The Stories Behind I-80s Exit Sign Names - Part 1

You’re driving on Interstate 80 and spot an exit sign for a place called Mote.

You wonder—what the heck is Mote? Or Toulon (pictured above)? Or Valmy? In fact, as you drive you notice that there are a bunch of names on exit signs along the interstate that identify places that don’t seem to amount to much.

Not surprisingly, there is a story behind nearly every one of those names (except, it seems, for Mote, which apparently is little more than one).

For instance, head east of Fernley and you can encounter one of the first of these phantom sidings, at the intersection marked Nightingale (about 17 miles from Fernley).

At first glance, it appears to consist of a small geothermal plant. But closer study indicates that in addition to being the location of a geothermal food processing facility, Nightingale was once a stop on the Emigrant Trail.

In the 1840s, emigrants discovered the hot springs located in this valley. Originally called “Boiling Springs,” the spot offered the only water within 20 miles (it was cooled and, despite being salty and brackish, used by early pioneers).

Later, the place was called Brady’s Hot Springs and became the location of a popular resort that featured a warm water swimming pool.

The name “Nightingale,” which is associated with the spot today, can be traced to a former mining town once located about 21 miles north. In 1917, tungsten deposits were discovered in the Nightingale Range to the north of I-80. A small camp named after the mountains cropped up at the site. but, after about a decade, faded away.

The Nightingale Range was named in honor of Captain Alanson W. Nightengill (the name was corrupted on state maps), the first State Controller and a survivor of the 1860 Pyramid Lake Indian War.

Twelve miles east is the exit sign for Jessup. While little is located there today, Jessup was another short-lived mining town, located 4 miles north of the present intersection with I-80.

Gold was discovered in Jessup in 1908, and within a few months nearly 300 people had settled in this remote camp. The boom was over by the end of 1909 and the town melted back into the desert.

Another 12 miles farther is the turn-off for Toulon. Unlike most other mining sites, the original mill is still standing here—it’s the large, two-story metal building adjacent to the railroad tracks.

Toulon, which appears to have been named for a French seaport (although why a spot in the desert is named after a seaport remains a mystery), was founded in 1917 following construction of a large mill to treat tungsten, gold and silver ore mined at Nightingale.

The mill was used sporadically over the years. The impressive ruins are located on private property and the owners are extremely protective of the site. Ask before stepping onto the property or take photos from the road.

The next orphan exit is located 14 miles east of Lovelock at Oreana. In the 1880s, the Southern Pacific Railroad developed a sidetrack and small station at this site.

In 1912, with the discovery of rich gold and silver deposits in nearby Rochester, Oreana boomed and soon had several stores, saloons, a large hotel and a depot. A year later, the Nevada Short Line Railway was built to connect Rochester with Oreana.

Rochester’s mines began to decline after 1917 and Oreana quietly slipped into obscurity. By the mid-1920s, its last businesses closed.

Today, foundations and a few wooden houses are the only survivors. Rochester, located 10 miles southeast, is a ghost town with several headframes, a decaying mill and a handful of other buildings.

Another 16 miles down the interstate brings you to the Humboldt exit. While today Humboldt seems to consist of a roadside rest stop, a few small ranches and a grove of huge poplars and cottonwoods, the site originally was a stagecoach stop.

In 1868, the Central Pacific Railroad built the Humboldt House there, which served as an inn and meal stop for train passengers traveling across Nevada.

The presence of good water allowed the railroad to develop a kind of oasis in the desert with shade trees, flower and vegetable gardens, and fruit orchards. The need for Humboldt House disappeared after the 1890s when the railroad introduced dining cars. The inn operated as a roadside stop for several more decades before closing in the 1940s.

More about other I-80 place names next time.

Gold Hill's Historic Treasures

You know the train is coming to Gold Hill long before you see it. It lets out a loud, throaty whistle and a cloud of smoke appears over the hill above the community—the signal that the Virginia and Truckee train is beginning its descent into the historic mining town.

The locomotive stops near the old Gold Hill Depot for passengers to disembark. For most of the last 130 years, V&T trains have been dropping people off here.

The former mining town of Gold Hill shares a similar history with Virginia City. In the late 1850s, both were the location of gold and silver discoveries that became part of the fabulous Comstock Lode.

Historians believe that Gold Hill was established in about 1859, initially as little more than a few dozen miners camping under trees, in tents, and in crude shacks. But within a few years, Gold Hill rivaled Virginia City in size and population.

By the early 1870s, the town claimed 8,000 residents as well as one of the most well known newspapers in the state, "The Gold Hill News." It had schools, several fire companies, banks, churches, a post office, a town hall, and was an important stop on the V & T Railroad line, which eventually stretched from Virginia City to Reno.

