Carson City Region's Best Walks and Hikes Spotlighted in New Book

 

Jumbo Grade trail, included in Mike White's new hiking book

  Author Mike White knows his way around Carson City. That fact is obvious after reading his latest book, “50 of the Best Strolls, Walks, and Hikes Around Carson City,” published recently by the University of Nevada Press.

  Reno-based White, who has written nearly two-dozen books about hiking in Nevada and California, focuses on trails and walks in the vicinity of Nevada’s Capital City. Aided by informative maps and photos (by award-winning outdoor photographer Mark Vollmer), White provides detailed directions and descriptions of the various trips in the book.

  The book is divided into four geographical sections: Eagle Valley and the Carson River; the Foothills; the Mountains; and Washoe Valley and Virginia City. Within each, he describes about a dozen individual hikes/walks that can be found in that area.

  For example, he kicks off the first section (Eagle Valley and the Carson River) with the popular Riverview Park walk, an easy trek that my wife and I enjoyed doing when our children were young. The trail, which has several loops, takes visitors through some 108 acres of sagebrush, wetlands, and cottonwoods on the west bank of the Carson River. We often saw wild horses along the way during our regular walks.

  Within each entry, White includes a map, photos, distance information, elevation gain, things to look for, recommended users (e.g. hikers, trail runners, bikers, etc.), whether dogs are allowed, difficulty of the hike, and recommended best time of year to make the trek.

  The section titled the Foothills focuses on hikes in the hills around Carson City, such as the V & T Railroad Grade (which overlooks the northern part of the city), the Waterfall Trail and Kings Canyon Loop (directly west of the city on Kings Canyon Road and takes you to the only waterfall in the area), and C Hill (where you can hike up to the big white “C” above the city).

  The Mountains section takes visitors outside of the city limits and includes directions for hiking portions of the Tahoe Rim Trail, the hike to Marlette Lake, the famed Flume Trail, and the Lam Watah Trail to Nevada Beach.

  The final section, Washoe Valley and Virginia City, includes hikes in Davis Creek Park, the Jumbo Hill Loop (which rises above Washoe Valley’s east side and leads to Virginia City), the easy Deadman Creek Loop at Washoe Valley, and the fairly challenging hike to the top of Mount Davidson above Virginia City.

  One of the highlights of each entry are Vollmer’s beautiful images, particularly of the views visitors will find and of the wildlife they may encounter.

  The book begins with an informative section addressing things such as the best ways to hike with children, hiking with dogs, trail etiquette and safety, what to pack on backcountry hikes, and other useful tips.

  “50 of the Best Strolls, Walks, and Hikes Around Carson City” by Mike White is available on the University of Nevada Press website (www.unpress.nevada.edu/) or in local bookstores or from online booksellers.

Exploring the Remains of Historic Candelaria

  Wandering the handful of ruins in the old mining town of Candelaria, it’s hard to believe the town once boasted some 1,500 residents and its mines produced more than $1 million per year in ore.

  Only a few stone walls and arches, piles of wooden and metal debris and a cemetery mark the spot of what was once one of the most successful mining communities in Esmeralda County (the county was later split into two counties, Esmeralda and Mineral, with Candelaria becoming part of Mineral County).

  Candelaria traces its beginnings to 1864, when Mexican prospectors discovered silver in the hills about 12 miles northwest of the Columbia salt marshes (some 120 miles south of Fallon). They established a mine they named Candelaria in honor of Candle Mass, a Roman Catholic holiday.

  While the ore was promising, the camp really begin to grow until the late 1870s, when German and Slovenian miners arrived and staked the Northern Belle Mine, which proved extremely profitable. Within a few years, large stamp mills were erected at nearby Belleville (eight miles northwest) and the boom was under way.

  In 1876, a visitor to Candelaria could find a post office, hotels, restaurants, stables and a budding business district. Water, however, was virtually nonexistent.

  Residents paid as much as $1 per gallon—it cost $2 to bathe—for water that had to be transported from a spring nine miles away. In fact, some historians claim that whiskey and other alcoholic beverages were much cheaper to drink than water.

  The lack of water is said to have been particularly difficult because it meant the stamp mills operated without water, generating clouds of silica-laden dust that caused the miners to suffer and die from lung-related diseases. A water pipeline was built in 1882 from nearby Trail Canyon and the price of the precious commodity dropped to five cents per gallon.

