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Nevada Historical Marker #4
Junction House. One of the busiest crossroads of pioneer Nevada converged at this point, serving many major toll roads of the area. The earliest emigrants from the east crossed through Truckee Meadows at this point, and by 1853, the intersection was known as Junction House, was the first permanent settlement in this valley and a stopping place for thousands. Junction House, later called Andersons, was a station for toll roads of the 1860s including the turnpike to Washoe City, the Myron Lake Road to Oregon, the Geiger Road to Virginia City and the important Henness Pass route to California.Governor Sparks bought the property in the late 1890s, and most recently it belonged to cattleman William Moffat.
South Virginia St, Reno, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #40
Las Vegas (The Meadows). In the Las Vegas Springs The famous Las Vegas Springs rose from the desert floor here, sending two streams of water across the valley to nurture the native grasses, and create lush meadows in the valley near Sunrise Mountain. The natural oasis of meadow and mesquite forest was the winter homeland of Southern Paiutes, who often spent the summers in the Charleston Mountains. An unknown Spanish-speaking sojourner, named this place “Las Vegas” meaning “The Meadows”. Antonio Armijo led a trading party from Santa Fe to California in 1829-30, traversing part of the Las Vegas Valley. One branch off the main Old Spanish Trail included the Springs as a resting spot. On one of his western exploration trips, John C. Fremont camped here on May 3, 1844 and was the first to officially put Las Vegas on the map.Because of artesian water here, Mormons established the Las Vegas Mission and Fort in 1855 a few miles east of the Springs. The San Pedro, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake Railroad Company acquired water rights and land, with which it created the City of Las Vegas in 1905.
Vegas Spring, Las Vegas, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #41
Pueblo Grande De Nevada. Indians of a highly-developed civilization lived throughout Moapa valley from 300-1100 A.D. several hundred ancient pithouses, campsites, rockshelters, salt mines and caves of ancestral Puebloan people make up what is commonly known as “Lost City.” These people cultivated corn, beans, and squash in fields irrigated by river water. They also gathered wild seeds and fruits and hunted widely for deer, antelope, desert bighorn sheep, small mammals, and birds. They wove fine cotton cloth, fired beautifully painted and textured pottery, and mined and traded salt and turquoise to coastal tribes for seashells. Early dwellings were circular pithouses below ground. Later dwellings above ground were single storey adobes having up to 100 rooms.Lake Mead, created by Hoover Dam, flooded the most intensively developed portion of lost city.
South Moapa Valley Blvd, Overton, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #42
Big Smokey Valley. Named for its hazy distances, this valley has witnessed a parade of famous men and stirring events. The valley and its bordering Toiyabe and Toquima ranges are Shoshone territory.Jedediah Smith, intrepid trapper and trail-blazer, was the first European American in the area, crossing the valley’s southern end from the west in 1827. In 1845, John C. Frémont passed through the valley, accompanied by such figures of the American West as Kit Carson and Basil LaJeunesse.In 1859, Captain James Simpson located the “central route” across the valley’s northern end. Thus began the historic decade 1859-1869, which saw Chorpenning’s Jackass Mail, the Pony Express, the Overland Telegraph, and the Concord Coaches of the Overland Mail and Stage Co. crossing the valley.Silver strikes at Austin (1862-1863) initiated the valley’s first mining boom. Numerous bustling mining camps sprang up, including Bunker Hill, Kingston, Geneva, Santa Fe, Ophir Canyon, and Jefferson.Following the 1900 Tonopah silver strike, mining surged again. Two new towns, Manhattan and Round Mountain, started with a brief revival of many earlier camps.
NV-376, Carvers, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #43
Derby Diversion Dam. Derby Dam, constructed under Specification Number 1 and Drawing Number 1 of the U.S. Reclamation Service, now the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, diverts the flow of the Truckee River for irrigation use. It was the forerunner of such mighty structures as Hoover, Grand Coulee, Shasta, and Glen Canyon Dams.Derby Dam was authorized by Secretary of the Interior E.A. Hitchcock on March 14, 1903. It was part of the Newlands Project, named in honor of Nevada Senator Francis G. Newlands who worked for passage of the Reclamation Act in 1902. Derby takes its name from a nearby Southern Pacific Railroad station of the day.Charles A. Warren & Co. of San Francisco, the contractor, started work on the dam on October 2, 1903, and finished May 20, 1905. Operational water diversions began in 1906.
