New Book Explores the Fascinating History of UNR

   On the cusp of Nevada’s birthday on October 31, there is a new book that recounts the rich history of the University of Nevada, Reno. Titled, “The University of Nevada, 1874-2024: 150 Years of Excellence,” the book traces the story of the university from its earliest days in Elko to the present.

   Written by John Trent, a longtime Nevada journalist and senior editor of News & Features at UNR, the 9.5-inch by 9.5-inch coffee table-style book is lavishly illustrated with historic and contemporary photos.

   In the Introduction, Trent explains how the university was initially located in Elko, but struggled because of its remote location. In 1885, the state legislature voted to move the school to Reno, where it continued to face challenges.

   However, Trent notes, the hiring of Hannah K. Clapp, a lifelong educator, as the university’s first faculty member helped the college to begin to realize its potential. Clapp, who held a number of positions during her 14-year tenure, was responsible for greatly expanding the university’s library (to include more than 11,000 books).

   Over five chapters, Trent describes a number of the university’s high points, which include the invaluable financial support of Clarence Mackay, son of one of the Comstock’s most successful mine owners, in the university’s early period to the contributions of various faculty members and students.

   Relying on oral histories and interviews, Trent also shares tales about ground-breaking athletes such as Marion Motley, who later helped break the color barrier in professional football, and Colin Kaepernick, who many consider the greatest quarterback to ever play at UNR.

   The book includes a section on the student activism of the 1960s and 70s, when the university was the site of anti-Vietnam War protests, sit-ins, and the fire-bombing of two campus buildings in 1970.

   Trent also describes the challenges faced by faculty member Ben Hazard, who, after accepting a teaching position at UNR as its first black professor, encountered housing discrimination. His experience was cited as one of the reasons for Nevada’s adoption of an open housing law in 1971.

   Later chapters detail the university’s enormous growth as it added new programs, such as a medical school and a college of engineering. Other efforts to boost enrollment were the result of the state adopting the Millennium Scholarship for high-achieving high school students, which helped reduce the cost of a college education for many Nevada students.

   In 2019, the university attained the status of being an R1 institution, meaning it was ranked as one of the top research universities in the nation.

   Among the most recent changes at the university was the acquisition in 2022 of the former Sierra Nevada College at Lake Tahoe, which was repurposed as the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe. The new satellite campus permitted the university to augment its research efforts in the Tahoe Basin and build stronger connections to the Lake Tahoe community, according to Trent.

   “The University of Nevada, 1874-2024: 150 Years of Excellence,” by John Trent was published by the University of Nevada Press and is available on its website (https://unpress.nevada.edu/) or in local bookstores or online book retailers, such as Amazon and Bookshop.org.

Goldfield Hotel is a Silent Witness to a Community's Rich Past

   The rise and fall of the Goldfield Hotel could be seen as a reflection of the city’s own story. The hotel was built in 1907-08 during the height of the mining town’s boom times and its long, slow demise has paralleled the area’s decline.

   Standing four stories tall, the hotel, which is in the center of the community, was designed by a Reno architect named George Holesworth, a partner in the prestigious firm of Curtis and Holesworth, which had also designed Morrill Hall on the University of Nevada, Reno campus and the Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah.

   Construction of the $250,000 (about $8.7 million in today’s dollars) Neo-Classical-influenced structure took more than a year due to a delay caused by a labor dispute.

   Historian Patty Cafferata, who has written about the hotel, said the first floor was built using granite imported from Rocklin, California and the building incorporated many of the newest amenities, including steam heat and an electric elevator.

   The 150-room hotel’s lobby was paneled in dark mahogany wood and three iron pillars in the room were outfitted with cushy, circular black leather buttoned banquettes. According to Cafferata, it cost more than $40,000 to furnish the hotel.

   From the street level, the brick and stone hotel rose 56 feet in height and was 170-feet long on one side (Columbia Street) and 100 feet in depth along Crook Avenue. Above the first floor, the hotel takes a “U” shape with a central area flanked by two wings.

   The hotel’s original owners were two successful early Goldfield miners, Granville Hayes and M.J. Monette (known collectively as the Hayes-Monette Syndicate) who had struck it rich with their leased Mohawk No. 2 mine. But in 1908, banker George Wingfield, partnered with U.S. Senator George Nixon, formed the Goldfield Consolidated Mine Company, which swept up all the producing mines in the district.