  The town also reportedly had three doctors, two lawyers, a school, bank, telegraph office, two breweries, a newspaper and two dozen saloons—but, despite its Christian name, no churches (in fact, the town never had a church).

  Perhaps the most important event for the town happened in 1882 with completion of a spur of the Carson & Colorado Railroad. The route connected Candelaria to shipping points at Mina and Keeler, a town near Owens Lake, California.

  A fire destroyed a substantial part of the budding metropolis in 1883. The next year, a strike at the mines affected the area's output. That was followed by a gradual decline of the mines’ output.

  By 1890, the town was in a serious slump that was only exacerbated by the national financial panic of 1893, which cut off new sources of capital and caused many of the mines to close.

  The district revived briefly just after the turn of the 20th century with new mining discoveries but that flurry of activity was short-lived.

  The Carson & Colorado Railroad abandoned the area in 1932 (after having been consolidated with other railroad lines in 1905 to become the Nevada & California Railway). It had provided only intermittent service during the previous three decades.

  Open pit gold mining operations were initiated in the 1970s, which obliterated much of the area around the historic mining district, including the site of an adjacent mining town called Metallic City. Today, large chain-link fences surround the open pit mine that border the old town.

  As a result, the desert is slowly reclaiming Candelaria, which hasn’t had a resident in more than 90 years. Photos of Candelaria taken twenty-five years ago show many of the same buildings, but in much better shape and in greater number.

  The best remains include the former bank building, which, according to records, later served as a saloon and general store as well as a fairly intact stone building across the street. All aaround are a handful of stone foundations, wooden walls, fences and collapsed ruins.

  The two stone structures, in fact, are the most substantial survivors of a main street that once stretched for a half-mile or so through this small, dry valley surrounded by rough, black lava-rock hills. A few miles miles north of the townsite is the cemetery, which is definitely worth checking out.

  Candelaria sits 14 miles south of Mina, off U.S. Highway 95 via a marked, paved road (which leads to the modern mining operation). Mina is located about 35 miles south of Hawthorne in central western Nevada.

  For more information about Candelaria, check out Stanley Paher’s “Nevada Ghost Towns and Mining Camps” and Shawn Hall’s “Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of Southern Nevada,” which has a chapter on Candelaria. Both are available from online booksellers.

  You can also find a nice selection of contemporary photos at https://www.ghosttowns.com/states/nv/candelaria.html.

The Vastness of Nevada Becomes Very Real in Railroad Valley

One of the oil-pumping stations found in Railroad Valley. (Photo courtesy of Farmartin)

   There are no trains in Railroad Valley. In fact, the long, narrow valley located northeast of Tonopah via U.S. 6, has never had a train.

   The name is believed to have derived either from a proposed narrow-gauge railroad line that would have passed through the valley (stretching from Elko down to Lincoln County) or from a large gravel bar, a remnant from an ancient lake, at the northwest end of the valley that resembled a railroad grade.

   Whatever the origins, the valley has been inhabited for nearly 12,000 years, according to archaeologists, with the earliest residents being the Clovis people and, in more recent times, by members of the Western Shoshone people.

   The first non-Native Americans to pass through the valley included the explorer Jedediah Smith, who, in 1826-27, led a small expedition searching for a mythical waterway (Buenaventura River) that allegedly flowed through the unexplored western territories to the Pacific Ocean.

   In mid-June 1827, Smith wrote of crossing the then-unnamed valley, which had little water or grass. He said game was scarce, although he was able to kill a rabbit for food.

   The next non-Native to enter the valley was the Great Pathfinder, John C. Fremont, who lead an expedition through the region in 1854. Again, he noted the lack of vegetation and game, and pretty much passed through as quickly as he could.

   Prospectors were the next to explore the valley, following the discovery of silver and gold ore in Austin (1862), Hamilton (1867), Troy (1867) and Grant (1868). Soon, smaller but promising discoveries were made in the mountains surrounding the Railroad Valley, in the Grant, Quinn Canyon, and Reveille ranges.

   With the arrival of the mining camps, came the need for services, and ranching operations began to crop up in the valley.

   According to Robert D. McCracken and Jeanne Sharp Howerton, authors of “A History of Railroad Valley, Nevada,” within two decades, from the mid-1860s to the mid-1880s, “the Native Americans living in the area quickly lost their best food-producing sites,” including foraging and hunting lands at Duckwater, Currant Creek, Blue Eagle, and Lockes as large sections of the valley were fenced.

