Gold Rush History Found in Auburn

When it comes to California gold rush history, the city of Auburn has an impressive pedigree. Precious ore was discovered below the town site in May 1848, making it among the earliest gold discoveries in California.

Located about 35 miles east of Sacramento, Auburn is one of the best-preserved Sierra Nevada foothills mining towns.

When you visit Auburn, one of the first things you notice is how it seems to hang on a mountainside. The town was built in levels—the area at the base of the mountain is the oldest section, with the newer areas built higher up.

The original tent town was erected near the first gold strikes in the bottom of a ravine below where the freeway is located today. Like many of these temporary towns, a disastrous fire destroyed the original town and the site was abandoned as the city crept up the hillside.

Gold was uncovered by Frenchman Claude Chana, a miner who was a friend of James Marshall, the man who discovered gold at nearby Sutter's Mill and triggered the California Gold Rush.

Chana and his companions decided to try their luck panning on the river and found three gold nuggets. Within a few months, a shantytown called North Fork Dry Diggins (and later Wood’s Dry Diggins) had grown up in the ravine. Eventually, more than $75 million was reclaimed from the riverbed and surrounding hillsides.

The lowest level of Auburn is called Old Town and is the most historic part of the community (most of it is registered as a national historic landmark). Streets lined with the authentic western false fronts of a frontier town veer off in various directions in the old section, following the original miners' trails.

Walking Auburn's streets is a chance to study classic old west architecture. Over on one street is a row of two-story shops lined up like dominos. Steps lead by the fronts of the stores which are all chock full of curios and antiques ranging from vintage furniture to old toys and magazines.

Other streets boast atmospheric saloons, candy stores and restaurants. One particularly impressive building is the Bernhard House, which was built in 1851. The house is furnished with period Victorian furniture and is part of a larger museum (called the Bernhard Museum Complex). It’s located at 291 Auburn-Folsom Road. Admission is free.

The Gold Country Museum is another excellent small museum which is located at 1273 High St., Gold Country Fairgrounds. Inside, you will find some informative displays about the Gold Rush era, Indian objects, the role of the Chinese in the local mining operations and many old photographs. The museum is open daily from 11-4.

A local landmark is the four-story red and white Hook and Ladder Company Firehouse. Built in 1893, the firehouse is actually a tall, narrow tower of a building capped by an interesting cupola. Inside is a vintage fire truck that was California’s first motorized fire engine, and adjacent is a small park with picnic tables.

Of course, the building you first notice in Auburn is the stately domed Placer County Courthouse that sites atop a nearby hill and overlooks the town. Constructed in 1894, the courthouse was constructed of local materials.

Inside the courthouse is the Placer County Museum, housed on the first floor. Visitors to the museum will find an overview of the county’s history and an Indian art gallery. Additionally, several of the original offices have been restored to their 19th century appearances.

Down the street from the courthouse is the Pioneer Methodist Church, built in 1858 and one of the oldest structures in the town. The U.S. Post Office in Auburn is also considered the oldest in California.

The Auburn Chamber of Commerce offers a free walking tour of the town every Saturday morning at 10 a.m. The tour begins at the Courthouse at 101 Maple Street and runs about an hour.

Auburn is located about 120 miles west of Reno on Interstate 80. For more information, go to http://www.placer.ca.gov/.

Comstock Spirit Survives in Virginia City's Saloons

“The saloonkeeper held a shade higher rank than any other member of society.” – “Roughing It” by Mark Twain

“There are in Virginia City about one hundred saloons, all of which have their customers.” – “The Big Bonanza” by Dan De Quille

Barkeeps and saloons have long held a special place in the history of Nevada. It’s been said that the first business to open in every 19th century mining town in the state was a saloon.

Naturally, the Queen of Nevada's mining camps, Virginia City, was no different. If Dan DeQuille’s estimate regarding the number of saloons in Virginia City in the mid-1870s is remotely accurate—and according to some sources, it’s a bit conservative—that would mean there was roughly one saloon for every 200 people.

While that’s certainly not the highest concentration of saloons in the state—at its peak, the mining town of Goldfield was estimated to have one bar for every 132 residents—it is an indication that saloons were common on the Comstock.

