In Focus Volume 9 No 1

In Focus Volume 9 No 1

A Journal of Archaeology, Essays, Fictions, Folklore, Natural History, Native American Culture, Nevada History, Old Photographs, and Poetry.

Churchill County Museum Association

Churchill County Museum Association

1995-1996

Velio Alberto "Al" Bronzini
Richard R. Burky
Bill Cowee
Judy Pritchard Lawrence Dial
Marcia Lawrence Ernst
Nora Marlene Jesch
Volkmar Konig
Michon Mackedon
John Marean.
Karen McNary
Janet Taylor Schmidt
Tony Testolin
John M. Townley
Kyle K. Wyatt

Copyright Churchill County Museum Associaiton

Published Journal, TIF,PDF

English

CHURCHILL COUNTY
IN FOCUS
A Journal of
ARCHAEOLOGY NATIVE AMERICAN
ESSAYS CULTURE
FICTION NEVADA HISTORY
FOLKLORE OLD PHOTOGRAPHS
NATURAL HISTORY POETRY
THE CHURCHILL COUNTY
MUSEUM ASSOCIATION, FALLON, NEVADA
1995-1996
CHURCHILL COUNTY
MUSEUM-ASSOCIATION INC.
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Glen Perazzo, Chairman
Mike Berney, Vice Chairman
Glenda Price, Secretary
Myrl Nygren, Treasurer
Pat Boden, Trustee
Elmo Dericco, Trustee
Virgil Getto, Trustee
Don Johnson, Trustee
Diane Lowery, Trustee
Bebe Ann Mills, Trustee
Nancy Stewart, Trustee
Gwen Washburn, County 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, Fallon, NV 89406. Articles should be typed, double-spaced, and sent to the museum. If the article is available on a computer disk, please contact the museum for further instructions. Copyright Churchill County Museum Association, Inc., 1996. Manuscripts and photographs for each annual publication must be received by March 1 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:
Seniors (60 + ) $ 10.00 Wagonmaster $ 50.00
Student 10.00 Pioneer 100.00
Individual 15.00 Homesteader 200.00 +
Family 20.00
Membership application 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 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.
Cover Photograph: The west side of Maine Street, 1905. From left, the Club Saloon, Reception Saloon, Assembly Saloon, The Palace Saloon, The New River Saloon and the W. W. Williams Building before the second story was added in 1906. The trees lining West Williams Avenue, upper right, started out as fence posts. Note the distinctive profile of the new Douglass home. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
CHURCHILL COUNTY
IN FOCUS
ANNUAL JOURNAL OF THE CHURCHILL COUNTY MUSEUM ASSOCIATION
VOLUME #9 1995-1996 NUMBER #1
Contents
SOFT FOCUS
The Editor's Comments Michon Mackedon and Jane Pieplow 1
SHADOW CATCHER
Ernest Blair: Amateur Photographer Janet Schmidt 3
SHARP FOCUS
The Valley's Tiniest Livestock: Honey Bees Karen McNary 10
Fallon 1906: The Way We Were Michon Mackedon 21
PIONEER PORTRAITS
Immigrant Portraits:
The Dietz/Jesch Connection Nora Jesch 34
Julius Brabant, German Emigrant: A Letter Home
Volkmar Konig and Julius Brabant 50
Memories of My Grandfather, Giuseppe Filippi
Velio Alberto Bronzini 55
Other Pioneers:
"Mail Order" Bride: Eva Mae Edwards Lawrence
Judy Dial and Marcia Lawrence Ernst 67
Stanley Reed (S. R.) Marean Reminisces
Stanley Reed (S. R.) Marean 87
NATIVE AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE
Reclamation and the Red Man John M Townley 100
CREATIVE FOCUS
Buckland Station and the Buckland Family Bunny Corkill 115
Spending Time with the Buckland Family Bill Cowee 118
"The Japanese Quarter Horse" Tony Testolin 123
SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE
A 10,000 Year Old Inhabitant of Churchill County
Richard R. Burky 126
CONTRIBUTORS 134
SOFT FOCUS
The Editor's Comments
Michon Mackedon
At its inception, the publication you have in hand was named In Focus because we hoped that reading it might bring otherwise unknown details, scattered images or blurred perceptions of Lahontan Valley's history and culture into "focus."
One of my personal joys in reading the raw materials that were submitted to us for this edition of In Focus was that of experiencing a few moments of this kind of insight, or focus, as my otherwise vague knowledge fell into new patterns and shapes. For example, many of the articles herein allude to, or develop, aspects of the valley's history during the first decade of the 20th century. These readings, taken together, developed synergistically, as when I saw that the Italian janitor (Giuseppe Filippi), Edmund Dietz and Stanley Marean had all arrived in Hazen at about the same time in quest of a piece of the promised Eden of the Newlands project. The connections between and among these narratives provide insights into the wild and dynamic character of the Hazen of 90 years ago and into the intoxicating lure of the Newlands Project to folks from far away places.
My own research into the newpapers of 1906 added to the impression gleaned from the above narratives that the Lahontan Valley of those early years was teeming with energy, optimism, and diverse peoples and enterprises. But on a less cheerful note, the manner in which the Paiute tribe was viewed by the local newpaper during these early years is briefly discussed in my article, "Fallon 1906," and the tribe's role (and treatment) in the land acquisitions for the Newland's project at about the same time is examined in an article by the late John Townley. The information in these two pieces intersects in complementary and, I think, shocking ways to provide a view of cultural imperialism.
