Virgin Valley Heritage Museum Explores Mesquite Area's Rich History

Virgin Valley Heritage Museum in Mesquite

 Few Nevada communities have changed as quickly—and grown as fast—as Mesquite. Once a sleepy Southern Nevada farming community, the town has grown enormously since the 1980s—from about 1,100 in 1984 to more than 23,500 today.

  But while Mesquite has been growing and changing, there is one place that has managed to hang on to a few pieces of the former Mormon colony's past: the Virgin Valley Heritage Museum.

  Housed in an historic National Youth Administration building that was constructed in 1941-42, the museum offers an opportunity to catch a glimpse at the rich history of the Virgin Valley region.

  The museum building itself is unique; it is one of only two NYA buildings in the state (the other is in Fallon).  The seven-room stone structure was originally a library then served as a hospital (35 local babies were born here). After a few years as a boy scout lodge, the building was designated as the town museum in 1984 and opened the following year.

  Inside, the cluttered museum is a vault of local history. A large collection of historic black and white photographs shows the evolution of the town as it grew from a few farms to a roadside stop to a burgeoning gaming mecca and retirement community.

  One of the exhibits displays vintage clothing, including a beautiful turn-of-the-century wedding dress, and another shows off the town's first telephone switchboard and phone sets.

  One corner contains 1930s motion picture theater equipment, while nearby is a recreated turn-of-the-century bedroom, complete with period furnishings, and a 1920s-era parlor.

  A display case holds state basketball trophies from 1915 and 1916; the team had to travel by wagon to Moapa in order to catch a train to Reno, where they won the first-ever state tournament. The museum’s docents are extremely helpful, many having lived most of their lives in the valley.

  The Virgin Valley area was first settled in 1880. But the adjacent Virgin River proved too much for these Mormon pioneers—it dried up in the summer and flooded the farms at other times—so they abandoned the area after a few months.

  In 1882, another member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, Dudley Leavitt, moved his five wives and 51 children to Mesquite Flats, as it was named. He rebuilt irrigation ditches and, once again, tried farming the area. Another flood, however, destroyed his improvements and he was forced to give up.

  The first sustained settlement was started in 1894 with the arrival of several more families. This time, nature proved more cooperative and the pioneering farmers were able to tame the river by rebuilding and fortifying the dam and canals.

  The town grew gradually during the next three-quarters of a century, then began to sprout with the development of the Mesquite Peppermill in the early 1980s. In 1984, Mesquite incorporated as a formal city.

  Mesquite also holds the distinction of having been part of the Old Spanish Trail.  An historic marker in front of the museum notes that the trail, used from 1829 to 1850, stretched for 130 miles across Clark County and was the first major trading route through the state (it connected Santa Fe, New Mexico to Los Angeles).

  The museum, located at 35 West Mesquite Blvd., is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.  For more information go to www.mesquitenv.gov/departments/museum.

National Atomic Testing Museum is a Real Blast

Atomic Testing Museum (Photo courtesy of Travel Nevada/Sydney Martinez)

 Given Las Vegas’ proximity to the Nevada Test Site, it’s appropriate that the National Atomic Testing Museum should be located in the city.

   The Smithsonian-affiliated museum, which opened in 2005, is an 8,000-square-foot facility devoted to educating the public about the nearly 1,000 nuclear explosions detonated at the Test Site between 1951 and 1992.

   Most of the museum’s exhibits are devoted to the Test Site and there is a definite 1950s Cold War vibe to the place, including the sleek, institutional-looking ticket counter. Inside, state-of-the-art displays describe the role that the Test Site, located 65 miles north of Las Vegas, had in the development of nuclear weapons and the impact that "the bomb" had on American life.

   Wandering through the museum, visitors can trace the development of the atomic bomb, including a copy of a letter from Albert Einstein urging President Franklin Roosevelt to investigate the use of atomic technology because the Germans were already researching ways to develop nuclear weapons.

   In "Ground Zero Theater," visitors can sit in a darkened room to watch film about the history of the site and experience a leg-shaking simulation of an atmospheric nuclear test—without the deadly radiation.

   The theater is designed to resemble the concrete bunkers used at the original test site, complete with flashing red lights and long, wooden bench seating.

