In Focus Volume 3 No 1

In Focus Volume 3 No 1

Churchill County Museum Association

Churchill County Museum Association

1989-1990

Michon Mackedon
Sharon Lee Taylor

Copyright Churchill County Museum Associaiton. All rights reserved.

Published Journal

English

Churchill County and Northern Nevada

CHURCHILL COUNTY
IN FOCUS
A Journal of.•
ARCHAEOLOGY ESSAYS
FICTION
FOLKLORE
NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE
NATURAL HISTORY
NEVADA HISTORY
OLD PHOTOGRAPHS POETRY
THE CHURCHILL COUNTY
MUSEUM ASSOCIATION, FALLON, NEVADA
1989-1990
CHURCHILL COUNTY
MUSEUM ASSOCIATION, INC.
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Susan McCormick, Chairman
Al Glaubitz, Vice Chairman
Kathy Bennett, Secretary
Myrl Nygren, Treasurer
Wilva Blue, Volunteer Coordinator
Vaughna Bendickson, Trustee
Lauren Chealander, Trustee
Ken Coverston, Trustee
Dan Luke, Sr., Trustee
Harold Rogers, Trustee
Nancy Soule, Trustee
Cyril Schank, Commissioner
EDITORIAL POLICY
IN FOCUS solicits articles or photographs of scholarly or popular interest dealing with the history and people of Churchill County and neighboring Nevada regions. Prospective contributors should send their work to the Editor, IN FOCUS, Churchill County Museum & Archives, 1050 South Maine Street, Fallon, NV 89406. Articles should be typed, double-spaced, and sent in duplicate. If the article is available on a computer disk, it can be submitted in this form, to eliminate retyping. For return of the manuscript, include a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Copyright Churchill County Museum Association, Inc., 1989. Manuscripts and photographs for each annual publication must be received by May 15 for consideration for that year's journal.
Authors of articles accepted for publication will receive three complimentary copies of the Journal.
IN FOCUS is published annually by the Churchill County Museum Association, Inc., a non-profit Nevada corporation. A complimentary copy of IN FOCUS is sent to all members of the Museum Association. Membership dues are:
SENIOR (60+) $ 10.00
INDIVIDUAL 15.00
FAMILY 20.00
LIFE 250.00
Membership applications and dues should be sent to the Director, Churchill County Museum & Archives, 1050 South Maine Street, Fallon, NV 89406. Copies are also sold through the Museum Mercantile shop, located in the Museum, by mail, and at several retail outlets.
The Editors of IN FOCUS and the Churchill County Museum Association disclaim any responsibility for statements, of fact or opinion, made by the contributors.
POSTMASTER: Return postage guaranteed. Send address changes to Churchill County IN FOCUS, 1050 South Maine Street, Fallon, NV 89406.
CHURCHILL COUNTY
IN FOCUS
ANNUAL JOURNAL OF THE CHURCHILL COUNTY MUSEUM ASSOCIATION
VOLUME 3 1989-1990 NUMBER 1
Contents
SOFT FOCUS
The Editors' Comments Michon Mackedon and Sharon Lee Taylor 1
SHARP FOCUS
FOCUS ON HAZEN:
The Story of Hazen, Nevada Doris E. Sheppard 3
Next Stop--Hazen!! Mary Ellen Smitten 11
Nevada's Last Lynching Philip I. Earl 13
FOCUS ON WOMEN'S VOICES:
A Voice From the Past:
The Diary of Delia Thompson Brown Michon Mackedon 17
Backin' Jim E. Isabelle McLelland Hansen 24
Another Voice:
The Correspondence of Alma Jenkins, 1910 27
Early Ranchers--View of a Courtship Roberta Childers 33
The Role of Women in Nevada's Early History Doris D. Dwyer 39
Lahontan Mrs. J. S. Mills 43
FOCUS ON CHURCHILL COUNTY TELEPHONE SYSTEM:
One Hundred Years of Prosperity Wesley Wayne Craig 45
NATIVE AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE
A Native American of Fallon, 1989 Clara Lopez 49
SHADOW CATCHER
Walter J. Lubken Sharon Lee Taylor 53
PIONEER PORTRAIT
Highlights of My Teaching Experience
in Churchill County L.C. "Roy" Schank 59
Growing Roses L.C. "Roy" Schank 62
SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE
A Guide To Birdwatching in Lahontan Valley Timothy D. Bowman,
Larry Neel, and Steven P. Thompson 66
FAMILY SNAPSHOTS
A Letter to Jade Mary "Bunny" Cushman Corkill 78
A Hero Returns: Don Ray Hennen Marian Hennen LaVoy 84
Robert Perthel Jr. Jeff Perthel 86
CREATIVE FOCUS
STUDENT WRITERS AT WORK:
Men Taken In and Done For Wesley L. Craig 89
Discovering Northern Nevada Donovan Price 91
Are Fresh Eggs That Important? Deborah Sharp 93
Impressions Leslie Brown 95
CONTRIBUTORS 97
SOFT FOCUS
The Editors' Comments
IN FOLKLORE, MANY adages and tales make use of the number three. Three is sometimes a charm, sometimes a jinx, and sometimes signifies the completion of a quest. (Note that Jack climbs the beanstalk three times before slaying the giant!)
We on the staff of IN FOCUS prefer to adopt the first belief. We want this, our third edition of IN FOCUS to lead a charmed life. We want it to bring in more support from the community in the form of articles, raw materials, ideas, money, and most important, moral support.
We certainly don't believe that the mission of IN FOCUS has been completed. Two new sections have been added: FAMILY SNAPSHOTS, featuring personal memoirs of family or friends, and CREATIVE FOCUS, reserved for essays, poems or other experiments in creative writing. This edition features several essays written by students at Western Nevada Community College. We have also ventured into Desktop Publishing to facilitate the production of IN FOCUS.
So, the journal is at a crossroads: the staff is long on ideas, and ambitions, and short on time and resources. We need your help. Can you and would you help by writing, editing or marketing IN FOCUS? Where do you think we should place copies for sale in the state? What events or persons would make interesting reading?
Pick up the telephone or make a trip to the museum to give us your views. Help us to make number three a charm and four even better!
MICHON MACKEDON, EDITOR
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2 Mackedon and Taylor
1989 has been an exciting year for your museum. We dedicated the new 4,000 square foot museum annex and began installing displays. The first part of the Albert A. Alcorn photograph collection began to arrive and, with it, the responsibility for cataloging and storing over 100,000 photographs and negatives from Mr. Alcorn, Laura Ethel Mills, the Lahontan Valley News, the Fallon Eagle-Standard, and Jim Chamberlin.
1989 is also the year that your museum jumped to the forefront in new technology, with a grant received from the E. L. Wiegand Foundation. The new Amiga 2500 computer with its NEC Postscript laser printer and Digi-View digitizing system allows us to evaluate the negatives, turning them in to positive images on the computer screen in less than 30 seconds. The system has also given us the ability to use Desktop Publishing, which will help us cut the cost of doing IN FOCUS and give us more artistic control over its production.
This issue also represents our first subsidized publication. The cost of this volume has been entirely underwritten by the John Ben Snow Trust, with the gracious support of Trustee Rollan Melton. We can't count on a grant every year to cover the $5,000 it will take to produce each volume with Desktop Publishing. We need to find a way to get the word out. Phil Earl in his This Was Nevada series called our journal the one that sets the standard for small museum historical publications. Once you have a copy in hand you can judge for yourself why the response has been so positive from everyone who has seen the first two issues.
The activites of the museum are at an all time high. School visits and special tours continue, and the museum is looking for ways to make itself known throught the West. Using the logo and theme, "The Best Little Museum on the Loneliest Road in America," your museum seeks to reach more people and share with them the exciting and varied history of our community. The staff, Trustees and Volunteers continue to work to make this museum, and all of the projects we undertake, a credit to our community!
SHARON LEE TAYLOR, ASSOCIATE EDITOR
SHARP FOCUS
The Story of Hazen, Nevada
DORIS E. SHEPPARD
DESPITE WHAT I learned later about Hazen's colorful history, the day my husband and I went to Hazen for an overview, we found only a forlorn store, a bar and a small red, rustic building. Our ride through the nearby desert turned up very little--a desolate expanse of rusting cans and broken glass which sparkled in the late afternoon sunlight as far as the eye could see. Several jackrabbits scuttled through the greasewood, the only vegetation around. We picked up several pieces of glass for later identification and took several pictures of remnants of "whatever"-- one of which we guessed to be the school--and two others which I was later able to identify. The mosquitoes were thick and vicious, and we swore they were even larger than those we had in our back yard in Fallon! The wind blew across the flat land, and I had a sneaking hunch there would be little to report from an archaeological standpoint. How could anyone, I thought, live in such an unyielding territory?
I soon discovered, though, that the history of Hazen is charming and its importance to Lahontan Valley's history, unquestionable. Hazen was first settled in 1869 and named for William Babcock Hazen, an American Army Officer and Aide to Major General Tecumseth Sherman on his "march to the sea." Little historical documentation exists on Hazen until around the turn of the century when the advent of two entities brought population to Hazen: The Central Pacific Railroad and The Newlands Project.
There is quite a lot of conflicting information regarding which company ran which section of railroad; from correlating references, the following composite emerges. The section from Reno to Hazen was built between 1901 and 1903. In 1904 the United States Reclamation Service (USRS) moved its offices from Reno to Hazen in order to be as close as possible to the construction at that time of the Newlands Project. Many of the materials for the project were shipped via railroad and could be consigned to Hazen. The town grew rapidly, especially after the "cut-off' from Fort Churchill to Hazen was completed in August, 1905. Railroad traffic became heavy through Hazen from Goldfield, Tonopah and Mina during the gold and silver mining days.
In August of 1905 the Central Pacific Railroad laid out a plat map of lots for the town of Hazen and offered it to the public for sale, reserving 400 ft. next to the tracks for themselves. The plat map shows this line through Hazen to be the main line from San Francisco to Ogden, Utah, and points east. In 1906 the "short line" from Hazen to Fallon was laid. This enabled the farmers in the Lahontan Valley to ship their produce, alfalfa, etc. to Hazen to be transferred to other destinations. It made Hazen an important four-way junction ... and in 1907 a handsome depot and a roundhouse was built. (The roundhouse, which was moved to Wadsworth in the 1950's, had a smokestack that
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4 Doris E. Sheppard
"Saloons and disreputable places of Hazen," were referred to in photographer Walter J. Lubken's notes of June 24, 1905. (Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.)
A view of old Hazen c1905. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Agnes Hart Sever Collection)
The Story of Hazen, Nevada 5
Another view of the "...disreputable places of Hazen." June 24, 1905. (Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.)
towered 300 feet! During WWII training pilots used to fly around and around the smokestacks for practice.)
In 1907 the USRS moved their offices from Hazen to Fallon. In 1908 a disastrous fire leveled the business section of Hazen. This section was approximately one mile east of the current Hazen store and bar. The town was rebuilt and became a small trading center with about 250 residents. The depot and the roundhouse escaped the fire, and the elegant Palace Hotel was built, along with other businesses, nearer to Hazen's present location. The railroad served the many new businesses of Lahontan Valley. It is interesting to note that a large sugar mill was built near Fallon around 1905, but this project never really went well. Irrigation problems and financing difficulties closed the mill, and in 1934 the building was torn down. Another industry was the growing and marketing of Fallon's famous Hearts O'Gold melons. In 1923 the Churchill County Melon Growers contracted with Weaver & Co. of Chicago and shipped 88 freight cars that year during the harvest! In 1924 they again contracted with the same company and began shipping to Chicago. All seemed to be going well until September when sudden competition from California and Colorado undercut the market and returns fell sharply. By 1925 the melon producers had dropped to a small group planting less than 50 tracts. One of the problems facing the Hearts O'Gold was that they had a tendency to split when picked at "half-slip"; they had to be shipped for 10 to 12 days. Another event that adversely affected the melon industry was the sudden death of Clarence Grant Swingle, one of the leading melon growers. By 1930 these melons were grown primarily for local consumption and for nearby markets that could be quickly reached; hence, they could be picked at a riper stage.
6 Doris E. Sheppard
The Southern Pacific Railroad main line through Hazen, December 10, 1910. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--M.F. Frost Photograph, Agnes Hart Sever Collection)
At the same time, in the 1920's and 1930's, still another farm business flourished-poultry. Turkeys raised in the Lahontan Valley were shipped under the label "Diamond D" or Norbest throughout the western states. They were considered highly desirable and were served at the finest restaurants and at the tables of the elegant and rich!
Although chicken and eggs had been raised and shipped by Lahontan Valley farmers for more than a decade, it was not until the '20's that business became large scale. "Silver Whites" (eggs) were shipped all over the west coast, as were the chickens.
The Crash of '29 brought about such a sharp reduction in the prices of turkeys, hens and eggs, that by 1931 the turkey industry had died hard--but the hen and egg producers were able to maintain production until WWII. The postwar years, however, found beef and hay to be more lucrative industries, and the poultry business finally all but died away.
Time-honored production of milk and cream from Nevada's dairy herds is a whole story in itself. Suffice it to say that at one point over 200 farms in the Lahontan Valley kept dairy herds, and three different creameries vied for the cream; but the depression also adversely affected the dairy business. There are still about a dozen dairies functioning in Lahontan Valley. Reno has provided a large market, so it is expected these dairies will continue to do well.
Facts on these not-so-well known industries point to the continued freight business through Hazen as a connecting junction for Fallon's beef, hay, dairy goods and garden produce. Even though most of the residents have now abandoned the town, and the homes have been sold off and carted away to Fallon and even to Reno, and even though
The Story of Hazen, Nevada 7
A view of the Southern Pacific Railroad yards in Hazen, showing the Roundhouse, c1937. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Kay Burkhart Collection)
Hazen residents pose near the Depot c1934. L to R: Esther Marchment, previous Postmaster, Marie Porteous, and Agnes Hart (Sever), new Postmaster. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Agnes Hart Sever Collection)
8 Doris E. Sheppard
Hazen is now considered a "Ghost Town" with few residents and no depot, and even though the roundhouse has been moved to Wadsworth, Hazen is still a functioning railroad junction.
The second project to affect the life of Hazen was the famous Newlands Project. The Newlands Project was the nation's first federal reclamation act. It was named for Senator Francis 0. Newlands, who, with the backing of President Theodore Roosevelt and through intense lobbying, pressured the easterners in Congress to pass legislation to supply and store irrigation waters for the arid western part of the United States. The law was signed as The Reclamation Act of 1902. In 1903 Newlands pressed the Nevada legislature into enacting a proper water management statute which helped Nevada become among the first states selected to receive a reclamation project.
From the outset, Northern Nevada was the logical spot for the project because it had two major streams and a lake, Lake Tahoe, in which to store water for late season irrigation. When it was announced that Churchill County had been selected as the site, dozens of homesteaders flocked to the area to squat on the federal lands withdrawn for the project.
The people of Nevada were convinced that having the project administered by the federal government was preferable to having it administered by the state because of possible politicking; however, their trust gradually eroded.
Between 1903 and 1907 the Newlands Project took shape. Newspaper ads and word-of-mouth brought hundreds of workers to Derby where the first diversion dam was to be built, the waters from which would be brought to the Carson River just below the site of the future Lahontan Dam. Temporary camps sprang up along the canal route, enticing all manner of unscrupulous types who set up bars, gambling games and prostitution.
Hazen became the camp for many laborers and, as such, was wide open to all the same criminal elements who moved right in behind them. In 1905 the famous lynching of "Red" Wood took place. He was accused of attempting to rob the train, so was used as an example which eased some of the criminal activities. Perhaps not coincidentally the first church (Methodist) was built in Hazen in 1906.
1905 and 1906 were very dry years in the area, but in 1907 a great flood inundated Fallon and the surrounding homes and ranches. By 1911 construction had begun on the dam bringing still more workers to Hazen. The town swelled, and businesses thrived. The main business section was originally located approximately one mile east of current Hazen, but in 1908 most of these businesses were wiped out by fire. The town was quickly rebuilt.
Hazen resident Agnes Sever carries memories of those early Hazen years. Agnes, along with her husband Tony, now deceased, operated the Hazen store for many years. Agnes remembers the original business section before it burned and recalls that the building that is now her store was originally located on Nevada Street (Old Highway 50) near the Palace Hotel. It was once a bar owned by Johnny Carroll. Agnes worked in the restaurant of the Palace Hotel and then in the post office which was located "at the end of the building." The post office was established in 1904. After the store building was moved to its current site, it housed the post office, and Agnes was postmaster from 1934 to 1977, when it closed.
Agnes tells a story about a 4th of July Parade in 1917. Red, white and blue parasols had been ordered for the occasion to aid the ladies in warding off the sunshine, but
The Story of Hazen, Nevada 9
The late sportsman and railroader Tony Sever, c1928. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Agnes Hart Sever Collection)
instead they were deluged by a heavy rainstorm and made a hasty retreat to dry quarters, where they bemoaned the fact it had "rained on their parade."
10 Doris E. Sheppard
Echo Wood also remembers Hazen tales. Echo taught the "upper" grades (4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th) for three years - 1932 to 1935. She and the children took on the project to repaint the rocks on the hill which form the letter "H." It was a long distance for all these children to trek, carrying water jugs and lunches. I asked her what kind of paint they used and she said "some kind of whitewash." I would imagine it must have had some white lead as it has apparently stood up to the weather all these years.
Echo remembered that Agnes' brother, Johnny Hart, was janitor at the school at that time and a man named "Baldy" Smith owned the Palace Hotel. "Baldy" was married to an ex-prostitute.
It was to "Baldy's" wife that Echo perhaps owes her life. As her story goes, the children were playing outside the school when some came screaming to her that there was a big snake outside. Echo ran out, but before she could strike the snake it had bitten her index finger. They tried to reach Fallon's only doctor, but to no avail. Echo went to the Palace Hotel where a nurse lived, but it was "Baldy's" wife who slashed the finger and sucked out the venom, for it was indeed a rattlesnake! Echo was given a tin cup full of whiskey and ordered to drink it down and she did not hesitate to comply. Later, after the doctor was finally contacted, he said they had given her the best treatment, and since she already had drunk some whiskey he told her to send out for a bottle and drink the whole thing. Echo said she was not a "drinking lady," but for some reason it just went down "like water!" The next day found her back on the job teaching, none the worse for her experience!
Learning about Hazen has been a wonderful experience. Now, when I travel through the town and the desert surrounding it, I see not a desolate scene but a place once filled with railroads, builders, shop-keepers and children, a place where, for a brief time, Nevada life was in full bloom.
Next Stop —Hazen!!
MARY ELLEN SMITTEN
Reprinted from Inside Nevada's Schools: A Challenge for the Future, Copyright 1976.
Courtesy of the Nevada State Retired Teacher's Association.
I WAS LOOKING forward to my first school in Hazen, Nevada, in September of 1924.
The school was fairly new, having been built in 1918. It had two large classrooms, a hall and a large room for multi-purpose. I had been hired to teach the first four grades.
Hazen was a railroad community so nearly all the children lived within walking distance of school. There were a few from nearby farms that were brought in each day by their parents.
Hazen Standard Rural School c1918. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Kay Burkhart Collection)
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12 Mary Ellen Smitten
The Trustees decided the girls should be taught sewing. The upper grade teacher volunteered to teach the sewing class so 1/2 fell heir to the manual training class. The boys were so enthusiastic over their class that they wanted to have it every day instead of just on Friday.
The Hazen School became the first Standard Rural School in the state.
I lived at the Palace Hotel in Hazen. The Palace was a two story brick building, with a large dining room where we took our meals. The cook, Frank Murakami, was Japanese and became well known for his good meals. People from the surrounding area often came for his Sunday dinners.
It is rewarding to see where some of my former pupils are in the world today.
John Gamble, Superintendent of Public Instruction, was one of my first grade pupils. We planted trees and shrubs at the school on Arbor Day and although the school no longer exists, many of the trees are still growing even though forty years have passed.
I still hear from many of my Hazen pupils and have many fond memories of my "first school."