   By the 1890s, portions of the valley had been developed with various ranches producing hay or being used for grazing cattle as well as for salt mining, and other agricultural uses. McCracken and Howerton note that the valley became known as “good stock-raising country with large springs and abundant forage for cattle.”

   Additionally, starting in the late 1860s, the mountains around the valley were harvested for their timber, particularly white pine and fir. Logging apparently continued in the mountains to the east until the 1920s.

   The presence of geothermal springs also contributed to the valley’s development, particularly to the north end, where Big Warm Springs is located. This portion of the valley is now part of the Duckwater Indian Reservation, which was established in the 1940s.

   Perhaps the most important development in Railroad Valley in the mid-20th century was the commercial drilling and pumping of oil. Starting in 1954, Shell Oil began pumping oil in the Eagle Springs area of the valley.

   By the 1990s, Railroad Valley wells had produced nearly 38 million barrels of oil from a handful of wells. Even today, the first thing travelers on U.S. 6, which traverses Railroad Valley, notice are the handful of oil well pumps rising up and down methodically.

   Additionally, ranching still hangs on in the valley and mining companies periodically explore for new discoveries in the surrounding ranges.

   As one of the largest valleys in Nevada—Railroad Valley measures some 120 miles long and between 9 and 12 miles wide—the valley remains a vast and wide-open landscape that truly defines the state’s basin and range areas.

   For more information about the valley, check out Robert D. McCracken and Jeanne Sharp Howerton’s excellent “A History of Railroad Valley, Nevada,” published by the Central Nevada Historical Society and available at online book sellers.

Hit Hard By Earthquake, Wells Survives

 In 2008, the historic railroad town of Wells, located on Interstate 80 about 45 miles east of Elko, was changed forever. That day a devastating earthquake struck the community of about 1,200 people, damaging many of the town’s most historic buildings.

  While several remain standing, the loss was major as Wells is one of the oldest settlements in northeastern Nevada, with historic ties to the Emigrant Trail, the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad line, and the development of the Interstate Highway system.

  Wells, originally known as Humboldt Wells, traces its beginnings to the first travelers across Nevada (or the Great Unknown as it was then called). In the late 1840s to early 1870s, travelers on the California Trail found lush meadows and clear natural springs in the Wells area, which was an important rest stop for the pioneers.

  Despite the good grass and water, Humboldt Wells didn’t amount to much until the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad line in 1869.

  The railroad selected Humboldt Wells for the location of a water tower and parked a boxcar adjacent to the tracks to serve as a freight and passenger depot. A little later, the site became a division point for the railroad and a small settlement began to develop.

  Within a few years, Humboldt Wells (the name was shortened to Wells in the 1870s) had a business district parallel to the railroad tracks, a school, and a population of about 300 people.

  In the late 19th century, the development of mines in the region, particularly at Cherry Creek (about 95 miles south), spurred moderate development and growth in Wells, which served as a freight point for shipping the ore.

  The construction of the Western Pacific Railroad and the Oregon Short Line, which passed through Wells, provided longer term economic stability to the town, which incorporated as a city in 1927.

  In recent years, as railroads either closed down or bypassed the community, Wells has evolved into a crossroads community because of its location at the intersection of Interstate 80 and U.S. 93.

  Today, Wells has about 1,000 residents. As a result of changes in transportation modes, from the railroad to automobiles, the commercial center of Wells has shifted from along the tracks to adjacent to the highways.

  The result is that the historic downtown was slowly abandoned—this is where much of the earthquake damage occurred—and the town’s newer development has occurred adjacent to the interstate.

  One of the survivors of the earthquake was the historic El Rancho Casino, built in 1949 and once one of the finest hotels in the state. While the building was damaged during the quake, the city and historic preservationists have embarked on a plan to renovate the structure into a community center with commercial businesses.

  About 14 miles northwest of Wells is the site of Metropolis, a ghost town that owed its existence to farming rather than mining.

  Foundations, sidewalks, a cemetery and an impressive arch that was once part of a two-story schoolhouse are all that remain.

  For more information about Wells, contact the Wells Chamber of Commerce, www.wellsnevada.com.

From Stagecoach Stop to Railroad Station: The Story of Currie, Nevada

 

Goshute Merchantile in Currie

While there’s not much to see in the tiny enclave of Currie, located about an hour south of Wells via U.S. 93, the community has a rich history that dates back to the 1870s, when a freight and stage stop, called Bellinger’s Spring, was established there because of the presence of water.