   Museum docents are often retired test site workers, who earnestly guide visitors through the galleries, which feature audio and video displays, genuine test site artifacts, and items illustrating the public fascination with atomic tests during the 1950s.

   One of the more interesting displays is entitled “Atom Bomb and Pop Culture,” which features artifacts from the time such as a box of Kix cereal promoting the “Kix Atomic Bomb Ring” and an beverage recipe book titled “Atomic Cocktails.”

   Another exhibit allows visitors to use manipulators, which are the mechanical arms used to handle radioactive materials.

   A new addition to the museum is the Spy exhibit, a partnership with the National Security Agency’s (NSA) National Cryptologic Museum in Fort Meade, Maryland. This display highlights the NSA’s gathering of telemetry intelligence, which is using to obtain data on missiles and space-based vessels being tested by foreign governments.

   Nevada’s involvement with nuclear explosions began in 1951 with a test nicknamed “Able.” It involved a B-50D Bomber dropping a nuclear device from an altitude of 19,700-feet onto a barren patch of desert known as “Frenchman Flat.”

   The subsequent explosion generated a brilliant ball of rose-colored fire followed by a blue-purple afterglow for a few seconds and a small, yellow-brown cloud that slowly drifted away until it was dissipated by the winds.

   During the next four decades, the 1,375 square mile test site (larger than Rhode Island and one of the largest restricted areas in the U.S.) hosted hundreds of nuclear detonations. In the early years, the nuclear blasts generated enormous mushroom-shaped clouds that rose high into the sky.

   For a short time, watching the scheduled tests—with their spectacular mushroom clouds—developed into a popular tourist attraction in Las Vegas. After 1962, the tests were moved underground as a result of growing concern about radioactive fallout from the clouds.

   The Atomic Testing Museum is located at 755 East Flamingo Road. Admission to both the museum and the Area 51 exhibit is $29 for adults, $27 for seniors with ID, $27 for military and first responders, $25 for Nevada residents, and $15 for youths aged 7-17. Children under 6 are free. The museum is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

   For more information, go to https://atomicmuseum.vegas/.

That Time Mark Twain's Cabin was (Allegedly) in Reno's Idlewild Park

 

The cabin that was supposedly Mark Twain's in Aurora.

   Years ago, I read how, in the 1920s, Mark Twain’s former cabin, located in Aurora, California, had been relocated to Reno’s Idlewild Park.

   When I looked into whether it was still there, several accounts said the cabin had disintegrated over the years and essentially disappeared (it was apparently located roughly where the rose garden is today).

   Recently, after writing a book about Twain’s time as a journalist in Virginia City, I thought of the story and decided to dig into it a bit more. It turns out I’m far from the first to want to write about the ignoble fate of the wooden cabin and whether it really been home to Twain.

   One thing that is true is that in the spring of 1862, Samuel Clemens (Twain’s real name), arrived in the mining town of Aurora, California, to check out several mining claims he and his brother, Orion, had purchased. According to historical accounts, Twain (as I will continue to refer to him) began working a few of their more promising claims, including digging and blasting tunnels.

   Unfortunately, that work didn’t bring in any money, so Twain soon took a job at a quartz mill at $10 a week (he lasted a week in the position before quitting). After that, he mainly survived on money sent to him by his brother, who was the secretary to the Territorial Governor in Nevada.

   Until he finally gave up on Aurora and headed to Virginia City that summer, Twain lived in two and possibly three crude mining cabins. Author Clifford Alpheus Shaw, who wrote a well-regarded Aurora history, described the typical miner’s cabin as having rough log walls with a roof made of canvas, sod, tree branches and brush, flour bags, or rough shingles or clip-boards.

   While Twain only resided in Aurora for a few months, it is where he took pen to paper and began writing letters to the Territorial Enterprise newspaper using the pen name, “Josh.” Those letters led to a job offer and that’s how Twain began his career as a journalist in Virginia City later that year.

   As for the crude cabins Twain lived in while in Aurora, that’s where fact and legend start to blur. According to Shaw, Twain shared cabins during those months with several other miners, including, at different times, Horatio G. Phillips, Calvin H. Higbie, Daniel H. Twing, and Robert M. Howland.

   In Twain’s book, “Roughing It,” which recalled those days, he described one of the cabins he shared with Higbie as a “floorless, tumble-down cabin” and the accompanying illustration showed a structure with log walls and a canvas roof.

