Nevada Historical Marker #262
Dayton School House 1865. In 1865 Lyon County built this imposing stone school building for the residents of Dayton, then the county seat. It is the second oldest schoolhouse in Nevada and is the oldest such structure to remain in its original location. The building served the community as a school until 1959 when it was closed. It later housed the Dayton Senior Citizens Center and became the home of the Dayton Historical Society Museum in 1991.FRIENDS OF THE COMSTOCKCOMSTOCK HISTORIC DISTRICT COMMISSIONSTATE HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICE
Logan Alley, Dayton, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #257
Nevada’s First Gold Discovery. In July 1849, Abner Blackburn, a former member of the Mormon Battalion, made the first gold discovery in what is now Nevada near this site (see the canyon to the right). William Prouse, a member of a passing emigrant party, made a second discovery further up Gold Canyon in May 1850. The discoverers of these placer gold deposits believed the promised riches of California to be greater. Most emigrants consequently continued their westward journeys, but a few returned after finding most of California’s Motherlode creeks and rivers already claimed.By the spring of 1851, some 200 placer miners, including James “Old Virginny” Finney, were working in the area. The continuous occupation of Gold Canyon’s mouth makes this site Nevada’s first non-Native American settlement. Dayton, also known as Chinatown, became a mineral milling, commercial, and agricultural center after prospectors and placer miners worked their way up Gold Creek. This monument commemorates the 150th anniversary of the discovery of gold and the thousands of pioneers who passed near this site.
Cemetery Road, Dayton, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #233
Dayton Cemetery. Founded in 1851, this is one of the oldest constantly maintained cemeteries in Nevada. The trail to the California Mother Lode passed directly in front and the wagon tracks can still be seen with careful observation.In 1849, the emigrants discovered gold in Gold Canyon and a trading post was opened here. In the 1850s, a permanent settlement was established. In 1861, the town was officially named Dayton in honor or John Day, a surveyor who agreed to plot the town on the condition the place would be named after him. That year, Lyman Crockett, later state treasurer, and Judge Calvin Hall located this cemetery. On December 9, 1861 Crockett dug the first grave. Two of his children are buried here. James Finney (“Old Virginny”) after whom Virginia City is named, is buried here. Many people buried here are Italian Americans, as this ethnic group dominated much of Dayton’s early history. Recognizing the potential of the land and the irrigating value of the Carson River, Italian Americans made this area the breadbasket for the Comstock.
Cemetery Road, Dayton, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #200
Hall’s Station. Spafford Hall built this station and trading post in the early 1850s to accommodate emigrants bound for California. Hall, who was the first permanent settler here, was severely injured in a hunting accident in 1854 and sold the station to one of his employees, James McMarlin. It became known as McMarlin’s Station. Major Ormsby bought the station sometime between 1854 and 1860. The title was still in his name in 1860 when he died in the first battle of the Pyramid Lake War.A special niche in Nevada’s history is accorded this site as the place where the first recorded dance was held on New Year’s Eve, 1853.The exact site destroyed by borrow pit.
Shady Lane, Dayton, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #199
Camels In Dayton. Camels were imported into the United States for military purposes in the mid-1850’s. Lt. Edward Beale of the U.S. Army tested the animals for possible caravan operations in the deserts of the southwest. The experiment was not successful and the camels were auctioned off. Some were brought here to haul wood and salt to the mines and mills of the Comstock. They were corraled behind this stone hay barn, known as the Leslie Hay Barn. Used extensively between Sacramento and Nevada points for some ten years, they were later abandoned to fend for themselves. Few were seen after the 1880s.
Pike Street, Dayton, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #186
Union Hotel & Post Office. The original Union Hotel was located across the street. It was rebuilt here in 1870 after a fire destroyed the old hotel. The former post office site originally housed the dining room and a barber shop. The free standing rock wall is the original wall of the overland stage station and Pony Express stop.
Main St, Dayton, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #127
Courthouse Site 1865 1909. Dayton was the first seat of Lyon County and had one of the first courthouses built in Nevada. Finished in 1864, local residents celebrated the new two-story brick building and its Italianate styling as an important architectural benchmark for a new state.On the afternoon of May 15, 1909, the two-story brick building burned and the county seat was moved to Yerington two years later. Utilizing the ruins, the Nevada legislature funded the construction of a high school that opened in 1918. The school closed in 1959 and the building became an elementary school, then a junior high school and is now the Dayton Valley Community Center.
Pike Street, Dayton, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #85
Sutro. Sutro was a town, a tunnel, and a man. The well-planned community was headquarters for the Sutro Drainage Tunnel.German-born Adolph Sutro came to the Comstock in 1860. He advocated a drainage tunnel, visualizing development of Comstock ore with this access. By 1865, his vision gained approval of state and federal legislation. However, the mining interests, having at first supported the tunnel, became strongly opposed.When construction began in 1869, it was first financed by the mine workers since the tunnel would presumably improve mine safety. Later, the funding came from international bankers. Miners completed the main tunnel in 1878 and then extended lateral excavations, providing drainage, ventilation and access to many Comstock mines. The work on the tunnel from its lower end created a town of 600-800 and boasted of a church, post office and its own weekly newspaper, plus Sutro’s Victorian mansion and other fine residences. Adolph Sutro soon sold his interest in the tunnel company and returned to San Francisco, where he served as mayor.
California Emigrant Trail, Dayton, NV, United States