In any case, over and over, while reading through one of the manuscripts, I found bits of information that added to the images and ideas of the others. Thus, read together, the articles in this edition form a whole greater than the sum of the parts.
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2 Mackedon/Pieplow
We hope you agree. We hope, too, that you find your own moments of insight as you peruse these pages. We hope you find enjoyment in the stories, poems, and photographs. And, we hope you let us know what you find herein. We learn from your comments, corrections, and criticisms. Ideally, you will find the inspiration to submit to us your own manuscript, one which will help "focus" another piece of our infinitely interesting heritage.
Jane Pieplow
As I prepared the artwork for Volume 9 of In Focus, I thought a great deal about what an accomplishment this publication is for the Churchill County Museum. Few institutions the size of ours are able to produce such a high quality piece on an annual basis.
Each year when the editorial staff meets we are struck by the fact that, even looking toward Volume 10, we haven't run short of historic material for a variety of articles! In fact, the past two issues have had so many good pieces that we have had to hold some articles over in order to meet the printer's page requirements.
The above scenario only happens when interested people volunteer to write articles for our publication, especially stories about their family histories. Under our Pioneer Portraits heading in this volume, graduate student Nora Jesch contributed two chapters from her master's thesis about the Jesch/Dietz families and John Marean gave us permission to use information from articles written by his father, S.R. Marean.
Al Bronzini and Volkmar Konig were both museum visitors retracing their family's roots in Churchill County. After conversations with each, we convinced them to write about their ancestor's experiences in America. As a result, copies of Volume 9 of In Focus will be read by Bronzini and Konig relations as far away as Italy and Germany!
Museum staff and co-editor Michon Mackedon contributed other articles to this issue and I thank them all. Enjoy this issue of In Focus and please be generous with your talents by offering to write something for future issues.
SHADOW CATCHER
Ernest W. Blair:
Amateur Photographer
Janet Schmidt
Ernest W. Blair, a California native, was born on September 15, 1882, to one of the "old" Placerville families. The Blairs managed a tavern above Placerville, between Sacramento and Virginia City, called "Sportsmen's Hall," which was surrounded by farmland and provided lodging for the throngs of people and animals travelling to and from Virginia City mines. At times as many as a thousand mules and horses were bedded down for the night at this establishment. The Blairs later expanded their business holdings and bought large tracts of land for timber and began the first lumber mill in California, the J. B. Blair Lumber Company. But young Ernest's interests did not lie in either of the family endeavors. His early ambition was to perform in a circus, and during his high school days in Placerville he practiced walking the tight rope. Once, he walked out on the rope with a stove, started a fire, cooked an egg, ate it and then proceeded to the end of the rope with the stove.
After a fall from the tight rope, his career plans changed -- he chose to become an employee of the Wells Fargo Company as a "running messenger" on the Placerville passenger train. His route took him through the town of Folsom, where he would often see a popular young girl walking with friends or family on the streets of the town. After gleaning all the information he could about her, including her name, Minnie Pauline Nichols, he would wave to her from his train car. This in turn piqued Minnie's curiosity, so when Minnie moved to Placerville,
3
Ernest W. Blair in the 1930's. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
4 Janet Schmidt
the casual wave prompted a meeting, then friendship, which led to courtship and eventual marriage in 1908.
Ernie's interest in and flair for photography began when he was very young on his family's farm. He converted a small building into a studio for developing and printing his photographs. Both he and Minnie had a talent and love for the medium and continued to pursue the hobby, the bulk of the photographs consisting of scenes from family's and friends' everyday life. These photographs chronicle an important aspect of the lifeways at the turn-of-the-century and masterfully depict the full and varied existence the Blair family experienced in the sometimes harsh environment.