Dwight D Eisenhower Highway, Sparks, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #44
Carson City. Nevada's State Capital, one of the state's oldest communities, was established in 1851 as Eagle Station, a trading post and ranch on the Carson Branch of the California Immigrant Trail, by Frank and Warren L. Hall, George Follansbee, Joe and Frank Barnard and A. J. Rollins. The station and surrounding valley took their name from an easgle skin stretched on the wall of the trading post. In 1858, Abraham Curry purchased much of the Eagle Ranch after finding that lots in Genoa were too expensive. Together with his friends, Jon Musser, Frank Proctor and Ben Green, Curry platted a town he called Carson City. Curry left a plaza in the center of the planned community for a capitol building should a territorial state seat of government eventually be located in his town. In March 1861, Congress created the Nevada Territory. Seven months later in November, Carson City became the capital of the territory due to the efforts of Curry and William M. Stewart, a prominent lawyer. When Nevada became a state three years later, Carson City was selected as the state capital, and by 1871, the present capitol building was completed in the plaza Curry had reserved for it.
, Carson City, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #45
Humboldt Wells. These springs, seen as marshy spots and small ponds of water in the meadows, are Humboldt Wells, a historic oasis on the California Emigrant Trail. Between 1845 and 1869, hundreds of covered wagon trains camped here, refitted from their arduous journeys and prepared for the grueling 300 mile trek west along the Humboldt Valley. Ruts of the oldEmigrant Trail winding down to the springs can still be seen on the slopes above them and to the northwest.In 1869, the Central Pacific Railroad established a station named Humboldt Wells for the springs located west of the station. In 1873, the Elko County Commission changed the name from Humboldt Wells to Wells.
6th St, Wells, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #46
Pilot Peak. The high, symmetrically shaped mountain seen rising to the north is Pilot Peak, named by John C. Fremont on his expedition of 1845. Previously, the Bartleson-Bidwell party camped here in 1841. These emigrants had traveled one day and night across the Great Salt Lake Desert to find their first water here.In the period 1845-1850, the peak was a famous landmark and symbol of hope and relief to the Reed-Donner Party and all other wagon train pioneers who traveled the 70-odd miles of deadly, thirst-and-heat-ridden steps across the Great Salt Lake Desert. This desert represented the worst section of the infamous Hastings Cutoff of the California Emigrant Trail.STATE HISTORIC
Pilot Rd, West Wendover, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #47
Fort Halleck Site 1867 1886. On July 26, 1867, Captain Samuel Smith established what became Fort Halleck twelve miles to the south near Soldier Creek. In concert with Fort Ruby fifty miles further south, the Army intended the Fort to protect the California Emigrant Trail, the Overland mail route and construction work on the Central Pacific Railroad during conflicts with Goshute and Western Shoshone in that decade.The camp was named for Major General Henry Wager Halleck, a prominent general who served as general-in-chief to the Army from 1862 to 1865. In May 1868, Camp Halleck became a two-company post and the headquarters for the Nevada Military District when Fort Churchill, near Yerington, was abandoned. By 1877, the Fort contained about 20 buildings of wood, adobe, and stone arranged around a rectangular parade ground.Troops from the Fort participated in action against the Modoc Indians in Northern California in 1873; against the Nez Perce uprising in Idaho in 1877; against the Bannocks in Oregon in 1878; and against the Apaches in Arizona in 1885. However, by the 1880s, the need for military stations throughout the American West was much diminished and the Army closed the Fort in December 1886.
NV-229, Elko, NV, United States
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Nevada Historical Marker #48
Tuscarora. This colorful historic camp originated with an 1867 discovery of placer gold by John and Steve Beard. In 1871, W.O. Weed discovered the rich Mount Blitzen silver lodes, two miles northeast of the Beard claims. These and other mines made up the Tuscarora Mining District, which experienced its boom between 1872 and 1884 and ultimately produced between $10 million and $40 million. At its peak, Tuscarora boasted a population of over 3,000, which included several hundred Chinese. The Chinese mostly conducted placer mining at the Beard discovery site, later called Old Town while the main camp developed at the present location of Tuscarora, platted in 1871. Toll roads, crowded with stage coaches and long strings of heavy freight wagons, serviced the camp from railheads at Elko, Carlin, Battle Mountain and Winnemucca. Tuscarora residents shifted their work between mining gold and silver, and ranching in Independence Valley.By 1895, Tuscarora’s production had diminished greatly from its boom days to below $50,000 annually. The camp struggled until 1917, when most of the mining equipment was sold for scrap. This ended operations at Tuscarora until 1987, when Fischer-Watt and Horizon re-opened the Dexter Mine.