   So, what does any of this have to do with Mark Twain’s cabin being relocated to Idlewild Park? Over the years, as Twain became more famous, some of his old companions and other Aurora-ites began to claim that various cabins still standing in the declining town of Aurora had once been home to the writer.

   By the late 19th century and early 20th century, one of the cabins, a two-room building with not-so-rough wooden siding, a window and a shingle-roof, was being promoted as “Mark Twain’s Cabin.”

   Following Twain’s death in 1910, the Twain cabin of dubious origins gained additional fame, so much so that souvenir hunters began tearing off pieces of the structure.

   In early 1924, when Mono Lake, California residents began to investigate moving the cabin to their community to preserve it, the Nevada State Journal began to encourage Reno citizens to claim the artifact.

   “The idea of bringing the cabin to Reno was given birth by the touring bureau of The Journal when it was discovered that citizens of Mono Lake, California, had launched a movement to lure the Twain cabin from Nevada into their state,” the newspaper reported on September 16, 1924.

   The paper reported that the cabin apparently was located on land owned by prominent Reno businessman/banker George Wingfield, who immediately agreed to turn over the title to the cabin to the city of Reno so it could be moved to Idlewild Park.

   In November 1924, the cabin was dismantled into two section and loaded onto two large trucks for transporting to the park to become part of the city’s Transcontinental Highways Exposition celebration.

   Once there, it was placed on a new foundation in the park and properly feted. In the early 1930s, a wall was erected around the structure to protect it from vandalism.

   By 1945, however, the cabin had fallen into sad shape. Journal columnist Gladys Rowley noted “people who appreciate historic landmarks have long been protesting the gradual destruction of the Mark Twain cabin in Idlewild Park.”

   By all accounts, by the early 1950s, nothing remained of the cabin in the park.

  On November 10, 1955, the Reno Evening Gazette noted that a request from a student in St. Louis, Missouri for a photo had proven futile because, “As late as 1934 WPA crews erected a small stone and cement wall around the cabin, to prevent souvenir hunters [and] picnic lovers seeking firewood from carting away what was left of the cabin.

   “It soon disappeared, however, so that shortly after this time not even the foundation remained,” the article added.

   Interestingly, even as early as 1940, some had questioned the cabin’s authenticity. A letter in the March 12, 1940 Journal written by Alfred Chartz of Carson City, who had worked at the Territorial Enterprise alongside Twain’s contemporaries in the years after Twain had departed from Virginia City, noted, “The Idlewild cabin is probably an imitation of the Aurora cabin [Twain had lived in].”

   Whether it was a priceless artifact or a fake Twain landmark, the cabin was historic and no doubt deserved a better fate.

Explore Reno's Most Haunted Spots

Lincoln Hall at the University of Nevada, Reno in 1900

   While Virginia City has often been called the most haunted place in Nevada, Reno also has its fair share of places where some have claimed to have seen or heard things that can’t be explained.

   Not surprisingly, many of those places can be found in the neighborhoods housing the city’s oldest and most historic buildings.

   A good example of this is the University of Nevada Reno (UNR) campus, which is said to be home to several haunted places. For example, in venerable Morrill Hall, built in 1885-86, and the oldest structure at the university, some have claimed to have seen the ghost of a woman dressed in 1920s attire.

   Additionally, in the DeLaMare Library, housed in the historic Mackay Mines Building, folks have reported seeing the ghost of Clarence Mackay (son of Virginia City mining magnate John Mackay), who apparently has been known to stop clocks and turn lights on and off. The younger Mackay, along with his mother, donated the funds for constructing the mines building.

   Another allegedly haunted UNR building is Lincoln Hall, built in 1895-96. According to Kassandra Andicoechea-Schmaling, writing in the 2022-23 issue of Nevada Magazine, an apparition known as “Foxy” has been seen wandering the first floor and basement of Lincoln Hall.

   The ghost is believed to be that of James A. Champagne, nicknamed, “Foxy,” who died in his room of a gunshot wound. The story goes that the 25-year-old was in the reading room going through his mail when he opened a letter that upset him.