As with Virginia City, Gold Hill’s decline began in the late 1870s when the mines were played out. By 1882, the newspaper had closed (it moved to Idaho), and the people gradually drifted away. By 1943, Gold Hill couldn’t support a post office.

While much of Gold Hill has disappeared over the years—the buildings were generally victims of fires, neglect, and removal—enough remains to offer an interesting historic walking tour of this once-thriving mining town.

The old V & T Depot, for example, still sits on a flat near the north end of the canyon. The wooden board and batten frame building, constructed in 1872, was used until the Virginia City portion of the V & T ceased operating in the late 1930s.

In recent years, the depot has been partially restored and serves as the ticket office for the revived V & T Railroad.

Down the canyon from the V & T Depot is the former Bank of California building, which dates back to 1862. The red brick and stone structure is one of the few surviving commercial buildings from Gold Hill’s early days.

The bank building was originally the home of the Gold Hill Bank, and then was purchased in 1873 by William Sharon to become part of his Bank of California. In 1879, the Bank of California moved to Virginia City and since then the building has housed a variety of businesses including a pool hall and art gallery.

Next door to the bank is the Gold Hill Hotel, the oldest hotel in the state. The original stone structure—the front part of the building—was constructed in 1859. The two-story wooden section, to the rear, is a newer addition built about two decades ago.

Up the hill from the hotel are the picturesque remains of the Yellow Jacket Mine incline shaft and headframe, built in 1937. The warped, wooden chutes leading down the hill once carried ore from the headframe at the shaft at the top.

Adjacent to the hotel is the Crown Point Mill, constructed when the area's mines were reworked in the 1930s. Built in 1935, the mill processed ore from the Yellow Jacket and Crown Point mines. The main buildings have been maintained over the years.

Across State Route 341 from the Crown Point Mill are the Lynch House, a white Victorian on the highway, and the Pink House, a very pink-colored Victorian on the hillside above, which was once a very fashionable neighborhood in Gold Hill.

The Lynch home was built in 1869 by a state legislator while the Pink House was constructed in the 1860s for a nephew of U.S. Senator John P. Jones, who served as Nevada’s Congressional representative from 1873 to 1903. Both are private residences.

Next door to the Lynch place are the green-colored stone foundations of the Rhode Island Mill. Dating to 1862, the mill was one of the first stamp mills in Gold Hill.
Of course, throughout Gold Hill you can still find a handful of long-abandoned mining shacks and ruins, which provide an idea of the modest existences of most of the town’s miner-residents.

Two significant headframes mark the southern boundary of Gold Hill and the next town downhill, which is Silver City. The first, an impressive metal skeleton on the hill above the road (there is a mine shaft at the base of the hill) is part of the New York Mine and was built in 1913.

The other, located about a quarter-mile south, is the Keystone headframe. This wooden structure, surrounded by a metal fence, was built in the late 19th century and is considered one of the best remaining examples of the type of mining equipment once common throughout the Comstock.

Gold Hill is located about 20 miles northeast of Carson City via U.S. Highway 50 and State Route 341.

For more information check out the Gold Hill Hotel’s web site at http://www.goldhillhotel.net/.

The Town Known as "The Widow Maker"

Once one of southeastern Nevada’s most prominent mining camps, Delamar has suffered as much abuse and neglect as any ghost town in the state.

The town’s story began in 1890-91, when farmers from the Pahranagat Valley in eastern Nevada uncovered gold in the area. By 1892, the Ferguson Mining District was established and miners from nearby Pioche began prospecting the area.

A year later, Captain John De Lamar of Montana acquired most of the principal claims in the district, which was renamed after him (although it was later changed slightly to Delamar).

De Lamar invested in the district, which between 1895 and 1900 was the most productive mining area in the state. A post office was opened in 1894 and within three years the camp had grown into a full-scale town with about 3,000 residents, shops, saloons, hotels, a hospital, churches and a newspaper, The De Lamar Lode, which continued publishing until 1906.

Delamar, however, soon gained notoriety as a very dangerous place to work. Water was scarce and the dry drilling techniques used to extract gold from the rock generated a fine silica dust (called the Delamar Dust) that resulted in silicosis, a painful and ultimately fatal lung disease.

In fact, many miners began referring to Delamar as “the Widow Maker” because of the high death rate.

Despite its deadly reputation, the town thrived because local mine owners paid exceptionally high wages for the time, $3 per day.