These days, there aren’t a hundred saloons in Virginia City, but there are several that have bloodlines that stretch back to the Comstock’s colorful past.

Most of the Comstock’s saloons can be found on C Street, the town’s main artery and business district (also called State Route 341).

While each serves basically the same kinds of refreshments, what makes them unique is their ambiance and, in some cases, quirky gimmicks to make you want to visit. These can range from an allegedly deadly card table to a mural made of thousands of silver dollars.

Among the oldest and most colorful is the Delta Saloon, said to have been in operation since 1876. The Delta, at 18 South C Street, is the largest bar in town and a bit boisterous with its rows of clanking slot machines. But it has a comfortable honky-tonk atmosphere with wood-paneled walls, Victorian lamps and a nice brass bar.

A visit to the Delta should also include a visit to the famed Suicide Table, a 19th century faro table (a card game) that allegedly was responsible for the deaths of several men. Apparently, the deceased were unlucky gamblers who lost heavily while playing at the table and committed suicide.

Across the street from the Delta is the Bucket of Blood Saloon. The Bucket of Blood, which claims to also date back to about 1876, features live music as well as a great view of nearby Sugar Loaf Mountain and the Dayton Valley.

Up the street is the venerable Silver Queen which is notable for its wall-size painting of woman whose dress is composed of 3,261 silver dollars (with a couple of dozen gold coins for a belt). The Queen also offers slot machines, an upstairs dance hall and a wedding chapel (where entertainers Toni Tennelle and the Captain were married).

An entirely different experience can be found at the Ponderosa Saloon, located in the former Bank of California building at 106 South C Street. In addition to the usual libations, the Ponderosa is the only bar to offer a mine tour. A shaft has been dug from the rear of the building that leads to a portion of one of the old Comstock mines.

Another Virginia City establishment with an historic pedigree is the Old Washoe Club. This old time saloon, said to have been built in 1875, traces its origins to a Virginia City drinking society whose members were millionaires. The club, at 112 South C Street, has an unusual spiral staircase, listed as the world's longest circular stairs without a supporting pole.

There are, of course, a dozen or so other Virginia City saloons, each with some type of claim to fame, so feel free to check them out.

For more information about Virginia City’s classic saloons contact the Virginia City Chamber of Commerce, www.virginiacity.com.

Silver State Makes a Lasting Literary Impression

Over the years, a variety of writers, some famous and others not so well known, have spent time in the Silver State and departed affected by the experience.

While Mark Twain is perhaps the best known of these literary lights who was changed by staying here for awhile, there are others who have been equally touched by a close encounter with the broad expanses of Nevada.

Twain, who spent about two years in the state in the early 1860s, wrote a book about his Nevada experiences, “Roughing It,” which was published in 1872. The writer poked fun at many aspects of the state and in particularly the inhospitable nature of parts of Nevada.

For instance, he wrote, “some people are malicious enough to think that if the devil were set at liberty and told to confine himself to Nevada Territory, that he would come here and look around, while, and then get homesick and go back to hell again.”

Even the first history book written about Nevada noted that the state wasn’t quite like any other place. The Thompson & West’s History of Nevada, published in 1881, noted, “Nature was in her eccentric mood when forming this region, and turned out some strange results from the store-house of time.”

More than a century later, a couple of other writers spent time in the southern half of the state and were equally amused by what they saw. Blackjack players and authors Lance Humble and Carl Cooper described Las Vegas as looking “like somebody took one of Lberace’s jackets and made a city out of it.”

However journalist Chuck Palahnuik viewed the glittery city and came up with a slightly different take: “Las Vegas looks the way you’d imagine heaven must look at night.”

In the mid-20th century, it was Reno—not Las Vegas—that fascinated many writers. For instance, in 1945, Walter Van Tilburg Clark, author of “The Oxbow Incident,” penned “City of Trembling Leaves”about his adopted hometown. In it he wrote affectionately about downtown Reno and noted, “The trees of the Wingfield Park-Court Street region dispense an air of antique melancholy. You become sad and old as you walk under these trees, even on a bright, winter day when all the leaves are gone and the branches make only narrow shadows across homes covered with sunlight.”

