Nevada Historical Marker #207
Carson Valley. Carson Valley below, now a broad expanse of cultivated and pasture lands, was originally a strip of meadow along the banks of the river where 49’ers, following the California branch of the Emigrant Trail, rested their stock and bought vegetables from the Mormon Station owners.After discovery of the Comstock Lode (1858) settlers extended the natural meadows by irrigation to provide hay, meat and butter for the miners in Virginia City and neighboring towns.From 1870, German, Danish and Swiss immigrants enlarged the area still more to supply produce to booming Bodie and, after 1905, to supply Tonopah and Goldfield.Good range and agricultural practices have allowed Carson Valley to continue to be one of Nevada’s finest agricultural areas.
, Stateline, 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 #209
Chollar Mine. First located in 1859, the Chollar was consolidated with the Potosi in 1865. As the Chollar-Potosi, it was one of the leading producers on the Comstock. The Nevada mill was erected here in 1887 to process low-grade Chollar ore. It was the last to use the Washoe pan process, but the first on the Comstock to generate and utilize electric power.
F Street, Virginia City, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #21
The Humboldt Canal. The Humboldt Canal, sometimes termed the Old French Canal, coursed southwestward from Preble, near Golconda, toward Mill City. The present highway crossed it at this point, from whence it ran southerly toward the Humboldt County Courthouse on Bridge and West Fifth Streets.The canal was conceived in 1862 by Gintz and Joseph Ginaca. The waterway, with a projected cost of $160,000, was to be sixty-six miles long, fifteen feet wide and three feet deep, and with a fall of thirty-five feet. Its primary purpose was to supply water for over forty stamp mills planned at and above Mill City, but it was also designed for barge traffic and some irrigation water supply.Construction of the canal began in 1863. Louis Lay, a French emigrant from California, excavated the first segment. Winnemucca City founder Frank Baud, another Frenchman, worked on the project as a teamster.About $100,000, largely French capital, was expended in building the Humboldt Canal to the Winnemucca area. Because of engineering errors and severe seepage problems between Winnemucca and Mill City, that section was never completed or used.Several portions of the old canal are still visible in the Golconda area, in various sections of Winnemucca, and at Rose Creek, south of the city.
E 2nd St, Winnemucca, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #210
N.C.O. Railroad Depot 1910. In the 1880s, the Nevada-Oregon Railway (N-C-C) line began operations north to Beckworth, California. In 1884, the new owners, the Moran brothers, renamed the line the Nevada-California-Oregon Railway. They extended the tracks to Lakeview, Oregon, making this line one of the largest narrow gauge railroads in the west.This railroad depot was built in 1910. Architect Fredric DeLongchamps designed the building. He incorporated several architectural styles in the station. The entry porch is in the mission style; the roof eaves are from the Italianate style; and the arched windows and doorways follow the Romanesque Revival style.In 1917, the Western Pacific Railroad purchased the N.C.O. Line from Reno to Herlong, California and standard gauged it. The depot continued to serve the traveling public until 1937.
East 4th Street, Reno, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #211
Old Geiger Grade. Marker damaged by collision. Placed on priority repair list 2017.In the canyon below is the Old Geiger Grade road. Constructed by Dr Davison M. Geiger and John H. Tilton in 1862, this old toll road was the most direct connection between the Comstock Lode and the Truckee Meadows, until replaced by the present, New Deal-era highway in 1936.Concord stages, mud wagons, and ten-mule freighters carried thousands of passengers and millions of dollars in precious cargo across this section of the Virginia Range. There are many stories of unpredictable winds, snows, landslides, and the everlasting danger of lurking highwaymen involving this precipitous stretch of road. Dead Man’s Point and “Robber’s” Roost, two of the most famous features of the road, can be seen from this marker.
Geiger Grade, Reno, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #212
Galena. Galena began as an important lumbering center and mining camp. In 1860, R. S. and Andrew Hatch laid out the town and organized a mining district. The Hatch brothers’ quartz mill and smelter were among the earliest erected on this side of the Sierra. The gold deposits from the local mines contained a lead sulphide named “Galena,” which caused the mining operations to be unprofitable, but the mills continued to operate, processing ores from the Comstock mines.Eleven sawmills were operating by 1863, and Galena boasted stores, lodging houses, a justice court, a school which doubled as a community hall, saloons, and dozens of homes. The severe winter of 1864-1865 interrupted freighting to Virginia City, and the ensuing mining depression forced the Galena mills to close. After two disastrous fires in 1865 and 1867, Galena was abandoned.
Callahan Rd, Reno, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #213
Lakeview. As early as 1863, two hotels with appurtenant stables were located here. In 1872, one hotel became a station on the newly-completed Virginia & Truckee Railroad between Carson City and Reno.Crossing under the highway are three inverted siphon pipelines furnishing water from the Sierra Nevada watershed to Virginia and Carson Cities. Work was first undertaken in 1873 on the 76 mile box flume and pipeline system with the construction of a maintenance station here. The Virginia and Gold Hill Water Company’s historic water-gathering and transportation complex immediately became world famous.As early as 1881, Lakeview became a lumber storage area for timber cut in the Lake Tahoe Basin. In 1887, shipping activity was accelerated as lumber was fed to the yard by a V-flume originating above present Incline Village. From here timber products were shipped to the Comstock mines and other points via the V. & T.R.R cars. Activity ceased in 1896.