Ernie, or "E. W." as he was called, was transferred to Goldfield in 1909 with Wells Fargo, then took a job as cashier and teller for George S. Wingfield's bank, the John S. Cook Company. While in Goldfield he published the only known photographs of the 1913 flood. A series of 24, these pictures grossed $200 which enabled him to buy a new "state-of-the-art" Graflex camera (a camera which used roll film technology rather than sheets of film). Later, E. W.'s photographs of Lehman Caves were among the first to provide views of the intricate cave interiors. These photographs include pictures of his own children, Helen and Seward, the first children allowed to enter the caves. Lehman Caves, in White Pine, Nevada, were discovered in 1885 and were made a Federal Reserve in 1922.
In 1918 when the Goldfield mines were exhausted, his banking career took Ernie and his family to Tonopah, Nevada, where the third Blair child, Ernest William was born. In 1924 E. W. was transferred from there to another of Wingfield's holdings, the Churchill County Bank in Fallon. It was in Fallon that Minnie established her "Atlasta Ranch," a successful business venture which earned her a nationwide reputation as a turkey breeder. (The ranch was so named because she owned "at last, a ranch.") In 1949, the Blairs opened the Spudnut Shop, a venture in which they were joined a few years later by their daughter Helen and her husband Bill Millward. The Spudnut Shop was a Fallon landmark for over 25 years, renowned at first for its homemade spudnuts [donuts] and later for homemade pies and innovative sandwiches, including the national prizewinning "Atlasta Good Beef' sandwich.
Ernie Blair died in 1953, Minnie in 1973, and Bill Millward in 1993. Helen makes her home in Fallon. A portion of the Atlasta Ranch is now Churchill County High School, formerly Minnie Blair Middle School.
Minnie's "Atlasta" turkeys strut for E. W. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
E. W Blair Photographs 5
E. W poses in a boxcar during his employment with Wells Fargo. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
E. W. and friend, probably taken in Goldfield, Nevada. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
6 Ernest W. Blair
Right: The triumphant hunter, a pleased E. W., returns with his spoils. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
Below: Minnie Blair relaxes on the water. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
E. W. Blair Photographs 7
Two of the Blair's children, Helen and Seward, are purported to be the first children allowed to enter Lehman Caves. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
This photograph shows E. W.'s photographic expertise as he has coped admirably with the difficult problem of lighting the underground cave for this photo. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
8 Ernest W. Blair
E. W caught his brothers at work in the office of the J. B. Blair Lumber Co. in California. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
E. W. described the flood waters in Goldfield as "a raging torrent." The town was engulfed on September 13, 1913. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
E. W. Blair Photographs 9
The Degarmo family home sails along with the flood waters that destroyed much of Goldfield. This photograph was one in a series that E. W. sold to interested parties. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
The basement of the John S. Cook & Co. bank, where E. W. was employed, was under three feet of water during the flood. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
The Valley's Tiniest Livestock:
Honey Bees
Karen McNary
It's a warm, quiet day, in Lahontan Valley with the heavy perfume of many flowers hanging in the still air. Wait! Something is missing! No, there it is. Listen carefully, and you will hear the soft, contented hum of the world's most important livestock. These hard-working, black and yellow, striped, little ladies are honeybees. They have been in Lahanton Valley for over a hundred years, but they have worked for and been cared for, by man for thousands of years. Without these hardworking little ladies our diet would be very limited; there would be few grains, and almost no fruits, nuts or vegetables. Our domestic fowl, for meat and eggs, and our meat and dairy animals are dependent on the grains and hay that we grow. Although there would be meat and eggs without honeybees it would not be of the quantity, or quality, that we are used to.
Bee Colonies
Honeybees, of the genus Apis, are a social insect belonging to the order Hymenoptera. They live in colonies or hives containing upwards of 30,000 to 60,000 individuals. The hive consists of a fertile female, the queen, and mother of all the colony; a hand-full of males, the drones; and thousands of non-fertile females, the workers. In the 20th century the colony is most often housed in a wooden hive, consisting of one or more boxes, and divided into narrow passages by frames. It is within this protective framework that the honeybee builds her city of pure wax. On both sides of each frame she builds a light, strong, very exact layer of hexagonal cells. These cells are used as nurseries, canning jars, and storage bins. The queen lays her eggs in these cells, the nurse bees care for the young in them, and last, but not least, the workers store the honey and pollen that feed the colony in them.
