The Company Town that Survived the Company: McGill, Nevada

McGill Club

  The small community of McGill, located about 12 miles north of Ely in eastern Nevada, was originally a ranch established in 1872, by a man named John Cowger. About 14 years later, he sold his holdings to William Neil McGill, who, along with former Nevada Governor Jewett Adams, operated one of the state’s largest livestock operations.

  In 1906, with the development of large copper mines in Ruth and the building of the Nevada Northern Railway, the McGill Ranch area was chosen to be the site of a massive smelter for the mining company as well as for constructing large tailings ponds. The new railroad, which reached McGill in 1908, would connect the mines to the smelter.

  Within about three years, McGill had grown into a bustling small community, with 2,200 men working at the smelter. Dozens of homes and businesses soon sprang up. To provide housing for its workers, the company built modest wooden homes for them—hence the identical, cookie-cutter appearance of many of the small, older houses found in McGill.

  By the 1920s, McGill had grown to rival nearby Ely as the largest town in White Pine County. Even a disastrous fire in 1922, which destroyed much of the smelting complex, didn't slow McGill, which peaked in 1930 when the town had more than 3,000 residents.

  The unusually long life of the Ruth/Ely area's copper mines contributed to McGill's longevity. For much of the next fifty years, McGill maintained a relatively steady population of about 2,000 people, most working for the smelter.

  One of the somewhat unique aspects about McGill was that it was a regulated company town, so many of the types of businesses that might have cropped up near a mining town, such as saloons, gambling joints, and other industries, were established in smaller settlements beyond the town limits.

  The town managed to thrive, with things remaining fairly static, until the 1950s, when the mines in Ruth ceased to be as productive. By 1983, the smelter had closed and it was demolished—including its once iconic massive brick smoke stack—in 1993.

  During its more than 70-year mining boom, McGill acquired many community amenities, including churches, a newspaper, a movie theater, a large brick school and a municipal swimming pool—actually an Olympic-size, old-fashioned watering hole.

  Additionally, as a result of the mining company's aggressive recruitment of new immigrants, McGill became one of Nevada's most ethnically diverse communities. Large numbers of Greeks, Irish, Slavs and other newcomers to the America found their way to McGill to work at the smelter.

  Yet despite the loss of its primary industry, McGill never completely faded into ghost town status. Some residents found work in the larger community of Ely and, after construction of the Ely State Prison, it became a bedroom community for prison workers. Today about 1,000 people still call McGill home.

  The town’s downtown business district remains a mix of shuttered buildings and hardy survivors, including the McGill Drug Store Museum at 11 Fourth Street (U.S. 93), which offers a snapshot into the town’s life. The drug store opened in 1915 and operated continuously until 1979.

  Gerald and Elsa Culbert owned the store from 1950 until it was closed following Gerald’s death. In 1995, the Culbert children donated the drug store, which still contained its complete inventory on the shelves, to Ely’s White Pine County Museum for preservation and display.

  These days, visitors can tour this fully intact, 20th century, small town drug store, which still has an operating soda fountain. The museum is open Thursday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information, go to: https://travelnevada.com/museums/mcgill-drugstore-museum/.

  Another fun place to check out is the McGill Club, a local watering hole that has been in the town for decades. In addition to a beautiful wooden backbar, it serves as community hub. Also, check out the amazing display with photos of every McGill resident who ever served in the Armed Forces.

  For more information about McGill, go to: https://www.whitepinechamber.com/p/16/mcgill-nevada.

Discover Virginia City's Architectural Gems

Storey County Courthouse

  One of the best things about visiting Virginia City is admiring the 19th century architecture scattered throughout the city. Wandering the community is a chance for a visitor to view more than a dozen elegant structures built in a variety of architectural styles.

  Fortunately, the community’s tourism authority, Visit Virginia City, aided by a grant from the state promotional agency, Travel Nevada, recently released a Architectural Walking Tour brochure that can guide visitors to 16 sites in the city.

  A fun aspect of the brochure is the use of QR codes that lead the user to an audio tour of the featured buildings and sites (two of the locations are building sites where the original structures no longer exist).

  The tour begins, appropriately, with the Fourth Ward School, one of Virginia City’s most iconic buildings. Constructed in 1876 the Second Empire style, the four-story schoolhouse is the last of its kind still standing in the U.S.

  Next up is the Savage Mansion, also constructed in the Second Empire style, which was built in 1861 to serve as a residence for a mining superintendent and mine office. That’s followed by the similarly spectacular Hearst/Mackay Mansion, erected in 1860, which served a similar purpose for mining magnate George Hearst and, later, mining millionaire John Mackay. It boasts a Colonial style with Victorian flourishes.

  Other noteworthy buildings included on the tour include:

  • Storey County Courthouse, built in 1875 and rebuilt in 1876, which boasts an elaborate Italianate style with Baroque influences. The oldest continuously operating court house in the state, this building is graced with a statue of Justice that is not blindfolded like most other representations.

  • Territorial Enterprise Building, constructed in 1876, was the home of Nevada’s first newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise. Among those who worked at the Enterprise was a young Mark Twain as well as other notable writers such as Dan DeQuille and Alf Doten. The architecture of the structure is frontier style with Corinthian Capital Pillars.

