History and Beauty Found at San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts

 

     It’s a mistake to overlook San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts. Originally built as part of the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition, which celebrated the completion of the Panama Canal, the Palace of Fine Arts is a magnificent edifice that continues to delight visitors who stroll the shaded grounds surrounding its scenic lagoon.

   The structure was designed by famed California architect Bernard Maybeck, who said it was inspired by an etching depicting a Roman ruin reflected in a pool by 18th century Italian artist Giovanni Piranesi.

   The domed palace housed art exhibits and was one of eleven pavilions constructed for the exposition, which was built on 635 acres of land reclaimed from the San Francisco Bay.

   Like the rest of the structures, the Palace of Fine Arts was originally supposed to be a temporary building that would be removed once the exposition was over. However, a prominent San Francisco socialite, Phoebe Apperson Hearst, was so taken with its classical beauty that she founded the Palace Preservation League while the fair was still ongoing to save the building.

   Her efforts were successful and for several years the palace housed art exhibits. During the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration commissioned several artists to replace deteriorating murals on the rotunda ceiling and, later, the building housed eighteen lighted tennis courts.

   By the 1950s, however, it was clear that the Palace needed to be completely reconstructed. Built of wood covered with a mixture of plaster and a burlap-type fiber, the colonnade and rotunda had deteriorated over time and were considered unsafe.

   In 1964, the original Palace was demolished with the exception of the steel structure of the exhibit hall. The buildings were carefully rebuilt in concrete with steel beams installed to support the rotunda dome. The structure was retrofitted in 2010 to ensure it would survive an earthquake.

   Since it was built, the Palace has become a beloved San Francisco landmark; in recent decades it has been particularly popular as a setting for weddings. It’s also a lovely spot for a picnic or a walk around its scenic lagoon, which is surrounded by towering Australian eucalyptus trees.

   Additionally, a variety of wildlife have taken to living in and around the latter including ducks, geese, swans, frogs and snapping turtles that can be seen sunning themselves on partially submerged tree roots.

   Not surprisingly, the Palace’s photogenic setting in San Francisco’s Marina District has served as a backdrop for a number of films, such as “Vertigo,” “The Rock” and “Bicentennial Man.”

   The Palace’s exhibition hall became home of the Exploratorium from 1969 to 2013, an interactive hands-on science museum for children. In April of 2013, the Exploratorium relocated to Piers 15 and 17 on San Francisco’s Embarcadero. The exhibit hall is now primarily used for special events.

   The Palace of Fine Arts is located at 3301 Lyon Street near San Francisco’s Marina District. For more information, go to https://palaceoffinearts.com/.

The Historic Southern Nevada Town with the Peculiar Name: Searchlight

Old mining remnants can still be found around Searchlight.

   There are several explanations behind how the southern Nevada mining town of Searchlight got its name.

   According to one version, the town was name after a miner named Lloyd Searchlight. Another claimed it was named after a popular brand of matches. And a third is that one of the town’s founders once said it would take a searchlight to find any gold in the place.

   All three stories, in fact, have appeared in various history books over the years, although the latter is the one many historians believe is true.

   In his book, “Searchlight: The Camp That Didn’t Fail,” the late U.S. Senator Harry Reid, who was born in Searchlight in 1939, examined the town’s origins and concluded that the last story was the most believable version.

   Reid said he could find no evidence of any miner named Lloyd Searchlight. He wrote that the tale of the town being named after the Searchlight brand of wooden matches was most likely the fanciful concoction of a descendent of one of the town’s founders.

   His research, however, did show that Searchlight was most likely named by one of the town’s first residents, a prospector named George Colton, who apparently once remarked that there is gold in the area—but it would take a searchlight to find it.

   The story of Searchlight began in about May 1897, although there is some disagreement about the exact date, with the discovery of gold in the area, which is located about an hour south of Las Vegas.

   By July 1898, the Searchlight mining district had been formed and a small camp was established in the desert. By 1902, Searchlight had a post office, a 15-mile long narrow-gauge railroad linking the mines to a mill on the Colorado River, a newspaper, stores, and saloons.

   In 1907, the population crested at several thousand people, although exact numbers are difficult to determine because of the transient nature of mining towns.

   In 1908, Searchlight made a run at being named the seat of newly-formed Clark County but lost out to Las Vegas, which was actually smaller than Searchlight at the time.

   Searchlight’s fortunes, however, were intertwined with the state of its mining industry and when the ore began to fade after 1916, it, too, started to decline. By the 1930 census, only 137 people still lived in Searchlight.

   Today, about 445 people live in the community, many retirees or refugees from the hustle and bustle of bigger cities. The main reminders of the town’s mining past are a handful of slowly-decaying wooden mining headframes still standing on the hills surrounding the town.

   The best place to learn about Searchlight’s rich history is the Searchlight Historic Museum, one of the best small museums in the state, and a branch of the Clark County Heritage Museum in Henderson.

   The museum, located a few blocks from the main street, is easy to find because of the large wooden headframe out front. The headframe was originally constructed in 1904 and stood for many years at the Ruth Elder mine.

   Around the derrick-like structure are other mining artifacts such as a large smelting pot, an ore car, and an arrista, which was a horse-drawn device that was used to crush ore.

   When you first enter the museum, which shares its building with the Searchlight Community Center, you trigger an audio message that welcomes you and begins telling the town’s story.

   The first exhibit you encounter contains a nice collection of Native American baskets and pottery, made by members of the Southern Paiute and Mojave tribes, the region’s original inhabitants. There is also an interesting display of Indian grinding tools, and a unique ring and pin game once popular with Native Americans.