Nevada's Last Lynching
PHILLIP I. EARL
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF the town of Hazen in 1903 was almost singularly inauspicious, located as it was upon a barren sagebrush plain far from any established town and from any mining or agricultural activity which would justify its existence. Legend has it that the town was named for Brigadier General William Babcock Hazen, an aide to General William T. Sherman, of Civil War fame. This is undoubtedly the case, but when and by whom is something of a mystery. One source has it that the community was settled in 1869, but it does not appear on maps until 1903 when it became a stop on the new route of the Southern Pacific Railroad, opened to service on October 19, 1902.
Were it not for the Newlands Irrigation Project several miles south and the need for a tent settlement to house canal laborers, it is unlikely that the town would ever have amounted to much. Nevertheless, the need arose and the deed was done; hotels, saloons, brothels, churches, schools and other amenities of civilized life soon came to share the sterile wastes with the few remaining tents. A post office was established on April 25, 1904. By that time, preliminary work on the Truckee Canal was underway. The U.S. Geological Survey established a commissary in the community by late summer, and Leon Taylor, head of the U.S. Reclamation Service in Nevada, moved his office and that of the Engineering Division from Reno to Hazen on August 1, 1904.
As might well be expected, another aspect of civilized life came to plague the fledgling settlement--that of crime and all its attendant problems and concerns. Canal laborers, most of them young and single, regularly patronized the saloons and brothels and just as regularly were relieved of their wages by petty thugs and criminals who operated seemingly without restraint in the streets and alleys of the town. Hard-working citizens were often harassed in broad daylight as they passed the saloon area in the lower section of town, and many claimed to fear for their lives when obligated to venture out of their homes after dark.
Officials of Churchill County, in which Hazen was located, seemed unaware of, or indifferent to, the problems of the little town. Sheriff Robert Shirley seldom visited it, and the appointment of a constable, Jud Allen, a local hotel proprietor with no law enforcement experience, did little to alleviate the problem. Allen had made no arrests during his tenure in office, and the town lacked even a jail until the fall of 1904. At that time the citizens had gotten together and erected a small wooden structure near Allen's hotel. Until February of 1905 it had housed only an occasional drunk or a drifter who came out second best in a dispute with a bartender or a canal laborer.
The patience of Hazen's citizens was reaching a breaking point by 1905, and many were talking of vigilante action if something were not soon done. It was in this
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14 Phillip I. Earl
heightened, charged atmosphere that "Red" Wood was captured by local citizens and lynched, the last such execution in Nevada's history.
Wood, whose real name was William but who also went by "Nevada Red," was typical of Hazen's criminal element. An ex-convict who had served time both in Sing Sing Prison and at an institution in Iowa, Wood had previously been associated with the operation of a saloon in Derby, but had been run out of town when his partner died under mysterious circumstances in November of 1904. Subsequently he was seen in both Fallon and Reno, having been arrested and jailed in the latter city for an attempted robbery in a Commercial Row saloon shortly before coming to Hazen. At the time of his arrest Reno officers discovered and confiscated from his hotel room a complete opium outfit .
Early in the evening of February 27, 1905, Wood and a companion, one "Kid" Wildon, had attempted to rob two laborers near the Hazen train depot. The men put up a struggle, and the ensuing scuffle attracted the attention of the station agent and the telegrapher. The latter brought his shotgun out on the platform and fired a blast over the heads of the men. The would-be robbers took to their heels, but Wood stopped when a second charge was fired in his direction. Armed only with a straight razor, he gave himself up and was lodged in the small wooden jail.
Hazen's citizens were considerably agitated about the robbery and capture of Wood. Allen took the precaution of detailing a young stable hand to watch the jail in case an attempt were made to either free Wood or to lynch him. By 11:30 p.m. quiet was restored and Allen retired to his hotel for the night.
About 2 a.m. a mob of some thirty men appeared at the jail, hacked open the wooden door with an ax and pulled Wood into the street. A rope was placed about his neck and he was wrestled some thirty feet to a nearby telegraph pole. After Wood was bound hand and foot, the free end of the rope was thrown over the crossarm. Standing beneath the improvised gallows, he was asked if he had anything to say for himself. According to one witness he gasped out his innocence, made a plea for his life, but the rope tightened in mid sentence, and the next moment he swung into eternity. No cheers and little conversation emanated from the mob as Wood convulsed in the last throes of death. The rope was tied at the bottom of the pole, and his executioners melted into the darkness.
The body was not "discovered" until 10 a.m. the next morning when two women staying at Allen's hotel noticed it and gave the alarm. Others who saw it previously claimed that they took it for a dummy put up as a warning to the town's lawbreakers. Allen ordered it cut down immediately, and a coroner's inquest was held in the Hazen barbershop within the hour. According to one report the coroner's jury laid Wood out across two barber chairs, "...considered the telegraph pole and the rope and decided, after due deliberation, that 'Red' had come to his death by being hanged to a telegraph pole with a rope around his neck." No blame was assessed for the act, nor was any really expected.
Following the inquest a rough box was nailed together from some packing crates in the rail yard, and Wood was taken to the town cemetery. A simple service was conducted with six people in attendance, and the body was consigned to the earth. Whether or not his boots were removed is not known, but he did have the double honor of being accorded the town's first funeral and of becoming the first occupant of its new cemetery.
When newsmen from Reno and Fallon arrived later in the day, they found few people
Nevada's Last Lynching 15
Nevada's last lynching, Hazen, Nevada, February 28, 1905. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Agnes Hart Sever Collection)
willing to discuss the lynching. Both Allen and the stable hand claimed to have heard nothing all night long, in spite of the fact that both slept in Allen's hotel less than fifty feet from the jail. One reporter from the Reno Evening Gazette thought this to be rather strange inasmuch as the lock on the jail door had been broken with an ax. Also, Wood was a large man and had probably resisted in a boisterous manner. The newsman also noted that the rope was a new one and that only one store in town carried that particular type. He suggested to Allen that the store owner be queried about recent rope purchases, but was not heeded.
The state's press, with the exception of Fallon's newspapers, was generally critical of the events at Hazen and the hostile reaction of Hazen's citizens to such criticism was perhaps a measure of their guilt feelings. The "better element" of the town, the businessmen and those with families and a stake in the area, gave silent approval to the work of the mob, although none would consent to be quoted to that effect.
Sheriff Shirley declined to come out from Fallon, saying that the coroner's inquest had, in his judgement, settled the matter once and for all. Reached for a comment at Carson, Governor Sparks replied that he was satisfied to leave the matter with county officials and that there would be plenty of time for state action if they failed in their duty.
Wood's friends among Hazen's "criminal element" were something less than enthusiastic about the town's new innovation in law enforcement. While some discussed plans for getting back at the leaders of the mob, most were quietly getting their gear together and slipping away to healthier parts of the country.
16 Philip I. Earl
Not all the citizens of Hazen took the lynching seriously however. At least one youth saw one commercial possibility in the event. He obtained the rope used in the lynching, cut it into small pieces and sold them as souvenirs. The business proved to be so brisk that he purchased several new ones and did likewise. One newsman on the scene stated that there were enough pieces floating around to lynch all the men that ever disturbed the peace in a hundred such towns as Hazen.
News of Wood's death reached Carson City during a session of the state legislature and caused much comment in the chambers and halls of the capital. Although the senate took no formal action, Assemblyman James G. Cushing of Nye County introduced a resolution in the house which called the lynching a murder of the first degree and disgrace to the state and "the civilization of the age." The resolution called upon state law enforcement officials to bring those responsible to justice.
Assemblyman R. Leslie Smail of Churchill County took exception to the motion and spoke out strongly against it. His efforts were successful, largely because few of his colleagues had any interest in the matter one way or the other. Smail later told reporters that the action of the assembly should not be taken to mean approval of lynching.
"We believe lynching should be condemned," he said, "yet we do not believe that the people of Hazen should be censured for an act that any community would be guilty of. I voted against the censure and I will do so again."
Assemblyman Smail had no further occasion to defend the honor of Hazen's citizens as the matter was quietly dropped by the press. The general public lost interest in the controversy. U.S. Marshals later closed down some of the saloons, but the completion of the canal during the summer of 1905 considerably lessened the population of the town, virtually eliminating its crime problem.
For a number of reasons, Hazen's brief boom receded. The slide toward oblivion began on August 22, 1908, when a fire virtually wiped out the business district. Five months later, January 3, 1909, the Hazen Sampler burned to the ground. The camps of central Nevada had their own milling facilities by that time, and Hazen was soon out of the mining business. Depressed metals prices after World War I cut into traffic on the railroad going south, and automobiles and trucks took what rail traffic there was into Fallon. Hazen thus became the proverbial "wide spot in the road," doomed to just hang on with a gas station, a small store and a saloon.
Hazen stands today as a lonely sentinel on the sagebrush on U.S. 50 between Fallon and Fernley, a mocking caricature of its former days of bustling activity when a lonely man was found at the short end of a long rope on a breezy morning long ago.
A Voice From the Past:
The Diary of Delia Thompson Brown
MICHON MACKEDON
THE STORY OF Lahontan Valley can be told by many voices. One voice is that of the Native American, whose claim is first and whose legends, myths, and stories tell of a long and peaceful coexistence with the land. Another voice is that of the farmer, who emigrated to the valley of the lower Carson River to carve furrows in the desert and plant seeds in recalcitrant sand. Miners and businessmen have their voices, as do many wanderers who just "ended up" in what is now Churchill County. With most of the early male settlers came women, often arriving not because of choice but because of connection--connection to a husband or a father whose fortunes, or frustrations, led him to the high desert of Nevada. Their voices are rarely heard in the official histories or newspaper accounts of the time since their actions were not public ones. Nevertheless, their voices speak through the pages of diaries, letters and reminiscences and add to the local history, revealing details of daily life that official accounts often omit.
In the last ten years, diaries of pioneer women have received a great deal of scholarly attention. In 1982, in a book entitled, Women's Dairies of the Westward Journey, author Lillian Schlissel presented her study of the diaries of women who made the westward journeys during the middle of the nineteenth century. The preface to the book makes a clear point about the experiences of those early pioneers: most of the women who came west, in contrast to most of the men, did not want to make the trip in the first place. Schlissel further suggests that coming out west for the man fulfilled a psychological need, that it became part of a mythic quest pattern in which the man, by breaking away from his old associations and habits and by meeting the challenges of the westward trip, achieved new levels of energy and awareness. For the woman, however, the journey often represented the opposite--a draining of energy, a denial of domestic fulfillment, and a loss of identity through separation from kin.
Within the interpretive context of Schlissel's findings, the diary of Delia Thompson Brown emerges as both representative and unique. Her diary begins in 1860 with the departure from Huntley, Michigan, of Delia, then 32 years old, her husband John, and his four brothers and three sisters. It chronicles their westward journey and her life as an early Nevada settler, first in Silver City, Nevada, between 1861 and 1865, and later in Churchill and Pershing Counties, between 1865 and 1897, when the diary ends. The experiences she records take the reader beyond the overland trails to the mines and ranches of Nevada's early days. Although part of the diary has been lost, what remains is a matter-of-fact record of her daily activities and speculations, spanning almost forty years. In the final analysis, the story it tells is her own story, told in her own way, yet the
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18 Michon Mackedon
woman's perspective, as it emerges in the diaries of other "westering women," is present throughout.
One continuing refrain is the constant pain of separation from her home in Huntley, her mother and her sisters. Eight years after leaving Huntley she writes:
May 6, 1868. Eight years ago tonight was the last night I spent with loved ones in my far away home before starting on the trip "across the plains." My heart is sad tonight when I think of the changes since then. Oh, how many loved ones are buried from sight and their places vacant! My mother, sister, niece and others and here I am far away from all. My heart grieves for the presence of them tonight. I would not murmur at the dealings of God for He doeth all things well and yet my heart is sad, very sad.
August 18, 1868. This is my brother Harlow's birthday--30 years old and how plainly do the events of this day 30 years ago come up before my mind. Then with sisters and brothers, I was then going to school and our home circle was all complete. Father and Mother are sleeping their last long sleep, brothers and sisters are widely separated--"Oh, when to meet again." My heart is very sad when I dwell on these things.
Decades after her departure, the diary still records her yearning for home and family:
May 4, 1881. Ada's birthday--30 years old. How fresh the events of those days come to my mind and I so want to see the loved ones.
May 7, 1881. Twenty-one years today since we bade a fond farewell to dear ones and started on our trip "across the plains." I will not dwell on the event. Suffice it to say that I do long for a sight of the faces of the few absent ones left.
May 7, 1884. My mind has been busy with the past. How many of those who were with us thirty years ago are now gone from our gaze! God grant that we may meet where partings are unknown.
May 7, 1887. Twenty-seven years today since we made our trip across the plains. How long it seems.
Her loneliness is augmented by the fact that her husband, John Brown, is frequently away from home. In fact, Delia's references to him are almost always made in terms of where he has gone:
July 26, 1868. About two weeks since I went to the station and spent the day with Mrs. Hill
and Mrs. Cummings. Had a pleasant time. It had been six months since I was away from home
and had not seen a woman in that time. My husband has gone from home today to look for some
horses and it is very lonely when he is gone. We are having very warm weather and I don't like it
much. They have just begun their barley harvest and I hope John will bring me some letters and
papers tonight. I want to hear from the absent ones.
April 28, 1868. John went to Dayton last Tuesday and it is always lonely when he is gone.
We have not heard from the office [post office] in two weeks and so had nothing new to read and
no letters to answer.
Oct. 31, 1881. John gone to Mr. Allen's.
Nov. 1, 1881. John gone to Mr. Prichard's.
Nov. 2, 1881. John gone to Stillwater.
Nov. 4, 1881. John gone to Upper Sink again.
April 11, 1882. John gone to Stillwater.
April 12, 1882. John did not come last night but is here this evening.
April 13, 1882. John went to Stillwater again this evening and home as he goes to Wadsworth
in the morning.
A Voice From the Past 19
April 14, 1882. John left this morning with a load of hides and will bring back a load of groceries. I went to see Mrs. Brandon.
April 16, 1882. A windy morning. John came last evening and has gone to Cambers today. Stella [their daughter] went with him.
The picture that emerges from Delia's constant references to John's whereabouts is one which supports Schlissel's idea that life in the rugged west provided mythic challenges to men with energy and ambition like John Brown. According to the 1881 Thompson and West History of Nevada (page 367), Brown was at that time the owner of "a fine farm containing 660 acres of land, located on Old River, six miles below the old overland bridge, and twelve miles from the county seat." Thompson and West continues to describe 160 acres under cultivation and "a young orchard of promising fruit trees." Brown had begun to venture into stock-raising and "may be considered very successful in the business." He also served as Justice of the Peace of Stillwater Township and Sheriff of Churchill County. The diary implies that John was a convivial sort who often brought his friends home or enjoyed his business trips more than Delia thought necessary. Whatever the case, it is apparent that the same life that nourished John Brown slowly drained the spirit of his wife:
Oct. 29, 1882. Alone again today. Wonder if any other woman stays alone so much. I grieve myself nearly sick to think I am of no good only for what work I can do. Ah, well, my time is almost over. I have ever wished to please and be good but have failed and must suffer the penalty. Stella and her pa have gone to Stillwater.
March 25, 1883. John gone to Stillwater to change wagons again, and also to bring home some barley. I would have gone only it would be so late when he got home. Easter Sunday, this is.
Aug. 29, 1884. John went to Stillwater; said he would be home tonight but he don't come. Seems to me I never was so lonely. Wonder if any other woman stays alone so much.
Although so much of the diary contains entries like the above, dwelling on loneliness, an almost equal amount of space is devoted to the daily work she undertakes. Loneliness and labor are related in her life. In entries like the following there is a sense that hard work provides an outlet for frustration and may even serve to ward off despair:
Feb. 14, 1881. Twenty-seven years today since we were married. How many things have occurred in that time. Well, no need to rhapsodize or moralize--cannot change things. Washed today and a pleasant day, but chilly.
Jan. 2, 1883. Jasper started for Reno and John for Virginia City this morning. I wanted to go to Reno, but, as usual, had to wait. Washed today--had a large washing.
Dec. 23, 1884. Hung my clothes this morning and got them ironed. New River is very high. I have been trying lard and getting ready for Christmas seeing I could not go to Reno.
Putting aside the question of whether work served a psychological function, there is little doubt that Delia defined her days by the tasks she accomplished. The following series of entries enumerating chores done is quite typical of the diary, except during times when she's whitewashing the rooms of her house; then, the list doubles:
Aug. 1, 1882. Ironed this forenoon and done the mending this afternoon.
Aug. 2, 1882. Worked butter. Cleaned the cellar. Swept the chamber and got dinner. After
that sewed.
20 Michon Mackedon
Aug. 3, 1882. Still very warm. Cleaned the dining room floor and got dinner. Afternoon
sewed.
Aug. 8, 1882. Washed today. Very warm.
Aug. 9, 1882. Churned and scrubbed the kitchen.
Occasionally, brightening the otherwise dreary progression of days and chores, happy times are recorded. Delia's daughter Stella and her young friends appear in many of the entries of the 1880's. Stella, even before her teens, worked almost as hard as her mother--raking hay in the summer, washing clothes in the winter--but there is evidence of play as well. The reader catches glimpses of an active youth society on the banks of the Carson. Mention is made of "spelling school," an almost nightly activity. Stella often spends the night with her friends, and vice versa. She accompanies her father to Stillwater or "down the river for cattle and horses." Entries show Stella and her brother attending dances and lectures, one by "Mister Pike, the lawyer," at Stillwater, and "making their visits" to friends on New Years' Day. Delia's fondness for her only living daughter is apparent in entries like the following:
Nov. 4, 1883. Got the poultry caught and got the cash. John takes Stella to Wadsworth today. How I shall miss her I don't dare think. [The circumstances aren't entirely clear, but it appears that the cash was raised to send Stella away to a boarding school in California.]
Nov. 8, 1883. Men at work on the dam. No peace for me until I know my little girl is safe.
Dec. 31, 1884. Oh, this is the last day of 1884 and Stella's birthday and I had been so sure we would be together I can hardly bear the disappointment. Hope she is having a pleasant time wherever she is. [Stella was in California attending boarding school. She had planned to return for the holidays but was detained by bad weather.]
But the comfort Delia finds in Stella is clouded by memories of the deaths of two other children. The diary provides tragic insight into infant mortality in the nineteenth century. In 1861, shortly after arriving in the Comstock area, Delia gave birth to a little girl who survived only a short time. Willie, a son who survived well into adulthood, was born in 1863, followed by another son, Artie, born in 1866. (Stella was born December 31, 1868.) In November of 1867, the Browns journeyed, with their two young sons, from their new home in Churchill County to Dayton. Artie was taken ill with fever and died within days of the onset of his illness.
April 5, 1868. Willie has gone with his pa to Stillwater today and I am alone. I have no Artie to stay with me now. Oh, how I miss the darling boy and listen in vain for the patter of little feet I shall never hear. God help me to bear this and other trials aright.
March 28, 1884. Willie gone to Mr. Dillard's. Still cold though more pleasant....Our little girl's birthday if she were living.
March 29, 1884. This would be Arthur's 18th birthday if he were with us. Nearly 16 years since he was taken and we felt of how much of hope and how much of joy was buried up with a darling boy.
March 29, 1887. Our Arthur would be 21 today if living but God was good to him and took him while yet innocent and pure to dwell with him. I hope we may form an unbroken family by and by.
Delia often writes about Willie, her second born child. Like his father, he seems to enjoy the mobility and freedom offered by the rugged life of nineteenth century Churchill
A Voice From the Past 21
Early Lahontan Valley ranches visited by John and Delia Brown: William Bailey home c1880. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Lisle & Ruth Wightman Collection)
Allen Ranch, St. Clair c1900. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Herbert Marean Photograph, Margaret "Peg" Wheat Collection)
22 Michon Mackedon
County. As a small boy, he is almost always shown accompanying his father, so he is rarely home. Later, he holds down a series of jobs on ranches throughout the valley. As time passes, he apparently distances himself from his mother:
March 2, 1883. This is Willie's birthday--20 years old. My little boy has gone from me. I hope and pray he may be kept from evil.
March 3, 1883. Old Mr. Wightman staid [sic] here last night. He wants Willie to go and ride for him. I do not like to have him from home but suppose he will go.
March 10, 1883. Willie went this afternoon. Stella goes with him and home alone on Monday. It will be lonesome till then.
