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 #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