Snowshoe Thompson Skis into the Record Books

 

   It’s hard to believe that skiing in the Sierra Nevada range wasn’t actually a “thing” until the mid-19th century.

   It wasn’t until a Norwegian immigrant named Jon Torsteinson Rui arrived in the west in the mid-1850s that most people had even given thought to strapping on wooden boards in order to glide down a snow-covered hill.

   Rui—who is better known as John “Snowshoe” Thompson—introduced skiing to Northern California and Nevada. Prior to his arrival in the region, no one had ever thought about doing such a thing.

   Thompson was born in Norway in 1827. His family immigrated to America when he was ten years old and settled in the Midwest. In 1851, however, John joined the thousands of people heading to California to mine for gold.

   After several fruitless years of mining in the Sierra, he settled in the Sacramento area and began to farm. He heard about a lucrative postal service contract to carry mail from Placerville, California, to Genoa, a tiny hamlet in what was then the Utah Territory.

   He also had a plan for how to carry the mail—he would create a pair of long, wooden skis, which were called snowshoes in his day, like those he’d used as a child while living in Norway. He applied for the job using the name, John A. Thompson, because he felt his real name was unpronounceable to most non-Norwegians.

   Worried he wouldn't be hired unless he proved himself eager for the work, he showed up carrying his pair of handmade, 25-pound oak skis, which were ten feet long and an inch-and-a-half thick. History doesn't tell us if he impressed the postmaster, but he got the job, mostly because he was the only applicant.

   Thompson made his first trip (it was 90 miles each way) over the mountains on January 3, 1856. He took three days to reach Placerville and made the return trip in an amazing 48 hours. Word of his accomplishment traveled fast and within a short time, Thompson became a Nevada legend.

   Most incredible was the fact that Thompson often carried a pack loaded with 80 to 100 pounds of mail and assorted packages (he even carried, over several trips, much of the machinery and printing equipment used to produce Virginia City's famous Territorial Enterprise newspaper).

   According to Lake Tahoe weather historian Mark McLaughlin, one of Nevada’s most important mining discoveries owes much to Thompson. In June of 1859, Thompson was given an ore sample by two miners, Peter O’Riley and Pat McLaughlin, who wanted it assayed in Placerville.

   Thompson carried the bluish rock to Professor W. Frank Stewart, a Placerville geologist, who analyzed it and declared that it contained some of the richest silver content he’d ever seen. Stewart asked Thompson to take the sample to Sacramento for additional analysis.

   The second assay supported Stewart’s conclusions. The two miners had discovered the fabulous Comstock Lode in Virginia City.

   For nearly two decades, Thompson delivered the mail in small towns throughout the Sierra and gave new meaning to that cliché about mailmen making their rounds regardless of rain or sleet or snow.

   Interestingly, Thompson was rarely paid for his services. In 1874, he petitioned the U.S. Congress for back pay but was turned down—despite traveling all the way to Washington D.C. to make his appeal.

   Over the years, Thompson spread the word about his “Norwegian snowshoes.” He taught dozens of people how to glide across the snow and almost singlehandedly introduced skiing to the region.

   Thompson died in 1876 and is buried in the quiet Genoa cemetery, which is located 15 miles southwest of Carson City via U.S. 395 and Jack’s Valley Road. The gravesite is located at the rear of the cemetery, under large shade trees.

   Today, visitors can pay their respects to the father of Sierra Nevada skiing and view his unique tombstone, featuring the image of a pair of wooden skies carved into the white marble.

   Additionally, two bronze plaque—one placed during the 1960 Olympics at Lake Tahoe by the Norwegian National Ski Team—commemorate his importance to the sport of skiing and the development of the west.

Big Moments in Nevada Gambling Industry History

  

  While gambling has been legal in Nevada since March 19, 1931, it took time for the industry to evolve into the state’s economic engine. The following are some of the watershed events that helped to shape the nature of gaming in Nevada: 

 • 1931 – This year the Pair-O-Dice Club became the first casino to open on U.S. 91, the future Las Vegas Strip. The nightclub was purchased in 1939 by Guy McAfee, a former Los Angeles police captain and vice squad chief, who renamed it the 91 Club. McAfee also began referring to U.S. 91 as the “Las Vegas Strip” after the famous Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. In 1941, the 91 Club was sold to Texas theater-chain owner R.E. Griffith, who a year later replaced it with the New Frontier resort, the second hotel-casino erected on the Strip (the first was the El Ranch Vegas, which opened in 1941).

 • Late 1930s - Harolds Club, which opened in 1936 in downtown Reno, introduced female card dealers and became the first Nevada casino to encourage women to patronize casinos. Harold S. Smith, son of Harolds Club founder Raymond I. “Pappy” Smith, recalled in his book, I Want to Quit Winners, that “one day as Daddy stood near the doorway, a woman came in, took two or three hesitant steps toward the first game and stopped short. ‘There are no women here!’ She almost shrieked as she fled. Out of that episode, Daddy got the idea of lady dealers at our tables.”