May 18, 1883. How I do want a letter from Will. Have heard that he has gone to Wyoming and I am so anxious.
March 2, 1884. Bright and beautiful. This is Willie's birthday--21 years old. We spent the day very quietly to what I had anticipated but things are not as I would like to have them. My great wish and care is for him to be a good, honorable and useful man. God guide and direct him aright.
Jan. 10, 1897. Will was home only for a few minutes. If he only were different and acted glad to be with us I could stand the rest, but he seems so indifferent to our welfare.
Feb. 7, 1897. Nice day. John saw Will but he don't think he can get away today so I must wait longer. If he was where I could not see him possibly I could bear it better, but "to be near and yet so far."
The diary provides little view of life outside the immediate circle of home. She records the deaths of several relatives and friends, reinforcing the sense that the early Valley life was, indeed, precarious. In 1882, Delia reports of hearing of the death of a neighbor, Mrs. Daniels, who left behind a small son. Two years later, death strikes the same family again. She writes, "We have just heard little Charley Daniels was buried yesterday. It was a sudden death. The little one has gone to his mother." In June, 1884, the drowning of John's own brother, James Brown, in the swollen waters of the Carson, brings death, again, close to home. In 1884, she and John attend the funeral of Asa Kenyon, the keeper of Ragtown Station. On February 17, 1887, she records that "a sad accident at Mrs. Kenyon's Tuesday evening. Freddy, her only boy, shot himself accidentally about ten. Will be buried tomorrow."
A major fire in Wadsworth is reported in the diary because it directly affected the Browns:
April 19, 1884. One week since I wrote here. We started for Reno; staid [sic] in Wadsworth that night and went up in the morning on the cars. Found all well. We had only two days to visit. Tuesday night word came that Wadsworth was burnt and we did not know but our rig was gone, but on coming down we found our things alright, but most everyone burnt out. Some saved their things and a great many nothing.
Stella Brown was married in 1887 to George Webb. In late 1892, John and Delia sold their Old River ranch to H. Ackley and moved to Lovelock. Delia Brown became ill in 1897, and they returned to Churchill County, where the Webbs lived. Delia died there in 1903. John died in 1907 at the home of daughter Stella, then residing in Reno with her husband and four children. A sad postscript to their lives rests in the tragic story of Willie's death. In December, 1907, while leading one of W. W. Williams' twelve animal
A Voice From the Past 23
teams from Fallon to Alpine, he apparently caught his foot in the stirrup of his horse. The Churchill County Eagle, December 5, 1907, reported that the "near wheels of the three heavily loaded wagons had passed over his head....His hat was about 30 feet from the body, his pipe a step or two away, while the blacksnake whip was wrapped about his neck as he was accustomed to carry it." The obituary reveals that Willie had been elected Churchill County Clerk in 1902 and had served two terms.
A reading of Delia Brown's diary brings personal vision to the generalizations about western women in the 19th century. Like many of her female contemporaries, she lived by the watchwords "duty" and "patience." Her days were filled with the domestic demands of pre-technology housekeeping. She loved her children, grieved inconsolably for those she lost, but accepted what she believed was her lot in life. Her life, compared to that of John's, was static and lonely. Until the end, she yearned for the home and family she left behind in Huntley, Michigan. She emerges as a stoic figure, watching the activities of the men around her who were engaged in meeting challenges they had chosen for themselves.
Backin' Jim
E. ISABELLE McCLELLAND HANSEN
Reprinted from Book of Nevada Poems, Copyright 1927. Selected and Arranged by the Nevada Federation of Women's Clubs
I've been listenin' to you wimmen
All a-sayin' what you think
Of the good and bad of livin'
Up here on the Carson Sink.
But I know as I've set thinkin'
Of the children an' of him,
That to me the place don't matter--
I'm out here backin' Jim.
For he thinks in this new country
There's a chance to get ahead;
He was sick of Navin' bosses
An' of huntin' jobs, he said.
So we're out here on a homstead (sic)
Clearin' sagebrush with a vim,
An' I'm cookin' beans and bacon
In the desert, backin' Jim.
Sometimes when I look around me
An' see miles of brush and sand,
It is hard to think that someday
This will be a fruitful land;
Then I ketch the sight of ditches,
Full of water to the brim,
An' I think: "Who knows?" It may be.
An' I stay, a-backin' Jim.
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Backin' Jim 25
A Newlands Project farm c1910. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Truckee Carson Irrigation District Collection)
Yes, I'm backin' Jim. The landscape
Ain't no matter, for he sees
While he's workin' diggin' ditches
All the valley green with trees,
Miles and miles of fragrant pasture
Stretchin' to the purple rim
Where the clouds rest on the hilltops,
Bringin' visions to my Jim.
So I try to see with his eyes,
Men can look ahead an' plan,
To a woman waitin' it's harder
For she ain't built like a man;
When the restless sand goes flyin'
On the wind, I smile at Jim,
Sweep it out an' don't say nothin'
Hatin' to discourage him.
26 E. Isabelle McClelland Hansen
When I tire of breakin' water,
Or of cookin' or of bills,
I go outdoors in the sunshine
Where my eyes can see the hills;
For I find a comfort in them
Like the psalmist in the hymn,
An' it cheers me up an' rests me,
Keeps my heart up, backin' Jim.
Out of school time, plantin' wind-breaks Tanned and healthy, blithe of heart, Both the boys do chores a whistlin', Each one glad to do his part.
When we have these broad fat acres
Planted out in payin' trim
No more jobs an' no more bosses
In Nevada, backin' Jim.
Yes, it's hard upon us wimmen,
For we are the pioneers,
But I think we'd all feel better
If we could look down the years.
There's a future for this country
Where men work with faith and vim,
An' I seem to feel it comin'
Workin' here a-backin' Jim.
Another Voice:
The Correspondence of Alma Jenkins, 1910
Fallon, Nevada
July 10, 1910
Dear Brother & Sister and Baby,
How are you all? It is so d--- hot that I can't make up my mind to write since the fifth of July it has been so hot. Before that it was nice and cool--the night between the third and fourth, it froze ice over the chicken's water and was dandy and cool all day of the fourth. We had to sit in the woods with wraps on. If we went now we could take our clothes off.
Did the folks celebrate your 15th anniversary? I suppose you folks had a good time if your ... girls were all home once more.
Well, this kid of mine is into everything. Just now she is amusing herself shaking my chair. She is into everything. I expect you have the same experience with Gertrude. How is the little honey these days? Does she remember her old Aunt Alma yet? How I would love to see her.
You wanted to know if I wanted any of your old thistles, no, many thanks. We have a second cousin to that by name foxtail, it looks very much like barley but it acts different you know.
Well, Joe, did you and your sister ... have a nice visit? I expect she has been to the Falls and returned by this time.
I had a letter from Oscar saying that he and Louise expected to spend their fourth at Sheboygan and the Falls. I wish I could have been there too. I wish you folks could see Elizabeth. She is a little peach, into everything.
We have built on our hut, it seems a little more like home now. Talk about heat, I've never seen the like. It was very nice of the folks to give a blowout for Twila [Winterfelt]. I felt she had a good-time.
The wind is blowing and when the hot sand hits you it seems as though it would burn a hole through you. I set about 110 eggs and got 38 chickens. What do you think of me for a farmer? How are all your folks anyway? And, when you write, why can't you tell a fellow a lots of news? I am just dying to hear some, THAT is some good news. I hope this soon lets up.
Baby has the trots again and I think it is only brought on by this blooming hot weather. I hope Frank [Kalk] is better by this time. It would make it bad for his family if he should be taken away.
27
28 Alma Jenkins
An early homestead after the first year's improvements c1910. (Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.)
Joe, where are Ted Thomas's boys staying now? I feel for those poor kids. How they must miss their mother! [Lamina] sent Elizabeth a doll cart like the one Janice has and when it came she seemed to think it was for her to sit in, and grandma sent her a little cart. It is quite hard for her to get turned around, I wish you could see how mad it makes her! I often feel sorry for her, to have to play and amuse herself all day long. I hope Hanna and baby are well these days. Tell Hanna not to work too hard, for it don't pay. Well, the old man says he will carry this to the mail box. So good-bye.
With much love to all, your sister
Alma O. J.
Fallon, Nevada
August 10, 1910
Dear Brother,
Well, old boy, what got into you to write such a long letter? That is a long one for you. As before, two sheets is the limit, and it seemed real good to get it and find out some news for once. I feel real sorry for the Thomas boys, as it must be hard to be separated so young in life. It seems hard enough later on. I am real glad [Twila Winterfelt] thinks I have such a nice home. I will say it is as good and better than the average homesteader, but that isn't saying much.
Another Voice 29
Well, Joe, Fallon is a lot better place than Hazen, but that isn't saying much either. Your eastern homes aren't to be compared with these western shacks. But it is all in getting used to it.
Well, I want to thank you folks many times for the dandy postal ... it is fine of all the girls. Norma and Clara both look real well, and so does little Gertrude. And she hasn't grown a bit more than I imagined she had. My how I would love to see her and give her a good big kiss and hug, but I guess it will be a long time.
I had a postal from Oscar this morning, he is in Chicago to the Knights Templar Conclave. He said he was having a dandy time and that he marched 3 1/2 hours. Tell Hanna she is foolish in saying she feels as she does, for the folks not staying with her; for I don't think anything of the kind, and she is just a much as they are. I think the reason Oscar don't come oftener to the Falls, is father's being married; that is what I think. Oscar has never said anything to me, only that he had been at Sheboygan and the Falls, and that Gertrude and Janice were two of the nicest girls he ever saw, and I felt hurt because he hadn't seen that little honey of mine.
If she calls her papa to dinner and he isn't listening to what she is saying, she says "say deary, you come and eat your dinner." One day he was sitting in a chair with his eyes closed and she said, "Papa, wake up and hear the birds sing." He laughed like a good fellow to hear her say it.
I was so sorry to hear of Anna [Gerton's] death. Poor girl has always been sick.
What is Mill doing now? Does he live with his mother? I had a postal from Ed saying that Mae has been operated on and that she was under the chloroform for forty-five minutes. Ed and Mae haven't much use for me. She is mad if Ed gives me a kiss, it makes the poor girl cry. And he wanted me to come and see him and she made him write to me and have him withdraw his invitation. That is , he said he would pay my fare, and the nicest part of it was I never accepted it. And so of course she need never worry about my coming to see her for when I do go home, I will never go the see her. That makes me think I have a chance to go home next summer but I am not going to take it. I won't go anywhere till I can pay my own fare.
It is this way, Edna and Lamitta were to pay Mary's way to [Lawrence] and Grandma had them write and say that she was going to pay Mary's way and that they should pay mine and baby's way home next anniversary. If I went that way I would be expected to stay at Grandma's and there are others I would like to visit too. I will go visiting when I can pay my own fare and not before. You know when folks are poor, they are independent too.
Ed [continues] sending me magazines and then he left it to Mae and she began sending some from 1907, and I joked her about it and she hasn't sent one since; but I don't feel as though I wanted her to wipe her feet on me even if I am poor and I intend to let her know it too. I think I am as much as she is any day. We are having some nice cool weather these days and so I expect you are too. I see by the news that Emily Hertzberg had been home. How are her father and mother getting along?
The watermelons and muskmelons are ripe and it seems good to have these too. I don't suppose that small fruit will be very plentiful at home this year if it is so dry. You better dig ditches and irrigate. I got a 10 lb. [pail] of lard the other day and paid $2.10 for it. So far we have about 30 tons of hay for sale and all it brings is $6 a ton. Oscar says it is $23 a ton at [Mamutte] . We expect to have about 45 tons for sale, the rest we will have to have for our own use.
30 Alma Jenkins
Harvesting melons on a Newlands Project farm c1910. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Truckee Carson Irrigation District Collection)
Well, I don't know of any news so will say good-bye with lots of love to you and Hanna.
Your sister,
Kisses for baby from baby
Yes, I was very much surprised to hear of Maggie Holland's death, but I can't for the life of me see how brick cheese could cause her death.
Fallon, Nevada
Aug. 28, 1910
Dr. R.M. Nichols
Sheboygan Falls, Wis
Dear Dr.,
I have had a severe attack of appendicitis. Dr Worden advised me to have an operation. But I thought I would never be able to stand the operation as sick as I was. I asked him if I couldn't wait till I was over this attack. He said I was the one that had to
Another Voice 31
do the suffering to suit myself. Every breath I take hurts. Would you advise an operation? And would it be as soon as I am strong enough to stand the trip home? I am writing this laying on my back. I can't lay on either side. I have got to be lifted like a baby. Tell father and the boys of my illness and be sure and write soon for if I can stand the trip home I would rather have the opertion performed there. I am so afraid that I will have another. I have had several slight attacks since the one I had home and you treated me for it. But I never had anything like this before.
Yours truly,
Alma 0. Jenkins
The Dr. said I could be in one of those spells so I would rather have the operation the
sooner the better.
It took me a day and a half to write this note.
Fallon, Nev.,
Sept. 6, 1910
Dear Mr. Osthelder:
We know you must be waiting anxiously for particulars. Alma took sick a week ago Friday. She was ailing for some time before but complained mostly of headache and indigestion. Friday night about two o'clock she had severe pains in her side and we called the doctor. He told her to stay in bed for a week or two. For the rest of that week she seemed to feel fairly well but kept her bed. The following Friday night she seemed much worse and in attempting to turn over on her side she said that something broke, (This was on Sunday night, not Friday) and from that time on she suffered very much. In fact, we had to keep her under chloroform all day Monday. This same day Papa got two doctors, tried to get more but could not, and they told her that her only hope was an operation. They said that her appendix had broken open that Sunday night and the puss had passed into the lining of the bowels. The first thing Tuesday morning they took her to town on a spring cot in an easy riding wagon. She withstood the ride very well, so they said. There not being a hospital here the doctors took her to an office room arranged for the purpose. Everyone feared that she would not recover from the anesthetic for she was so weak. The operation was as well done and by as competent a doctor as you could have found in the East. Don't let this cause you worry or regret. She was in a terrible condition they said. As soon as the first cut had been made the matter and puss burst all over the floor and table. They drained over a quart from the bowels, in fact the puss had reached to the liver. She recovered nicely from the anesthetic and looked so much brighter that we all felt very hopeful. But that hope was soon dispelled for her heart was not strong enough and she passed quietly away conscious to the last minute.
Don't feel that Papa did not do as much for her as you might have done. He did the best he could, poor man. We got [your Dr. Nichols'] telegram the very morning that they operated. But under the conditions we could not wait. Had we known what we know now we might have saved her the additional pain.
32 Alma Jenkins
I would like to extend my sympathies, Mr. Osthelder, for I know what an awful shock it must be to you. It would not have seemed so bad had she been there [and] died at home among those dear to her.
Most sincerely yours,
Edna Jenkins
P.S. This may be interesting to her old doctor. The surgeon (Dr. Gardner), said that about one-half inch of the appendix remained and that had every appearance of having remained in that condition four or five years. He seemed to think that the appendix must have burst at some time before. But I wonder if this is the case how and where all that puss could have formed.
E.L.J.
The Sheboygan Herald
Sheboygan, Wisconsin,
Sept. 17, 1910
OBITUARY
Mrs. DeWitt Jenkins
Mrs. DeWitt Jenkins died on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 1910 at Fallon, Nevada, following an operation for appendicitis. The deceased whose maiden name was Alma Osthelder, was the only daughter of Joseph Osthelder, one of the best known pioneer residents of Sheboygan Falls. She was born in this village on June 26, 1874 and united in marriage to Mr. Jenkins on April 17, 1907. From that time until a year ago last July they resided at Milwaukee and Sheboygan, moving from the latter place to Fallon, Churchill Co., Nev., where they lived on an irrigated farm about six miles from town. Last week Monday a telegram was ...dangerously ill and her brother Louis Osthelder started next day for Fallon, but before his arrival she had been removed to the home of a physician in Fallon where she died following an operation.
The remains were brought here Tuesday night at 10:00 o'clock via Sheboygan, accompanied by her husband and little 2 1/2 year old daughter and her brother Louis, who were met at the depot in Sheboygan by other members of the family and a few friends. The funeral took place at the parental home at the corner of Broadway and Pine streets at 2:00 o'clock Wednesday afternoon, the Rev. N.D. Stanley of St.Peter's Episcopal church officiating. Internment in the Falls cemetery. The floral tributes were many and beautiful.
The deceased is survived by her husband and daughter Elizabeth aged 2 1/2 years, her father and four brothers, Joseph P., Oscar P., Louis and Edwin.
Death is sad under most all circumstances, but when dissolution takes place far from the home and kinsfolk, it seems to add to the burden of sorrow felt by the family and to appeal more keenly to the sympathetic temperament of friends, and so it is in the case of Alma. - Sheboygan County News.
Early Ranchers--View of a Courtship
ROBERTA CHILDERS
Reprinted from Magee Station and the Churchill Chronicles, Copyright 1985
Courtesy of the Author
WHILE MAGEE'S STATION took shape, La Plata City's financial pillars hoped its designation as county seat would save their investments. Taking shape, too, was the romance between Sarah Magee's eldest daughter, Sarah Jane McKeachie Magee and David Moroni Wightman.
What motivated David beyond exuberant youth when he left Payson, Utah Territory is not known. Perhaps he heard whisperings and rumblings from the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Then too, some of the Mormons recalled in 1857 to Utah told glowing tales of the rugged hills, the rich valleys of the Carson River country. Perhaps their tale of gold placers in a canyon above Spafford Hall-Chinatown--names later to be changed to Nevada City and Dayton--and nuggets free for the taking tempted him. Restrictions imposed by the Mormon Hierarchy might have caused resentments.
David arrived first in Ophir July 4, 1859. He was now twenty. He drove teams for awhile. That year he could have driven a team to Ragtown in Upper Sink. There was the river, with vegetation on its banks, and there was a vast valley of sagebrush to attest the soil's fertility. Below it was Carson Lake, circled with pasture grass, wild hay and tules.
That year, Captain James H. Simpson surveyed a Salt Lake-Carson City wagon road which passed south of Carson Lake. Soon, it would be the route of the Pony Express west to Hooten Wells and Fort Churchill.
When Lahontan Valley settlement began, a road was opened straight north through the flag lake country, afterward known as the Big Island and Little Island ranches. John Sheehan's description of a later time on the Big Island still gives the feel of the flag country:
You take it now, it is all ranch country. But you take it when I was down there. It was nothing, but that house on the big island, where we lived and hundreds of acres of tules - patch after patch of tules, with sloughs and lakes running through them. We burned the tules every fall, as soon as they would dry, and the cattle got most of the grass out of them. We fired them and we burned them all.
His wife Myrtle added:
My Uncle Bailey owned all that place at that time. Dad would take us kids down there. We had to nearly swim on the slough going across. We went around through the willows and then wind around tules all the rest of the way.
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34 Roberta Childers
John Sheehan again:
Oh, that place, there was two islands, the big island and the little island. On the big island where our house was. And we cut 2500 tons of hay. Of wild hay on that ranch...Gosh, we went to work and cleared that off. And there was hundreds of acres of ground. Now it is all under cultivation.
That was much later than the 1860's. Bailey did not own the Island Ranch at the time Magee built his station.
No recorded owners were found for Old Adobe [Sink Station], Wildcat or Rock Springs. If the ground was surveyed, those place-names did not appear in official plats. Simpson's 1859 road was slowly replaced by newer and more popular routes.
Wightman abandoned Wildcat after the Pony Express failed, although he held on to Rock Springs for cattle grazing. In a diary entry, Delia Brown once noted that the men had taken cattle to Rock Springs--it was an overnight trip. Camel trains, loaded with Sand Springs salt, are believed to have used the Simpson-Pony Express road after the saline deposits were discovered in 1864. Such traffic would be short-term, since the Central Pacific railroad cut prices on out-of-state salt after 1869, ruining a local industry.
It is said that in 1863 the Allen family moved to Wildcat. Myrtle Sheehan, who was an Allen girl, passed on family legends of their Wildcat days. Later, according to one map, family patriarch Cranston Allen and wife lived at Sink Station and surveyed land to the north.
J.M. Sanford moved to Sink Station for a time in 1863. He took up land above the station which later involved him in a court case against James Wilson.