  In the 1880s, Joseph H. Currie started a ranch at nearby Nelson Creek. In 1906, when the Northern Nevada Railway started building its connecting line between the rich copper mines near Ely and the Southern Pacific Railroad near Cobre, the railroad located a depot at the halfway point, which became the start of a small community named Currie after the largest local rancher.

  The first significant business to open in Currie was the two-story Currie Hotel, which was owned by Currie. Within a few months, a post office opened inside of the hotel (Currie was postmaster) and a second hotel, the Steptoe, was constructed.

  The new settlement soon became an important transportation and livestock hub for the region. In 1908, a telegraph office opened in Currie, followed by a general store and a one-room schoolhouse, which was expanded two years later.

  Currie peaked in about 1910 when the town saw the opening of another store, a saloon, and a railway section house and turntable. When the road from Wells to Ely was paved in the 1920s, Currie gained a gas station and store.

  But Currie began a slow decline after 1941, when the railroad discontinued passenger and mail service at Currie due to a lack of business. During the period between 1906 and 1941, about 4.6 million passengers passed through Currie on the Nevada Northern Railway.

  Nevada Northern Railway freight trains continued running through Currie until Ely’s copper smelters closed on June 20, 1983 and the railroad was shut down a day later. The post office, which had relocated to the general store in the late teens, closed in 1971.

  Today, the original Currie depot remains standing as does the Currie Hotel. A handful of other buildings and foundations from the town’s early years, including the old schoolhouse, can still be seen.

  The town still has about 20 residents, most of whom either work at a gas station and store that is still in operation, an RV park, or a highway maintenance station. There is also an old abandoned dirt airfield located about two miles from the town.

  For more information about Currie, check out Shawn Hall’s two Elko County books, “Connecting the West: Historic Railroad Stops and Stage Stations in Elko County, Nevada” and “Old Heart of Nevada: Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of Elko County.” Both are published by the University of Nevada Press and are available via online vendors or from the press.

  For additional information about Currie and some of its past residents, check out the Elko County Rose Garden historical website, http://elkorose.schopine.com/currie.html.

A Place Called Contact

Housing in Contact, Nevada in the 1930s

  One of the more unusual names found on a Nevada map is the tiny community of Contact, located about 15 miles south of the Idaho border on U.S. Highway 93. The name is said to derive from mining jargon.

  While today, not much remains of Contact—a fire destroyed most of the town’s buildings in 1942—once upon a time it was a fairly thriving mining community.

  According to the late (and great) Elko County historian Howard Hickson, gold and silver ore were discovered in the area as early as the 1870s but it wasn’t until the late 1890s that mining began in earnest. By April 1897, nearly 200 miners were working in the area.

  Despite construction of a smelter that year, the mines were not profitable and by 1900 less than 100 miners were still working the ground there. Things began to pick up again in 1905 and by 1915, a settlement had cropped up that had a 35-room hotel, several saloons, a barbershop, a post office, schools, restaurants, a general store and even a newspaper (the Contact Miner).

  Hickson has written that Contact seemed to experience its most flush times when the United States was at war. He pointed to the fact that from 1916 to 1918, production peaked, and then again from 1942 to 1946.

  The value in keeping Contact’s mines operating during wars was that while the local mines produced some 742 ounces of gold and 58,713 ounces of silver, the real money was in the 3.3 million pounds of copper, 324,233 pounds of lead and 18,400 pounds of zinc that were mined between 1916 and 1958 (when the mines were finally shut down for good).

  Additionally, in 1979 the Los Angeles Times noted that during Prohibition, the town was the largest supplier of bootleg whiskey to Idaho. Hickson said that during a town reunion that year, one former resident claimed there were six moonshine operations in Contact in 1917 that operated until the repeal of Prohibition in 1932.

  The fire in 1942 devasted the town, which was already severely depressed. Flames consumed the store, hotel, restaurants and bars, a service station, a church, and many homes.

  Today, only a few residents still live in Contact, most employed by the Nevada Department of Transportation, which has a maintenance station there.

  Wandering through the sagebrush and high grass, you can still find a few old wooden homes and foundations of some of the stores and other businesses destroyed by the fire.

  Records indicate that the Contact area still has several hundred active mining claims, including the Contact Copper Project, a copper-oxide project that has not yet been developed.

  A few miles north of Contact is Jackpot, a thriving hotel-casino resort community with about 1,200 residents. Jackpot traces its beginnings to 1954, when Idaho outlawed gambling and two Idaho slot machine operators, “Cactus Pete” Piersanti and Don French, moved across the state line to establish two gaming businesses called Cactus Pete’s and the Horseshu Club.

