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| Site of the town of Flanigan (Photo courtesy of Foobar) |
Not much remains of the old railroad hamlet of Flanigan. Once a bustling little stop on the Western Pacific Railroad (WP) line, the site of the town has been largely reclaimed by the desert.
Located at the eastern end of Honey Lake Valley, about five miles from the Nevada-California border, Flanigan was established in 1909 by the railroad as a station where passengers could be picked up and local farmers and ranchers could ship freight.
The community’s name honored a prominent Reno businessman and former Nevada state senator named Patrick L. Flanigan, who had permitted the WP tracks to pass through the large cattle ranch he owned in the valley.
According to Nevada historian Eric Moody, who authored, “Flanigan: Anatomy of a Railroad Ghost Town,” the station, however, was only active sporadically. Moody said was apparently used between November 1910 and March 1911, and again for a short time in 1919-20.
Additionally, railroad maintenance staff were stationed in Flanigan from about the time of World War I to the 1950s.
“Except for those periods when the station was active, freight and passenger trains stopped at Flanigan infrequently and then only when flagged,” Moody wrote.
Interestingly, the station owes more of its existence to a later development, the construction in 1912-13 by the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) of the Fernley & Lassen branch line, which crossed the Western Pacific tracks at Flanigan.
As a result of this intersection of two railroads, Flanigan gained several railroad structures including a signal maintainer house, two bunk houses, a tool house, and a 24-foot-high signal tower. The latter was important because it alerted trains from both railroads of any impending traffic.
The SP also assigned a railroad agent/signal operator, which provided a permanent presence in the community, and a telegraph operator.
According to Moody, after the railroads were established, Flanigan entered its next phase, as a real estate promotion. Because of its location near Honey Lake, which had water, the fact there was rail service, and the growing development of irrigation projects in the region, land speculators began buying up local ranches, including around the railroad property at Flanigan.
Soon, a townsite was plated at Flanigan. The plans indicated it would be a transportation hub for the burgeoning agricultural district that was to develop. The town itself would encompass some 30 blocks with more than 900 lots. There would be a school and library as well as two-block commercial district.
Developers Charles A. Ross and George L. Warnken, of Oakland, California, began advertising lots for sale in local newspapers.
Moody said that the promotors began drilling wells for water but hid the fact that despite their public statements that good water had been discovered, drilling did not produce drinkable water (there was too much saline in the water). In later years, the town would survive on water brought in by the railroad.
Despite any drawbacks, apparently land sales were brisk, especially by buyers from California (who presumably had never visited the place).
On November 13, 1913, the Reno Evening Gazette even speculated that “Reno may soon have a rival for the honor of being the metropolis of Nevada in the new and thriving town of Flanigan.”
In December 1913, Flanigan saw the opening of the two-story, 12-room Hotel Flanigan, a symbol of the community’s progress. A post office opened in February 1914 and later that year, construction was completed on a school house.
Moody said the town saw its longest period of stability from about the start of World War I until the early 1920s, when the demand for rail services peaked and the population reached about 200 people.
Except for a period in the mid-1920s, when there was a tiny, short-lived oil boom, and some activity related to the development of military facilities in Herlong, Flanigan began a long, slow descent into irrelevancy.
By the 1950s, the town’s residents largely consisted of railroad employees and their families, who helped keep the school, post office, and a general store operating. In 1959, however, the Southern Pacific closed shop in Flanigan and demolished many of its buildings. This was soon followed by the Western Pacific’s abandonment of the town.
The post office closed in March 1961 and a fire destroyed the general store (which now had the post office and served as the community center) in January 1969. A short time later, the school closed and the building was moved to another community.
Today, if you wander the site, you’ll find the concrete foundations for several of the former buildings (all standing structures are now gone) as the sand, sagebrush and grasses have reclaimed the land.
For more information, try to find a copy of Eric Moody’s excellent “Flanigan: Anatomy of a Railroad Ghost Town,” which was published in 1985. The book is out-of-print but may be found in local libraries. Additionally, it has been scanned for reading online at https://archive.org/details/flanigan0000unse/page/n3/mode/2up.
Another source of good information on Flanigan is the Nevada Expeditions website, www.nvexpeditions.com/washoe/flanigan.php.
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