David M. Wightman's original ranch survey in 1862 enclosed 238.98 acres. In April of 1862, he built a ditch from the Carson's South Branch--later called Magee Channel-to irrigate his land. This predates, or is contemporary with Doolittle's ditch commenced in spring, 1862 as reported in Thompson & West. These seem to be the only ditches opened and recorded in 1862. By the end of 1863 there were several more, and by 1865 there were many. The number of irrigation canals increased each year until disputes over water became numerous and violent. This happened in many regions of Nevada Territory and, in 1889, the legislature finally passed a law requiring all water claims to be a matter of county record.
Wightman took up more land. He bought out his partner, J.J. McClellan, as Joseph Cushman also ended his association with Byron Sherman.
In 1862 Dillard and Rinewalt [Rhinewalt] settled land east of Wightman. Between them and Redman-Waller Station, J.M. Barrett claimed open range. Dillard eventually worked more than 1000 acres.
David Wightman set about to find new markets for his hay in Virginia City, as well as supplying forage to emigrants passing his corrals. Descendants say that the old rock ruins near the Overland Stage road in a draw below Lahontan Dam were erected by Wightman to supply his teams with water and feed on his overnight hauls to Virginia City. It was also used later by Bill Bailey as a rest stop for cattle on the trek to his Comstock slaughter house.
Though wild hay grew profusely on the outskirts of Carson Lake, it was only a spring crop. Wightman built a huge box-like press. Hay was dumped into it, men trampled the hay down while boards were laid on top of the packed grasses. Two beams then
Early Ranchers--View of a Courtship 35
Sarah Jane McKeachie Magee Wightman c1875. (Churchill County Museum & Archive--Lisle & Ruth Wightman Collection)
compressed the load into bales tied by hand. Such bales were large and unwieldy, but stacked neatly in wagons for delivering to stage stations and livery stables. D.M.'s grandson, Lyle [Lisle] Wightman, recalled this old hay press as still on the ranch when he was small.
Wightman added to his ranch by purchasing state land for $1.25 per acre. Later, the place totalled 1200 acres, five times the size of the 1862 survey, said descendants.
36 Roberta Childers
In addition to being neighbors, D.H. Dillard and Wightman became good friends. On December 1, 1864 D.H. Dillard and Charlotte Budacomb were married by Judge James M. Barrett, with David M. Wightman and young Sarah Jane Magee as witnesses.
The idea was infectious. On January 19, 1865 according to the old Justice of the Peace records, Judge Barrett married David M. Wightman, now twenty-five years old, and Sarah Jane Magee, who was not yet sixteen. The Dillard newlyweds witnessed this ceremony. David and Sarah might have eloped, as no family members of Sarah's made the witness list. Apparently, there was no legal restriction on minimum ages for marriage. For example, the Guthrie girl was only fourteen when she eloped to Dayton.
David Wightman had previously built an adobe house on his ranch. Here, he and young Sarah set up housekeeping. This was not a bad catch for Sarah. The county Day Book showed Witeman [sic] Ranch valued at $3000, plus other property eligible for taxation. He paid $66 in various taxes that same January of 1865. Next year his tax burden totaled $100.25 including the assessment on that fancy watch.
By January of 1865, the Magees lived on their headquarters at Magee Station. Did they give a celebration for newlyweds David and Sarah? In later years, Magee Station was the locale for many big parties.
On January 1st, 1866 Delia Brown, shortly after Samuel Fogg's nuptials, told her diary•
On Christmas we were invited to a sumptuous dinner of roast chicken and all the fixings, and thus was our commencement in this new place. John (her husband) is working for Mr. Taylor while he is spending the winter in Carson.
There are great possibilities for general farming and stock feeding upon the lands along the river with several nice farms that have been taken up. John and I visited with David M. Wightman, who has been tilling soils on the Sink since 1860, coming from Virginia City, where he stopped briefly. He married Sarah J. Magee, one of the seven daughters of another homesteader, William "Pap" Magee, who runs a station stop. Mr. Wightman also keeps Rock Springs Station and told us some hair-raising skirmishes he had with the Piutes there shortly after his arrival. Once after throwing a drunk red man out of his station, a group of them returned with the intention of scalping him. With some fast talking he managed to exchange his life for a bright wool sweater he was wearing. Some say the Saints were once in pursuit of him as he had deserted their faith.
Sarah and David Wightman had thirteen children, though not all of them reached maturity. Some were buried on the Wightman ranch, but their graves have been plowed over now, and the headstones are missing.
According to Lofthouse and Sheehan recollections, Sarah Wightman always maintained a very aristocratic bearing and had a sweet disposition. She was a finicky housekeeper, forcing her own and neighbor children to clean their feet before entering her home.
In 1881, David built her a fine, two-story house, which is still on the old ranch.
Her second child, Charles, was born in Carson City. Probably, her confinement and the services of a doctor in Nevada's capitol were the results of a hard first labor and an anxious husband. Most Lahontan Valley women gave birth in their homes, assisted by midwives. Sarah Magee, Lizzie Magee Murphy and Nancy Sanford are all shown as midwives in 19th century birth certificates.
Inez--Mrs. Will Harmon--Nancy Sanford's daughter, once told how those women,
Early Ranchers--View of a Courtship 37
David Moroni Wightman home built in 1881 c1968. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Doris Drumm Collection)
too, so often laid out the dead. At an answering shudder, she added, gently, "No, you don't feel that way. These are your friends, you want them to look as nice as possible, it is the last thing you can do for them," and, of course, she was right.
... While the other Magee girls did not marry as early as young Sarah Jane did, it was not from lack of suitable swains, for Mrs. Magee set a good table, the station was well stocked with hay and grain from their fields, they had the bar and they bordered the main routes to Reese River and Belleville. There were parties and dances. The girls were well versed in homemaking arts.
When she was twenty, Mary, second oldest girl at home, and William "Billy" Pierson, known as the "kid teamster," became engaged. Billy headquartered at Magee Station while delivering freight to Alpine. Accompanied by Sarah and David Wightman, they were married in Stillwater in December, 1876 by J.M. Sanford, with Nancy Sanford as witness. The marriage was duly certified by County Recorder I.H. Kent and later entered in the Justice of the Peace book. Actual marriage dates and those entered in the JP book varied; justices often waited for days before they got around to bringing their records up to date.
After Mary had packed and left with her new husband, the girls found Belle in the bedroom crying. Belle always made biscuits. "Who will make the pies?" she quavered, "We don't know how. Mary's gone and how will we ever know if she used milk or cream in the pie crust?"
True, her absence was felt. Mary and Lizzie had done all milking and put up big
38 Roberta Childers
crocks of butter. Mary spoke later of cutting ice, too, to store in the station's ice house. Mary, though, had always refused to wait on the bar. Lizzie often did, when it was necessary.
The Role of Women in Nevada's Early History
DORIS D. DWYER
THE PLACE OF women in Nevada's experience is not easy to address. There are legitimate reasons why this is so, but the primary obstacle seems to be a relative lack of interest in how women contributed to the history of the state. After all, has not Nevada, now and in the past, been one of the most "male" oriented of all states?
Women's experience in this area begins, of course, with the untold generations of Indian women who coped with an indescribably harsh environment for thousands of years. Unfortunately, no written language existed to record their experiences. It was left to American and other emigrant women to leave a record of women's roles in the area's history.
It is, ironically enough, appropriate to begin with the male experience. The first white man known to have entered Nevada was the explorer Jedidiah Smith. Of course, all he was trying to do was to get back to Salt Lake, where his fellow trappers were gathering. Smith was fleeing from an Indian attack on his men in Spanish California, and it took him twenty-one days to reach his trapping rendezvous on Salt Lake. He had no map, and no previous knowledge of the Great Basin to guide him. Indeed, he did not know that it was an area of interior drainage--that fact was left for the Pathfinder, John C. Fremont to unravel. Yet professional historians and others interested in the state's heritage have been drawn to Smith like a magnet, so excited are we to be able to lay claim to one so illustrious as Jedidiah Smith. Somehow it allows Nevada, a land settled so late in the national experience, to be more a part of America's heritage.
But how many are familiar with the name of Nancy Kelsey, the first white woman to cross what is now Nevada, without a map or any other aids, except for the small party of men with her, all of them equally as ignorant as Nancy of the terrain through which they were passing? Nancy Kelsey was a member of the famous Bidwell Emigration Party, the first wagon train to cross the Great Basin in 1841. Originally part of a larger party, a group under John Bidwell decided to break away from the usual route to Oregon and try their luck going south, hoping to cut off a few hundred miles. Nancy Kelsey, a seventeen-year-old mother with a one year old infant, thus became the first white women to enter Nevada's history. Neither she nor any other member of the Bidwell Party remained in the Basin. Few Americans stayed in the area during the 1840's; for men and women alike, Nevada (then part of the Mexican nation) attracted no permanent white settlers until 1849, and even then, no women were among them.
The Bidwell pioneers are remembered in several ways. They had no map to guide them to California, and they included the first woman overland emigrant to reach California. But the real legacy of the party was the vicious in-fighting that transpired
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between the co-leaders John Bidwell and John Bartleson, as well as the notorious incident of Bartleson running off with the provisions intended for the entire group. Mrs. Kelsey, performing the tedious but indispensable chores of cooking, caring for her child and other "female' duties, comes out looking heroic in comparison.
And then there are the Mormon women, members of numerous parties sent out by Brigham Young to incorporate Nevada Territory into the Mormon Domain. (Indeed, for thirteen years this area was the western half of Utah Territory). A number of writers have studied Mormon attempts to settle Carson, Eagle, Pleasant and Washoe Valleys, as well as several communities in the Southeastern part of the state. Rarely a mention, though, is made of the female members of these communities. The Mormons, perhaps more than any other early settlers in Nevada, were more dependent on their women, because, unlike the solitary mining men on the Comstock, Mormon men were part of communities always centered around the family. Mormon bans on mining were due in part to efforts to protect women and children from the perceived violence and incivility of the transient, male-dominated mining towns.
Mormon women are true unsung heroes in the development of Nevada, and yet the most famous reference to these Mormon women, and one that has unmercifully plagued them, is Mark Twain's reference to them in his novel Roughing It.. Upon seeing the Mormon women on his trek west, Twain commented:
I was touched. My heart was wiser than my head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly and pathetically 'homely' creatures and as I turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I said, "No--the man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh censure--and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of open-handed generosity so sublime that the nations should stand uncovered in his presence and worship in silence.
Aside from such mini-folk heroines as Grandmother Lee, who fought off attacking Indians threatening her Mormon settlement, Mormon women during this time have been relegated to the huge pile of oppressed groups suffering from Twain's literary whims.
And then there are the prostitutes. Every visitor to Virginia City is regaled with the story of Julia Bulette, the popular prostitute murdered in her bed. Not only was she treated to one of the most elaborate funerals in the history of Virginia City, but the respectable ladies of Virginia City, in an attempt to be even more respectable, refused to allow Julia's corpse to remain in the cemetery, and so she lies, at the other end of town, in a lonely but celebrated grave. Stories about Julia Bulette abound, but they intended to scintillate and titillate. Only recently have objective studies been done about how important prostitution was to the growth of the Comstock. Certainly it is as important as, and inextricably linked with, the "saloon," that quintessential male institution written about extensively by writers of the history of the Comstock.
Then there is the most famous Nevada woman of them all: Sarah Winnemucca, daughter of old Chief Winnemucca, and granddaughter, through her mother, of the fabled Chief Truckee, who guided early emigrant trains over the Sierras and whose most prized possession was his "rag friend," a note from Fremont giving him safe passage through enclaves of hostile whites.
There are several accounts available on Sarah Winnemuccca, including one that she wrote herself. Published in 1883, with the assistance of some wealthy Boston matrons,
The Role of Women 41
Life Among the Piutes was the first published work by a Native-American woman. But so harsh was Sarah on the white powers that controlled Nevada and its Indian reservations, that the book was ridiculed from one end of the state to the other. In the Nevada newspapers of the time, there is barely a civil reference to this dashing woman from the past. Referred to derisively as Princess Sallie, accused constantly of drunkenness and getting into brawls (much of which was true) she was not spoken of respectfully in the state newspapers, even on her death in 1891. Yet in the East, and even in San Francisco, she was a celebrity of great renown. Considered a spokeswoman of her people, she constantly worked for educational facilities for Indian children and railed against the corrupt reprobates who served as Nevada Indian agents at that time.
Sarah's place in Nevada history has been an ambiguous one. Ridiculed by whites in her lifetime, she has been given a great deal of consideration in recent years. She is revered and granted perhaps more credit than she deserves. Once Indians were defeated by American military forces and relegated to reservations, they ceased being fearful stereotypes and gradually became romanticized figures. Such is the case with Sarah. Recent biographies, long overdue, give her almost sole credit for protecting her people from grasping white settlers to the exclusion of influential Indian men, such as Natchez, of the Humboldt Paiutes, and Numaga, the great Paiute strategist responsible for the rout of white volunteer forces in the Pyramid Lake War of 1860. This is a classic example of the attempt to incorporate minorities and women into our nation's history--sometimes we overdo it. But generally, with the passage of time, the pendulum seeks adjustment.
Sarah Winnemucca may be the most dashing and courageous of our Nevada women, but it was not "Princess Sallie" who writers latched onto in a frantic search for Nevada heroines. Sarah was Indian, after all, and thus had two crosses instead of one to bear.
Initially, the "celebrated woman' label rested with Eilley Orrum, the famous Washoe Seeress and wife of Sandy Bowers, lonely prospector turned multi-millionaire. Aficionados of Nevada history delighted in Eilley's search for a husband, which culminated in her literally striking pay dirt when Sandy's claim turned out to be a part of the Comstock Lode. But Eilley was an eccentricity, one of many simultaneously delightful/pathetic characters that traversed the streets of the Comstock during the heyday of the mining bonanza.
The first woman to really emerge as an important female historical figure was more in keeping with Nevada's male-oriented mindset. Until recently Nevada history has relied heavily on recounting the political and economic experience of the state. These are, of course, appropriately "male" domains. Only recently has social history emerged as a significant component of the state's written record.
It is natural then, that the first "important" woman would come from the political and economic realms. That woman was Anne Martin, an authentic heroine, a suffragette with a national reputation who became the first woman to run for the United States Senate from Nevada. Predictably she did not win, but she offered a clear choice to Nevada voters at a time when political choices and distinctions were few.
Prior to running for the Senate in both 1918 and 1920, Anne Martin served as the president of the Nevada Equal Franchise Society, a national organization with branches in states where women still were denied the right to vote in the years prior to the passage of the women's suffrage amendment. In 1914, the group's objective of women's voting was achieved, six years prior to the passage of the suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
42 Doris D. Dwyer
During the senate election of 1918, Anne Martin broke new political ground. Driving an automobile to every small hamlet she could reach, on roads more suited for horses and carriages, she came in third in a four-candidate race. Attracting more than 4,600 votes out of a total of 25,563 votes cast, she came in ahead of the Socialist candidate, while trailing considerably behind the nominees of the Republican and Democratic Parties. It seems that in those politically-sensitive years following World War One, Socialism evoked more fear and outrage than feminism. In a recent biography written by Professor Anne Howard of UNR, Martin is portrayed as a woman difficult to work with, devoted to women's issues but extremely sensitive to criticism, a lethal combination. Anne Martin, embittered and tired, eventually moved out of the state in the years following her Senatorial defeats. Like Nancy Kelsey before her, she too went to the promised land of California to live out her final days.
In recent years women have become more active and visible in the political and other struggles which Nevadans have experienced. The state currently boasts a female member of Congress who has represented Nevada for the last six years. Barbara Vucanovich will undoubtedly receive much historical attention when writers attempt to assess her contributions to the state. But how far have we really come? After all, Barbara Vucanovich Once publicly requested to be addressed as CONGRESSMAN Vucanovich, probably a politically smart move, considering the unpopularity in Nevada of things considered "feminist," but an ironic commentary on how women continue to be perceived in Nevada.
Lahontan
MRS. J. S. MILLS
Reprinted from Book of Nevada Poems, Copyright 1927.
Selected and Arranged by The Nevada Federation of Women's Clubs
I climbed a rocky mountain side
Above a sagebrush plain,
And in a vision seemed to see
The waves roll back again.
The mighty waves which swept across
Lahontan's lake of old,
Poured back across the desert sand
Their waters clear and cold.
From mountain side to mountain side,
Farther than eye could see,
Lahontan filled its ancient bed;
A quiet inland sea.
I felt the damp wind in my face,
The fleecy clouds swung low,
The rocks were wet with silvery spray
Where wavelets come and go;
The white gulls skimmed the waters blue,
The wild swans rested there,
The deer came down to slake their thirst;
It was a vision fair.
Then, as of old, the mountain reft;
The waters sped away,
Again beneath a burning sun
The sagebrush desert lay.
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But here and there across the plain
The man-made rivers go,
Bringing from distant mountain sides
The gift from melting snow.
Now fields of living green push back
The sagebrush desert land;
While strong against its sun and wind
Fair blooming orchards stand.
Clean happy homes are springing up
Where little children play,
And cattle browse the fertile fields
Where old Lahontan lay.
[The Editor's note tells us that Anna Bailey was born in Meadow Vale, Minnesota, 10 October 1872. She was born on a farm where she spent her early life. She attended high school in Elk River and the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. She was married to John S. Mills on 1 June 1892. To this union seven were born: A daughter Grace Stata, who died in 1920 at the age of 20; Laura Mills; Percy, Vernon and Claude Mills; Faith Mills Cowgill and May Mills Crew.
The Mills family came west from Minnesota in 1908. Their first year in Lahontan Valley was spent in the Wildes District. They moved to the Sheckler District in 1909.
Gentle, soft spoken, and unpresuming, Anna was one of the best known taxidermists in the west, and examples of her fine workmanship could be seen for years in many museums. She was a great lover of nature and her happiest moments were those spent in her garden with the flowers and birds. She was a devoted mother and a kindly neighbor who had gave the best years of her life to the service of others.]
One Hundred Years of Prosperity
WESLEY WAYNE CRAIG
IN COMMEMORATING CHURCHILL County Telephone and Telegraph System's 100th birthday, one must reflect on the events of the past and the visions of the men of the mid to late 1800's who made this celebration possible.
There were a number of people who played an important role in making it possible for the telegraph lines to be built across the midsection of Churchill County from west to east in 1861 and 1866. They were Hiram Sibley, President of the Western Union Telegraph Company, Edward Creighton who surveyed and gathered information for the route to be used in 1861, James Gamble, Superintendent of the Overland Telegraph Company and later Superintendent of the United States Pacific Telegraph Company, and Big Chief Shokup of the Shoshone Indians, who was influential among the tribes in the area now known as Nevada. Big Chief Shokup assured the Big Captain in San Francisco that the telegraph line ("wire rope express") would not be bothered by the Indians.
Many in the telegraph industry wanted the Transcontinental Line to go from New Orleans through Texas and Mexico. If Hiram Sibley had not insisted on using the route from Carson City, Nevada, to Omaha, Nebraska, it's very likely Churchill County would not be the owner of its own telephone system today. As president of Western Union Telegraph Company, he outwitted his allies in the telegraph industry and used his salesmanship to gather backing to get the Pacific Telegraph Line portion of the Transcontinental Telegraph Line to run between Salt Lake City and Carson City. The established route went from Carson City to Austin through Ruby Valley and then on to Salt Lake City. This left the builders of the line no choice but to go through Churchill County, a county which otherwise was of no real significance to the frontier or the Nevada Territory.
After the completion of the Transcontinental Telegraph Line in 1861, its success caught the attention of the United States Telegraph Company and the United States Pacific Telegraph Company. In 1866, the United States Pacific Telegraph Company built a telegraph line from San Francisco, California, to Salt Lake City, Utah, basically parallel to the 1861 Transcontinental Line through Churchill County. That line followed the Pony Express Trail near Carson Lake, south of where the city of Fallon is today. The telegraph line built by the United States Pacific Telegraph Company in 1866 went north of Fallon, from Fort Churchill in the general direction of the Carson River and on to the town of Stillwater, through Desert Wells in the Stillwater Mountain Range, Fairview Station and eastward.
