Fishing and Recreation Found at Wild Horse Reservoir

During the 1930s, the famed Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC), a Depression-era government work program embarked on a staggering number of public works projects in the state of Nevada. One of the more impressive was Wild Horse Dam in northern Elko County.

The dam was built in 1937 and behind its concrete walls formed Wild Horse Reservoir, a massive pond of water that covered what was once known as Owyhee Meadows. The name, Wild Horse, derived from the large number of wild horses that roamed the area at the time.

Beginning in 1869, Owyhee Meadows was a stop on the Elko-Idaho Toll Road, according to Nevada historian Shawn Hall.

As an aside, the CCC reportedly completed some 59 projects across the state of Nevada, which was the largest recipient of CCC assistance. According to historians, the CCC employed nearly 31,000 men during the 1930s in Nevada, largely benefiting from having so much land owned by the federal government (some 85 percent) and as a result of having two long-serving, influential U.S. Senators (Key Pittman and Patrick McCarran) at the time.

Wild Horse Dam stands 87-feet high and has a width of 458 feet. The reservoir is fed by the Owyhee River, a tributary of the Snake River that flows through northern Nevada, southwestern Idaho, and southeastern Oregon. The river stretches some 280 miles from north of Elko to the Snake River at a point near Nyssa, Oregon.

The water stored behind the dam, which was reconstructed and enlarged in 1969, is used for agriculture on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation (the dam was built under the auspices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs). When completely filled, the water surface area of Wild Horse is 2,830 acres and contains some 73,500 acre-feet of water.

In addition to its irrigation uses, Wild Horse, which is open throughout the year, is a state recreation area that serves as a popular fishing site (rainbow and German brown trout, small mouth bass, yellow perch, and catfish can be found).

In the winter, Wild Horse is one of the coldest spots in the state, which makes it ideal for ice-fishing and ice-skating.

About 32 miles north of the reservoir is the community of Owyhee, heart of the Duck Valley Indian Reservation. The name, Owyhee, was bestowed on the area in 1819 by three Hawaiian trappers working for the Hudson Bay Company. Originally intended to be the phonetic spelling of “Hawaii,” the pronunciation was corrupted by later white settlers.

The Duck Valley Reservation is home to both Shoshone and Northern Paiute people, who were relocated there in the 19th and 20th centuries.

In 1863, the Shoshone or Newe people signed the Ruby Valley Treaty of Peace and Friendship, but the federal government did very little to live up to the terms of the agreement.

The tribe, however, persisted, attempting to establish Duck Valley as their new home. In 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes finally signed an order guaranteeing the land to the tribe but promises to provide needed goods and other assistance were unfilled (and diverted) due to corrupt Indian agents.

The situation slightly improved in the early 1880s, when a new agent arrived, and the town of Owyhee became more established. A school was built in 1881 and later in the decade Northern Paiutes were added to the reservation. A post office opened in Owyhee in 1899 and telephone service began in 1904.

Disputes with local ranchers over water rights became an ongoing issue during the next decades, with the situation only resolved when the Wild Horse Reservoir was built in 1937.

Today, Owyhee is a largely agricultural community with a population of about 1,000 people.

The Wild Horse State Recreation Area offers a campground with 34 sites that each include a table, shade, fire pit and a camping pad. While there are no hook-ups, the campground has restrooms and showers year-round and there are centrally-located water faucets and a dump station in the summer.

Those looking to spend a day at the reservoir will find a picnic area with tables and grills as well as a boat ramp next to the day use beach.

For more information go to: http://parks.nv/gov/parks/wild-horse.

The Forty Mile Desert Offered the Greatest Challenges for Emigrant Trail Travelers

“Expect to find the worst desert you ever saw and then find it worse than you expected.”—John Wood, 1850 Diary

From the late 1840s to the late 1860s, travelers on the Emigrant Trail through Nevada, also known as the Central Overland Trail, endured a months-long journey through often inhospitable terrain in their quest to reach California.

By all accounts, the worst part of the trip was the stretch of barren, alkali wasteland located west of today’s community of Lovelock, which was known as the Forty Mile Desert.

The seemingly endless desert trek began just past the Humboldt Sink, where the Humboldt River flowed into a dry lakebed. At this point emigrants had two choices; continue west across the desert to reach the Truckee River or head southwest, across the desert until they encountered the Carson River (around the location of the area that is now known as Ragtown).

Regardless of the route, in between were forty miles of salt flats with little grass—and very little water.

In dozens of accounts of the time, travelers wrote extensively of the challenges. They wrote of blistering heat during the day, animals—and people—dying of thirst, and of often having to discard nearly every possession along the way.

To minimize the difficulties, most waited until early evening to depart and continued through the night in order to avoid the daytime heat. And, because the trip took several days, they would attempt to rest and sleep during the heat of the day.

Compounding the situation was the fact that most travelers had to wait until late spring and early summer to begin their trek from Missouri to California to take advantage of warmer and better traveling weather, so they typically arrived at the desert in August or September.

Additionally, they had just completed more than 300 miles of following the winding Humboldt River across Nevada, which offered poor water and, as the wagon trains increased, fewer places with good grasslands for animals.

By the time that most of the travelers and their surviving animals reached the desert, both were stressed out and in poor physical condition.

In his diary, emigrant John Wood captured the mood of many travelers when he wrote: “All are preparing and dreading to cross, by the worst desert we have met yet. They, perhaps, would not mind it, and neither would I, if we had plenty to eat; but here are hundreds already lamenting their anticipated death, and suffering on the burning plain.”

Even famed writer Mark Twain, who crossed the desert in 1861 via stagecoach, noted: “It was a dreary pull and a long and thirsty one, for we had no water. From one extremity of this desert to the other, the road was white with the bones of oxen and horses. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that we could have walked the forty miles and set our feet on a bone at every step!”

According to an historical marker located at the edge of the Forty Mile Desert (at the Interstate 80 Rest Area at its intersection with U.S.Highway 95), a survey in 1850 indicated that even that early in its usage the routes had resulted in 1,061 dead mules, almost 5,000 horses, 3,750 cattle, and 953 graves.

One of the best ways to view the Forty Mile Desert is by traveling on U.S. 95, after it branches south from Interstate 80 (about 17 miles west of Lovelock). Directly to the west of the highway are the sandy, alkali flats that once challenged so many travelers.

If you pull off on one of the handful of dirt roads that lead into the desert and park, you can (once the road traffic disperses) hear the whistling wind across the flats and imagine what it must have been like to have to trudge across this forsaken landscape, dreaming of a better life at the end of your journey.

A good place to learn more about the Forty Mile Desert is the Churchill County Museum and Archives (http://ccmuseum.org/) in Fallon, which has a nice display of artifacts that have been found in the desert.

Additionally, a good book with information about the desert is Harold Curran’s “Fearful Crossing,” available at many local bookstores or online.