Of course, not everything written about Nevada has focused on Las Vegas and Reno. Nevada writer David Toll, author of “The Complete Nevada Traveler,” has spent decades exploring the state’s byways and backroads. In the 1976 edition of his book, he wrote “the mountains of Central Nevada are like sleeping women, sprawling languorously across every horizon.”

Similarly, Richard Lillard, author of “Desert Challenge,” wrote in 1942, “Seen by a Californian or a New Yorker, Nevada is unorthodox, impious, backward, and undeveloped, and yet hospitable, individualistic, romantic. It is the home state for extremes.”

In the late 19th and early 20th century, naturalist John Muir, who founded the Sierra Club, hiked through many of Nevada’s remote mountain ranges. In 1918, he wrote a book describing his travels, “Steep Trails.” In it, he noted, “Nevada is one of the very youngest and wildest of the states; nevertheless, it is already strewn with ruins that seem as gray and silent and time-worn as if the civilization to which they belonged had perished centuries ago.”

Later, another naturalist, Nevadan Sessions S. “Buck” Wheeler, who penned several books about the state, described what he liked most about the landscape: “It has a spectacular beauty—great, jagged mountains of banded limestone rising high above desert valleys; vast basins sparsely dotted with the green of the creosote bush and the silvery tint of the burrobush on the gray, desert soil; dry stream beds; Joshua trees; dunes of white sand; and endless, sunbright space. To some it is austere and frightening; to others it has a lonely grandeur, which is friendly and comforting.”

But when it comes to having the last word on the Silver State, few have ever said it as well as Carson City’s own Robert Laxalt. In his 1977 book, simply titled “Nevada,” Laxalt wrote: “It is in the hinterland that one finds the old heart of Nevada. The hinterland of Nevada is a country of far horizons broken only by mountain barriers lost in the haze of distance, and unexpected green valleys that break upon the traveler's eye with the breathstopping impact of a mirage.”

Is there anything more that could be said?

Strolling Winnemucca's Streets to Find the Town's History

Shone House, Winnemucca

Many Nevada communities have discovered that visitors love to hear about a town’s history and folklore because it helps to make the place come alive.

One of the most popular ways that towns are telling their stories is with historical walking and driving tours that guide visitors through neighborhoods, pointing out commercial buildings, public structures and houses of historical significance.

Among the Nevada communities that have produced an historical walking tour guide in recent years is the central Nevada town of Winnemucca, located about two hours north of Fallon.

“Take A Walk Through History,” is the title of an informative walking tour guide brochure available for free from the Winnemucca Convention & Visitors (call 1-800-962-2638 to receive a copy).

The brochure offers a brief history of the community, which started out as a trading post on the Humboldt River in the early 1860s. In 1868, the Central Pacific Railroad helped establish a settlement there, which was named Winnemucca in honor of a local Paiute leader.

A well-designed map depicts the streets of downtown Winnemucca and traces a one-and-a-half to two-hour walking tour of the community’s most historic treasures.

The tour begins at George Nixon’s First National Bank (352 Bridge St.), which was the site of Winnemucca’s most famous bank robbery. It’s generally believed that in September 1900, members of Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch gang robbed the bank—although the crime was never solved.

Other downtown structures on the tour include:

• The Turin Brown Mercantile (355 Bridge St.), which was built in 1898 by the Brown family and served as the town’s first hardware and home furnishing store. It has been restored in recent years and remains in use as a business.

• The Shone House, built in 1906. This quaint two-story wooden hotel escaped a disastrous fire that destroyed much of Upper Winnemucca in 1919.

• Humboldt County Courthouse (5th and Bridge St.), erected in 1921. The classical, pillared hall of justice was designed by noted Reno architect Frederick DeLongchamps.

• Winnemucca Fire House (5th and Bridge St.), which was completed in 1935. This sleek, streamlined structure—it has a very 1930s look—remains in use as the town’s fire house.

• Winnemucca Hotel (95 Bridge St.), which was erected in 1863 by Louis and Theopile Lay and Frank Baud. The hotel is the oldest structure in Winnemucca and is still in operation as a Basque hotel and restaurant.