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46 Wesley Wayne Craig
Freight wagons in the bustling town of Wadsworth, c1890. Note the square pole to the right which may be the early Churchill County Telegraph System line. (Courtesy Nevada Historical Society, Reno)
In 1869 Western Union Telegraph Company built a telegraph line along the railroad track that linked the east with the west. This line went through the northwestern portion of Churchill County now known as Hazen, Nevada, and on through to the intersection known as Trinity where Highway 1-80 and Highway 95 intersect. This telegraph line became the new Transcontinental Line, and two old telegraph lines were then used locally for the mining camps and ranching communities.
As time went on, the telegraph became more and more important to the residents of Churchill County. The County seat was in Stillwater at this time, and a telegraph operator named Jim Richards, who worked for Western Union Telegraph Company, was stationed there.
When a rancher in the upper sink area wanted to communicate with others in the state of Nevada or anywhere else in the United States, he would ride his horse or travel in a wagon many miles to Stillwater. Jim Richards would send his message across the telegraph lines to Wadsworth by way of Virginia City, Carson City and Reno. Once, while Jim Richards was away on vacation back east, I.H. Kent took his place.
Since the closest doctor was in Wadsworth, and a local rancher was capable of operating the telegraph key, Churchill County residents decided to buy the old line that went through Virginia City. Western Union no longer needed both, and maintaining more than one line had become expensive.
Western Union Telegraph Company found it to their advantage to sell its telegraph line, and Churchill County residents found it to their advantage to buy it. They rerouted
One Hundred Years of Prosperity 47
Churchill County Telephone System crew c1920. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Collection)
Churchill County Telephone System operators on July 20, 1925. L to R: Gladys Allison and Cora Stewart. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Churchill County Telephone
48 Wesley Wayne Craig
it to Wadsworth, Nevada, thirty-five miles away. A doctor could then be in direct contact with the residents of Stillwater and surrounding ranches and mines.
On August 5, 1889, the Churchill County Commissioners ordered the County Treasurer to send a check for $975 to Western Union Telegraph Company for the purchase of the telegraph line from Frenchman Station to Virginia City via Desert Wells in the Stillwater Mountains and Stillwater.
Within a few years of purchase, the telegraph line was converted to a telephone system. Rumor has it Churchill County was the first county to own a telephone system. Many of the people who worked on the line were local people. This mutual effort by the residents of the County allowed the phone lines to be spread throughout the valley where ranches existed. When the Newlands Project (Lahontan Dam) was completed, ranchers depended upon the phone to order their water.
Today Churchill County Telephone & Telegraph System generates a revenue for Churchill County. It has proven to be an asset to the residents, one which continues to enrich the county to this day.
NATIVE AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE
A Native American of Fallon
1989
CLARA LOPEZ
THE FALLON AREA is located in the Carson Sink. The area contains numerous lakes, ponds, marshes and canals. Prehistorically, it was the site of Lake Lahontan, which flooded the entire area including the Walker Lake, Pyramid Lake, and the Honey Lake areas. These are the remnants of that ancient lake. During the Lake Lahontan era, at least 11,200 years ago, prehistoric man lived in the caves surrounding the lake (presently sinks). The mountains surrounding the Carson Sink are rich in such ancient cave dwellings. They also have numerous petroglyphs, ancient writings and drawings scratched and chiseled on stone, which are thought to be ritual and game signs.
The boundaries of the Great Basin are the Wasatch Mountains and the Colorado Plateau on the East, the Sierra Nevada on the West, the Colombia Plateau on the North, and the Sonoran Desert of Southern California on the Southwest.
Within this area the Great Basin Indians traveled frequently and extensively. There was frequent social contact and trade among the different tribes; thus, it would be impossible to trace individuals to one specific area. However, it is reasonable to associate the Great Basin Indians in general with these prehistoric Lahontan People, and, in particular, to the beginning of the Fallon Tribe.
Throughout the Great Basin, man awoke with determination to overcome the adventure awaiting him each day. He lived throughout the entire Great Basin area often in the cave shelters formed for him by the rising and falling waters of the ancient Lake Lahontan. Over the centuries, as the lake receded due to less and less rainfall runoff, vast marshes sprung up, filled with waterfowl and other game, fish and different kinds of plants. Roots and seeds for food became more abundant.
The Lahontan Man used fur blankets, bone tools, basketry twined storage bags, woven nets, matting, and bone fishhooks, projectile points, stone knives, drills, scrapers, spears. He also used blankets of bearskin and deerskin, tanned with the hair left on. The rabbitskin blanket, a long time mark of desert culture, is still made by one or two native Indians today. Blankets were worn for warmth as well as slept under. Where deer were obtainable, their hides were used for clothing; aprons, breech-cloths, capes and leggings were made. Where deer were scarce, the hides were saved for moccasins. For this use, the neck portion was preferred because it was thicker and heavier. During the summer sagebrush bark was made into clothing.
These people led comfortable and cultured lives by the standard of their time. They were not merely surviving as so many historians have pictured them.
The two tribes which dominated the Carson Sink area were the Shoshone and Paiute. But the Sink was chiefly the domain of the Paiute. They intermingled with other Paiute Tribes, such as Pyramid Lake, Walker River, and Lovelock Tribes, since they were branches of the same tribal group at one time.
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50 Clara Lopez
Paiute camp near Fallon c1910. (Courtesy Special Collections, University of Nevada, Reno Library--Rolly Ross Ham Photograph, Margaret "Peg" Wheat Collection)
Among the Northern Paiute, of which the Fallon Tribe is a part, the bands varied in size from five to ten families, numbering as many as one hundred persons; each needed fifty to one hundred square miles of land for subsistence. In winter the band would congregate in one or two fairly large semi-permanent settlements. In the spring small family groups scattered over the country hunting for food. Although private property rights were almost unknown, some Northern Paiutes would claim rights over certain pinenut groves.
The Indians are a nomadic people; therefore, their homes were constructed according to the weather. The Paiutes, living close to lakes and the marshes, came to rely on fish, fowl and marsh grasses where they were plentiful. However, both tribes, Paiute and Shoshone, took advantage of all food sources, such as pinenuts, different kinds of seeds in the desert, rabbits, water fowl, fish and roots of different plants.
With the coming of the white man into Nevada, the Indian family members underwent a change because they were exposed to a new way of life. The cattlemen brought their herds to grow fat on the rice grass seeds the Indians had formerly harvested every August. Woodcutters came to cut the pinenut trees for lumber and fuel.
The shepherds turned their sheep into the deserts where the Indians once hunted their rabbits and gleaned their delicate desert plants. The miners spilled poisons into the streams, killing the fish and fowl. How could the Indians live the way they had for centuries under such conditions as the white man was causing? However, just as it would be difficult for non-Indians to assume the culture of the Indians, so also was it difficult for the Indians to assume the culture of the white man. It is extremely hard to break down thousands of years of tradition and culture within a few years.
Although the Paiutes and Shoshone have been exposed to the non-Indian culture for a little over 100 years, still many traditions and much of the Indian culture continue today
A Native American of Fallon 51
even though much of the aboriginal culture has been lost, including the old language. As for the marriage customs, they have all but vanished. In only a few cases do they still survive.
With the Paiute and Shoshone, some customs were similar. When a young girl entered into womanhood she was kept busy so she would not be lazy. The girl also would abstain from eating all game brought into the home because if she did eat any meat the hunter would lose his hunting ability.
While everyone was waiting for her to become a woman the parents had chosen her future husband. They talked with a young man's parents and arranged a marriage between the two young people. During this time the man would hunt and give his game to his future in-laws.
Immediately after the girl's first cycle she would go with the young man to live with him. From this time, they were married.
During pregnancy several customs were observed. The women were active during this period. However, at the birth of the child, no man was allowed to touch or go near the woman or child. It was believed she had special powers and that should he go near her, he would not be successful in the hunt or fight and would lose his strength.
Today, most young Indian women have an obstetrician and have their babies in the hospital. Yet some families still follow some customs. For example, the maternal grandmother makes a cradle board to carry the new baby home from the hospital. In the past, the grandparents gave the new baby an Indian name. The young people of today follow the non-Indian ways and give names to their children.
The children were never punished physically; when they misbehaved, usually they were taught shame. The child's education was very practical and based upon the sharing of the responsibility of the band as well as the family. The Indian family was usually patriarchal. The grandfather educated the children in the traditions, in family life and in judging right from wrong. The child's happiness was of prime concern to the parents as well as the band. If a child's parent or parents were killed, someone else in the band, usually a relative, took the child and cared for it. No child was without a "Mother" and "Father."
Grandmothers and grandfathers were also parent surrogates and were the "wise ones" to whom one turned to learn. There were no "experts," only those to whom one turned for advice because it was known that they had had experiences which one wanted to know about.
A boy became a man when his voice changed, and then he was allowed to go on his first hunt. After he killed his first deer he was to carry it home on his back, then give it to someone outside the family. He was not allowed to eat this meat. Today this is still practiced to some extent.
So the process of acculturation continues. For the Indian, 100 years has not been long past. The Indian way of life has undergone drastic change. At one time he was fiercely independent, living solely off the land. Now he has to turn to new sources for life and support. He has become dependent upon a money oriented system and upon the United States Government for support.
After many years of struggle, adjustment and suffering, as related in Sarah Winnemucca's book, Life Among the Piutes, the Carson Sink area Indians in 1906 were given a reservation with water rights in exchange for land the United States Government wanted for the Newlands Project.
So, the Indian young person, the child of this tribe, is a product of culture and displays many traits of aboriginal ancestors. But, also he is the by-product of this Western culture. He, therefore, presents a problem to himself as well as to his family.
52 Clara Lopez
His peoples' ways have been adequate for many thousands of years, and, at the same time, he must constantly face new situations for which the old culture has not prepared him. He is caught in the conflict of two worlds.
Even today, most Indians are quite conscious of their "Indianness" and the white man's "whiteness." Therefore, though exteriorly integrated into modern "white" society, the Fallon Indians are, for the most part, still a separate group of people living within their own culture, which today many are losing.
I have endeavored to point out some highlights in the history of the Fallon Indians and to show some of their contemporary habits, needs and problems. It remains for us to make our future. What the Native Americans want to become in the future is up to them. But it also remains a responsibility of the rest of society to give them the chance and the help they need to accomplish their objectives.
SHADOW CATCHER
Walter J. Lubken
SHARON LEE TAYLOR
MANY TIMES GREAT photographers dwell in relative obscurity because they worked for the Federal Government for most of their productive lives. It is only recently that work by such men as Timothy O'Sullivan, whose stirring images captured much of the West in the mid-19th century, has stimulated interest in these specialized photographers. One such photographer was Walter J. Lubken. From 1904 through 1916 he was the principal photographer for the U.S. Reclamation Service (now known as the Bureau of Reclamation).
The Reclamation Act, signed by President Theodore Roosevelt on June 17, 1902, opened the way for numerous water projects throughout the West. Lubken's camera recorded in striking detail the interesting contrasts in a time when men and mules worked side-by-side with steam-powered tractors and excavators. He also recorded on film many of the places he visited, and in the case of Churchill County, his camera captured the most detailed views of the wild and woolly reclamation town of Hazen in 1905.
Walter J. Lubken c1907. (Courtesy of Mrs. Pat Eames)
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54 Sharon Lee Taylor
Born in 1881 in New York City while his mother was visiting there, Lubken spent his early years in Pendleton, Oregon. Around the turn-of-the-century Mrs. Lubken, a strong German woman, moved to Boise, Idaho, to be near her brother and his family. Accompanying her were Walter, then 18, and his younger sister Julia, then 16, all that remained at home of five siblings.
Little is known about what prompted him to turn to photography. A strikingly handsome man, he was an impeccable dresser and found himself at home in either the wilderness or the haberdashery shop where he found employment in his later years.
All of the information presented here has been provided by Mrs. Pat Eames, a Public Affairs Specialist with the National Archives & Records Administration in Washington, D.C. In 1979, she became interested in Lubken while researching his life and work for an Archives publication, which included eight samples of his art, more than that of any other photographer. On the trail of information she found herself faced with interesting coincidences. Even though she had never heard of Lubken, she noted that he had lived in Boise, Idaho, her hometown. In contacting the donor of his photographs, Max Sarvis, she found Sarvis had known both her father and grandfather, and that, in fact, her own parents had lived next door to Walter J. Lubken and his wife before Eames herself was born.
For some reason in 1916, Lubken broke his connections with the Bureau, ceasing to contract photographs for them. Nothing more is known about him until the late 1920's, when he applied again to the Bureau to photograph the construction of Boulder Dam. He wasn't hired by the Bureau, but he was retained by the major contractors and did all of the photography for them.
Lubken died in 1960 and is buried in Boise.
Walter J. Lubken 55
Workmen pouring concrete in the bottom of the Truckee Carson Canal, January 19, 1905. (Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.)
view of the end of the tunnel just above the old site of Derby, June 2U, 19U. (courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.)
56 Sharon Lee Taylor
Looking West along the canal, with the Truckee River near Derby in the background, January 1, 1905. (Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.)
Walter J. Lubken 57
Excavation using mules and "Fresno" scrapers, January 8, 1905. (Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.)
A more sedate view of Hazen and the Southern Pacific Depot, May, 1910. (Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.)
58 Sharon Lee Taylor
The growing town of Fallon viewed from Rattlesnake Hill, May 25, 1910. (Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.)
The three year-old S. B. Play homestead, May 22, 1910. (Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.)
PIONEER PORTRAIT
Highlights of My Teaching Experiences in
Churchill County
L. C. "ROY" SCHANK
Reprinted from Inside Nevada's Schools: A Challenge for the Future, Copyright 1976.
Courtesy of the Nevada State Retired Teacher's Association.
I WAS HIRED to teach Vocational Agriculture in Churchill County High School, Fallon, Nevada, July 1929. My salary was $166 per month. My wife, Verona Cox Schank, our 5 month daughter, Rose Marie and I came here by car from Bunkerville, Nevada. By arriving in July I had time to get the Ag. Dept. ready and visit all the Ag. boys and parents on their farms before school started.
The Ag. Dept. was a frame building near the high school. It consisted of 3 rooms. One for wood working with 5 wood working benches. One for iron and forge work. It had 4 large hand powered forges and 4 anvils. The other was the class room. It had 3-8 foot long tables, 24 folding chairs and a long bulletin and magazine rack on the wall. We arranged the tables in a U shape with the teacher's desk in the open part of the U. This was a good set-up, for 27 boys in 3 classes.
My first year of teaching was difficult for these reasons: The Principal, teachers and students of the high school all looked upon the Ag. Dept. as the dumping place for poor and unruly students. My Ag. boys even thought they were second class students. The teacher before me had discipline problems with his Ag. students. The boys told me what they had done to him. These were some of their pranks: 1- Poured gasoline on the floor and lit a match to it. The teacher got excited and poured water over it which spread the flames. 2- Stuffed rags in the exhaust pipe of the teacher's car. 3- Several of the Ag. boys were football players and they practiced until dark each night. During the day one student would back his car immediately in front of the teacher's car and another student would park his car close up behind the teacher's car. Then both students would lock the doors on their cars so the Ag. teacher could not go home until football practice was over. 4- One time when all were supposed to be studying a big fire cracker was set off which frightened all and it was heard all through the high school. The Principal suspended all Ag. classed for 2 weeks thinking that someone would confess or tell who did it. But no one squealed. The classes had to be resumed in order to get federal monies.
My hardest job that year was to get these boys to think that they were just as smart as other students. Several of the boys wrote essays on beef farming which were sent into Swift & Company. And several students won prizes which helped to give them confidence.
Class periods in the high school were 45 minutes long. All of my classes were double periods of 90 minutes each. My classes were known as Ag. I for freshmen; Ag II for
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60 L. C. "Roy" Schank
The late L. C. "Roy" Schank and Verona Cox Schank in their garden, c1978. (Courtesy of Cyril and Delva Schank)
sophomores and Ag III for juniors and seniors. This gave me one free period a day. All the Ag courses were based on the boys' home farming programs. The Ag I and II courses dealt mainly with the managerial jobs of farming. The shop work centered around the shop jobs the boys had on their farms. The students brought in most of their shop jobs to do. Each boy kept project records.
We had many field studies such as grafting and pruning fruit trees, judging, branding, dehorning and castrating cattle, hogs and sheep. We culled chickens and observed new farm machinery and new farming methods. A school bus was available for these trips.
I trained my public speakers in the various Farm Bureau Centers meetings, such as Sheckler, Old River, Union, Northam, Beach and Harmon. Over the years this method of teaching produced 12 State Winners.
All the Ag boys belonged to the Future Farmer Organization. They had their officers who ran the organization. Chapter members met at night at least once a month. They learned parliamentary procedure and public speaking. Each year we entered all the State Contests, such as judging dairy cows, beef, hogs, sheep, poultry, crops and seed and weed identification. The boys entered State Contests in shop skills like welding, tool sharpening and figuring bills of materials. They always came home with a lion's share of the trophies. This made them feel important and equal to other students.
The Home Economics Department helped us by cooking and serving our first Father and Son's banquet. The boys brought from home dressed chickens, potatoes, carrots, milk, cream and butter for the banquet. Little money was needed.
Highlights of My Teaching Experiences 61
Anne Gibbs Berlin and her English students helped. She had the Ag boys in her classes learn the spelling of words used in agriculture and their themes could be on Ag subjects. Miss Gibbs helped them with the construction and English used in their speeches. Her news reporters interviewed the boys as to their farming programs and achievements in State Contests. These were published in the local newspapers. Thus the Ag. Dept. grew from 27 to 92 students with 2 teachers. The students' inferiority complexes gradually faded away and self confidence grew. At one time 6 Future Farmer Presidents in a row were elected Student Body Presidents. So the Principal and student officers decided that no student should hold 2 major offices at one time, which was good, for it gave more students leadership experience.
In my 27 years of teaching Vocational Agriculture at Churchill County High School I learned that to have success in teaching, one must first make the students think they can succeed; second, make the course interesting, third, visit each student's home projects and parents several times a year; fourth, talk your plans and goals over with the High School Principal, the students and their parents. THE COOPERATION OF THE TEACHER, THE PRINCIPAL, OTHER TEACHERS, THE STUDENT AND THE PARENT IS A FORCE THAT MAKES FOR SUCCESSFUL TEACHING OF VOCATIONAL AGRICULTURE.
Growing Roses
L. C. SCHANK,
INSTRUCTOR OF VOCATIONAL AGRICULTURE
CHURCHILL COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL, FALLON, NEVADA
Reprinted from A Handbook of Approved Practices in Efficient Farming. Copyright 1939. Courtesy of Cyril and Delva Schank
JOBS IN GROWING ROSES
1. Selecting and buying varieties.
2. Selecting and preparing the soil.
3. Planting.
4. Irrigating, cultivating, and caring for roses.
5. Pruning.
6. Controlling rose beetles, aphids, and mildew.
7. Caring for roses during the winter.
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Growing Roses 63
Job 1.
SELECTING AND BUYING VARIETIES
1. Select hybrid tea varieties--most popular and satisfactory for rose garden. (Ever Blooming.)
2. Select some of the following as Ever-Blooming good climbers: Madam Edward Herriot (orange), E.P.Thom (yellow), Hoosier Beauty (red), Silver Moon (white).
3. Select some of the following in the hybrid tea class: Red Radiance (red), E.P.Thom (yellow), Pres.Hoover (3 colors blended), Kaiserin Auguste Victoria (white).
4. Choose some of the following Polyantha or baby roses--they are easiest to grow: Elsie Poulsen (dark pink), Gloria Mundi (scarlet), Miss Edith Cavell (scarlet), Catharine Zlimet (white).
5. Consult several catalogs and local growers in helping you select varieties.
Job 2.
SELECTING AND PREPARING THE SOIL
1. Select a soil that will grow cabbages well.
2. Cover soil with 2 inches of well-rotted barnyard manure. (No fresh or strawy manure.)
3. Spade or plow fertilizer under 8 to 10 inches deep.
4. If soil is poor haul it out and replace it with fertile soil.
5. Make sure the soil drains well--wet kills roses.
6. For ever-blooming roses make irrigation furrow 2 1/2 feet apart at least 4 inches deep.
7. Run the water through the furrows before planting to make sure plot is leveled right and has moisture.
Job 3.