  • King-McBride Mansion was originally built in 1870, burned during the Great Fire of 1875, and was rebuilt the next year. Also constructed in the Italianate style but with Greek Revival influences, this elegant house was first owned by banker George Anson King, who ran the Nevada Bank of San Francisco and was a director on the Virginia & Truckee Railroad.

  • Graves (the Castle) Mansion, constructed in 1868, is another of the city’s most recognizable buildings. It was built by Robert Graves, superintendent of the Empire Mine, who had a love for French chateau architecture. As the brochure points out, the mansion’s signature mansard roof and dormers are outstanding examples of the Second Empire style.

  • Miner’s Union Hall, erected in 1876, was originally a single-story wooden building that also burned during the 1875 fire. Its replacement, the current building, was constructed in the Baroque style. The first floor of the structure housed the union hall while the second floor was used as a library. That library, opened in 1877, was the only public library in Virginia City for many years (patrons paid 50-cents per month to use it).

  To obtain a copy of the new brochure, contact www.VisitVirginiaCityNV.com. The entire brochure can also be accessed online at: https://visitvirginiacitynv.com/architectural-walking-tour/.

The Time the Sundance Kid Robbed A Train Near Humboldt House

 

Harry (The Sundance Kid) Longabaugh and Etta Place

     If you’re driving on Interstate 80 about 35 miles southwest of Winnemucca you might notice a sign indicating something called “Humboldt House.” If you look fast, you might be able to see a few older trees and a handful of buildings, but not much activity.

     But about 150 years ago, Humboldt House, also called Humboldt Station, was a pretty happening place. Established in 1866 as a stagecoach stop, it soon became an important stop on the Central Pacific Railroad after that line was completed in 1869.

     From the early 1870s until 1900, Humboldt House grew into a small settlement with a hotel that catered to railroad travelers. It became known as one of the best places to eat on the rail line.

     It was that very same railroad line, in fact, that brought a small group of outlaws to Nevada on July 14, 1898. At about 2:30 a.m., two men stopped the Central Pacific Railroad’s east-bound passenger train No. 1 at a spot about one-mile east of the Humboldt House.

     According to Winnemucca’s Silver State newspaper, the train was operating at a high rate of speed “when two masked robbers, one armed with a Winchester and the other with a revolver, leaped over the tender of the engine and covered Engineer (Philip) Wickland and Fireman McDermott with their weapons and demanded that they stop the train immediately.”

     After Wickland brought the train to a stop, he and McDermott were ordered to climb down from the locomotive and escort the armed men to the Wells Fargo express car. Once there, Wickland was instructed to tell the guard inside the car to open the door.

     The guard, whose last name was Hughes, shouted he wasn’t going to comply and extinguished the lights inside car. He grabbed a rifle and prepared to protect whatever valuables were inside the car’s safe.

     One of the would-be thieves then put a small stick of dynamite under the door, lit it, and reportedly said, “I guess that will fetch him.”

     Following an explosion, which demolished a part of the railcar door, the robbers called to the messenger to come out and “be a good fellow.” This time he did so and one of the thieves climbed in the car with more dynamite, which he used to successfully blow open the safe.

     After collecting any valuables from the safe, the robbers led the railroad employees a little way away from the train, then, according to Hughes, “shook hands with us and saying adios disappeared in the darkness.”

     Hughes later described the two men with one being of medium height with a reddish beard and hair, while the other was shorter and very dark. “They were both cool and seemed to know what they were about,” he told the newspaper. A third man, who remained unseen, apparently was in the shadows, holding their horses.

     So who were these train robbers? The following day, the Silver State reported that the thieves had gotten away with between $20,000 and $26,000 or, it noted, it could have been as little as $9,000. Later reports further downgraded the robbery, saying the pair only stole $450.

     Regardless, a train robbery is still a train robbery, and law enforcement immediately began searching for the culprits. A posse was formed and followed the horse tracks of the thieves but then disbanded when it became apparent the robbers had too great a head-start.

     Authorities quickly arrested two men they thought were responsible but they were found not guilty after a short trial.

     Soon, however, the Pinkerton Detective Agency settled onto new suspects: members of the notorious Wild Bunch Gang, who had been seen in the Humboldt County area in the days before the robbery.

     According to Donna B. Ernst, author of “The Sundance Kid: The Life of Harry Alonzo Longabaugh,” the Sundance Kid had a distant cousin, a bartender named Seth Longabough, living in Eureka, Nevada, so he regularly visited him in the late 1890s.

     The Pinkerton Agency soon decided the three men responsible for the robbery were Wild Bunch members Harvey “Kid Curry” Logan, George “Flat Nose” Curry, and the Sundance Kid.

     In his book, “He Rode With Butch and Sundance: The Story of Harvey ‘Kid Curry’ Logan,” author Mark T. Smokov wrote that the three men met up at Robbers Roost in Utah before heading to Nevada. According to the Pinkertons, they spent a couple days scouting the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks near Winnemucca planning their robbery.

     In the end, none of the suspected hold-up men was ever prosecuted for the crime. Logan would later kill himself after being cornered by a posse for a different crime in 1904. Flat Nose Curry would die in 1900 after being shot by a sheriff while rustling cattle. And the Sundance Kid is believed to have been killed, with his partner-in-crime, Butch Cassidy, during a shootout with federal police in Bolivia in 1908.