, Tuscarora, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #49
Applegate Lassen Emigrant Trail Cutoff. Jesse and Lindsay Applegate headed south from Willamette Valley, Oregon, June 29, 1846, seeking a less hazardous route to that region from the east. On July 21, they came to a large meadow on the Humboldt River, which is now the nearby Rye Patch Reservoir. Thus, they established the Applegate Trail.During the remainder of 1846 and for the next two years, Oregon emigrants successfully traveled this trail.In 1848, Peter Lassen, hoping to bring emigrants to his ranch, acted as a guide to a party of ten to twelve wagons bound for California. He followed a route from here to Goose Lake where he turned southward over terrain that was barely passable. The emigrants suffered great hardships including the loss of many lives and livestock. It became known as the “Death Route.”
Frontage Road, Imlay, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #5
Pioche. Silver ore was discovered in this range of mountains in 1864, but no important development took place until 1869 when mines were opened and the town of Pioche was founded. Pioche soon became the scene of a wild rush of prospectors and fortune seekers. It gained a reputation in the 1870s for tough gunmen and bitter lawsuits. Miners had retrieved over five million dollars in ore by 1872, but by 1900, Pioche was nearly a ghost town. Designated as the seat of Lincoln County in 1871, Pioche survived hard times as a supply and government center for a vast area. Beginning in 1937, Pioche enjoyed two decades of profitable lead-zinc mining.
NV-321, Pioche, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #50
Carlin Canyon. In December 1828, Peter Skene Ogden and his trapping brigade (Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fifth Snake Country Expedition) were the first European Americans to enter here. Joseph Paul, one of Ogden’s trappers, died nearby—the first emigrant to die and be buried in the Humboldt Country.Late in 1845, John Frémont dispatched a group down the Humboldt. They traversed this canyon with difficulty on November 10. In September 1846, the Reed-Donner Party, en route to disaster in the deep snows of the Sierra Nevada, viewed the canyon.The Central Pacific’s Chinese track gangs constructed the transcontinental railroad (now Southern Pacific) through here in December 1868. Subsequently, the canyon became known as Carlin or Moleen Canyon. The Western Pacific, the second transcontinental rail link across Nevada, was constructed in 1907.In 1913, Nevada Route 1, the first auto road, took over the abandoned Central Pacific grade through the canyon. In 1920, Route 1 became the Victory Highway, and in 1926, U.S. Highway 40. In its freeway phase, it is now designated Interstate 80.
Chestnut St, Carlin, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #51
Schellbourne. Schellbourne was a mail station and town, located approximately four miles east of this marker in Stage Canyon, nestled in the Schell Creek mountain range. The Pony Express established a mail station and corral there in 1860, providing mail service to the region until 1861, when the Overland Stage company took over the route. A small military post known as Fort Schellbourne joined the station until 1862, protecting the stage line during the conflicts between whites and the Newe (Goshute and Western Shoshone) Indians.Prospectors discovered silver ore in the mountains immediately to the east of Schellbourne in the early 1870s, and created the Aurum Mining District in 1871. An active mining camp developed with a population of over 500 people. By 1885, the ore had been mostly depleted, with other mining towns like Cherry Creek drawing residents away. The district and adjacent valley were acquired by Uncle Billy” and Eliza Burke as a ranch and hotel. Schellbourne has subsequently operated as the headquarters for various ranches since that time.
White Pine County Rd 18, Ely, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #52
Cherry Creek. The town of Cherry Creek before you was part of a network of mining districts that operated in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the Gold Canyon district in Egan Canyon, five miles to the south.Peter Corning and John Carpenter helped start the town of Cherry Creek when they staked the Tea Cup gold claim in 1872, resulting in a boom and the development of a town. At the town’s peak in 1882, it boasted a population of over 1,800. While production fluctuated, Cherry Creek continued to produce gold and silver ore into the 1940s.Egan Canyon to the south was part of the 1855 route established by Howard Egan and the Mormon Battalion, and surveyed for use in 1859 by the U.S. Army. By 1860, the Pony Express placed a change station at the west opening of the canyon. Between 1861 and 1869, Butterfield’s Overland Mail and Stage established a station here that grew into a small temporary town.In 1863, soldiers from Fort Ruby discovered gold in the canyon, leading to the creation of the town of Egan and a mining district. By 1865 there were three stamp mills in Egan processing ore from the district. Like Cherry Creek, to the north, Egan boomed and busted into the 1920s before mining ceased.