PLANTING
1. If winters are mild plant in fall or plant in early spring as soon as frost is out of soil and it can be worked.
2. Plant roses as soon as you get them or heel them in.
3. Before planting cut off all twiggy and weak growth, shorten the canes to at least 6 inches
4. Trim off all injured roots, slanting cut.
5. Make a hole large enough so roots can spread out easily.
6. Spread the roots out in the hole all the way around.
7. Set the plant about an inch deeper than it was in the nursery.
64 L. C. "Roy" Schank
8. Work fine fertile soil among the roots and firm down well by putting in a few quarts of water.
9. Never put fertilizer in the hole in contact with roots--it will burn them.
10. Finish filling hole with soil and tramp soil down well. (Very important to have soil firm about the roots.)
11. Set hybrid teas 12 or 18 inches apart in the rows; hybrid perpetuals 2 to 3 feet and climbers 6 feet apart in rows.
12. Mulch the canes over with straw or leaves and cover with enough soil to hold mulch.
13. As shoots come through this mulch gradually level off around the canes.
Job 4.
IRRIGATING, CULTIVATING, AND CARING FOR ROSES
1. Irrigate about once a week in furrows to wet soil well. (Roses will not stand wet feet.)
2. Cultivate and hoe around each bush at least twice a month. Keep top soil loose.
3. Keep all buds picked off new plants until June--blooming before June saps the plant.
4. Cut blooms with a sharp knife or scissors below the first leaf of 5 leaves. (Makes more branching and blooms.)
5. Pick half of the first crop of rose buds on second year's growth. Makes for more continuous blooming.
6. Do not water roses by sprinkling--causes mildew
Job 5.
PRUNING
1. In spring take out all dead wood and all weak canes.
2. Leave only those shoots from the base which grew the previous season.
3. Shorten these canes of last year's growth at least one-half. (For baby roses and hybrid teas.)
4. Remember Polyantha and hybrid teas bloom from new shoots of this season which come from old wood.
5. Remember hardy climbers and hybrid perpetuals bloom this year on growth that comes from wood of previous year.
6. Prune climbers by taking out at least half of the wood that has blossomed. Do this right after blooming season.
Growing Roses 65
Job 6.
CONTROLLING ROSE BEETLES, APHIDS, AND MILDEW
1. Control beetles by hand picking them in daytime. They eat on the buds and blooms.
2. Control rose aphids by spraying with Nicotine Sulphate when there is no wind and temperature is warmer than 60 degrees F. Spray with force.
3. Control mildew by dusting with powdered sulphur.
4. Do not irrigate in evenings nor sprinkle roses--this favors mildew.
Job 7
CARING FOR ROSES DURING THE WINTER
1. Have bushes go into the winter with moisture in soil.
2. If winters are open and cold, cover each rose bush with straw, leaves, or trash, and enough soil to hold the litter.
3. Do not uncover until all danger of frost is over.
SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE
A Guide to Birdwatching in Lahontan Valley
TIMOTHY D. BOWMAN, LARRY NEEL AND STEVEN P. THOMPSON
LAHONTAN VALLEY -- AN OVERVIEW
Western Nevada contains one of the hottest birding spots in North America --Lahontan Valley. The valley lies in Churchill County, about 70 miles east of Reno. Lahontan Valley contains one of the 3 most critical Great Basin wetlands that are essential for maintaining regional populations of wetland-dependent migratory birds. Waterfowl and other waterbirds are attracted to Lahontan Valley because of its strategic location in the Pacific Flyway (which allows birds to refuel during spring and fall migrations), and the ability of wetlands to produce exceptional quantities of plant and invertebrate foods for birds. Lahontan Valley has received international recognition as important staging habitat for migratory shorebirds which breed in Canada and winter in Central and South America. It is included in the Western Hemispheric Shorebird Reserve Network, and is one of only 13 such sites within North and South America.
The extensive wetland ecosystem exists in the topographically low areas, which historically served as the terminus for the Carson River. Now, most of the water that once flowed freely to the wetlands is shortstopped by the Newlands Irrigation project that serves Fallon area agricultural lands. Approximately 60,000 acres of irrigated farmlands are in Lahontan Valley. The farmland often provides important feeding and occasionally nesting areas for many bird species.
The 2 major wetlands in Lahontan Valley are Stillwater Wildlife Management Area (WMA) and Carson Lake. These areas currently receive only agricultural drainwater that is of relatively poor quality. Compounded with increasing demands for water upstream, wetland acreage and water quality have declined greatly in Lahontan Valley. However, at the time of this writing, efforts are underway to obtain rights for fresh water which will help alleviate these problems in Lahontan Valley wetlands.
This birding guide is intended to be a general overview of some of the best birding areas in Lahontan Valley. More specific information can be obtained by contacting state or federal wildlife agency offices in Fallon.
TYPICAL HABITATS AND ASSOCIATED BIRD SPECIES
Many species or groups of birds are typically associated with certain habitats.
Therefore, for each area, we list the habitats that are found there as a general guide to the
types of birds you are likely to see there.
Open Water: Ponds typically 1-4 feet deep (although Big Soda Lake and Lahontan
Reservoir are considerably deeper).
Birds: ducks, geese, swans, herons, pelicans, cormorants, grebes, shorebirds, gulls,
terns.
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A Guide to Birdwatching 67
Marsh: Shallow water interspersed with varying densities of emergent vegetation (including hardstem bulrush, cattail, and alkali bulrush).
Birds: ducks, geese, herons, ibis, bitterns, grebes, rails, coots, terns, blackbirds, Marsh Wrens, harriers, Short-eared Owls, Barn Owls.
Cottonwood-riparian: Found along rivers and some ditches. Cottonwood overstory with varying densities of willow, rose, currant, and Russian olive in the understory.
Birds: Wood Ducks and other ducks, herons, hawks, kestrels, owls, quail, cuckoos, hummingbirds, woodpeckers, ravens, magpies, and all types of songbirds.
Mudflat: Large expanses of wet mud, usually with less than 2 inches of water on its surface (Best mudflat areas are at Stillwater WMA and Carson Lake).
Birds: All shorebirds, waterfowl, gulls, falcons.
Desert: Greasewood or saltbush scrub. Many rocky outcrops may be sufficiently inaccessable to encourage cliff-nesting by raptors.
Birds: Golden Eagles, Prairie Falcons, Burrowing Owls, ravens, Say's Phoebes, Rock Wrens, Sage Thrashers, Sage Sparrows, Loggerhead Shrikes.
Farmland: The primary crops grown in Lahontan Valley on irrigated lands include alfalfa, cereal grains, corn, sorghum, and pasture. Agricultural fields often provide important habitat for raptors such as Bald Eagles, Prairie Falcons, Red-tailed Hawks, and Swainson's Hawks, which prey on small mammals, birds, and snakes. Newly flooded fields provide feeding habitat for thousands of shorebirds and long-legged wading birds. Riparian zones along agricultural areas are often good birding spots for Swainson's Hawks, Wood Ducks, Mallards, Cinnamon Teal, American Kestrels, Western Kingbirds, and Yellow Warblers.
STILLWATER WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT AREA
General Description: Stillwater Wildlife Management Area (WMA) includes the largest marsh complex in western Nevada. Up to 24,000 acres of marsh may exist in the 200,000 acre WMA. Not surprisingly, it is an exceptional area to observe waterfowl, shorebirds, and other marsh birds. Stillwater is especially important to birds during migration in spring and fall, although birdwatching is usually good year-round.
Stillwater WMA was established in 1948 and is co-managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Nevada Department of Wildlife, and Truckee-Carson Irrigation District. Within the WMA, about 24,000 acres are reserved as the Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge for administration as a nonhunted area. The refuge portion is closed to vehicle access, but you may walk within the area; some of the best birdwatching is in the refuge portion.
Location and Access: Stillwater WMA is roughly 16 miles northeast of Fallon. From Fallon, take Hwy 50 East about 4 miles and turn left on the Stillwater Road (look for sign for "Stillwater Wildlife Area"). Stay on Stillwater Road until you reach Stillwater WMA (about 12 miles). Once you reach the entrance, you can drive north on Hunter Road (first road on the left) to get to most of the area. Stillwater brochures and maps are provided in the map cases near the sign.
There are no entrance fees and registration is not required, but please obey any posted regulations. Off-road vehicle use is prohibited on the WMA. Most roads are gravelled, but travel is not advisable after heavy rains or snowmelt. You can call Stillwater WMA headquarters for information on current road conditions.
68 Bowman, Neel and Thompson
Habitat Types: Marsh, Mudflat, Open water, Desert.
Special Features:
American White Pelicans -- Stillwater provides critical shallow feeding habitat for the pelicans that nest at Anaho Island National Wildlife Refuge in Pyramid Lake. The Anaho Island nesting colony has been the largest in North America, and pelicans make daily flights from Anaho to Stillwater to feed. They can be seen from March to October.
Waterfowl -- Peak populations (up to 250,000) occur from mid-October to late November. Spectacular concentrations of Canvasbacks (about 1/2 the Pacific Flyway population stop at Stillwater) and Tundra Swans (up to 13,000) can be seen in the fall. Other common species include Northern Shoveler, Northern Pintail, Green-winged Teal, Redhead, and Canada Geese. Some of the best waterfowl observations can be made by walking in to ponds within the refuge portion.
Shorebirds -- Shorebirds are most abundant from late April to mid May, and from mid-July to late-August. Impressive numbers of Long-billed Dowitchers, American Avocets, Western and Least Sandpipers, and Dunlin can be seen at those times. Other shorebird species of interest include Black-bellied Plovers, Snowy Plovers, Wilson's and Red-necked Phalaropes, Black-necked Stilts, and Long-billed Curlews.
Raptors -- Stillwater holds the largest number of wintering Bald Eagles in Nevada. Twenty to 50 Bald Eagles usually use the area from January to March. Look for Bald Eagles in cottonwood trees at Foxtail Lake, Timber Lake, and Indian Lakes, and on iced-over ponds near pockets of open water, where they feed on fish and birds. Peregrine Falcons are a rare but spectacular visitor, especially when shorebirds are migrating through. Prairie Falcons, Northern Harriers, Red-tailed Hawks, Short-eared Owls, and Golden Eagles can be seen all year. Burrowing Owls and Swainson's Hawks are more common during the summer. Look for raptors along Hunter Road.
Other birds of interest -- Loggerhead shrikes are fairly common in desert- scrub uplands. Herons and egrets are common.
TIMBER LAKE
General Description: Timber Lake is situated within the west boundary of the Stillwater WMA along the Carson River, about one mile from the Carson Sink. Cottonwoods line the river through this stretch of desert and expand into a small cottonwood forest. A nearby artesian well flows most of the year and forms a shallow lake. This area is closed to grazing and has excellent growth of clover and weeds that attract a variety of songbirds.
Location and Access: To get to Timber Lake, follow the Indian Lakes Road north past Indian Lakes about 6 miles. You'll see the dense stand of cottonwoods on the left. The road past Indian Lakes is deeply potholed and should not be driven when wet. Access to the forest is gained through a cattle guard near the north end.
Habitat Types: Cottonwood-riparian, Open water (seasonal), Desert.
Special Features: Timber Lake serves as a main roost for Nevada's largest concentration of wintering Bald Eagles. As many as 50 Bald Eagles have been counted here in peak years, but 10 to 20 is more normal. You should not disturb the eagles by walking through the forest during winter -- observe them from a distance only. The cottonwood forest at Timber Lake provides an "oasis" for desert-weary migrating songbirds in spring and fall. Here birdwatchers can find birds not normally associated with interior Nevada, such as Nuthatches, Chickadees, Townsend's Warblers and
A Guide to Birdwatching 69
Snowy Egrets are a shy nesting bird of the Marshes. They build their nests among dense stands of hardstem bullrush. (Courtesy U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service--David B. Marshal, Photograph)
70 Bowman, Neel and Thompson
Red-breasted Sapsuckers. Several species of hawks and owls are also regularly observed here.
CARSON LAKE
General Description: Carson Lake, named after the famous western explorer Kit Carson, is really a shallow marsh. The area is locally referred to as Carson Lake Pasture and the Greenhead Club by ranchers and hunters. It consists of five large ponds which vary in size from 250-2,600 acres. Carson Lake is undoubtedly one of the best birding spots in the Pacific Flyway. It has some of the best habitat diversity of any marsh in the west. Almost all of the species common to a Great Basin marsh can be seen at Carson Lake in the proper season. Many bird species find all of their nesting, feeding, and roosting requirements entirely within the confines of the marsh.
Location and Access: Carson Lake is located approximately 10 miles south of Fallon. The easiest way to get there is to head south about 8 miles on Hwy 95 to Pasture Road. Head east along Pasture Road for about 2 miles. There is a gate and clubhouse at the entrance. Visitors should sign in at the clubhouse where bird leaflets, maps and general information are available. Visitors should stay on the main roads and obey all informational signs. These roads can become impassable when wet so travelers should occasionally check weather and road conditions.
Habitat Types: Marsh, open water, mudflat, desert, pasture.
Special Features: Carson Lake has 3 wildlife observation towers which offer the birder a unique opportunity to get an aerial view of the many habitat types. These towers are excellent points to observe movements of birds such as Snow Geese, White-faced Ibis, and herons as they go back and forth between their feeding and nesting habitat. This area continually provides some of the most unusual bird sightings in the valley. Carson Lake is an important nesting area for ducks, herons, Egrets, and it supports the largest nesting colony of White-faced Ibis in North America. During spring and fall, ponds support large numbers of ducks and geese, and your best chance of regularly seeing Snow Geese are at Carson Lake. The large concentrations of migratory shorebirds and ducks provide an outstanding prey base for raptors. Northern Harriers and Prairie Falcons can be seen on almost every visit, and Bald Eagles are common during the winter from November through March. Peregrine Falcon sightings continue to increase with most sightings occurring in spring and fall. As a critical part of the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network, Carson Lake continually provides excellent opportunities to see American Avocets, Black-necked Stilts, Wilson's Phalarope, Western and Least Sandpipers, Long-billed Curlews, Dowitchers, and Snowy Plovers. Unusual sightings such as Black-bellied Plover, Semi-palmated Plover, Ruddy Turnstone, Pectoral Sandpiper, and Baird's Sandpiper are more common at Carson Lake than any other place in the valley, with the possible exception of Stillwater WMA. Both Wilson's and Red-necked Phalaropes often build up to impressive numbers in spring and late summer. Your best chance of spotting a Cattle Egret is in the vicinity of Carson Lake.
MAHALA SLOUGH
General Description: Mahala Slough is a small (about 100 acres), shallow wetland. Although usually dry in late summer, it is wet in spring and fall and is an easily accessed wetland with good birding potential.
Location and Access: The wetlands are approximately 10 miles west of Fallon, about 2 miles west of the junction of Hwy 50 and alternate Hwy 50. Parking can be difficult
A Guide to Birdwatching 71
Caspian Terns can often be seen near lakes and marshes, and occasionally nest in Lahontan Valley. (Courtesy U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service--David B. Marshall Photograph)
and dangerous because of traffic and soft shoulders, so use extreme caution when stopping along the highway. The turnoff for Fulkerson Road is a good, safe observation point.
Habitat Types: Marsh, Open water, Mudflat.
Special Features: Mahala Slough is used extensively by Tundra Swans, Canada Geese, Cinnamon Teal, Redheads, Ruddy Ducks, American Avocet, and American Coots, although numbers of each species are relatively small. The birds that use this area are apparently accustomed to vehicle traffic which allows birders the opportunity to get very close in your vehicle, without disturbing them. This is often an excellent area to observe and identify shorebirds.
REGULATORY RESERVOIRS
General Description: Three reservoirs in Lahontan Valley (S-Line, Sheckler, and Harmon), which are maintained as part of the irrigation project, can provide some exciting and occasionally unusual bird sightings. These reservoirs are typically deepwater habitats with islands that support nesting populations of Canada Geese and other waterbirds, and are good places to see fish-eating birds like Western Grebes, White Pelicans, Double-crested Cormorants, and Great Blue Herons. Reservoirs usually hold water from March to December.
Location and Access:
S-Line Reservoir: About 2 miles northeast of Fallon, just east of Rattlesnake Hill,
72 Bowman, Neel and Thompson
along Reservoir Road. A dirt road encircles the reservoir and provides access to the north half, although the road is often in poor condition.
Sheckler Reservoir: About 5 miles west of Fallon. To get there from Fallon, take Hwy 50 west to Sheckler Cut-off and turn left. Where the road takes a sharp left (about 1.8 miles), turn right, then turn left on Desert View Drive after about 1/4 mile. Desert View will lead you to S heckler Reservoir if you stay on the "main" road.
Harmon Reservoir: About 6 miles east of Fallon. Take the Stillwater Road from Hwy 50. At the first sharp left bend, go straight; you will then be on Stuart Road and Harmon Reservoir is 1 mile up the road on the south.
Habitat Types: Open water, Marsh.
Special Features: Of the 3 reservoirs, S -Line will surely provide the best birdwatching. It is the only known site in Nevada, except Lake Tahoe, with an active Osprey nest. It also produces more Canada Geese than any area in Lahontan Valley, and contains a large Great Blue Heron rookery in the northern half of the reservoir. Sandhill Cranes have occasionally been seen at Harmon Reservoir and S-Line Reservoir during fall and spring.
CARSON RIVER (Lahontan Dam to Diversion Dam)
General Description: This 4-mile stretch of the Carson River is very scenic and contains excellent riparian habitat not found elsewhere in Lahontan Valley. A stretch of the river immediately below Lahontan Dam lies within Lahontan State Park. A float trip by canoe may be the easiest and most productive way to view birds along this stretch of river.
Location and Access: You can launch a canoe at the bridge just downstream from Lahontan Dam and take out at Diversion Dam. There is usually enough water in the river to allow canoeing anytime during the irrigation season, when water is released into the Carson River from Lahontan Dam. You can also walk along much of the river below Lahontan Dam. To access the river below Lahontan Dam, take the turnoff for Lahontan State Park about 5 miles south-west of the intersection of Hwy 50 and Alternate Hwy 50. Bring a fishing pole and try your luck for trout!
Habitat Types: Cottonwood-riparian, Marsh, Open water.
Special Features: This is one of the few areas in Lahontan Valley where you can see Wood Ducks. Look for Wood Ducks along the densely-vegetated banks, especially where Russian olive grows thickly. Yellow-billed Cuckoos have been sighted along this stretch of river. This is also a good stretch to see waterfowl, quail, hawks, and a variety of songbirds.
LAHONTAN RESERVOIR
General Description: Lahontan Dam was constructed on the Carson River in 1911 to store water for the Newlands Irrigation Project in Lahontan Valley. The resulting reservoir is a popular and valuable recreation area for thousands of northern Nevadans. Cottonwoods line much of the shoreline and a large cottonwood forest occurs at the upper end. These areas provide pleasant camping for lake visitors, as well as productive birdwatching.
Location and Access: Lahontan State Recreation Area is situated 14 miles southeast of Fallon along Hwy 50 toward Carson City. From Fallon, take Hwy 50 west to Leetville
A Guide to Birdwatching 73
Flocks of Snow Geese can usually be seen at Carson Lake during fall migration. (Courtesy U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service--David B. Marshall Photograph)
Junction. Turn left toward Carson City and continue another 6 miles to the State Park turnoff. Turning left here takes you to the east entrance of the state park. Access fees are $2.00 per car for day use, and $4.00 per car per night for overnight camping. Access to the west side can be gained from Alternate Hwy 95 between Silver Springs and Yerington. From Silver Springs, turn left at the state park sign.
Habitat Types: Open water, Cottonwood-riparian, Desert.
Special Features: Two islands in Lahontan Reservoir provide nesting sites for 2 large gull colonies. One island is inhabited predominantly by Ring-billed Gulls, the other by California Gulls. If you are boating, care should be taken not to disturb the nesting birds when the colonies are active. Please do not go ashore on these islands while nesting is in progress (May to July). Other islands often harbor nesting Great Blue Herons. White pelicans, Double-crested Cormorants, and Western Grebes are often found on the reservoir from March to October. Bald Eagles frequent the reservoir in winter. The upper (west) end of the reservoir intermittently floods a richly vegetated riparian zone, thus maintaining one of the most diverse riparian habitats in northern Nevada. The west end is an excellent place to observe waterfowl in late winter and in early spring as ice begins to break up. Yellow-billed Cuckoos have been sighted here, and indeed it may be the last place in northern Nevada where this declining species still nest. Other birds to look for here include Western Bluebird, Northern Oriole, Black-headed Grosbeak, and Bewick's Wren. Wild Turkeys have been introduced along the Carson River just upstream and a lucky birder might get a glimpse of one near the state park boundary.