   Citing historic documents and photos, the museum’s displays detail Searchlight’s rise to become the largest community in southern Nevada at the start of the 20th century.

   One display contains photos of the first post office as well as scenes of the town’s newspaper offices and a place known as “the Big Store,” a kind of early 20th century Wal-Mart.

   Adjacent is an exhibit filled with old bottles, an early 20th century rodeo program, a miner’s candlestick, and other items.

   Another exhibit shows minerals found in the region such as quartz, feldspar, and, naturally, gold.

   One of the most unique displays in an old player piano, upon which is the sheet music for a Scott Joplin song called the “Searchlight Rag.” It turns out that while Joplin never visited Searchlight, he wrote the music in 1907 as a tribute to two friends, Charles and Tom Turpin, who once owned a mine in Searchlight.

   The Turpin brothers apparently didn’t stay long in Nevada but did share their mining experiences with the famed ragtime composer, who was inspired to write the rag in their honor.

   Another exhibit profiles noteworthy people who were born, raised or lived in Searchlight, including Senator Reid and Academy Award-winning costume designer Edith Head, who spent a few years there as a girl.

   Additionally, in the 1930s and 40s, movie cowboy star Rex Bell, who later became Nevada’s lieutenant governor, and his wife, actress Clara Bow, had a large ranch near Searchlight. Both occasionally participated in local events such as holiday parades and rodeos.

   The Searchlight Historic Museum is open Monday through Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday by appointment. There is no admission charge but donations are welcome.

  For more information about Searchlight, go to https://www.clarkcountynv.gov/government/departments/parks___recreation/cultural_division/musuems/searchlight_musuem.php.

Early Las Vegas Gambling History Still Found at the El Cortez Hotel

  When it comes to finding the history of Las Vegas’s gambling industry, few places reflect that story as well as the El Cortez Hotel in the city’s downtown core.

  In fact, the El Cortez, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, is the longest continuously running downtown hotel-casino in Las Vegas.

  Built in 1941, the El Cortez hasn’t changed its appearance much over the decades. In fact, that’s a big reason the hotel is kind of a living historic landmark that offers a glimpse of the era in which it came into being.

  At the time the El Cortez opened, there was no Las Vegas Strip and downtown Las Vegas was the center of the city.

  Its original owners were Marion Hicks and John C. Grayson, the former a Los Angeles-based developer. The two spent about $325,000 constructing the property, which included 59 rooms, a 125-seat dining room, a casino, a cocktail lounge, bar and a beauty parlor.

  Designed in a Spanish/Colonial Revival/Western influenced architectural style, the hotel, the city’s largest at the time, quickly became known as one of Las Vegas’ finest lodging houses.

  In September 1943, Grayson sold his share of the hotel to Thomas Hull, who earlier had built the Hotel El Rancho on Highway 91 (which eventually became the Las Vegas Strip). Three months later, Hull sold out to Hicks.

  The mid-1940s saw the hotel enter what was perhaps its most fascinating and notorious phase. That’s when Hicks sold it to a syndicate group headed by Edward Berman and Moe Sedway, two figures connected to organized crime organizations. Berman soon relinquished his ownership share and was replaced by another mob figure, Gus Greenbaum. Additionally, it is believed “hidden” ownership of the hotel included gangsters Meyer Lansky and Benjamin Siegel.

  In March 1946, a new deed of trust was executed that identified the owners as Sedway, Raymond Salmon and his wife, and J.Kells Houssels Sr. and his wife. In July 1946, Sedway sold his interest in the hotel to Salmon and Houssels.

  Between late 1946 and 1962, the El Cortez was managed by Houssels, one of the early gaming pioneers in downtown Las Vegas (he owned the Las Vegas Club and was an investor in the Boulder Club). Additionally, Houssels later invested in the Showboat and Tropicana hotel-casinos on the Strip.

  During Houssels’ tenure, the hotel was remodeled into what the Las Vegas Review-Journal described as “Las Vegas Contemporary” that incorporated hidden lighting, more contemporary furnishings, murals and other decorative touches.

  In 1962, Houssels sold the El Cortez to a group headed by gaming industry veteran John “Jackie” Gaughan,

  For the next four decades, Gaughan was the public face of the El Cortez, actually living in a penthouse in the hotel and regularly playing poker at the hotel’s tables. Even after he sold his ownership of the hotel in 2008, he continued to live on site and play poker until his death at the age of 93 in March 2014.

  While the El Cortez’ exterior is mostly the same as it was when it was constructed, the property has been renovated and enlarged over the years. In 1952, the façade was altered to include the property’s now iconic giant neon and metal sign promoting, “El Cortez Hotel, Free Parking.”

  In 1984, the property was greatly expanded with the construction of a 15-story hotel tower adjacent to the original structures.

  Of course, the best way to understand the hotel’s significance to Las Vegas history is to stop in and check it out. Perhaps a little cluttered and old-fashioned compared to the massive mega-resorts of the Las Vegas Strip, the place shouts out its historic roots.

  In the past decade, the hotel unveiled a memorial—inside the casino—honoring longtime owner Jackie Gaughan. The exhibit offers more than 300 gambling artifacts used at properties once owned by Gaughan, including casino chips, dice, keno tickets, matchbooks, ashtrays and menus.

  Over the years, Gaughan owned or had an interest in a number of Las Vegas hotels or casinos including the Gold Spike, Club Bingo, Las Vegas Club and Jackie Gaughan’s Plaza.

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/.