, Lakeview, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #214
Rafael Rivera. This historical marker commemorates the valor and service of pioneer scout Rafael Rivera, the first European American of record to view and traverse Las Vegas Valley, who scouted for Antonio Armijo’s sixty-man trading party from Abiquiu, New Mexico. In January 1830, young Rivera ascended Vegas wash twenty miles east of this marker and blazed a route to the Mojave River in California by way of the Armargosa River.Rivera’s pioneering route became a vital link in the Old Spanish Trail, with Las Vegas Springs an essential stop on this popular route to Southern California. John C. Frémont mapped the trail in 1844. Three years later, following an extension of the course to Salt Lake Valley, the route became known in this area as the Mormon Trail. Today the Old Spanish Trail closely parallels Interstate route #15.
Mountain Vista St, Las Vegas, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #215
Lahontan Dam. Lahontan Dam, completed in 1915, is the key feature of the Newlands irrigation project that turned Lahontan Valley into one of Nevada’s most productive farming and ranching areas. With the completion of the dam’s powerhouse, the electrical energy needs of Churchill County and the surrounding area were met.The Project was one of the first authorized under the Federal Reclamation Act of 1902 and the 1903 construction contract for Derby Dam and the Truckee Canal was the first entered into by the U.S. Reclamation Service, later the Bureau of Reclamation.This undertaking, originally named the Truckee-Carson Project, was renamed the Newlands Project in 1919, in honor of U.S. Senator Francis G. Newlands of Nevada, an ardent supporter of federal reclamation projects and legislation that made them possible. Operations were transferred to the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District in 1926.
, Fallon, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #216
Stillwater. Stillwater’s beginning predates Nevada’s advent to statehood by two years. Named for large pools of tranquil water nearby, the town originated as an overland stage station in 1862, was granted a post office in 1865, and became Churchill’s third county seat in 1868. The community population peaked in 1880, and when the county seat was removed to Fallon in 1904, barely 30 residents remained.Although their community center has disappeared, the valley’s lush fields and abundant crops attest to the untiring efforts of Stillwater’s pioneer ranchers and their descendants who met the desert’s challenge with dedication and determination.The Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge of 163,000 acres of wetland habitat and natural breeding and feeding groups for waterfowl was created in 1949. The Stillwater Indian Reservation adjoins the Refuge.
, Stillwater, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #217
Tate’s Stage Station 1886 1901. Long after the railroads came to Nevada and branch lines were extended towards the heartland of the state, horse-drawn stages continued to transport people and mail from railhead to the hinterlands.The principal routes were covered by such well-known lines as Overland Mail and Stage Co., William Hill Beachey Railroad Stage Lines, Butterfield’s, Wells, Fargo and Co., Pioneer Stageline, Carson and Columbus Stage Line, and other lesser-known lines.Thomas Tate sub-contracted mail routes in central Nevada for over thirty years. In 1886, he and his wife established a station due east as an overnight stop between the county seats of Austin and Belmont. Stages met here and exchanged passengers and mail and obtained fresh horses. Tommy’s wife fed and lodged the passengers, in what became a local social center. Ester Tate organized the first school in the area.The Tates maintained this station until 1901. Belmont lost the Nye County seat in 1905.
, Carvers, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #218
Geiger Station. Seven-tenths of a mile east of this marker was Geiger’s Station, the largest station on the Geiger Grade Toll Road, the main thoroughfare between the Comstock Lode and the ranches of the Truckee Meadows. Located at the site were a toll house, three blacksmith shops, three barns, several corrals, and an inn named Magnolia House. During the boom years of the Comstock Lode, the 1860s and 1870s, the station was crowded with freight outfits, stagecoaches, and weary teamsters. Passing travelers could stop at the inn for a drink or a quick meal.Following the extension of the Virginia & Truckee Railroad to Reno in August 1872, the toll road fell into disuse, and a few years later it became a public highway. Magnolia House continued operating until 1915. Social activity at the inn included dances, attracting residents from Virginia City, nearby valleys, and the Truckee Meadows.
Toll Road, Reno, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #219
Glenbrook. Lumbering operations in the Glenbrook area of Lake Tahoe began in 1861. Consolidation of V-flume systems in and near Clear Creek Canyon by 1872 made it possible to float lumber, cordwood, and sawed material from Spooner’s Summit to Carson City and to eliminate wagon hauling over the 9-year-old Lake Bigler Toll Road (King’s Canyon Road).In 1873, the new Carson & Tahoe Lumber & Fluming Company, under Duane Bliss, assumed all operations, becoming the largest Comstock wood and lumber combine. It controlled over 50,000 acres of timberland, operating 2 to 4 sawmills, 2 Tahoe Lake steam tugs to tow logs, 2 logging railroads, the logging camps employing 500 men and a planing mill and box factory in Carson City. Timber depletion and reduced Comstock mining closed the company in 1898; it had taken 750,000,000 board feet of lumber and 500,000 cords of wood from Tahoe basin forests during its lifetime.