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When binding this area, care should be taken not to trespass onto private property without permission.
SODA LAKES
General Description: The Soda Lakes lie 4 miles northwest of Fallon, and are aptly named for the high concentrations of sodium bicarbonate found in their waters. The 2 lakes are the result of ancient volcanic activity, and are sustained solely by subterranean water. Birding at Soda Lakes is best in fall and winter. The high soda content of the water in these lakes keeps it ice-free except during the coldest winters. This provides open water for water birds throughout the winter after the rest of the valley's wetlands have frozen over.
Location and Access: Take Soda Lake Road north from Hwy 50 west of Fallon. Turn west on Cox Road. Several "roads" take off to the north, all of which lead to the south rim of Big Soda. The best road winds past Little Soda Lake on its way to Big Soda Lake.
Habitat Types: Open Water, Marsh, Desert.
Special Features: Just about any species of waterfowl found in Nevada may show up at Soda Lakes, including Geese and Tundra Swans. Eared Grebes feed on the rich brine shrimp blooms which occur in the lakes. Fish-eating birds such as Western Grebes, Common Mergansers, and an occasional Common Loon may be seen on either lake, although only Little Soda has fish in it. Bald Eagles regularly frequent the area in the winter. Soda Lakes have developed a reputation as a "black box", or a place which draws in stragglers not expected to be found in the Great Basin. Coastal gull species, Ancient Murrelets, and the remains of a South Polar Skua have been reported from the area, so keep an open mind.
GRIMES POINT TO EAGLE HOUSE
General Description: For out-of-state birdwatchers who wish to add desert species to their list, a trip from Grimes Point to Eagle House may be desirable. This drive (see map) takes you through typical rocky desert-scrub habitat. The area is sparsely vegetated, and, as one might expect, the associated birdlife is lean, both in number and diversity. On the other hand, several bird species are unique to this habitat and can be found in no other habitat.
Location and Access: Take Hwy 50 east from Fallon. Turn left onto the gravel road just before the Grimes Point archeological area sign. Continue on this road until road conditions become unsuitable for your particular vehicle. Always use discretion when travelling on undeveloped desert roads. An up-to-date topographical map is recommended.
Habitat Types: Desert..
Special Features: An astute birder may find nesting Prairie Falcons and Golden Eagles along the rock outcrops skirting the road. The same outcrops should produce Rock Wrens and Say's Phoebes. Look for Sage Thrashers and Sage Sparrows in the scrub.
FALLON FARMLANDS
General Description: Approximately 60,000 acres of irrigated farmlands surround
A Guide to Birdwatching 75
American White Pelicans, like these nesting at Anaho Island National Wildlife Refuge at Pyramid Lake, fly to shallow wetlands in Lahontan Valley to feed on fish. (Courtesy U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service--David B. Marshall Photograph)
the major birding spots of the valley. The farmland often provides important feeding am occasionally nesting areas for many bird species. Cottonwood trees and shrubbery often associated with farmlands provide valuable habitat for many species of birds.
Location and Access: All of the farmland in the valley is in private ownership but observations of many birds species can be accomplished easily from public roads The following is a list of several rural routes which have historically provided fair tc excellent birding.
Stillwater Road - Reservation Road: Follow Hwy 50 about 4 miles east o Fallon until you reach the Stillwater WMA turnoff. Follow Stillwater Road tc Reservation Road, then drive Reservation Road back around to Stillwater Road. During the irrigation season (March - November) this can be a good area for shorebirds and large wading birds like White-faced Ibis, Herons, Egrets, and gulls. Canada Geese feed some fields during late fall and winter. Swainson's Hawks, Red-tailed Hawks, America! Kestrels, and Great Horned Owls commonly nest in this area.
Hwy 95 South - Pasture Road - Union Lane. Head south along Hwy 95 abou 8 miles to Pasture Road. Follow Pasture Road east, then north to Union Lane which wil take you back to Hwy 95. The irrigation season is an excellent time to see White-face( Ibis, Cattle Egrets, and shorebirds. During the winter Bald Eagles, Roughlegged Hawks Red-tailed Hawks, and Prairie Falcons are common.
Habitat Types: Farmland.
76 Bowman, Neel and Thompson
Special Features: Most of the backroads near wetlands have very little traffic. Birdwatching in the farmlands can be very productive, and a drive around the Valley can be a comfortable way to enjoy birding during winter when temperatures are frigid.
For additional information on birding hot spots or population status you should contact::
Nevada Department of Wildlife Stillwater Wildlife Managment Area
380 West B Street 960-4 Auction Road
Fallon, NV 89406 P.O. Box 1236
(702) 423-3171 Fallon, NV 89406
(702) 423-5128
Both agencies have bird lists and maps available.
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Map of birdwatching locations in the Lahontan Valley. (Courtesy Timothy D. Bowman)
FAMILY SNAPSHOTS
A Letter to Jade
MARY "BUNNY" CUSHMAN CORKILL
Dearest Jade,
Pity your generation of wee computer geniuses who will never HAVE to use mankind's first computer system, the brain and the five senses, to conjure up feelings from the past. The press of a plastic key and a glass "digitized" screen will replace the joy of closing your eyes and, in total silence and darkness, remembering the smells, the sounds, the textures and the tastes from your past. A "floppy disc" will serve as your memory and feelings in place of these peculiar "human" emotions which at one moment can make you laugh hysterically and, in the next second, weep from joy or sadness.
You will be able to avoid the unexplainable "hormone up-heavals" which often get in the way of our making the best judgments and decisions, thus allowing us to "learn from our mistakes."
I fear that the "program" on your "software" might not have the information to tell you that "scary" things are supposed to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and funny little "goose-bumpy" things cover your arms and legs, and make the palms of your hands get all "sweaty" and that a huge knot can instantly come from nowhere to twist the pit of your tummy.
You see, I am your grandmother, and because I love you so very much, I feel it is my responsibility to tell you about REAL life. While you are still two years old, and the universe is within your grasp, I must tell you about a simpler life. One that was mine, before life became pre-packaged, poly-pro-pon-something-ated, plasticized, saturated, asphalted, super-sonic-ed, over-populated, over-littered, polluted, toxified, etc.!
Let us begin with a few simple things:
A - APPLES.
Apples are not those waxy, alar infested, ball-looking things that are piled in the super-market bins.
Apples come in several colors such as green, yellow and red. They grow on trees and, in order to fetch one, you must climb the tree and pluck it from a leafy limb. It is always more fun doing this while your mother is screaming for you to get down out of that tree before you fall. Apples are often inhabited by fuzzy little things called worms, and it becomes a great challenge to see who, you or he, can get the first bite while still engaged in eye-to-eye contact!
Apples are best eaten immediately after fetching, followed closely by apple pie with a major dollop of home-made ice cream upon its flaky warm crust. Ice cream is a delicious cold, ice-crystal-like substance made with fresh eggs, fresh cream and vanilla or fruit,
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A Letter to Jade 79
Jade Ryan Corkill, 1989. (Photograph by Jennifer Manha)
80 Mary "Bunny" Cushman Corkill
turned in a wooden freezer, hand-cranked by the strong arms of a loving Daddy, who will allow you to sit on a gunny sack, on top of the freezer, during those last few cranks, before the dasher is removed and crushed ice and rock salt is packed around the cylinder for the final freezing. Ice cream never tastes better than it does when you are allowed to wrap your tongue around the dasher in an attempt to lick the finished product off before it melts and falls into your lap! REAL ice cream does not contain 93% guar gum, locust bean gum, calcium carrageenan and polysorbate 80.
The apples where the worm won, are called apple sauce!
A - ALFALFA.
You will never hear the sound of a working, horse-drawn, mowing machine or get to call to your mom that the "hay crew" is coming up the lane for lunch. This job has its hazards because if you teasingly tell her the crew is here, and they aren't, you might get a dish pan filled with hot soapy water thrown at you out through the kitchen window screen and sent to your room! You will miss seeing a dozen harnessed horses with sacks thrown over their backs to keep the huge, black horse flies from unmercifully biting their bodies as they laboriously plod along from daylight to dusk.
Though the horses have been replaced by mechanical swathers may you always remember the distinctive smell of the new-mown hay that fills the air on a warm summer evening just as the sun, with its pink, lavender and orange fingers, begins to filter into the west and leaves our beloved Valley for a few hours.
B - BREAD.
Bread is not that soft, white, gushy stuff filled with ethoxylated mono diglycerides and sodium stearoly lactylates and phosphated and sulfated and bromated things, ingeniously disguised in a non-bio-degradable plastic sack!
Bread is sweet milk, directly from the cow, yeast and whole wheat flour, lovingly kneaded and allowed to slowly rise on the back of the warm stove and then baked to a golden brown, immediately sliced and served with freshly churned butter and strawberry preserves or honey.
C - CHILDREN.
Children are not to be molested and sexually, mentally and physically abused and unwanted. They are not to be used as pawns by disturbed, selfish, self-centered dumb adults!
Children are to be wanted, loved, cherished, nurtured, directed, disciplined and allowed to bloom into loving, well-adjusted, independent, emotionally and morally strong beings. In their hands is the future of this fragile world, and I cry when I realize the mess the past two generations have made of this magnificent earth. It is your inheritance, and man has done everything in his power to try to destroy it for you. May you little people find a way to save it before it is too late!
C - CREAM.
Cream is that half of whole-milk, which, before it was homogenized, pasteurized and confined within the waxed walls of a tiny carton, rose to the top of the pottery settling bowls to be scooped off by a little metal skimmer. If the milk had been poured from the
A Letter to Jade 81
stainless steel bucket into the separator bowl, the cream was the thick substance which slowly trickled down the shorter separator spout and lazily dripped into the smaller cream can, while the milk rushed down the longer spout and splashed into the taller, ten-gallon, milk can.
Cream comes in different consistencies , depending on whether it comes from a Jersey, Guernsey or Holstein cow. Cream can be churned into butter, whipped, frozen or poured upon sweet peaches or berries, just brought in from the orchard or berry patch. However you use real cream, it coats the top of your mouth!
D - DOGS, DIRT AND DEW.
Dogs come in all sizes and fortunately for little boys they arrive in the puppy stage. Dirt, too, comes in all shapes and sizes and we must preserve enough of it for generations of little boys and puppies to roll in. Dirt is especially wonderful when it contains a puddle of water. Little boys will walk for miles hoping that a puddle will jump up and splash them. Dew is the magnificent little water droplets that tenderly cling to the grass and hay in the fields in the morning. To be most appreciated, it too, needs to be romped through by little boys and puppies.
E- EGGS.
Eggs are not those oval white objects that can be found in a 12-hole-styro-foam carton in a refrigerated box.
Eggs are round, hard-shelled, white or brown treasures which can be found within the confines of a straw-filled, wooden nest, in a hen-house! Once retrieved in a metal bucket, they are taken into a dark cellar where they are held up to a light to be "candled." With this process one can tell if the egg has a little chicky embryo or a bad spot in it. The perfect eggs are weighed and segregated according to large, medium or small. They are carefully cleaned and boxed so that they can be taken to town and sold or into the home for use. The imperfect ones are properly disposed of. Real eggs are eaten within a couple of days, while the yolk and white are firm, and not kept "re-frigerated" for six months until one is guaranteed they will instantly cover a 12" pan with some kind of milk-like substance when broken open.
Eggs are laid by female chickens called hens, and one can not truly appreciate the value of an egg until a "brooding" hen's beak has severely punctured the arm of the kid whose Mommy sent him to get ALL of the eggs. As the arm attempts to swiftly dash under the setting hen to retrieve the hidden egg, PECK!! When Moms aren't looking, sometimes it makes the kid feel better if he thumps that mean old hen over the beak with a big stick, to sort of even things out!
F - FAMILIES.
According to recent government findings, the average family moves every seven years.
Seemingly, your family is not average! The first member of your local family "tree" came to Lahontan Valley, Utah Territory, in 1861, and since that time 29 main "limbs" have called this place home, so your "roots" have spread through-out the entire county!
Your great-great-great grandparents who chose to live in this area were James and Mary Woodin McCulloch and Thomas and Catharine Martin Kennedy.
82 Mary "Bunny" Cushman Corkill
Your great-great grandparents who lived in this valley were Josiah Jordan and Elizabeth McCulloch Cushman, Edward Thomas and Mary Kington Morgan, Joseph and Margaret Ellen Kennedy deBraga, A.D. Norman and Lena Pauline Jensen Norcutt, William Tell and Cora Pitts Marke and for a short time, Bessie Ward Corkill Westover.
Eight of your nine great-grandparents have lived here, and you have had the privilege of knowing seven of them. They are Harry and Laura Marke Corkill, Pete and Mabel Morgan Cushman, Frank and Goldie Norcutt deBraga and Burnell and Zona Murdock.
You well know your grandparents, Lyle and Marcia Smith Murdock deBraga and Bill and Bunny Cushman Corkill. And of course, the best are left for last, your Mom and Dad, Bruce and Mitzi deBraga Corkill. So, little Jade, you see, you do come from a long line of love, and my prayer is that one day you too will find someone to share a lifetime of love with as have your progenitors, many of whom have celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversaries, plus some!
The members of your family came to the Upper Sinks, the Carson Sinks, the Bench Lands, and Stillwater districts of Lahontan Valley in wagons, drawn by oxen and horses, trains and autos.
They were miners and educators, cattlemen and farmers who have tilled the alkali, sand and clay of this valley for four and five generations. Though they seldom saw the inside of a church, they all believed in a Great Spirit, or they could not have seen themselves through the wind storms, droughts, crop failures, foreclosures and empty "glory holes." Every spring there is a re-birth of this precious land. No one can witness the birth of a calf or the sprouting of a tiny seed in the midst of a blinding dust or snow storm and not believe there are angels hovering above!
In my overwhelming desire to protect you, I could ask that you follow safely in the footsteps of those who have come before, but that would not be fair. I must release you to make your own prints, wherever life may take you. Maybe, you will be among the first pioneers to bring life to another planet!
G - GRANDMOTHERS.
Grandmothers are not those statuesque, sinewy goddesses emerging from a fitness center garbed in stretchy-lame'ed-veloured-"sweat?" clothes, brandishing their multi-hued acrylic finger nails.
Grandmothers were soft and warm, in their shapeless cotton dresses, defined at the middle by an apron tied with strings. Aprons, an endangered species, are garments designed to catch spills and keep the front of the dress clean, so that if unexpected company comes, the apron can be tossed aside and with a few quick flips of the fingers through the hair, the lady of the house is presentable. Aprons are also used for carrying eggs from a newly discovered nest in the hay stack and fresh vegetables in from the garden.
Grandmothers served oatmeal mush to their families long before the U.S Surgeon General's office discovered that oat fiber prevents laboratory rats from having malignancies. She fed it to them because she loved them, it was cheap, it tasted good and it "stuck-to your ribs."
Grandmas had cookie jars filled with freshly baked cookies, and their "egg money" tucked away for a rainy day, not plastic credit card receipts.
When Grandmas sat down, they had nice wide laps to hold little children on while
A Letter to Jade 83
they rocked them to sleep, talked with them, or read them a story. Their hands were always busy with sewing or crocheting, instead of the TV remote control. They left hand-made heirlooms for their children's children. Grandmas always had time to LISTEN to you and rub your back with lilac powder.
Grandmothers believed in "standing by her man," often shoulder to shoulder, as they walked behind a plow turning this barren desert into fertile fields of green. She found that the one-size shovel and hoe handles fit all sizes of hands. The calluses on her palms were a badge of valor, in the war of woman-kind versus Mother Nature. But, it really didn't matter to the small child, who reached up for the security of a gentle touch, that Grandma's knuckles were enlarged and her fingers bent. This was all the security one needed to feel that she could take on the world....the same world that I give to you....for better or worse.
G - GOODNIGHT.
My heart and mind are so full of memories that I must share with you, that I could go on with this letter, almost forever, but it is dusk now, and a huge full moon is ascending above the horizon beside Job's Peak. The darkness brings a calmness to this frantic world, and I know that it is time for me to say, "GOODNIGHT!"
Go forth, precious child, be strong and brave but loving and caring. Make this a better world for your fellow man, but don't forget your "ROOTS" and take time to smell the SAGE.
Love,
Bun Bun
A Hero Returns:
Don Ray Hennen
MARIAN HENNEN LAVOY
DONALD RAY HENNEN returned to Fallon on August 12, 1948...his casket covered with the Stars and Stripes...his family and friends in tears, and as the staccato gun salute died away the haunting strains of "Taps" filled the quiet summer morning. He had come home to sleep in the Mountain View Cemetery.
Don had given his life at the battle of St. Lo in France. His 329th Infantry unit had been surrounded by German troups after the low-lying area had been flooded. The American troops were desperately trying to escape the rising swamp waters, only to be "picked off" one by one by the German sharpshooters as they struggled for their lives. When the evening shadows settled, few of the men were left alive.
Don was born on July 28, 1915 in Elko, Nevada. His paternal grandparents had been pioneer ranchers in Elko County since the late 1860's and his maternal grandparents had been pioneer railroad people in Carson City from the 1870's. His parents, Isabelle Foley Hennen and Joseph H. Hennen were ranchers on the old home ranch in Pleasant Valley.
Hennen attended Rabbit Creek School near Lamoille and when of High School age he had lived in the old dormitory that was available for the children of ranchers who lived too far away from Elko to commute to school. Don was a handsome man and extremely popular with his classmates. He was involved with basketball and track, sang with the Glee Club, acted in the class plays and during his four years in Elko County High School was class President, Vice-President and Student Government Representative. He also was active with 4-H and traveled with his prize beef to the cattle shows in South San Francisco each year.
He had planned on studying dentistry after his graduation in 1932 but the Great Depression was in full swing so he accepted an offer from his cousin, George Hennen, to work in Fallon at the Texaco Bulk Plant. Much against his parent's wishes he moved to Fallon and took the job of delivering Texaco fuel to the outlying service stations, etc. He became active in the ball teams in Fallon and made many close friends.
In the early spring of 1936 he married Irene Miller of Fallon and their son, Michael, was born on December 26th of that year. Michael later became the mascot of one of the teams and was known as "The Little Feather Merchant." Hennen went into business with Wendell Beeghly at the Main Service Station located on the southwest corner of Maine and Center streets where the Fallon National Bank is presently located. He later worked for Bill Powell at the Sagebrush.
When Hennen entered the U.S. Army he did so at the displeasure of his Elko family who had made arrangements for him to become a ranch foreman on one of the large northeastern Nevada ranches. But he said, "I am 27 years old...I have a family...but I feel 84
A Hero Returns 85
Don Ray Hennen, c1935. (Courtesy Marian Hennen LaVoy)
that my country needs me and all my friends have put on the uniform of their country and I will not be a 'slacker' ."
One could never call Donald Ray Hennen a "slacker". He gave his life for his country on July 4, 1944 and was interred at the Ste. Mere E'glise Cemetery in France until his wife had his remains returned to Fallon on that warm summer morning in 1948.
Robert Perthel Jr.
JEFF PERTHEL
OF ALL THE the modern industrial skills, none has enjoyed a longer life than the art of making and shaping glass. Robert Perthel Jr. has made a career of this art, one that has spanned well over 50 years.
Perthel was born September 18, 1918, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, to Robert and Mariam Gardiner Perthel. Perthel was educated in Nutley, New Jersey, and graduated from High School there in 1936.
In September of 1936, Perthel went to work at The Scientific Glass Company in Bloomfield, New Jersey. He served an apprenticeship that was completed in 1941. At that time he held the position of assistant foreman in the glass tool shop.
Perthel took a detour from his glass blowing career in June of 1941 when he enlisted in the army. He was first stationed in Fort Knox, Kentucky, where he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Infantry in November of 1942. He then attended the Armored Force School in 1943, and graduating first in his class.
In November of 1943, Perthel married Helen Englehaupt. Two weeks after the wedding, he was shipped overseas to Germany. There he served in the European Theatre of Operations as maintenance and gunnery officer and tank platoon leader, 35th Tank Battalion. He was wounded in action twice and was awarded both the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. After receiving an honorable discharge as a First Lieutenant in 1945, he returned home to the states, his wife and his job as a glass blower.