• St. Paul’s Catholic Church (4th and Melarkey St.), constructed in 1924. This fabulous church boasts Old Spanish mission style architecture with Romanesque features.

From the commercial district, the walking tour heads into neighborhoods filled with historic homes. For instance, the Legarza Home (451 W. 2nd St.) was originally owned by local banker George Nixon (later an U.S. Senator from Nevada). Nixon sold the house in 1908 to prominent local sheep ranchers Juan and Florenzia Legarza, after whom it is named.

Nearby is the magnificent Reinhart Home (343 W. 2nd St.), which was constructed in 1909 for Simon Reinhart, part owner of the Winnemucca Bank and Trust Company. Built in a Greek Revival style, the house was one of the most impressive and expensive houses erected in the town at the time it was completed.

Across the street from the Reinhart Home is the two-story, bungalow-style Turin Brown Home (322 W. 2nd St.), which was constructed in 1913 by the owner of the town mercantile.

The W.C. Record Home (146 W. 2nd St.), which the brochure describes as having been built in the “Victorian, vernacular gothic revival-style,” was erected in 1874 and is one of Winnemucca’s oldest houses. Listed on the national register of historic places, the two-story house has largely retained its original appearance and is used by a commercial business today.

Around the corner from the Record Home is the Gables Guest House (124 Lay St.), which was completed in 1903 and originally used as a sanitarium. It served as the town’s main surgical hospital until the community opened its own hospital in 1908. Apparently, sometime during the next decade it was converted into an apartment house, which it remains today.

A few doors down is the Schmidt Home (82 Lay St.), a solid redbrick house built in 1911 by the Schmidt family, which operated a boarding house on Bridge Street. A fire destroyed the house’s second floor in 1969 but it was rebuilt as a one-story structure and today is home of a graphic arts studio.

In Winnemucca, there's history on nearly every street.

Historic Columbia Offers Fun Look at Old California

One of the most picturesque of Eastern California’s 19th century mining camps is Columbia, once called the “Gem of the Southern Mines.”

Located off historic Highway 49, Columbia was one of hundreds of small enclaves that cropped up in the Mother Lode region during the Gold Rush of the early 1850s.

Columbia was founded in 1850 by Dr. Thaddeus Hildreth, who found placer gold in the area. The spot became known as Hildreth's Diggings, then later was called American Camp, before becoming Columbia.

During its productive mining years, roughly 1850 to 1870, the area mines produced more than $87 million in gold, making it one of the richest gold strikes in the state.

Like most western mining towns, Columbia was originally a tent city—within a month of the discovery of gold it boasted 5,000 residents. By the mid-1850s, Columbia had more than 15,000 residents and was the largest town in the gold country's southern mining region.

Just as Virginia City nearly burned to the ground in 1875, Columbia had its share of disastrous fires in its early years. In 1857, following the second fire in three years, Columbia was again rebuilt of brick and stone with wrought-iron doors and window shutters to prevent future fires.

Columbia began to decline after its mines ceased to produce in the 1870s. Within a few decades, the empty buildings outnumbered those in use. Also like Virginia City, Columbia was never completely abandoned and over the years claimed at least a handful of residents.

Fortunately for Columbia, the California state park system acquired the crumbling town in 1945 and began to restore many of its buildings. Today, you can walk its hard-packed dirt streets, wander by more than three dozen restored and renovated historic structures and get a true feeling for life in the mid-19th century.

The state park system has peopled Columbia with the kind of businesses you would likely find in an 1860s town. There are saloons serving beer, a working blacksmith shop, the oldest barbershop in California, stagecoach rides and a photography studio offering old-fashioned sepia-tone photos.

During the summer months, the restored Fallon House Theater (originally the Fallon Hotel), built in 1860 offers plays performed by the visiting repertory company. The town has a rich theatrical history with many famous frontier-era performers having appeared there, including Lola Montez and Lotta Crabtree.

Perhaps the oldest and most famous building in Columbia is the 1858 Wells Fargo Express Building, a two-story brick structure that features the classic iron shutters and lacework balcony so prominent in Columbia's architecture. Inside, you can find the offices have been restored with authentic period furniture including the huge gold scales that history tells us measured some $55 million in gold dust.