Additionally, by the late 1890s, Nevada was experiencing a statewide mining slump—Virginia City and Austin had ceased producing much ore while Tonopah and Goldfield were yet to be discovered—so many miners were eager for work.

Eventually, a water pipeline was installed to carry water from Meadow Valley Wash, located 12 miles north. The arrival of a reliable water source finally improved working conditions in the mines but not soon enough for those who were afflicted with lung disease.

About half of Delamar was destroyed by fire in 1900. The town was rebuilt but two years later De Lamar sensed the boom was over and sold his mining interests. New owners continued operations until about 1909.

During its decade-and-a-half of operations, Delamar generated more than $13 million in gold.

With its principal industry closed, Delamar began a quick decline. Although there were periodic revivals of the mines, the district proved to be played out.

Photographs from the 1950s show that Delamar still contained fairly substantial ruins up to that time. Local folks recall that until the 1960s, visitors to Delamar could still find a house with a piano and partial furnishings, as well as a saloon that contained liquor bottles that had been partially melted by fire.

But during the next two decades, souvenir-hunters discovered Delamar and hauled out nearly anything that could be removed. Even some of the headstones at the Delamar cemetery (which is still there, north of the town site) were taken.

Today, Delamar has been reduced to a handful of stone foundations and partial buildings peeking through the sagebrush. Below the town site are thick wooden beams that were once part of the local stamp mill.

The hillsides around the town are littered with tailing mounds and there is a large depression, which appears to have once been the site of considerable mining activity, which can be seen near the top of the mountain that overlooks the town.

Delamar is located about 28 miles southwest of Caliente via U.S. 93 and a marked, four-wheel drive gravel and dirt road. You drive about 15 miles on the dirt road, through a forest of Joshua trees, before reaching the site. The road is not recommended for passenger cars.

For more information, check out http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/nv/delamar.html.

Exploring Historic East Ely

Some of the most historic buildings still standing in the eastern Nevada town of Ely are found in a district known as East Ely.

Located directly east of the main part of Ely, East Ely largely owes its development to the Northern Nevada Railway, which had its maintenance yards and depot in that part of town.

The East Ely area includes all of the buildings along East 11th Street, which for many years as a kind of second commercial district for the community. During the railroad’s heyday, the several blocks on 11th Street, between the depot and Aultman Street, housed everything from banks to grocery stores to hotels.

The most prominent East Ely structure is the historic two-story sandstone Nevada Northern Railway depot, which was built in 1907. The handsome structure, on the north end of E. 11th Street, served as the main station and home office of the railroad, which operated between 1907 and 1981.

These days, the depot is the centerpiece of the Nevada Northern Railway Museum and Historic Railroad complex, which includes the maintenance buildings, rolling train equipment and tracks. Train rides are offered on selected weekends during the summer months.

Adjacent to the depot is the Nevada Northern’s former communications building, now used as museum and railroad offices, which was built in 1915. The two-story, brick, utilitarian structure once served the offices of the railroad’s superintendent, trainmaster, chief clerk and roadmaster.

On the opposite side of the depot is the wooden railroad freight and express building, which is believed to be the oldest structure in the complex (erected in about 1906).

Wandering up East 11th Street, you can still find other reminders of the area’s railroading past. For example, the elegant, shaded red brick home on the corner of 11th and A streets was built in 1937 for a former railroad official.

The former Nunnelly’s Ely City Grocery building at 2200 East 11th has, in recent years, been restored into a bed and breakfast called the Steptoe Valley Inn. The wooden structure was built in 1907 and originally served as a grocery store and saloon (a wall separated the two businesses). In later years, it was an apartment house and a single-family home.

The Bank of Ely building at 298 East 11th, built in 1907, is one of the most impressive survivors of East Ely’s glory days. The brick structure served as the Copper National Bank from 1910-1925 and was later home of the Ely Power and Light Company. More recently, it has been used as offices.

Other noteworthy East Ely buildings include:

• Former East Ely Post Office and White Pine News Office at the corner of D and East 11th. Built in 1907, the single-story brick structure was originally a saloon, then became the print shop for the White Pine News. From about 1912 to the 1950s, half the building was used as a post office.

• Gunn-Thompson Building at 1095 Avenue D. This large, two-story brick building was constructed in 1907 by George E. Gunn and William B. Thompson, who were prominent in the development of Ely’s copper industry. For many years, it served as mining company offices with apartments on the second floor.

• Miller’s Lincoln Highway Garage at 1120 Avenue C. This single-story rectangular structure, which has been remodeled many times over the years, can trace its roots to a small wooden building (since incorporated into the rest of the structure), which was erected in 1906. In 1925, E.R. Miller built a larger structure around the original building, which was used as a garage. In the 1940s, it was sold to the White Pine County School District.