Glenbrook Road, Glenbrook, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #22
Humboldt River. Peter Skene Ogden encountered the Humboldt River on November 9, 1828 during his fifth Snake Country expedition. Entering Nevada near present-day Denio, Ogden came southward along the Quinn River and the little Humboldt River. Emerging on the Humboldt main stem near this site, Ogden explored hundreds of square miles of the Humboldt’s course, left records of his trailblazing in his journal, and drafted the first map of the area. Ogden gave the name “Unknown River” to the Humboldt at this time, as he was unsure where it went. After the death of his trapper Joseph Paul, Ogden renamed the stream Paul’s River, then Swampy River, and finally Mary’s River, after the Native American wife of one of his trappers. In 1833, the Bonneville-Walker fur party named it Barren River. Ogden’s or Mary’s River were commonly used names for the Humboldt prior to the 1848 publication of a map of John C. Frémont.The Humboldt was the only natural arterial across the Great Basin. It funneled thousands of emigrants along its valley enroute to the Pacific Coast during the period 1841-1870.
Mills Rd, Golconda, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #220
The Fight Of The Century. On this site on July 4, 1910, Reno hosted ‘The Fight of the Century,” a heavyweight championship boxing match between John Arthur Jack Johnson, the African American title holder, and James J. ‘Jim’ Jeffries, a former champion seeking to regain the title he had vacated in 1904. Jeffries had refereed a previous championship bout between Marvin Hart and Jack Root at this site on July 3, 1905, but the promotion of the ex-champion as “The Great White Hope’ focused worldwide attention on his 1910 contest with the talented Johnson, known as the “Galveston Giant.” Gamblers had their money on Jeffries, but Johnson easily handled his opponent and Jeffries’ trainers called the fight in the fifteenth round to save their man from the disgrace of a knockout.Organized by famed promoter Tex Rickard, the fight brought over 30,000 fans to Reno, some 22,000 of whom packed the arena here on the day of the fight.
E 4th Street, Reno, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #221
Sand Harbor (1881 1896). History records Sand Harbor as playing an important role in the operations of the Sierra Nevada Wood and Lumber Company, one of three large companies supplying lumber and cordwood to the Comstock mines during the late 19th century. Walter Scott Hobart organized the company, and John Bear Overton was its general manager.The steamer “Niagara” towed log rafts from company land at the south end of Lake Tahoe to Sand Harbor. Here the logs were loaded on narrow-guage railway cars and taken two miles north to a sawmill on Mill Creek.Lumber and cordwood were started on the way to Virginia City via an incline tramway 4,000 feet long, and rising 1,400 feet up the mountainside where the material was transferred to water flumes and transported to Lakeview just north of Carson City.The tramway has been described as “The Great Incline of the Sierra Nevada”.
, Incline Village, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #222
Tannehill Cabin One Of Eureka’s First Houses. The Tannehill brothers built this cabin for a residence in 1864 and lived here about a year before selling their mining interests to a New York company in 1866. The cabin subsequently went through a number of owners, including the firm of Nathan & Harrison, one of the area’s first mercantile establishments in the late 1860s.Fires, floods, and the ravages of time have spared the structure, and local residents take justifiable pride in the fact that they have been able to save it.
Lincoln Highway, Eureka, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #223
Devil’s Gate. It gives ... “a forcible impression of the unhallowed character of the place.” J. Ross Browne . 1860This rugged reef of metamorphic rock was once one of the famous landmarks of the Nevada Territory. In June of 1850, John Orr and Nicholas Kelly unearthed a gold nugget nearby, the first ever found in Gold Canyon. For the next ten years, the can was the scene of placer mining and one of the first stamp mills in the Territory was erected just to the south of Devil’s Gate during the summer of 1860.During the brief Paiute War of May, 1860, the people of Silver City built a stone battlement atop the eastern summit and constructed a wooden cannon for protection.Devil’s Gate marks the boundary line between Storey and Lyon Counties. Through this narrow gorge paraded thousands of the most adventurous souls of the mining West as they made their way to the gold and silver mines of the Comstock Lode.
, Silver City, NV, United States
Nevada Historical Marker #224
Kyle (Kiel) Ranch. Established by Conrad Kiel in 1875, this was one of only two major ranches in Las Vegas valley throughout the 19th century. The Kiel tenure was marked by violence. Neighboring rancher Archibald Stewart was killed in a gunfight here in 1884. Edwin and William Kiel were found murdered on the ranch in October 1900.The San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake railroad purchased the ranch in 1903 and later sold it to Las Vegas banker John S. Park, who built the elegant white mansion.Subsequent owners included Edwin Taylor (1924-39), whose cowboy ranch hands competed in national rodeos, and Edwin Losee (1939-58), who developed the Boulderado Dude Ranch here, a popular residence for divorce seekers.In the late 1950s, business declined and the ranch was sold. In 1976, 26 acres of the original ranch were purchased jointly by the City of North Las Vegas and its bicentennial committee as a historic project.
Kiel Ranch Historic Park, Las Vegas, NV, United States