   He returned to his dorm room and then everyone in the hall heard a shot. For years, there has been some debate whether he committed suicide or it was an accident. His final words before expiring were, “I was monkeying with the gun when it went off. It was accidental, Prof.”

   Since then, some Lincoln Hall residents have claimed to felt a sudden coldness in the reading room, and to have heard creaking floorboards, as if someone was walking on them. A figure has also been seen wandering the basement.

   Not too far from the UNR campus is another allegedly haunted place, the historic Hillside Cemetery at 900 Nevada Street. With graves dating back to 1875, the cemetery is said to have been the location of significant spectral activity including electronic voice phenomena and the sighting of two young girls and woman dressed in black.

   Another historic neighborhood that is said to be a hotbed of haunted happenings is the Riverwalk District, just south of the Truckee River. A website, https://www.renoriver.org/riverwalk-haunts/, even provides a walking tour map of ten haunted locations.

   Among the places noted are the historic Levy Mansion on California Avenue, which until recently was the home of Sundance Books. The large white house is said to be haunted by the presence of three children, including an adult man and woman as well as a small boy and two girls. The ghostly family has been seen in the attic, with the adults watching over the children as they play.

   Another Riverwalk place of ghostly interest is the Roy Frisch House at 247 Court Street. Frisch was a banker and a former Reno city councilman, who mysteriously disappeared on the night just before he was supposed to testify in court against two local gangsters, William Graham and James McKay.

   It’s said that on some nights you can hear Frisch’s ghostly footsteps as he climbs the wooden stairs to return home after a night at the movies.

   Not surprisingly, one of the most haunted places in this district is believed to be the Washoe County Courthouse, the place where so many couples untied the bonds of matrimony during Reno’s heyday as the Divorce Capital of the World.

   According to the website, people have reported seeing apparitions moping around the courthouse “presumably troubled spirits who have had unhappy dealings with past courtroom rulings.” Others have said they experienced overwhelming feelings of sadness and hopelessness, along with unexplained coldness, as they walked through section in the courthouse.

   A good source of Reno ghost stories is Janice Oberding’s book, “Haunted Reno,” available in local bookstores or online. Additionally, Reno Ghost Tours offers regular guided tours of the city’s most haunted places. For more information, go to: https://usghostadventures.com/reno-ghost-tour/.

What Happens in Las Vegas, Stays There for Eternity

 

At the Westgate Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, some have reported seeing the ghost of Elvis.

When it comes to ghost stories in Las Vegas, there is no shortage of books devoted to telling the tales of specters and spooks in the glittery neon city.

   Among the most prolific is Virginia City-based writer Janice Oberding, author of “Haunted Nevada” and “Haunted Las Vegas” (and about 50 other books).

   Others who have also explored ghostly sightings and other things that go bump in the night in Las Vegas include Heather Leigh, author of “Ghosts and Legends of the Las Vegas Valley” and Paul Papa, who wrote, “Haunted Las Vegas: Famous Phantoms, Creepy Casino, and Gambling Ghosts.”

   Among the places identified as haunted are: 

   • The Redd Foxx house at 5460 South Eastern Avenue. This ranch-style structure, once the home of the star of the 1970s television show, “Sanford and Son,” is reportedly haunted by Foxx’s spirit (he died in 1991). Foxx apparently lost title to the property as a result of unpaid taxes.

   It is claimed Foxx’s ghost roams the house, still angry at the Internal Revenue Service for kicking him out. Later owners have reported seeing lights mysteriously turn on and off, doors opening and closing and the sound of someone running down a hallway. No one, however, has reported hearing any dirty jokes (Foxx was famous for his X-rated humor).

   • The former Carlucci’s Tivoli Gardens Restaurant at 1775 E. Tropicana Avenue. The entertainer, Liberace, a former owner, is said to haunt this once-popular eatery. According to some accounts, Liberace, who died in 1987, often entertained guests in the restaurant and enjoyed himself so much that he continues to return.

   Interestingly, the wandering spirit of Liberace is also said to occasionally visit his former home at 1812 S. 15th Street (a sprawling complex known as the White House) as well as the defunct Liberace Museum on E. Tropicana (adjacent to the restaurant).

   • Fox Ridge Park at 420 Valle Verde Drive in Henderson is considered one of the most haunted places in southern Nevada. According to several sources, visitors can observe a swing in the park begin to move back and forth, despite the absence of any wind or other motivation.