   In addition to owning all of the district’s mines, Wingfield also gained financial control of many other prominent businesses in the region, including the John S. Cook and Company Bank, Tonopah’s Mizpah Hotel, the Tonopah Banking Corporation, and the new Goldfield Hotel.

   The opening of the Goldfield Hotel was a call for celebration. Its “soft” opening on January 15, 1908, included a lavish party for some 650 guests. The official opening in June 1908 included special Pullman train cars that transported visitors from San Francisco.

   In its earliest years, the hotel was apparently profitable. However, as the area’s mines began to fade, so did the appeal of such a grand hotel. By 1911, it was starting to lose money. After 1917, Wingfield began leasing it to others to operate. In 1923, shortly after a fire destroyed nearly all of Goldfield, Wingfield sold it to Elko hotelier Newton Crumley.

   Crumley, who would later own the Commercial Hotel in Elko (with son, Newton Crumley, Jr.) in turn sold it in 1925 to Joseph Basile, Jr., who was the first of a long line of owners who came and went during the next two decades. The last time the hotel actually had paying customers was in September 1945.

   In subsequent years, the hotel has passed through the hands of additional owners, many of whom announced plans to restore it to its original glory—and even started work on it— but none ever completed the monumental job.

   Today, the hotel remains boarded up—a reminder of Goldfield’s better times. In recent years, the old hotel, which is allegedly haunted, has been featured in several ghost hunter-type programs. In 2022, the property was listed for sale at a cool $4.9 million.

   For more information, go to: http://www.goldfieldhistoricalsociety.com/goldfield-hotel/. Patty Cafferata’s book on the hotel is titled, “The Goldfield Hotel, Gem of the Desert” and it can be found in bookstores or online book vendors.

Visiting Goldfield's Unusual International Car Forest of the Last Church

   Perhaps the most unexpected aspect regarding Goldfield’s International Car Forest of the Last Church is that the massive art installation, consisting of some three dozen upturned cars planted in the desert, was created to break a world record.

   The forest was the brainchild of two men, Chad Sorg and Mike Rippie, who, in 2002, decided to “plant” cars on 80-acres of vacant land owned by Rippie that bordered U.S. 95.

   Both Sorg, a Reno artist, and Rippie, a longtime resident of Goldfield, were familiar with famous car-art installations, like the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas, which consists of 10 Cadillacs buried nose down in the ground, and Nebraska’s Carhenge, a similar art piece, which has 38 vehicles.

   Rippie wanted to set a new world’s record for most upturned cars used in an artwork (it’s actually listed that way by Guinness Book of World Records) by having even more vehicles and knew he could do it since he owned more than 40 cars, trucks, and buses.

   Between 2002 and 2012, the two used a backhoe and lots of elbow grease to make the art project/attraction/world record site a reality. In some cases, the vehicles were planted nose in the ground while in others, several cars were stacked on top of each other.

   Perhaps most impressively, the two managed to plant several buses, including one that on a hill that rises high over the car-littered landscape.

   The two also hoped that people would come to the site and express themselves artistically by spray painting the cars. The result are some pretty crazy and imaginative designs, such as a Picasso-esque face of a cat painted on the hood of an upright car.

   At the entrance to the forest is a small structure with a large sign identifying the place. Another placard informs visitors they are entering at their own risk and warns to not climb on the vehicles because it isn’t safe.

   Continuing on the dirt road for a short distance, you can drop into a ravine containing the bulk of the vehicles or drive to a rise above the ravine where a bus and several other vehicles are perched.

   Visitors can basically wander around for as long as they want, taking photos and reveling in the place’s weirdness. There is no admission charge although the attraction’s website notes it is a legal non-profit and accepts donations.

   Since the car forest was created, the site has become a popular attraction for travelers on U.S. 95, appearing in features in magazines and newspapers from all over the country.

   According to an article about the car forest that appeared in ROUTE magazine, Rippie and Sorg eventually had a falling out. Rippie continues to live in Goldfield but the site is now owned and overseen by Sharon Artlip, owner of a Goldfield rock shop.

   A nice video of the International Car Forest was produced a couple of years ago by the excellent Wild Nevada television program. Here’s a link to the segment about the car forest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0JcPAUML_E.