In the spring of 1947, the Perthels moved to California. In May of 1948, Perthel joined the staff of Stanford Research Institute. He was the 25th person hired and consequently established the glass shop at S .R.I. During his nine years there, he worked on instruments for the Los Angeles Smog Project, including gas analysis apparatus, aerosol generators and air sampling devices of all sorts. This, along with the making of distillation apparatus, electronic tube and high vacuum work, gave Perthel a broad background in all types of glass blowing.
Searching for a better place to live, Perthel moved his family to Nevada in May of 1957 and purchased a 27 acre ranch in The Lone Tree District. Unable to find a job in Fallon in his related area, he moved to Sparks, but retained the ranch for retirement. Perthel soon began working at the Reno Metallurgy Research Center of The U.S. Bureau of Mines. Within a year, he was made building superintendent. As well as keeping up on his glass blowing duties, he ran the building maintenence crew and supervised installation of complete laboratories and research equipment.
The high point of Perthel's glass blowing career, though, came at Stanford. While at S.R.I., he instructed a glass blowing course for the Biology Department of Stanford University and did all the glass work for the Chemistry and Physical Chemistry departments.
Perthel would often be given drawings of glass items he was to create. He recalls the
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Robert Perthel Jr. 87
Robert Perthel Jr., 1949 (Courtesy Robert Perthel Jr.--Ellen Weaver Photograph)
steps in the creation process: "First, I would apply techniques of glass blowing to the construction. In glass blowing you have to work from inside to outside. You have to have all pieces of and for the project completed and ready for assembly. Everything ready for the complete job. Once you start heating the glass, you can't stop during the assembly process. ....Glass by nature is a fragile material. Completed items must be annealed, (fired in a kiln), and strained checked before they leave my hands."
In 1963, three members of the Desert Research Institute, including Perthel, formed "Talent Inc." The corporation, which is still in existence, made special effects projects for planetariums and maintained hospital and medical equipment in the Reno area. Perthel was responsible for creating the meteorological projectors used at the planetarium. The projectors provide a complete sequence of meteorological events leading to a storm in the planetarium theater and ending with a rainbow and the returning of the sun. Perthel served as president of "Talent Inc." for a year and a half before selling his interest in the company in 1965.
According to Perthel, the most difficult piece of glassware he ever created was a glass gasoline pump. It was commissioned as part of a government research project for the Air Force. Perthel also created a glass pump to be used in chemistry labs for handling corrosive liquids that would eat up other container materials.
In addition to scientific glass creations, Perthel has touched the other end of the spectrum with his artistic creations. His creations include swans, sailfish, hummingbirds, wedding cake tops, perfume bottles, dinosaurs, flowers...the list goes on. "I've done about everything that can be done. There is no great transition from scientific to artistic glass blowing--it's all an art to begin with. The ability to blow glass is like being able to
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play an instrument. It's a natural tendency within you and that, along with practice, is how you develop skill."
Out in the community, Perthel has lectured and demonstrated his glass blowing art to service clubs, high school science clubs, art and craft shows and nursing homes. While in California at S.R.I., movie stars Shirley Temple Black and Louis Armstrong witnessed his glass blowing talent.
When glass blowing in his studio, he uses a 122 cubic foot cylinder which weighs nearly 100 pounds. On demonstrations around communities, he uses a five gallon propane tank and a small steel cylinder of oxygen.
In 1980, Perthel and his wife Helen retired to their ranch in Fallon where he continues to keep up his skill. His creations now complement the homes of many friends and family, and he keeps a continuous supply of artistic items at the CO OP Gallery of Reno.
I asked Perhel what he had gained from his life as a glass blower. "I have gained satisfaction from working with some of the best scientists in the country. It's a job I really like. A real challenge...".
CREATIVE FOCUS
Men Taken in and Done For
WESLEY L. CRAIG
THE GOLD RUSH that started on the western edge of the Great Basin in the early 1850's brought with it men who came to find something or to forget something. Some were adventurous, some were afraid, yet they all came with large dreams, but mostly they came alone. These souls worked long and hard only to find their hands calloused, their cooking terrible, and their pack animals very poor company. These hardy adventurers were the first men of the area, and although they didn't know who the first women would be, they knew what they would be.
The first women of the early mining camps in the Nevada Territory proved to be a lively group of ladies unlike most men had ever seen--unlike mothers, sisters, aunts, and even the girls next door. They did not come carrying pots and pans to make a home. They came as civilizing catalysts, with flower pots and smiles, to build a house that is not a home.
Men who had not bathed for an endless time were now combing their hair, dusting their boots, and thinking of the sporting girls. The western prostitutes slowly began to add culture to the men of the wild, and in a noted house of early Virginia City, the madam, Julia Bulette, taught men the etiquette of fine dining along with the social graces of the finest conversations to be had in the area.
The early prostitutes in the gold camps came in all sizes, shapes, and colors, and carried names like High Step Jennie, Blonde Marie, Crazy Horse Lil, Sally Purple, and Silver Heels. Although each used a name unique to herself, they all, like most other women, wanted to be loved just for themselves. They would spend hours making themselves beautiful. They learned to cook, sew, and tend a home, all as part of their duties.
Julia Bulette became one of the more famous madams in Virginia City. Little was known of her past, but her presence in Virginia City was regarded with the highest respect. She ran the best house in town, serving the finest food and drink, and providing only the best entertainment. She permitted no roughhousing.
For her many community service deeds, she was made an honorary member of the Virginia Engine Company Number One, the only woman in history to be so honored. The Virginia and Truckee Railroad named a club car the "Julia Bulette" and one of the Comstock mines, the "Julia" was named after her.
When she was murdered in her sleep by a burglar seeking an easy fortune, the town honored her with the finest funeral the Comstock had ever seen, complete with a band that played "The Girl I Left Behind Me" as it returned from the gravesite.
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The western prostitutes are very much a part of our state's heritage. They not only gave of themselves in the classical sense, but tamed the wilderness of man through their unselfish thoughts and actions, making a civilized home for the infant state, Nevada, to grow in.
When the first legislative assembly met in Carson City in 1861, it established "offenses against public morality," which included selling an adulterated drink of liquor, obstructing any public highway, selling the flesh of a diseased animal, refusing to join a posse, and marrying someone else's spouse, but it did not address prostitution.
It wasn't until 1881, when the new state of Nevada's legislative assembly met, that any law was passed which even mentioned prostitution. This law simply gave each county commission the power to "license, tax, regulate, prohibit, or suppress all houses of ill-fame." This law is still pretty much the same today.
Although the bed and board type bordello, where a man could get a bath and shave, a well-prepared meal, and a lot of hardy company has faded into yesteryear, the legends of these famous ladies live on today. They, too, were very much a part of this state's history, and made the roaring mining camps a much more pleasurable place to live. It is to these gentle tamers, all of them who hung out their signs that read "Men Taken in and Done For," that I dedicate this moment.
Discovering Northern Nevada
DONOVAN PRICE
DEPARTING DENVER, COLORADO, on the fifth of January, nineteen eighty-nine, I began my journey to Fallon, Nevada. Just thirty days prior to this date, I had been on the lush tropical island of Guam, thinking I would soon be leaving this beautiful green island for a small town out in the middle of nowhere on a dry, barren, and sandy desert. I had acquired this prepossessed idea from my visit to Las Vegas some years ago, so I assumed all of Nevada would be more or less the same.
I staunchly believed the only living things willing to take up residence in this state by their own free will--since all Nevada had to offer was sand--were rattlesnakes, buzzards, and jack rabbits; in addition, nuclear waste dumps and tests have always been synonymous with Nevada, so it would be the most unwanted place in the country. This colored view of mine began to shatter as rapidly as a window struck by a line drive baseball, for I saw more than sand when I entered Nevada on "the loneliest road in America."
Great Basin National Park and Humboldt National Forest were the first two geographic features to blow huge gaping holes into my stereotyped outlook, for large mountain peaks almost comparable to the Rockies towered up to the sky in majestic beauty. I tried desperately to shore up my buckling preconception by saying to myself, "This just happens to be the one appealing place in Nevada, proving the exception to the rule, and as soon as I descend this mountain pass, the landscape is sure to become a desolate , unappealing no-man's land."
My distorted view took a high powered nitroglycerin blast when I descended onto the high desert plain. Desolate the desert was, so I was not altogether wrong, but this feature, combined with sage, white patches of snow, and the absence of man's endeavors except the highway I was on, gave the plains a rugged, serene and undisturbed beauty that I found breathtaking.
Fallon would be no exception to the unrelenting onslaught upon my tendentious views, and after witnessing firsthand the furrowed fields, pastures, and farms which looked like they had been transplanted from states such as Wyoming or Colorado, my biased views were left staggering like a drunken wino, trying desperately to regain their balance. So far, I thought, everything I had pictured Nevada, along with the City of Fallon, to be, wasn't, much to my relief as I was being stationed here for three years.
The farms, ranches, and open range, when I viewed them from ample altitude, looked like the small patches painstakingly sewn onto a quilt, and the mountains appeared as towering sentinels with a bluish hue like that which fine tempered steel radiates. These
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two final peculiarities, along with the overall beauty of the Lahontan Valley, delivered the final knockout blow to my stubborn bias.
I'm amazed at myself when I look back to the amount of valuable, concrete information I had possession of prior to leaving Guam, yet had casually discarded in order to retain my prejudiced outlook. I'm a little unsettled that it took seeing, smelling, and feeling this part of the country before I could cast away my one sided attitude and see things as they are. I now look at northern Nevada and the city of Fallon with open eyes, seeing the vast, rugged and unspoiled landscape that has its own unique attractiveness.
Are Fresh Eggs That Important?
DEBORAH SHARP
WHEN YOU MOVE to the country, sometimes you are hit by a strong desire to do something "countrified." After moving to Fallon, my desire struck me in the form of chicken raising. While I pondered the practicality of raising chickens, my friends gave me some words of encouragement.
"Think of the money you'll save on eggs!" they said.
"Chickens are easy to take care of; why, they can live off the land!" they insisted.
After I had listened to their advice, I reached a decision; raising chickens could be an easy, money-saving project, so I drove to the local feed store and bought fresh-hatched chicks and their supplies.
My family settled the little fuzzballs into a cardboard box in our dining room. This was an ideal arrangement for our chickens, but not so ideal for us. We all turned up our noses after the "cute stage" wore off. It was soon "someone else's" turn to clean out the box. In addition, the chicks' box was so small, escapees were flying out and landing either in the sink or on the stove. My family and I were soon eager for the chickens to move into a home of their own.
Surely, constructing a chicken house should be a simple, inexpensive project. I determined that my husband was simple enough to handle the building of the coop and let him loose. Once I saw the costly finished structure, I decided that leaving him alone had been a simple mistake.
The pampered poultry now had a luxurious Spanish-style building with tile roof and stucco siding--not your run-of-the-mill, low-key type chicken house. It was a major attraction, a chicken "hacienda." As I looked at the gracefully curving archways, several proud chickens strutted through the opening. I could swear they were smiling. Our dog wasn't smiling though; he didn't have a house at all.
That night, I had dreams of chickens all dressed for dinner--in starched tuxedos and satin evening gowns. I thought that maybe they were at a dance, for I could hear noises like a band tuning up in the background. All at once, loud yelping, screeching, and howling propelled me out of my bed. That "out of tune band" wasn't playing in my dreams, it was playing in my back yard!
Stumbling to the window, I looked outside in alarm. In the moonlight, there appeared to be a hundred dogs of all shapes and sizes trying to invade my chicken house! Something had to be done.
I moved quickly into the kitchen and seized a rarely used flashlight. Without delay, I ran into the yard, picked up my new rake, and headed for the war. Immediately, my flashlight began blinking on and off, as if it were sending out a Morse code message. 93
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During an off blink, I mutilated my foot on what I later found out to be the broken-off end of my new thirty dollar rake.
Excessive pain now had me twirling around with the broken rake in one hand and the on-off blinking light in the other, in such a way that most of the invading dogs retreated. A chicken dinner just wasn't worth this bizarre treatment.
I arrived at the chicken "hacienda" and found the chickens just sitting there, giving up and just generally being chicken, the fowl birds. The pack of dogs was now down to three confused pups, looking at me for some direction as to what would come next.
Well, actually I came next, jumping around and waving my rake handle. I was far too dramatic for these youngsters. While dogs raced around the sides of the pen, frantically searching for a way out, chickens came to life and flapped their wings. I ran for cover. The dogs finally gouged out a new exit and escaped into the night.
Primping and fluffing their feathers, the chickens retired for the evening with nary a thankful cluck. I hobbled back to my hacienda, favoring my sore foot and mumbling.
Maybe the dogs did have a point; is this trouble worth a chicken dinner, and are fresh eggs in the morning that important? Raising chickens isn't easy. With store-bought eggs selling for $.89 a dozen, are $12.00 a dozen home-grown eggs really worth it?
Impressions
LESLIE BROWN
WHEN I FIRST moved to Fallon two and a half years ago, I was not impressed. I was homesick for the mountains, rivers and forests of my only home for thirty-two years of life. Not having had any previous experience with moving or adjusting to a new community made me very aware of the oddities that make Churchill County unique. I can still recall the initial reactions I felt and the unexpected situations that I encountered.
First there was sand. Boy, was there sand! Fallonites called it dirt, but it was sand. Little gritty specks that clung to everything: shoes, feet, clothes, dogs, and cats. How could it cover the coffee table so fast? Every time I vacuumed it sounded like a sandstorm in the hose. Back home, I had laboriously built a square out of railroad ties and paid good money to fill it with sand to make a sandbox for the kids. Now, every time they come in the house they are walking sandboxes.
The next thing I noticed was the lack of greenery. Up until I moved, green was a color I disliked. It clashed with almost everything. But after only a few days, green gained favor in my eyes. The scenery looked so lifeless. Oh, people kept trying to point out green things to me, but I wouldn't buy them. For instance, the most common plant in the state is the sagebrush, but it's not truly green. In my opinion, there is way too much gray in the sagebrush to pass for green. Almost all of the trees here have yellowish leaves because of too much salt in the soil. The weeds along the canals, and even the lawns, are much more brown than green. There was one yard in our neighborhood that looked good--no gray, yellow, or brown in the vegetation. I went home and cried when my neighbor told me that it had taken him twelve years to get it looking that way.
The small community I moved from had one sixth the population of Churchill County, and was a three and a half hour drive from any bigger town. I didn't know how to drive in anything more than two lane traffic, and that at a very slow pace. When I saw all those lanes down the center of Fallon I began to get nervous. When I actually tried to drive in them, I went home and cried again. The suicide lane almost broke me. It was months before I quit swerving or hitting my brakes when someone pulled out from a side street into the center lane right beside me. I was sure I was going to get side swiped. And then, each time I'd pull into the center lane to make a left-handed turn, some idiot would be heading straight for me. For weeks I made only right hand turns. It wasn't easy getting home, but it did help me learn my way around the back streets.
After I drove out of the city limits, I was lost. I couldn't keep my sense of direction because little lanes and side roads kept branching off each other. I began asking for landmarks from people over the phone before I would try to find their houses. Invariably
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I was told, "We live by the canal--you can't miss it." One out of every three houses in Churchill County is by a canal! There are more canals than roads here.
Having five children quickly acquainted me with the school district. One particular episode had an ironic result. There were a few questions and minor misunderstandings that I thought needed straightening out. When I tried to contact the teachers and administrators, I discovered that many of them had unlisted phone numbers. I never thought too much about it until I enrolled at Western Nevada Community College. All my instructors began the first class with an information page containing their home phone numbers in case I had any problems.
Now that I've lived here for a while, I have not only become accustomed to Fallon -- I am very attached. The sand is great after a snow or rainstorm because the moisture soaks into the ground so fast that there's no mud. It's very easy to keep my garden weeded because the roots pull out of the sand so easily. I have found plenty of green -- it's at the football, basketball, and baseball games, along with the Fallon Greenwave Mascot. Green and white are the school colors. I finally learned to use the suicide lane and have discovered a whole new world on the left. Back roads and canals are my forte, thanks to lots of friends, and to birthday and slumber parties that my children have been involved in. I've also learned not to worry about my kids in school; when there's a problem, the school calls me. (In fact, I'm thinking of getting an unlisted number!) Best of all is the opportunity for my own education at WNCC.
I hope I never have to move again.
CONTRIBUTORS
Timothy D. Bowman is a wildlife biologist with the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service. He is now stationed in Valdez, Alaska.
Leslie Brown is a student at Western Nevada Community College and first place winner in the college's 1989 essay contest.
Roberta Childers is a Fallon resident and author of Magee Station and the Churchill Chronicles.
Wesley L. Craig is a student at Western Nevada Community College and third place winner in the college's 1989 essay contest.
Wesley Wayne Craig is an amateur historian and an employee of Churchill County Telephone Company.
Mary "Bunny" Cushman Corkill is a Nevada native and Research Assistant at the Churchill County Museum.
Doris D. Dwyer is a history instructor at Western Nevada Community College.
Phillip I. Earl is Curator of History at the Nevada Historical Society, Reno, and writes the popular This was Nevada newspaper series, from which his article was taken.
Marian Hennen LaVoy is a native Nevadan. Born in Elko County, she now makes her home in Fallon.
Clara Lopez is a Native American and a student at Western Nevada Community College.
Michon Mackedon teaches English at Western Nevada Community College.
Larry Neel is a non-game biologist for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. He works in Fallon.
Jeff Perthel is the Activities Director of the Fallon Convalescent Center.
Donovan Price is a newcomer to the valley and a student at Western Nevada Community College.
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Deborah Sharp is a student at Western Nevada Community College and second place winner in the college's 1989 essay contest.
Doris E. Sheppard wrote her article while a student in an archaeology class, taught by Sharon Taylor, at Western Nevada Community College.
Sharon Lee Taylor has been Director/Curator of the Churchill County Museum for the
past eleven years. She is a self-proclaimed computer addict.
Steven P. Thompson is a wildlife biologist with the U .S. Fish & Wildlife Service. He is now stationed at Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge in Texas.
CHURCHILL COUNTY
MUSEUM & ARCHIVES
1050 South Maine Street
Fallon, NV 89406
(702) 423-3677
MUSEUM STAFF
Sharon Lee Taylor, Director/Curator
Myrl Nygren, Assistant Curator
Loree Branby, Director's Assistant & Registrar
Jean E. Jensen, Assistant Registrar
Carol Cots , Museum Photographer
Wilva Blue, Volunteer Coordinator
Bunny Corkill, Museum Research Assistant
Margurerite Coverston, Senior Hostess
Felice De Los Reyes, AttendantlHostess
Laurada Hannifan, AttendantlHostess
Marge Seevers, AttendantlHostess
Nancy Soule, Summer Attendant/Hostess
Ces Jacobsen, Museum Tour Guide
William A. Landman, Museum Computer Consultant
"IN FOCUS" STAFF
Michon Mackedon, Editor
Sharon Lee Taylor, Associate Editor
Loree Branby, Staff
Bunny Corkill, Staff Reader
Laurada Hannifan, Staff Reader
Jean Jensen, Staff Reader
Myrl Nygren, Staff Reader
PRODUCTION CREDITS 1989-1990 ISSUE
Cover Design: Sharon Lee Taylor
Cover Art: Vic Williams
Production Photography: Carol Cote & Sharon Lee Taylor
Typesetting: Amiga 2500 with a NEC LC 890 Postscript Laser Printer and
Professional Page v.1.2 software done by Museum Staff
Production: Heffernan Press Inc., Worcester, Massachusetts
FOUNDED IN 1967, the Churchill County Museum Association seeks to advance the study and preservation of local history. The Association does this through special programs, exhibits in the Churchill County Museum & Archives, which opened in 1968, and this publication, Churchill County IN FOCUS. The Association is also active in the collection and preservation of historic photographs and collects manuscripts, maps, artifacts and books, making its collections available for research. The Museum is the repository for both the City of Fallon and Churchill County government records.
The Best Little Museum On
The Loneliest Rom
in America
Churchill County Museum
1050 So. Maine Street
Fallon, Nevada

Bound Journal