Additionally, you can find an excellent museum describing the area's past and a schoolhouse, built in 1861, that was one of the state's first public schools.

The museum features informative displays describing the town history and showing how various buildings have been restored. The school has been faithfully restored with desks, seats, a pump organ and period books.

Other interesting historic sites include D.O. Mills Bank Building, built in 1854; the Cheap Cash Store, built in 1854, and the Livery Stable, which houses several old-time wagons.

Stagecoach rides are offered from the front of the Wells Fargo Office. For a nominal price, you can take a 15-minute ride through the town.

In addition to the town, visitors can also tour the 1855 Columbia cemetery, located behind the schoolhouse, or wander along a one-mile nature trail, which starts at the schoolhouse.

Columbia is located about three-and-a-half hours west of Fallon via U.S. Highway 50, Highway 49 and Parrotts Ferry Road. For more information contact Columbia State Historic Park, 209-588-9128, or go to www.parks.ca.gov.

‘Til Death Do Us Part—or Not

A dark-haired woman, perhaps in her early 30s, strolls through the glass and bronze double doors of the majestic Washoe County Courthouse. She pauses next to one of the massive columns that support the courthouse’s portico and then leans over to plant a kiss on the pillar.

She heads north toward the Riverside Hotel, where she had spent the previous six weeks dreaming of the moment she would finally be free. She pulls off her wedding ring and then throws it as hard as she can into the river. She is about to begin her new life.

Or at least that’s how it happened in the famous Reno legends.

From about 1920 to the early 1950s, Reno was the Divorce Capital of America. Between 1929 and 1939, some 32,000 marriages were dissolved in the Biggest Little City in the World. A Reno divorce was known as “Taking the Cure” or getting a “Reno-vation.”

Fortunately, a handful of places still remain in Reno with ties to that period. The most obvious symbol of a Reno divorce is the Washoe County Courthouse, where so many divorces were granted and on whose pillars so many kisses were allegedly planted. The courthouse, completed in 1911, was designed by famed Nevada architect Frederick J. DeLongchamps in a Classical Revival style.

Another longtime divorce industry landmark is the Riverside Hotel, erected in 1927 by Reno powerbroker George Wingfield. Built with wealthy divorce-seekers in mind, it had 40 corner suites with refrigerators, kitchens and connecting rooms for children and servants (it also had 60 smaller, single rooms for guests of more modest means).

Other structures still found in Reno that were connected to the divorce trade include:

• The El Cortez Hotel (239 W. Second St.), which opened in 1931. Designed by the Reno firm of George Ferris and Son, it was the tallest building in the city when it was completed. It quickly became a popular place for divorce-seekers to stay; business was so good that it was expanded a year after it opened.

• The Nystrom House (333 Ralston) was a Gothic Revival style home built in 1875 for Washoe County Clerk John Shoemaker. It served in the 1920s as a boardinghouse for Reno’s divorce trade.

• The Glass Gallery/Dow House (935 Jones Street) was built in 1907-08 by Lisle Jamison. By the early 1930s, the lovely Colonial Revival/Queen Anne style home had become a popular rooming house for divorce seekers.

• The Twaddle Mansion (485 W. Fifth Street) was built in 1905 for local rancher Ebenezer “Eben” Twaddle. The elegant house boasts fluted posts with Ionic caps, which support a frieze and pediment. Starting in the early 1930s, it, too, became housing for divorce-seekers.

Additionally, in the 1930s a thriving “Dude Ranch” business bloomed in rustic areas around Reno, including Washoe Valley’s famous Flying M E Ranch and the Pyramid Lake Ranch. While many had private cabins for divorcees (60 to 70 percent of which were women) waiting out their six weeks, others consisted of large ranch houses with dining rooms and living quarters shared by guests.

Closer to Reno, the Frey Ranch (1140 West Peckham Lane) was built in 1870 by Enoch Morrill and, after it was sold in the 1890s, was owned by Joseph Frey and his family. In the 1920s and 30s, the ranch, which includes a Folk Victorian main house, was used as a dude ranch for divorcees seeking the “Reno cure” (as a divorce was called in those days).