   For more information about the International Car Forest of the Last Church, go to:  https://internationalcarforestofthelastchurch.com/ or check out the Travel Nevada information about the site at: https://travelnevada.com/arts-culture/international-car-forest-of-the-last-church/.

Goldfield's History Comes Alive at the Town Cemetery

  The historic Goldfield Cemetery, located just north of the Central Nevada mining community, has some good friends.

  Unlike some old mining town cemeteries that have been ignored or have fallen into disrepair, Goldfield’s graveyard has been well-maintained and protected by residents and supporters over the years. Representatives of the local historical society have even placed small metal plaques on many of the crosses and markers giving short information about the deceased.

  The result is a cemetery that isn’t a mystery, but rather is a place where you can learn about the individuals buried there and, in learning their cause of death, get a glimpse into their lives and the time when they resided in Goldfield.

  The town, which now has a population of about 230 people, was once was the largest city in Nevada with some 20,000 residents. Gold was discovered in the region in 1902 and within a short time a vast boomtown had been constructed around the mines.

  The community experienced its heyday from about 1903 to 1910, after which the mines became less productive. The largest mining company closed its operations in 1919 and four years later a fire caused by an exploding liquor still destroyed much of the town. 

  In its early years, the town’s cemetery was located in the downtown, adjacent to the Las Vegas & Tonopah Railroad Depot. Deciding the location was not the best first impression the city wanted to make for any visitors disembarking from the train, in 1908, all of the bodies were exhumed (about 70 at that time) and relocated to the present site.

  According to local lore, the group that took on the task of moving the dead became known as the “Official Ghouls.”

  While considered one big cemetery, the Goldfield graveyard consists of more than a half-dozen smaller burial grounds that cater to various religious groups and fraternal organizations.

  Thus, there is a general area but also designated places for Catholics, Protestants, Masons, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Elks, Knights of Pythias, the Moose Lodge, and even members of the International Workers of the World labor organization. On the southwestern edge is a Potter’s Field.

  If you respectfully stroll through the cemetery you’ll be able to find out about such luminaries as:

  • Count Constantine de Podhorsky, a Polish nobleman turned mine promoter who was shot and killed while eating in a French restaurant on March 21, 1907 by a man who claimed the count had seduced his wife.

  • Thomas and Lucy Heslip, who both died tragically in August 1909. According to records, Lucy Heslip was sitting on her porch with two female friends one evening when a man named Patrick “Pegleg” Casey, who was drunk, came by to attempt to shoot her friend, Mrs. Alice Mann, for rejecting his advances. Casey shot Mann, injuring her, then fatally shot Lucy Helslip. He apparently tried to kill himself but failed. Upon learning his wife had been killed, Thomas Heslip decided he couldn’t live without her and killed himself the following day by ingesting cyanide.

  • The unknown man who died from eating paste. While it seems like a hoax, apparently on July 14, 1908 a man died from eating too much library paste. A doctor concluded that the man was starving and in bad physical condition when he wolfed down an entire jar of paste. The only identifying property on the man was a letter from a man named Ross. He is buried in the Potter’s Field.

  • Perhaps the strangest death—yes, even weirder than dying from eating paste—occurred on March 17, 1918 when local gravedigger and cemetery sexton John F. Meagher died while digging a grave. Meagher encountered a large boulder while digging and decided to load it with blasting powder to break it up. After lighting the fuse, he accidentally fell into the grave he was digging. As he scrambled to get out, the explosion went off and killed him. He was discovered the next day lying in the grave, which, ironically, became his final resting place.

  For more information about Goldfield’s wonderful cemetery, go to: http://www.goldfieldhistoricalsociety.com/goldfield-cemetery-stories/.

Gemfield: A Place Rockhounds Can Really Dig

  There are a couple of things that make Gemfield, an area located about four miles north of Goldfield in central Nevada, a special place for rockhounds. The primary one is that Gemfield has been described as the largest deposit of gemstone quality chalcedony in U.S.

  Additionally, at Gemfield, visitors will find no less than six different types of chalcedony, which is a fine-grained native silica quartz stone. And, even more amazing, the site is free to enter and there is only a $1 per pound fee, which you pay on the honor system.