  •1941 - The Nevada State Legislature legalized racing wires. That same year, mobsters Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and Jack Dragma opened an office of the Trans-America Service in Las Vegas to supply horseracing information to bookies throughout the country. Nevada’s legal racing wires eventually evolved into the state’s legal sports books.

  •1944 - Harvey and Llewellyn Gross opened the Wagon Wheel, a rustic cafe and service station on the Nevada-California border at Stateline, on the south shore of Lake Tahoe. Two years later the Grosses added blackjack tables and slot machines, and the Wagon Wheel became the first major casino at South Tahoe.

  •1946 – Benjamin Siegel opened the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, the first modern high-rise resort on the Las Vegas Strip. In his book, Viva Vegas, architectural historian Alan Hess noted that the 105-room, four-story resort “broke Las Vegas out of the public relations mold of a western town of modern splendor and set it on its way to being a mirror of the spectrum of American popular culture.”

  •1958 - When it opened, the Stardust Hotel boasted the largest sign on the Las Vegas Strip at 216 feet long. The sign launched the era of bigger and brighter hotel-casino signs.

  •1959 - Soon after the Nevada State Legislature created the five-member Nevada Gaming Commission to license and regulate all gaming in the state, the Gaming Commission began compiling its “List of Excluded Persons,” also known as the “Black Book.” The document listed people with undesirable reputations, including those with ties to organized crime, who were not allowed in Nevada’s casinos. Any property ignoring the list would lose its gaming license. In 1963, the commission stripped singer Frank Sinatra of his gaming license at the Cal-Neva Lodge at Lake Tahoe and the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas because he had allowed Chicago crime boss Sam Giancana to stay at the Cal-Neva.

  •1966 - Eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes arrived at the Desert Inn, which he purchased after the management of the Las Vegas hotel tried to have him evicted. During the next four years, Hughes bought the Frontier, Silver Slipper, Landmark, Sands, and Castaways in Las Vegas and Harolds Club in Reno as well as Sky Haven Airport in North Las Vegas, Alamo Airways terminal west of Las Vegas McCarran International Airport, Air West airline, a Las Vegas television station, and hundreds of mining claims around the state. Hughes’ presence also led the Nevada State Legislature to pass the Corporate Gaming Act, which allowed corporate ownership of casinos in the state.

  •1986 - International Game Technology created Megabucks, an electronically linked network of slot machines that share a large, progressive jackpot. IGT, which is based in Reno, paid out its first Megabucks jackpot, $4.9 million in 1987.

  •1989 - The $700 million Mirage, which offered a faux volcano, dolphin aquarium, white tiger habitat, and domed tropical atrium, opened on the Las Vegas Strip. The 3,000-room hotel-casino ushered in the era of giant, fantasy-themed megaresorts.

  •2010 to the present – The past decade and a half has seen a consolidation of the state’s biggest hotel-casino companies into even larger corporations.

Tiny McDermitt Has a Big Story

 

  Motorists on U.S. 95, heading north of Winnemucca, pass through the small enclave of McDermitt before crossing into the state of Oregon. With a population of about 95 and only a handful of businesses, the community is easy to overlook.

  But, like many rural Nevada towns, there is far more to the story of McDermitt than meets the eye.

  The settlement traces its beginnings to the establishment in the mid-1860s of a stagecoach station near the townsite that was called Quinn River Station because it was on adjacent to the East Fork of the Quinn (also known as Queen) River.

  It was a time of growing tensions between the native Northern Paiute and Western Shoshone people, who had lived in the area for thousands of years, and newly-arrived white settlers. In response, in April 1865 a military cavalry detachment was assigned to Quinn River Station to protect the stagecoach line, which ran between Silver City, Idaho and Winnemucca.

  Commanding the station (as well as Fort Churchill) was Lt. Colonel Charles McDermit (only one “t”). McDermit spent much of his tenure trying to deal with what became known as the Snake War.

  In late April, McDermit and a company of troops under his command departed Fort Churchill to put down any tribal hostilities. During the next few months, McDermit and his troops had several encounters with the Natives. Not surprisingly, his better-armed troops succeeded in capturing and killing many of their adversaries.

  On August 7, 1865, McDermit and his company reached the Quinn River Valley. About a half-mile from the camp, McDermit, riding ahead of his troops, was shot and killed by a Native warrior lying in ambush.

  McDermit’s body was taken back to Fort Churchill, where he was interred with full military honors (his body, along with 44 other men who died serving at Fort Churchill where later moved to Lone Mountain Cemetery in Carson City).

  Shortly after McDermit’s death, the military decided to establish a full-fledged fort at Quinn River Camp #33 (the previous name), which was renamed Fort McDermit in his honor. About this time, the name gained a second “t,” apparently due to a spelling mistake by a military clerk.

