The Silver State's Great Cloud-Rustling Controversy - Part 1

 

Rocking F Ranch

  About 30 miles south of Gardnerville is a relatively unremarkable swathe of land that was once the center of what might best be described as a thunderstorm of controversy over who can claim the water inside of rain clouds.

  In December 1947, a Nevada rancher named Dick Haman and his partner Freeman Fairfield filed a claim to all the water inside of any clouds passing over their 12,300-acre spread north of Topaz Lake (it’s located adjacent to Holbrook Junction).

  Haman and Fairfield’s claim might not have been the most outrageous water scheme to ever be proposed—that distinction probably would go to the 19th century genius who wanted to drill a tunnel from Lake Tahoe down to Washoe Valley in order to drain the lake—it did show the extraordinary lengths dry-state residents would go in their quest to find water sources.

  In their application with the Nevada state water engineer’s office, the two claimants revealed their plan: “We intend to shoot the clouds by the latest methods known in starting rainfalls and snowstorms. Coaxing clouds to rain has recently been developed, after 300 years of known experiments by individuals, states and countries.”

  While Haman and Fairfield's proposal sounds a bit silly today, it’s important to keep in mind that in the late 1940s, the concept that clouds were some kind of sky bound cows that could be milked wasn’t so farfetched. Also, 1947 was an extremely dry year and most ranchers were willing to do anything to get more water.

  At the time, the 35-year-old Haman was manager of Fairfield's Rocking F Ranch. A handsome, six-foot, seven-inch former University of Nevada football star, Haman had worked as a Hollywood studio artist and a professional boxer before returning to Nevada.

  Haman helped Fairfield purchase the Rocking F Ranch in 1946 and agreed to manage the property. He immediately faced a series of seemingly unsurmountable problems, including the fact the property had virtually no water.

  But Haman wasn't easily discouraged. Not even after he fenced the property and sparked a dispute with local sheepherders who were accustomed to passing through the land during their seasonal migrations.

  In the claim, Haman explained that scientists had been successful in making rain by dropping dry ice pellets into clouds. As he told a Reno Evening Gazette reporter at the time, “We plan to make rain with dry ice over the ranch next spring and we want to make sure we have full legal rights to the water we produce. If the cloud is over our ranch and we drop the dry ice through it to make rain we're certainly entitled to the water.”

  Haman admitted he wasn't sure what to do about rain that might drop on a neighbor's property. "It would still be our water," he said. “But we don't know yet how we could get it back.”

  The story hit the local papers later that week and made the national news. The December 22, 1947 issue of Time magazine noted that, “One Richard Haman, a ranch manager, last week filed a formal claim to the water in all the clouds passing over his 12,000-acre Rocking F Ranch near Reno. He was not cloud-cuckoo-land-crazy. He intends, he explained, to sprinkle dry ice on some of the clouds, and he wants full title to the rain he may bring down, wherever it falls.”

  Next week, we’ll explore what happened next with Haman’s audacious water rights claim.

Old Mining Camp of Rockland is Appropriately-Named

  The late 19th century mining camp of Rockland, located in the Pine Grove Hills south of Yerington, was once a big deal. At its peak, in the 1890s, it had a population of several hundred people. Today, it’s difficult to even find traces of where the old mining camp once stood.

  In fact, just about the only things still found in Rockland are scruffy piñon pine trees, some stone foundations, a handful of ruins of buildings—and lots of rocks.

  According to records, in 1868-69 prospectors from the mining town of Pine Grove, located about three miles away, discovered silver and gold in the area. Within two years, Rockland had grown to include a mill, several hundred residents as well as a post office, saloons and a handful of stores.

  But profits were slow in materializing and the following year, the area mines shut down after workers ceased getting paid in a timely manner. One angry employee torched the local mill, which marked the beginning of the end of the town's first boom. In 1872, even the post office was closed.

  But Rockland wasn't quite finished as a mining camp. New deposits were found in the early part of the 20th century. Within a short time, three mills and another post office set up shop in the little hamlet, which would quietly operate for the next three decades.

  In 1934, the ore was apparently depleted and mining again ceased in Rockland. As with most mining towns, buildings were dismantled, the milling equipment sold, the post office closed for a second time and Rockland Canyon sat silent once more.

  In the late 1960s, small-scale mining was attempted in the Rockland district, but that proved short-lived.

  When you explore Rockland you immediately see how it might have earned its name. Rocks are everywhere. Indeed, the drive to Rockland—on an extremely rocky road, naturally—is part of the challenge of getting to the site.

  To reach Rockland, head 11 miles south of Yerington on State Route 208. The paved road will make a sharp turn west. Ignore the turn and head directly south on an unmarked dirt road (you'll pass a National Forest sign in about a quarter mile).