  The town was originally named “Horseshu,” after one of the properties, but Cactus Pete’s objected, so the Elko County Commissioners formally named it “Unincorporated Town No.1.” In 1959, both properties agreed on the name, “Jackpot.”

On the Trail of George Wingfield

 

Wingfield's Reno National Bank on the corner of Virginia and Second streets

  In the 1920s and 30s, banker George Wingfield was the richest person in the Silver State, a man who was sometimes called “The King of Nevada.”

  While today it’s largely historians or old-timers who recall his enormous influence on the state’s economy and politics, a handful of places associated with Wingfield remain standing.

  George Wingfield was born on August 16, 1876 near Fort Smith, Arkansas but raised in Lake County, Oregon, near the Oregon-Nevada border. Wingfield’s father operated a cattle ranch and, after completing the eighth grade in Lakeview, the younger Wingfield began working as a cowhand, a sometime gambler, and occasional horse jockey.

  In 1896, Wingfield moved to Nevada, first to Winnemucca, where he apparently befriended banker George S. Nixon. Two years later, he moved to Golconda, where he operated a saloon, races horses, gambled, and prospected.

  In 1901, Wingfield relocated to the mining boomtown of Tonopah, where he, again, made his living as a gambler and, with his winnings, invested in real estate. A year later, he began to act as a representative for Nixon, who was looking for investment opportunities, particularly in mining claims.

  The Wingfield-Nixon partnership really took root after 1904, when Wingfield headed to the new mining boomtown of Goldfield. There, the two successfully invested in mining claims, businesses, banking and real estate opportunities.

  Within a few years, both were multi-millionaires, who controlled nearly all of the mining operations in Goldfield. It’s been estimated that Wingfield was worth between $20 million and $30 million by the time he was 30 years old.

  In 1909, Wingfield, sensing that Reno was soon to become the largest and most important city in the state, relocated to the Biggest Little City. He would remain living in Reno until his death in 1959.

  At that time, he and Nixon, who became a U.S. Senator from Nevada, ended their partnership, with Nixon taking control of the banks and Wingfield assuming sole control of their mining, real estate and other investments.

  With Nixon’s death in 1912, Wingfield purchased Nixon’s banking interests and began buying up many of the other banks in the state. By 1932, he owned 12 banks and controlled more than half of all the deposits in the state. He also owned two hotels in Reno (the Golden, purchased in 1915, and the Riverside, which he built in 1927), ranching operations throughout the state, a thoroughbred horse farm, and the state’s only bonding company.

  In the early 1930s, the start of the Great Depression, Wingfield’s banks began to suffer massive losses. By 1935, he had lost a substantial part of his holdings and filed for bankruptcy protection.

  But later that year, a good friend, Noble Getchell, a mine owner and state senator from Lander County, invited Wingfield to partner with him in developing a new mine near Golconda. The mine proved to be everything that Getchell and Wingfield hoped and by 1941 it was the largest gold producing mine in the state and within a few years (after World War II) Wingfield was again a wealthy man.

  Retracing Wingfield’s steps across Nevada, one can still find places closely associated with him. One of the most impressive is the still-standing four-story Goldfield Hotel, which he constructed in 1908.

  The hotel, in the center of the former mining town, has been closed since the end of World War II, although several more recent owners have unsuccessfully attempted to restore and reopen it.

  Another Wingfield touch-point is the former Reno National Bank building at 206 North Virginia Street in Reno. Built in 1915 by Wingfield and designed by famed Reno architect Frederic DeLongchamps, the building became part of the Harrah’s resort property in the 1980s.

  More recently, it has been vacant with new owners still determining what to do with the distinctive Classical Revival structure.

  The Riverside Hotel at 17 South Virginia Street in Reno, built by Wingfield in 1927, also remains intact. No longer a hotel, it was renovated and converted to artist lofts in 2000. The Golden Hotel, however, was destroyed in a fire in 1962.

  Wingfield Park, which sits in the middle of the Truckee River in downtown Reno, was built on land donated to the city by Wingfield. Another of his longtime properties, Spanish Springs Ranch, is gone, having been replaced after 1995 by a 400-home subdivision (Redhawk at Wingfield Springs).

  The site of Wingfield longtime home at 219 Court Street in Reno is, sadly, a vacant lot. The home, once listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was built in 1912. Unfortunately, it burned down in 2001.