  During the next few years, the new fort gained a 600 by 285-foot parade ground, three buildings for officers, a barracks, a three-room hospital, supply rooms, and stables. All of the post structures were single-story adobe buildings.

  Fort McDermitt remained active for the next 24 years, making it the long active Army fort in the state. Troops from the fort participated in a number of violent encounters with Natives over the years, including the Bannock War and the Modoc War.

  In 1889, the fort was turned over to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which adapted it for use as an Indian school on the Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation. The school would remain open until 1957, when Humboldt County schools were integrated.

  The town of McDermitt, which developed about five miles from the fort, was apparently first known by the descriptive name, Dugout. The town, which eventually took its name from the fort, largely served to support the fort.

  Over time, however, McDermitt became a sort of mini-hub for local farms and ranches and, following the discovery of mercury in 1924, several mines that began operating in the area.

  The largest mine for many years was the Cordero Mercury Mine, which operated more or less continuously until 1992. According to some mining historians, the mines were among the most profitable mercury mines in the nation from 1933 to 1989.

  Since the closing of the mines, McDermitt has slowly declined. One of the oldest businesses, the White Horse Inn, opened in 1915 and operated until the 1990s.

  One of its unique aspects is that the building was erected on the boundary between Nevada and Oregon, so part of it lies in Nevada while part is in Oregon (no sales tax on that side!).

  The two-story building, which has been partially restored over the years, once served as the town’s main lodging house and, it is rumored, served as a brothel for a while. Today the place is for sale.

  Other historic building still found in McDermitt include an abandoned old stone jail built in 1890 and several adobe and frame buildings at Fort McDermitt.

  McDermitt’s largest operating business is the Say When Casino and there are two motels, several bars, and a couple of gas stations (one with a Subway sandwich shop). The town’s biggest events are the Indian Rodeo in June and the Twin State Stampede in July.

  For more information about McDermitt, go to: https://cowboycountry.com/mcdermitt.

Reno Once Had Its Own Coney Island Amusement Park

 

  In the early 20th century, South Brooklyn wasn’t the only place with a Coney Island Amusement Park. Surprisingly, it was Reno that once boasted its own, admittedly smaller, version of the famous east coast carnival and amusement park.

  Located on the boundary between Reno and Sparks, this Biggest Little amusement park traces its roots to 1905, when a local brewery manager named Otto Benschuetz purchased the three-acre site, then known as Asylum Crossing because of its proximity to the Nevada Insane Asylum.

  While local newspapers speculated that he was planning to build a new brewing facility on the property, instead he opted to construct a park, which he named Wieland’s Park, after the brewing company that employed him (John Wieland Brewing Company of San Francisco).

  In July 1905, the new park opened for business. It boasted gardens with lush trees and shrubs, covered picnic areas, a bandstand, and strings of electric lights that gave the place an enchanting appearance.

  Four years later, Benschuetz decided to expand and rebrand the park. Now called Coney Island, after the famed New York area theme park, it offered a children’s playground, dance pavilion, a bar, and a new centerpiece, an artificial lake.

  The lake was the big attraction. In addition to being stocked with trout, it had a gasoline boat launch and offered boat rentals. Lake events included boat races and competitive swimming exhibitions.

  According to the Reno Historical website, Benschuetz died in 1912, which marked the beginning of the end of the park. By 1913, the park was sold and, according to Reno historian Patty Cafferata, the family-themed attractions began to fade away. Apparently the site became an open air park with a bar and dance hall (in the former pavilion).

  The arrival of prohibition meant the bar was closed in 1918.

   By 1924, part of the site had been transformed into the Coney Island Auto Park, which offered cottages with showers, kitchenettes, a gas station, a restaurant, camping spots, groceries, auto supplies and a barber shop to motorists traveling on the Lincoln Highway (now known as Interstate 80).

  In 1927, the former pavilion/dance hall burned down. It was rebuilt immediately only to be destroyed once again in another fire in 1930. A motel and restaurant, later built on the site of the hall, were torn down in the early 1970s during construction of Interstate 80.

  The neighborhood around the auto park became known as the Coney Island area and, by the mid-20s, was home to the Coney Island Tamale Factory, owned by Sparks businessman Ralph Galletti, as well as the Coney Island Dairy, owned by John Casale.

  Today, the tamale factory, still owned by the Galletti family, has transformed into the Coney Island Bar and Restaurant, a popular Sparks eatery at 2644 Prater Way.

  The Coney Island Dairy site is now home to Casale’s Half-Way Club (still owned by the Casale family), a restaurant at 2501 East Fourth Street, that has served Italian food to Reno-Sparks residents for more than 70 years.

  For more information about northern Nevada’s Coney Island, go to the Reno Historical website, https://renohistorical.org/items/show/88.