  Getting out to Gemfield is relatively easy. You head south of Tonopah on U.S. 95, then, just before you reach Goldfield, you turn on a pretty-good dirt road that is marked with a Gemfield sign. Drive for about three miles into the foothills and you’ll reach a large sign board beneath a Joshua tree. The sign board displays rough maps showing the locations of the half-dozen different sites nearby where you can hunt for the different colors of chalcedony.

  “This mine produces gem quality chalcedony consisting of Bullseye, Multiflow, Dendritic, and Banded picture rock patterns, as well as agates, jaspers, Opalite, and more,’ the sign states. “Colors range from green, which when polished rivals jade, to the deep reds of carnelian.”

  The dig sites are on a claim on Bureau of Land Management land, so be respectful of the area.

  As you head out to Gemfield, there are a couple of things to bring with you. Since there is absolutely no shade (except near the Joshua tree), make sure to pack plenty of water and wear a hat and sunscreen.

  Also, it’s best to have a bucket in which to put your rock finds, a squirt bottle with water for cleaning the rocks to see the patterns and a geologist’s hammer or rock pick.

  Lastly, have patience. Rockhounding is an activity that involves carefully and slowly chipping at rocks so as not to damage any good finds. It’s a bit like fishing and requires sticking with it and taking your time.

  During a recent visit, we followed the directions to the various chalcedony dig sites and tried our hand at several. The sites are located in spots within a half-mile or less of the sign, so there are lots of places to check out. When you get to one, it essentially looks like a mound of broken rocks. Sometimes there are larger boulders/stones and small trenches. This is where it happens.

  One of our favorites was the site marked for Bullseye Chalcedony. Here we found a number of beautifully stripped and banded stones. In some cases the bands are red-brown against a white or tan background.

  Other mounds yielded stones that were light purple (lilac), faintly green, red, and blue tones. We’re not hard-core rock people, but we picked up a couple of pounds and looked forward to washing them off and taking up a relative’s offer of using his rock tumbler on a couple of the stones to see what they look like when they’re shiny and polished.

  There is a website for Gemfield that provides some information, at http://www.gemfieldnv.com/. Additionally, the state of Nevada’s Travel Nevada website offers additional useful tips and information at https://travelnevada.com/rockhounding-mining/gemfield/.

Classic Book Tells the Story of Reno's Most Eccentric Millionaire

   In Jack Harpster’s book, “The Curious Life of Nevada’s LaVere Redfield: the Silver Dollar King,” readers learn about the bizarre and fascinating life of a man who has been described as one of Reno’s richest and most unusual residents.

   Published in 2014, the book tells the story of Redfield, who died in 1974, and who was known for residing in an iconic stone mansion at 370 Mount Rose Street.

   During his life, it appears Redfield was seriously interested in only a couple of things—the acquisition of as much land as he could buy, purchasing and hoarding as many silver dollars as he could obtain, gambling and not paying taxes.

   Born on October 29, 1897 in Ogden, Utah, Redfield experienced serious poverty as a child. His father died when he was young and his mother was forced to raise seven children alone.

   As a young man. Redfield moved to Idaho and worked a variety of entry-level jobs, including as a potato digger and in a department store, which is where he met and married a co-worker (Nell).

   In about 1921, the couple moved to Los Angeles, where Redfield became a securities broker. It was during this time that he began shrewdly buying and trading depressed and seemingly worthless stocks that he thought had a chance to rebound.

   His investments proved particularly insightful and he truly hit the jackpot, earning his first millions, in the years immediately following the 1929 stock market crash when he paid pennies for serious depressed stocks no one wanted and later sold them when they became valuable.

   By the early 1930s, he was buying real estate at tax sales as well as bankrupt oil companies.

   In 1935, when California was considering instituting a state income tax, Redfield decided to move to Reno, which, at the time, promoted itself as a shelter for the tax weary.

   Shortly after arriving in Reno, he and his wife purchased the big stone home on Mount Rose Street, which had originally been built in 1930 or 1931 by a family named Hill.

   Redfield lived there until his death and his wife continued to live in the home until she died in 1981. Since then, family members have continued to own the property.

   After Redfield settled in Reno he soon began purchasing land at tax sales, just as he had done in California, including huge tracts of land being sold by the Southern Pacific Railroad near Mount Rose and above Lake Tahoe. Eventually, he would own more than 55,000 acres in Washoe County.

   Perhaps because he had seen so many banks close during the Depression, Redfield distrusted financial institutions and had little use for government. He abhorred paying income taxes so much that he attempted to hide his earnings.