  Follow the dirt road 11 miles, then turn west on Pine Grove Mine Road (there is a sign). Go about two miles, then turn south on another dirt road (the other road leads to the former mining camp of Pine Grove). Continue for four miles on a very rough road, which leads to the remnants of Rockland.

  A warning: the drive to Rockland should only be attempted with a high clearance vehicle with good tires. Additionally, it’s best to wait until the Spring or Summer to make the journey because the road can be covered with snow and/or muddy during much of the rest of the year.

  The drive up the canyon leading to the former mining camp, while tedious and slow, is quite scenic. Thick green vegetation growing beside the road and beautiful reddish canyon walls make for pleasant surroundings.

  An abandoned pond, probably used in the 1960s for some kind of leaching operation, sits below the site of the old mining camp. Just ahead, a concrete slab embedded with rusted building supports and a discarded round, rusted metal roof, are about all that remain of the most recent mining operations.

  On the hillside above, you can find the substantial concrete and stone foundations of earlier mill sites. Additionally, the ground is littered with assorted metal and wooden debris; other remnants of the turn-of-the-century mills.

  Half hidden in the piñons above the foundations you can spot a wooden ore bin with a narrow chute. Nearby is the skeleton of a storage shed; mounds of some kind of white filtering powder still piled on the floor.

  Wandering through the site, you can also find tailing piles and a few abandoned mine shafts—so be careful where you're exploring.

  For more information about Rockland or Pine Grove, refer to Stanley Paher’s excellent book, “Nevada Ghost Towns & Mining Camps” and to the companion "Nevada Ghost Towns & Mining Camps Illustrated Atlas." The latter shows historic photos of many mining camps and contains useful maps.

Georgetown Offers Peek into California's Gold Country History

American River Inn in Georgetown, CA.

  While several other Northern California Gold Country towns are more well-known, the village of Georgetown shouldn’t be overlooked by anyone interested in exploring this historic region.

  Located 15 miles off Highway 49—the road that leads through the heart of California Mother Lode country—Georgetown is often bypassed by travelers who aren’t familiar with the community’s rich history.

  The Georgetown area was first explored in the summer of 1849 by a group of prospectors from Oregon attracted by the news that gold had been discovered in the region.

  According to some accounts, a young man named Hudson made the initial discovery of gold and was said to have recovered some $20,000 in gold in a six-week period.

  Not surprisingly, news of the discovery spread and a short time later another group of would-be prospectors (said to former sailors) led by George Phipps arrived and began placer mining a stream below the present site of the town.

  A camp of tents and wooden shacks quickly developed, which was nicknamed “Growlersburg,” because the miners said the nuggets were so large they “growled” in the pan.

  Interestingly, no one is quite sure whether Georgetown was named after George Phipps or another George (George Ehrenhaft), who was also mining in the area.

  A disastrous fire in 1852 swept through the crude community, which was moved up the canyon to its present site. The town was rebuilt with unusually wide streets—Main Street is 100 feet across and the side streets are 60-feet wide—designed as firebreaks against future conflagrations.

  The new Georgetown thrived for several years. From 1854-56, the town swelled to more than 3,000 residents and was the hub for the region’s rich gold mines.

  The ore, as it always does, eventually ran out and Georgetown began to fade. What remains, however, is a picturesque town of about 2,300 people that has managed to hang on to a significant number of its historic buildings.

  Some early writers described Georgetown as looking somewhat like an old New England town with its wide, tree-shaded streets and wood-frame buildings and houses.

  The downtown has maintained its frontier mining town ambience. For example, on the corner of Main Street and Highway 193 is the I.O.O.F. Hall, a three-story brick and wood structure built in 1859 by a local butcher. The hall began life as the Balzar Hotel and was remodeled into an opera house in 1870. The Odd Fellow purchased the building in the late 1880s.

  The town also has several other historic buildings, many with brief, descriptive plaques. A stone building across the street from the I.O.O.F., now an office, was built in 1862 as a Civil War armory while the brick Corner Kitchen coffee shop, constructed in 1852, was once a Wells Fargo office and stage stop.

  Of course, perhaps the most iconic historic building in town is the Georgetown Hotel & Bar on Main Street. This large, wood, two-story hotel, with second-floor balcony, was built in the 1850s.

  Inside, it boasts a classic Gold Rush bar of flocked wallpaper, huge, rough stone fireplace, and imported wood trimmings, with the usual collection of strange mining town clutter (mounted deer heads, boots hanging from the ceiling, assorted farming tools, etc.) frequently found in funky mining town saloons.

  At the end of town is the American River Inn (Main and Orleans streets), an elegant two-story, wooden home that was built in 1863 as a boarding house for miners. The hotel partially burned in 1897 and was rebuilt two years later.

  Today, it’s an attractive bed and breakfast-style operation with a pool, spa, beautiful gardens and an aviary.