   The story goes that the spirit of a young boy pushes the swing, although no one has been able to find any reason for why he would want to do so. Some ghost hunters have reported that their EMF meters register significant activity in the park and many have reported photographing white orbs around the swing.

   • Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino at 3000 Paradise Road. According to a number of sources, the ghost of singer Elvis Presley has been seen in various locations in the hotel, which opened in 1969 as the International Hotel and later was known as the Las Vegas Hilton.

   In July 1969, Presley began playing the showroom at the hotel and continued to perform there for more than seven years. He died in 1977.

   Allegedly, one of the spots he likes to visit is a backstage elevator that leads to a greenroom. Additionally, a maid reportedly saw him backstage one day and said he spoke to her.

   • Horseshoe Las Vegas at 3645 South Las Vegas Boulevard. According to Oberding, this high-rise hotel-casino, called Bally’s Las Vegas until 2022, was also the site of the MGM Grand Hotel-Las Vegas, which suffered a tragic fire in 1980. Eighty-five people died in the blaze, considered one of the worst high-rise hotel disasters in history.

   Oberding has written that some guests have heard sobbing and screams in the hotel’s upper-floor hallways, while others have seen strange green lights or shapes.

   “Haunted Nevada,” “Haunted Las Vegas,” “Haunted Las Vegas: Famous Phantoms, Creepy Casinos, and Gambling Ghosts” and “Ghosts and Legends of the Vegas Valley” can all be found online and in local bookstores.

Book Explores the Historic Cemeteries of Carson City and Carson Valley

Empire City Cemetery

   It’s pretty clear that Nevada historical writer Cindy Southerland has a thing for cemeteries. For nearly more than three decades, she has studied several of northern Nevada’s historic cemeteries, which, according to her online biography, is because she considers them as outdoor museums.

   That point is obvious in her book, “Cemeteries of Carson City and Carson Valley,” published by Arcadia Publishing. Chapters in the lavishly-illustrated work examine such topics as the dying art of cemetery symbolism and what can we learn from tombstones.

   In examining the cemeteries of the Carson City/Douglas County region, she explores not only the larger and more familiar burial grounds, such as Carson City’s Lone Mountain, but also the often-overlooked or forgotten ones, like Empire City, the Pioneer Cemetery, Stewart Indian School, and the Ormsby County Poor Farm.

   For Douglas County, she takes a look at the cemeteries in Genoa, Gardnerville, Mottsville, Jacks Valley, Glenbrook and Fredericksburg.

   In the first chapter on the meaning of tombstones, Southerland reveals why she is so fascinated with cemeteries by nothing they are “often the only record or artifact remaining to share the story of a community and the individuals who shaped it.”

   With that in mind, she notes that a tombstone is more than a slab of marble or a wooden plank because each provides important details about the life of the buried person, such as biographical information, historical events, ethnicity, religious and fraternal affiliations and, in some cases, cause of death.

   “Tombstones are considered an outdoor archive and may be the last surviving document to record the existence of the person buried there,” she says, adding that they also often reflect the values of the people of past regarding such matters as death, mourning, and a proper burial.

   To make her point, Southerland provides images of a handful of tombstones and interprets the information that was inscribed on each. Thus, we learn that while a tombstone tells us that James Cook, son of David B. Cook was killed in Gold Hill by the Virginia and Truckee Railroad on August 3, 1873, Southerland’s additional research reveals that the 32-year-old man died while attempting to jump onto a moving train car and falling under the wheels.

   In other parts of the book, Southerland enhances the images of tombstones with reproductions of items that appeared in newspapers of that time regarding the deceased. For example, when telling readers about the famed stagecoach driver Hank Monk, who is buried in Lone Mountain Cemetery, she includes his 1883 funeral notice and the cover of sheet music that had been written to honor Monk by Carson City composer, John P. Meder.

   The chapter on the cemeteries of Carson City provides not only a look at Lone Mountain Cemetery, which remains an active burial ground, but others no longer in use. She points out that over the years the boundaries of various cemeteries have sometimes been forgotten so that when new developments crop up they can accidentally intrude on final resting places.