The honeybee has three sets of legs and three body parts like many insects. However, her body has been modified, both externally, and internally to reflect her special relationship to flowers and her diet of pollen and honey. Her three-part body is covered with branched hairs which trap and carry pollen from one flower to another. She has a pretty heart-shaped face with large eyes and two antennae.
Her legs, three on each side, move in such a way as to provide a tripod for stability at all times. The front and rear leg move in unison with the middle leg on the other side. That way at all times the little honeybee has two legs on one side and the middle leg on the other firmly planted. The legs, in addition to being a source of locomotion, contain the tools of her craft. On her front legs she has a brush-like
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Honey Bees 11
tool for collecting the pollen, and packing it in special baskets on her rear legs. In addition to the brush, which she uses to brush the pollen from her hair, she has a special tool for cleaning her antennae - bees insist on keeping themselves and their hives clean.
Her wings, arising from her thorax, are four in number, two per side, and greatly simplified in shape compared to generalized insects. The forewing is much larger than the hind-wing, with a fold along the rear edge. The hind-wing has a series of minute hooks that curve upward, allowing the two wings to hook together and work as one in flight. They fold into a neat package on the honeybee's back when she needs to maneuver in the hive or in flowers.
Other modifications include a honey stomach, and a special gland for turning nectar into honey. There are glands on the underside of the abdomen to make wax, and glands in the head to produce food for the young and the queen. The honeybee also has a poison sack and stinger on the tip of her abdomen. The worker's stinger is barbed and she doesn't sting unless she has to because it costs her her life. The queen also has special modifications to serve the colony; once mated she becomes an egg producer, able to lay her weight in eggs each day. She is no longer able to clean or feed herself.
The colony itself functions as an individual with each bee having a role. The queen, the mother of all, functions as an egg-laying machine. Her life span is several years during which time she will lay enough eggs to populate several hives. The queen bee is almost twice as large as the workers and her stinger is smooth, without barbs. When her hive becomes full, she will take a portion of her colony and fly off to start a new hive. But what happens to her old hive? Does it die out with no queen? The original hive will continue to function, because she provided for it before she left. When it was decided to split the hive, the workers built special cells. The young raised in these cells are fed on royal jelly throughout their larval stage, and they will develop into queens. But isn't there only one queen per hive?
Cover illustration from the book, Bees and People by Naum loyrish. Published in Russia.
12 Karen McNary
The answer is yes. The first queen to hatch will sting her sisters to death, as there can be only one.
The workers, which are the smallest bees in the hive, live only six to eight weeks during the summer. They literally work themselves to death. The worker starts her life as a pampered larva in a cell in the hive. She is kept warm and clean and fed; she is even fed royal jelly for three days. When the worker hatches from the larval stage she takes up her duties as an adult bee. The first three to four weeks are spent as a house bee, tending the young, cleaning the hive, storing honey and pollen, and building hive cells. She will also take orientation flights, and learn to understand the various dances which tell the location and size of nectar flows. As an older house bee she will tend the queen, feeding, cleaning and directing her to empty cells. These ladies-in-waiting always face the queen, like the petals of a daisy pointing to the center. One of her last duties as a house bee is that of a guard at the entrance to the hive.
At age three to four weeks the worker starts her duties as a field bee. Each day she sets out to find nectar and pollen to feed the hive. When she finds a good source, she takes a load home, and dances to tell the other workers of her find. Back and forth, back and forth she flies going as far as five miles from the hive, and in winds up to fifteen miles per hour. Three to four weeks of hauling nectar, pollen, and water to the hive leaves the worker's wings ragged and her body bald. She will make one final flight, often staggering the last few feet to the hive no longer able to fly, but determined to deliver her load before she dies. If, however, she was among the last babies to hatch before winter, her house bee duties will be extended until spring's warm weather and new blossoms allow her to go into the field.
But what of the drones? What do they do? They are a large, noisy, chunky bee with no stinger. Larger than the svelte worker, though shorter and much fatter in shape than the queen, their main duty is to mate with the queen. Once that job is performed, the drones that mated with the queen die. Those that didn't fly fast enough to mate with the queen work in the hive, to cool or heat it as needed. When the weather turns to fall, the workers drag the protesting drones from the hive and dump them out. Those that try to return are killed. Once in a rare while a few drones are allowed to stay the winter and help to heat the hive. Each bee has its place; each bee plays out its role and then is replaced.