Cherry Creek Rd, Cherry Creek, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #53
Hamilton. The mines of the White Pine district were first established in 1865. Between 1868 and 1875, they supported many thriving towns including Hamilton, Eberhardt, Treasure City, and Shermantown. These communities, now all ghost towns, are clustered eleven miles south of this point.Hamilton and its neighbors thrived as a result of large-scale silver discoveries in 1868. Experiencing one of the most intense, but shortest-lived silver stampedes ever recorded, the years 1868-1869 saw some 10,000 people living in huts and caves on Treasure Hill at Mount Hamilton, at an elevation of 8,000 to 10,500 feet above sea level.Hamilton was incorporated in 1869 and became the first county seat of White Pine County that same year. It was disincorporated in 1875. In this brief span of time, a full-sized town came into bloom with a main street and all the usual businesses. Mine brick courthouse was constructed in 1870.On June 27, 1873, the main portion of the town was destroyed by fire. The town never fully recovered. In 1885, another fire burned the courthouse and caused the removal of the White Pine County seat to Ely.
Lincoln Highway, Ely, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #54
Ward Mining District. The ghost town of Ward, in the foothills of the Egan Range, lies some eight miles west of here. Booming from 1876 until 1882, with a peak population of 1,500, Ward was somewhat of a lawless mining camp. Early killings did occur, but justice was meted out by the vigilante committee and the hanging rope.A million dollars worth of silver was taken from a single chamber of the Ward mine, yet an abandoned house was used for the first school and no movement was ever started to build a church.The town was abandoned by the late 1880s, but new discoveries and better mining methods prompted a resurgence of activity in 1906 and again in the 1960s.
Taylor Cutoff Rd, Ely, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #55
Caliente (Culverwell’s Ranch). Caliente was first settled as a ranch, furnishing hay for the mining camps of Pioche and Delmar. In 1901, the famous Harriman-Clark right-of-way battle was ended when rancher Charles Culverwell, with the aid of a broad-gauge shotgun, allowed one railroad grade to be built through his lush meadows. Harriman and Clark had been baffling eleven years, building side-by-side grades ignoring court orders and federal marshals.The population boom began with an influx of railroad workers, most of them immigrants from Austria, Japan, and the Ottoman Empire. A tent city was settled in August 1903.With the completion of the Las Angeles, San Pedro, and Salt Lake Railroad in 1905, Caliente became a division point. Beginning in 1906, the Caliente and Pioche Railroad (now the Union Pacific) was built between Pioche and the main line at Caliente. The large Mission Revival-style depot was built in 1923, serving as a civic center, as well as a hotel.
Front St, Caliente, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #56
Virgin Valley. Famed western explorer Jedediah Smith visited Virgin Valley in 1826. Captain John C. Fremont passed through here in 1844.The valley served as the right-of-way for the Old Spanish Trail (1829-1848) and for the Mormon Road or southern route of travel to southern California.Pioneers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints settled the area of Bunkerville in 1877 and Mesquite in 1880.The Virgin River provided water for the development of the valley’s agricultural resources.
West Mesquite Blvd, Mesquite, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #57
Old Boundary. The 37th degree north latitude is marked at this point as the dividing line between the territories of Utah and New Mexico under the provisions of the Compromise of 1850 which originally organized the land ceded by Mexico in 1848.When the territory of Nevada was carved from western Utah in 1861, this line became the southern boundary of the new territory and continued to serve as such when the territory and state were enlarged by extensions to the east in 1862 and 1866 respectively.In 1867, the Nevada legislature approved the action of Congress to add that portion of the territory of Arizona which lay to the south of this line, west of the 114 west longitude and the Colorado River, and to the east of the boundary of California. This action, taken on January 18, 1867, gave the state of Nevada the permanent boundaries as they are today.
US-95, Beatty, NV, United States