  Of course, part of the charm of visiting Georgetown is getting there. To reach it, travel west on U.S. 50 to Placerville, then head north of Highway 49. About five miles from Placerville, turn north on Highway 193.

  The drive is beautiful, passing through the gorgeous, rolling heavily-wooded hills of the Sierra foothills. Along the way, you rumble through the tiny hamlet of Kelsey. An historic marker notes this was once the home of James Marshall, the man who first discovered gold in the area and sparked the California Gold Rush of 1849.

  Marshall lived and operated a blacksmith shop in Kelsey from 1848 until his death in 1870. While many made fortunes as a result of his discovery, Marshall died penniless (he is buried in nearby Coloma, site of his gold discovery). A crumbling replica of his blacksmith shop stands on the site.

  For more information about Georgetown, go to: www.eldoradocounty.ca.gov/Health-Well-Being/Libraries-Education/El-Dorado-County-Historical-Museum/County-History/Historic-Places/Georgetown.

Some of Nevada's Most Bizarre Historic 'Pipe Dreams'

   Nevada has always attracted dreamers, whether it’s overly-optimistic prospectors or unrealistically-hopeful gamblers, so it should be no surprise that over the years the state has seen some interesting proposals that at least someone thought was a ‘can’t miss’ opportunity.

   In some case, such as Adolph Sutro’s dream of building a four-mile-long tunnel underneath 19th century Virginia City to drain hot water from its mines or the 1,149-foot Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas, the proposals actually became reality. Other ideas, however, proved to be far more illusory.

   For instance, in the early 20th century, the president of the Lake Tahoe and San Francisco Water Works, A.W. Von Schmidt, believed that constructing a massive pipeline from Lake Tahoe could solve San Francisco’s water woes.

   The late David W. Toll, one of Nevada’s best historical writers, noted that Von Schmidt’s $17 million plan would deliver thirty million gallons of Tahoe water per day—and he was even willing to deliver as much as a hundred million gallons per day for the right price.

   Apparently, the idea had sufficient support that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors visited the proposed site of his diversion dam on the Truckee River before finally abandoning the plan.

   Tahoe’s water, however, cast a strong spell on San Francisco. According to Toll, three years later a San Francisco attorney named Waymire wanted to drill a tunnel through the side of the Tahoe Basin to drain lake water into the Rubicon branch of the American River, which would be routed to the city.

   Fortunately, that idea also found no takers.

   Of course, the idea of draining Lake Tahoe wasn’t purely a Golden State notion. Sometime in the 19th century, there was a proposal to drill a tunnel from Washoe Valley to a point deep below Lake Tahoe so that water could be diverted to Virginia City and other parts of Northern Nevada.

   More recently, many of the more noteworthy flights of developmental fancy have involved various hotel-casino related projects that never reached fruition. In the 1960s, Reno resort owner William Harrah purchased a huge tract of land along Interstate 80 near Verdi and began planning to build a giant, indoor automobile-themed amusement park.

   The project, known as Harrah’s Auto World, called for a massive dome over the park, so that it could be used year-round, and included acres of museum space for his famous car collection as well as amusement park rides, a train and, of course, a hotel-casino.

   Harrah died before he could begin construction and the project was abandoned.

   One of the most controversial projects that never happened was the MX Missile system, an ambitious proposal to construct hundreds of miles of subterranean railroad tracks throughout Central Nevada.

   Missile launchers on trains would scurry around on the tracks, never staying in one place too long. In the event of a confrontation between the U.S. and Russia, the missiles could be routed to convenient launching sites and fired.

   Fortunately, the Cold War began to thaw before it could be built.

   Not surprisingly, Las Vegas has had its share of unorthodox proposals. In the early 1990s, Las Vegas officials were searching for ways to boost the fortunes of the city’s aging downtown core.

   One of the more creative solutions came from several downtown casino owners who proposed replacing downtown streets with a series of water canals. Boat rides on “Las Venice,” as some called it, would attract tourists and the canals would be lined with trendy shops and restaurants, in addition to the hotel-casinos.

   Water for the canals would come from a layer of unused but polluted water that sits underneath the downtown. The concept called for the water to be cleaned up and recycled for use in the canals.

   Writing about the plan years later, former Las Vegas journalist Geoff Schumacher noted that the idea “gained some momentum until somebody mentioned that tourists might end up watching homeless men bathing in the trickling Venetian waters.”

   Schumacher said another plan under consideration at the time was to construct a full-size replica of the Starship Enterprise from the “Star Trek” TV show. The vessel would be 23 stories high and 600 feet long and would include a thrill ride, restaurants and convention facilities.

   Over the years, there have been a number of unusual Las Vegas resort concepts that never were constructed. For instance, in the 1990s, casino owner Bob Stupak, who built the Stratosphere, announced he was going to erect a hotel that would be a full-size replica of the Titanic that would sink nightly.

   However that idea, like so many others, apparently just didn’t hold water.