The community of Ely was founded in the late 1800s, following the discovery of rich mineral deposits in the area. The first mining involved gold and silver but later, it was found that the region was flush with copper—which eventually became the most moneymaking mineral in the state.

For more information about Ely contact the White Pine Chamber of Commerce, 636 Aultman, Ely, NV 89301, 775-289-8877 or http://www.whitepinechamber.com/.

It was a Dog's Life in this Mining Camp

With a name like Dogtown, it’s no wonder this Eastern California mining camp didn’t ever amount to much.

The unflattering moniker derived from the miners’ term for a primitive camp with few amenities—in other words, where you lived like a dog.

Dogtown is considered the first settlement or camp founded by prospectors working in the Eastern Sierra region. Established in about 1857, the camp’s initial residents were placer miners who began working a nearby creek (now known as Dogtown Creek).

According to historians, either Cord Norst or Leroy Vining was the first miner to find gold in the area and construct a basic rock hovel above the creek.

The discovery generated a bit of buzz among local miners and by 1858 more than 100 had settled in the camp and were scouring the region for little specs of gold color. Because of a lack of building materials in the area, most of their dwellings were little more than stone shacks.

Dogtown’s dog days came quickly. In July 1859, Cord Norst—who may or may not have founded Dogtown—was wandering a wash about 5 miles to the east and make a more substantial gold discovery.

Initial reports were that gold was just lying around on the ground for the taking. While this was no doubt an exaggeration, within a short time nearly everyone in Dogtown packed up and relocated to the more promising site, which was named Monoville because it overlooked Mono Lake.

Additionally, some miners began searching for the source of the gold that was being washed into Dogtown Creek and found that it was coming from Dunderberg Mountain, located to the west. Many moved onto the slopes of Dunderberg, where several mines soon developed.

Chinese miners moved into Dogtown after most of the previous inhabitants had moved to more productive mining districts. For the next ten years, the Chinese successfully reworked the large tailing piles left over from the earlier boom.

Meanwhile in Monoville, residents found that water was only available on a season basis, and built an 14-mile ditch to transport water from the East Walker River for hydraulic mining.

By late 1860, Monoville boasted more than three-dozen wooden houses, hotels, a post office, all those saloons and a population estimated at between 500 and 2,000 people. There was even talk of locating the Mono County seat in Monoville.

Monoville began to decline in 1861 with the discovery of significant silver and gold deposits in nearby Aurora and Bodie. The Monoville post office closed in April 1862 and within a short time nearly all the businesses had closed.

In the late 1870s and early 1880s, the diggings at both Dogtown and Monoville were reworked.

Today not much remains at either Dogtown or Monoville. The former site of Dogtown can be seen from U.S. 395 at a point six-tenths of-a-miles south of the turn-off to the ghost town of Bodie. A California Historic Marker indicates the site and provides a brief history of the community.

Exploring the Dogtown site, you can still find a handful of stone walls and depressions, which were part of the old dugout homes. The best ruins are along the cliff that is above Dogtown Creek.

At Monoville, which is one mile east of Conway Summit in Rattlesnake Gulch, the most prominent reminders of the area’s past are traces of the old water ditches and the deep scars of the hydraulic mining that once used to wash away the gold.

The easiest way to reach Monoville is to head east on a dirt road located about one mile north of the junction of U.S. 395 and State Route 167.

For more information about Dogtown or Monoville, check out “Death Valley to Yosemite: Frontier Mining Camps and Ghost Towns,” by L. Burr Belden and Mary DeDecker and George Williams III’s “Guide to Bodie and Eastern Sierra Historic Sites.”

Discovering Sparks’ History

The grand opening of the Legends at Sparks Marina shopping/dining/entertainment mega-complex this summer puts a spotlight on the former railroad town of Sparks, which celebrates its 105th birthday next year.

Legends is a $1.2 billion development that includes a hotel-casino and the region’s largest shopping mall with some 50 tenants including Scheels All Sports store (already open), Banana Republic factory store, Converse, Nike Factory Store, Saks Fifth Avenue Off 5th and other vendors. The grand opening is scheduled for June 18.

As for the history of Sparks, the community was formally incorporated on March 15, 1905. The community, however, can trace its roots to a few years earlier when the Southern Pacific Railway Company decided to shorten and straighten its main line across Northern Nevada.

The railroad rerouted its tracks along the eastern Truckee River corridor to eliminate several dangerous curves and grades.