   This occurred in 2000, during excavation work for a new office building in Carson City on a triangular piece of land that had once been part of Lone Mountain, but had been forgotten and abandoned. A construction crew dug up the remains of a forgotten Chinese cemetery.

   She notes that the remains were removed, with authorities announcing their intent to have them reinterred at Lone Mountain.

   The book concludes with a chapter entitled, “Those They Bury With Most Ceremony,” which describes a number of noteworthy burial sites, including John “Snowshoe” Thompson, a legendary 19th century mail carrier who carried letters between Genoa and Placerville, California, Jennie Clemens, niece of writer Mark Twain, who died of spotted fever in 1864, and Nellie Verrill Mighels Davis, owner of the Carson City Morning Appeal and the first woman to cover the Nevada legislature.

   Cemeteries of Carson City and Carson Valley is available online and in many local bookstores.

   Southerland, who resides in Carson City, was interviewed in a recent article about the Lone Mountain Cemetery that appeared in the Nevada Appeal. It can be read at: https://www.nevadaappeal.com/news/2025/jan/07/this-is-carson-city-layers-of-history-at-carsons-lone-mountain-cemetery/.

Grass Valley is the Mother Lode of Gold Country History

 

  One of Northern California's most historic and scenic routes is Highway 49. Winding through the heart of the state’s gold country, the road passes through several fascinating 19th century mining towns—including Grass Valley.

  The community, in fact, is an important part of the northern mining region of California’s rich “Mother Lode,” the name given to the area because, according to legend, it was the mother of all gold discoveries.

  To reach Grass Valley, head east of Reno via Interstate 80 to Auburn. Exit onto Highway 49, then continue north for 24 miles to Grass Valley.

  The drive alone is worth the trip. Along the way, the two-lane highway passes through some beautiful countryside filled with stately oak trees, thick bushes of mountain mahogany, lush meadows and tall pines.

  The first significant gold discovery was made in Grass Valley in 1850 by George Knight. Local legend has it that Knight was chasing a cow one night when he stubbed his toe on an outcropping of rock. He decided to test the hard stone and found it to be high quality gold-bearing quartz.

  Within a short time of Knight's discovery, the area was overrun with gold miners. Like Virginia City, the ground beneath Grass Valley and nearby Nevada City eventually became a labyrinth of mining tunnels.

  Ultimately, more than $415 million in gold was pulled from the ground in Grass Valley, making it the richest of the northern area's mining communities. The town also fared much better than most 19th mining towns in that gold continued to be mined there into the 1950s.

  Today, Grass Valley has plenty of reminders of its rich mining past, including:

  • The Holbrooke Hotel (212 W. Main), considered on the community’s most recognized landmarks. An earlier business, the Golden Gate Saloon, opened on the site in 1851, but it was destroyed in an 1855 fire. The current hotel was erected in the early 1860s and is still in operation.

  • Nevada County Bank Building (131 Mill), which is one of the most impressive of all downtown structures. The striking gold-domed building was erected in 1917 by the Rector brothers, who owned a Nevada City bank. In the 1930s, it was purchased by Bank of America, which operated it until 1975. Today, it has been restored and is owned by an insurance company.

  • The Grass Valley Public Library (203 Mill), which was built in 1916 with Carnegie Foundation funding.

  An informative community walking tour brochure can be downloaded at: https://www.southport-land.com/PDFs/Grass_Valley_Walking_Tour_2005.pdf.

  Another good place to pick up a bit of the region's history is the North Star Powerhouse Mining Museum, just south of the town. The impressive stone power station was the built in 1895 and provided energy to operate the North Star Mine operation.

  Within the old station you will find a fine mining museum featuring large displays of mining equipment and other 19th century artifacts. For more information about it, go to: https://nevadacountyhistory.org/north-star-mining-museum/.

  One of the most colorful characters to live in Grass Valley was Lola Montez. The famed dancer/singer settled in Grass Valley in 1853 and purchased a house at 248 Mill Street.

  Montez, however, tired of life in a remote mining town and a few years later departed the city to resume her performing career.

  Her original house was extensively remodeled over the subsequent years and was demolished in 1975. It was replaced by an exact replica of her original abode and now is the home of the Nevada County Chamber of Commerce and a small museum.

  For more information about Grass Valley, go to: www.grassvalleychamber.com/community/explore-grass-valley/.