   However, in 1960, the government caught up with him and Redfield was convicted of tax evasion. He went to jail for 18 months.

   Additionally, perhaps because he grew up poor, he was unusually thrifty—he reportedly saved money by buying dented canned food at a discount at supermarkets and was often seen driving around town in an old pickup truck, dressed like a farmer.

   Additionally, because he didn’t want the government to know his actual worth, he took to keeping large amounts of cash and coins in his home. In the 1940s, he began buying bags of uncirculated silver dollars (many minted at the former Carson City Mint) and stashing them in his house.

   Over the years, Redfield’s primary hobby and vice was gambling. According to Harpster, he was a nearly nightly visitor to downtown Reno’s casinos for many years.

   At the time of his death, executors found 680 bags of silver coins and 407,000 Morgan and Pierce silver dollars (351,259 of them un-circulated and still in original U.S. Mint bags; each bag held 1,000 coins) hidden in places throughout his 15-room stone mansion.

   His net worth was estimated to be about $70 million.

   Not surprisingly, rumors of his cash hoard circulated throughout the community—Reno was still a fairly small town in the 1950s and 60s—and in 1952, and again in 1963, his home was robbed and burglars made off with a portion of his coin cache.

   In response, Redfield began hiding his silver dollars behind false walls in his basement.

   Following Redfield’s death, once his estate had found all of the silver dollars, they sold them to a coin auction house, which gradually released them to collectors (they were sold over several years to prevent dumping too many on the collector market at one time).

   In her later years, Nell Redfield became a well-respected philanthropist, donating part of her fortune to a number of local charities and helping to establish a community college branch in South Reno.

   Jack Harpster’s “The Curious Life of Nevada’s LaVere Redfield: the Silver Dollar King” remains in print and can be found on Amazon or in most local bookstores.

Warm Springs May Fade Away But Its Rich History Remains

 

Stone corral at Warm Springs

   Not much remains of the old settlement of Warm Springs, located about 50 miles east of Tonopah on U.S. 6, at the point where it intersects with Nevada State Route 375, the beginning of the famous Extraterrestrial Highway.

   The handful of ruins are all that have survived of this former stagecoach stop that traces its beginnings to the mid-1860s.

   Not surprisingly, the area’s natural hot springs are what attracted people originally to the area. Nevada historian Shawn Hall has written that the first non-Native American folks to stop at the site were probably freight wagons and stagecoaches traveling between Eureka and Elko, attracted by the springs.

   In about 1866, a small stone house was built adjacent to the bubbling hot springs. While this settlement didn’t amount to much more than a welcome rest stop for travelers passing through this remote part of the state, a general store and lodging house were erected at Warm Springs near the end of the 19th century.

   Apparently, this little way station managed to survive during the next couple of decades. In January 1924, Warm Springs gained a post office and Ethel Allred was named postmaster of this tiny oasis.

   That, however, served as Warm Springs’ peak. Less than five years later, in June 1929, the post office was closed forever.

   Since then, there have been a few short-lived developments in the area. Sometime in the 1970s, a saloon, café, gas station and RV park opened near the old settlement site but those businesses have been closed for a long time.

   Additionally, around that time someone constructed a nice, concrete swimming pool near the café. While the pool, surrounded by nice shade trees, still looks mighty inviting to anyone who stops, unfortunately it’s on private property, surrounded by a high, locked fence and no trespassing signs.

   The actual Warm Springs spring can be seen about a quarter of a mile uphill from the swimming pool. Scalding hot water pours from the ground into a manmade ditch that leads to the pool. Rivulets of hot water also trickle into marshy land around the pool.

   The site of the former settlement of Warm Springs, located a few yards away from the pool, contains a few ramshackle wooden buildings that appear to have once been part of the early 20th century incarnation of Warm Springs.

   Additionally, you can find the tumbled-down walls of an old stone corral and piles of scrap wood and metal that may be the remains of the old store and lodging house.

   About 60 miles southeast of Warm Springs via the E.T Highway is Rachel, the self-proclaimed heart of Nevada’s UFO country. The community borders the high security military base often called Area 51, which is rumored to be where the U.S. government allegedly stashes recovered alien space ships and other secrets.

   For more information about Warm Springs, go to: https://www.rachel-nevada.com/places/warmsprings.html.