Reno’s divorce trade peaked in 1946, when 19,000 divorces were granted. By the 1960s, Reno was no longer America’s divorce capital, having been eclipsed by much larger Las Vegas, and ultimately done in by looser divorce requirements in many other states.

Still, it was a good ride while it lasted.

Clark County Museum Showcases the Las Vegas Story

The Las Vegas area has been many things in the past century-and-half—a Mormon outpost, a ranch, a railroad town, a suburb of Hoover Dam, a bedroom community for the atomic bomb test site, and, of course, an adult playground.

Fortunately, there’s the Clark County Museum, a place dedicated to preserving and telling all that rich and colorful history. Wandering through the museum, it’s easy to envision all the various pieces of the Las Vegas story.

Following the displays chronologically, you learn that the Vegas tale began long before the arrival of white settlers with the establishment of the Mormon Fort in 1855. Originally, prehistoric Native Americans populated the Las Vegas Valley.

Often known as the Anasazi, these early residents left a few reminders, some of which are on display, including hand axes, arrowheads, tools and petroglyphs (rock writings).

To help tell each part of the story, sensors triggered by your movement cue audio recordings that bring alive the dozen or so exhibits. For example, Native American chants and drums begin while viewing a diorama recreation of a Southern Paiute encampment.

You also can read about the period of exploration and settlement, including visits through the region by Jedediah Smith and John C. Fremont in the early 19th century. The display includes an 1840s flintlock musket, maps and farming tools.

Another exhibit describes the attempts to develop commercial mining operations in the area, including the Potosi mine (worked in the 1850s) and the nearby mining camp of Searchlight (about 90 miles south of Las Vegas). A mineshaft filled with antique mining equipment helps illustrate this period.

A pioneer life display (accented by steamboat sounds) tells about the efforts to operate steamboats on the Colorado River, and settlements in the southeast part of the state.

Nearby, a fun exhibit (highlighted by cricket sounds) recreates the tent city of Las Vegas at the turn of the century, when the Union Pacific Railroad was auctioning lots to encourage development of a railroad town.

Photos and artifacts talk of the legalization of gambling in 1931, the first casinos, the building of Hoover Dam, the arrival of Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and development of the Las Vegas Strip in the 1940s, and entertainers who performed in the hotels.

An exhibit on the 1950s, shows the financial impact of the establishment of the Nevada Test Site (where the nation tested atomic and nuclear weapons).

Of course, there’s a lot more spread over the museum’s 20 acres. Adjacent is the restored Boulder City Depot, built in 1931. Inside, you can find some fine railroad artifacts.

A Union Pacific caboose and railcar, restored to working condition, are parked adjacent to the depot, giving the place the appearance of still being in use.

Adjacent to the depot, is Heritage Street, a row of restored historic homes and buildings representing various eras in Southern Nevada's past. About a half-dozen buildings have been moved to Heritage Street and returned to original condition with period furnishings. Entering any of the structures triggers an audio self-guided tour.

The oldest building is the Giles/Barcus House, a home originally built in the mining town of Goldfield in 1905 and moved to Las Vegas in the early 1950s. It served as a residence and, later, a retail store.

Nearby is the Beckley House, built in 1912 by Will Beckley, a pioneer Las Vegas businessman. The California-style bungalow is representative of the type of homes common in Las Vegas during the first few decades of this century.

The adjacent Henderson Townsite House is representative of the kind of “company town” homes constructed in the 1940s to house workers at the giant Basic Magnesium plant in Henderson (which was originally named “Basic,” after the facility).

Another historic building is the Tudor-style Heritage/P.J. Goumond House, which was built in 1931 by one of Southern Nevada’s gaming pioneers. There is also a replica of a 19th century newspaper office, complete with authentic turn-of-the-century newspaper presses and equipment.

The museum has an interpretive trail that winds through displays of antique mining equipment, a prehistoric Paiute camp and buildings moved from several Nevada ghost towns, including a few from Tuscarora (located north of Elko).

The Clark County Museum is located 10 miles southeast of downtown Las Vegas, at 1830 South Boulder Highway in Henderson. The museum is open daily from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Admission is $1.50 for adults and $1 for children and seniors. For more information go to www.accessclarkcounty.com/depts/parks/museum/Pages/museum.aspx.