In about 1903, the railroad announced that as part of this realignment it would relocate its main division point in the region from Wadsworth to a site about four miles east of Reno. It originally looked at Reno for its new shops, but went east because of cheaper land.

To entice its workers to move to the new site, the railroad made a generous offer—a tract of land would be set aside adjacent to a new roundhouse and the railroad would give each employee clear title to a 50-foot by 140-foot lot. Additionally, the railroad offered to transport any existing house in Wadsworth to the new community at no charge.

Records show that in the summer of 1903, a drawing was conducted with employee names in one hat and lot number in another, and each was randomly awarded their lot. Some 67 lots changed title that day at a price of $1 per lot.

The new town was called “East Reno” for a short time, then “Harriman,” after E.H. Harriman, owner of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Finally, in April 1904, Harriman decided to name the community in honor of Nevada’s popular Governor John Sparks.

One hundred years ago, the new town was incorporated and during that same year saw the opening of a depot and freight yard. Additionally, in 1905, the community’s first school was built and a volunteer fire department was organized.

Over the past century, the railroad has become a less important part of the town’s economy but has remained an important symbol of the past. The Sparks High School athletic teams are called the “Railroaders” and the downtown’s “Victorian Square” development theme evokes the architecture and style of an earlier rail era.

The Sparks Bicentennial Railroad Park in center of the downtown boasts a couple of reminders of the city’s rail roots. One is Locomotive No. 8, built in 1907 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works. The ten-wheeler was one of the last steam engines to operate on the Southern Pacific line and was retired in 1954.

Attached to the engine are two historic Southern Pacific train cars, including a 1911 Pullman Car, said to have been used in 1948 by President Harry Truman on the successful whistle-stop campaign that helped get him reelected.

Ophir City Slowly Fades Away

Most motorists on U.S. 395 through Washoe Valley probably don’t even notice the crumbling stone and brick walls that appear to be melting into the mud and grass in an open field adjacent to the northwest edge of Washoe Lake.

But those walls, along with an historic marker located on a large boulder along the side of Old U.S. 395, are among the few reminders of once-thriving saw mill and quartz mill industries located in Washoe Valley.

In Nevada’s earliest days, the early 1860s, there were more than a dozen such mills erected in the valley to provide lumber for Virginia City’s booming mines and to reduce and process its rich ore. The mills had names like the New York, the Manhattan, the Buckeye, the Napa, the Alfred and the Ophir.

The walls beside 395 are the last vestiges of the Ophir Mill, a quartz mill and reduction works that was once one of the busiest in the valley. Befitting such a lucrative operation, the name, Ophir, is derived from the name of the legendary port where the fabulously wealthy King Solomon received his cargo of gold and other treasures.

“The largest quartz mill in this county, and, with the reduction works attached, the most extensive establishment in the (Nevada) Territory, is that of the Ophir Company, in Washoe Valley,” noted J. Wells Kelly, author of the “First Directory of Nevada Territory,” published in 1862.

“These immense works . . . give constant employment to about one hundred hands,” Kelly reported. “The buildings cover over an acre of ground, and the machinery and everything about them are of the most approved style and workmanship.”

Historical records indicate the mill was built in about 1861 and abandoned after about 1866, when Virginia City’s mine operators shifted their business to mills closer to home, such as along the Carson River near Empire City.

A small community, also named Ophir, cropped up in the flats to the east of the mill. By 1862, Ophir had a post office and several hundred residents; for a time it was the second largest town in Washoe County after nearby Washoe City, which had an estimated population of about 3,000.

Not surprisingly, the closing of the mill marked the beginning of the end for Ophir. By mid-1871, the post office had closed and most of the community’s residents had moved on to more profitable places.

Over time, the structures associated with Ophir have begun to disappear. In 1961—on the centennial of the founding of the community—the Nevada Sagebrush Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution erected the historic marker on the boulder adjacent to Old U.S. 395. Then-Governor Grant Sawyer dedicated the monument.

The site of Ophir was once again in the news on May 31, 1983, when it was nearly submerged by a 15-foot wall of mud that flowed down the southeast side of Slide Mountain. The slide was triggered when a snow-covered portion of Slide Mountain collapsed and crashed into Upper Price Lake.

According to news accounts at the time, the mud, water and debris formed a dam in the lake, which gave way and sent a wall of liquid muck into a lower lake, where it gained additional traction and spilled down the mountain and into Washoe Valley. One person was killed by the slide, which also destroyed seven homes and inundated numerous vehicles.

In recent years, neglect, weather and the elements have accelerated the collapse and disintegration of the two remaining stone and brick walls of the old Ophir Mill. Soon, all that will remain will be a pile of gray and red rubble.