The Honeybee and Man: A Long Association
Although the first visible proof that we have of the honeybee's long association with man is shown in Neolithic rock paintings of honey collecting, "Beekeeping proper started when man learned to safeguard the future of swarms and colonies . . ."(1) Edwards, in his 1930 edition of The Lore of the Honeybee, "speculates that as nomadic tribes settled down to take more or less permanent possession of choice areas, the haunts of wild bees were noted. These were kept under observation and protected, new swarms were also noted, and in this way the first apiary was founded probably before any other agricultural advances had been made."2
Honey Bees 13
There is no single known origin of man-made bee hives, but they likely developed when man settled in an area populated by the honeybee, and turned to agriculture. Hives provide two necessary functions: protection and easy removal of honey. They provide protection for the bees and their comb from wind, rain and the extremes of temperatures. A good hive also has a small fight entrance so that the bees can easily guard the hive against predators. The other thing that a good hive provides is a covered, protected, opening for harvesting honey and wax.
The first-known man-made hives were made of clay or pottery and were long and cylindrical with a removable disc at the ends. This type of hive was used by the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Greeks, and is like the one shown in an Egyptian wall painting of honey harvesting (circa. 1450 BC). These hives could be easily stacked and transported, especially by boat. And transported they were, up and down the Nile by the ancient Egyptians who considered bees so important that the honeybee was their symbol for lower Egypt. In the colder climates of northern Europe, beekeepers tended the large, natural hives, and probably developed their first controlled hives from these in the form of upended hollow logs. The next development was to turn the baskets they used for collecting honey and wax into hives, which became the familiar skep. These upside-down coiled straw baskets date to before 5000 BC.
The exceptional respect that the bees received from ancient peoples gave rise to many myths, legends, stories, superstitions and fairy tales. Bees were, in many cultures, considered sacred companions of the gods. The ancient Greeks considered bees in this way, although Aristotle's writings show us that they were a people who understood and practiced migratory beekeeping. The temple they built to Artemis in Ephesus depicted bees. The bees were of such importance that the priestesses of the temple were called Melissi meaning "bees." Their myths also tell of Zeus, who, having been raised on a diet of milk and honey, gave the bees certain rights, in appreciation, that distinguished them from other insects. Herodotus, known as the father of History (c. 5th century BC), mentions beekeeping in speaking of the Scythians trading extensively in honey and wax. In the New World, where there are no native honeybees, other bees were nevertheless revered. The Mayans had a bee god, Ah Mucan Cab, (c. 1400 AD), and they practiced beekeeping using a small, stingless bee native to the tropics. Evidence of beekeeping has been found in the Americas dating to the Late Pre-classic era (300 BC - 300 AD). The Mayans still keep bees in horizontal log and stone hives.
By the time of the Roman Empire beekeeping was well established. There are many writings from the Romans discussing bees and beekeeping. The most famous of these writings comes from a group of "practical beekeepers": Cato (234 - 149 BC), Varro (116 - 27 BC), Columella (1 - 68 AD) and Palladus (c.300 AD). In his writings Varro indicated that beekeeping at that time was a paying enterprise. His discussion covered the practical matters of a beekeeping business, such as choosing an apiary site, making hives, etc. Columella, on the other hand, based his dis-
14 Karen McNary
cussion on things pertaining to the care of bees. He was a methodical man, and his recommendations do not differ greatly from those followed today.
Russia also developed quickly as a major beekeeping area. By 911 AD Russians had established (with the Byzantine Emperor) a trade agreement that primarily covered honey and wax. A law code from 1016 AD Russia contains sections protecting the rights of beekeepers and gatherers of wild honey. Because honey was a commodity of exceptional importance the penalty set by the law code for destroying a bee tree was death! Honey was considered liquid gold, and it could be loaned at interest, a credit operation called "putting out in honey." Even the taxes in early Russia were collected in honey, wax, and furs, with honey considered by far the most valuable. By the 1600's, with vast surpluses of honey and wax being traded to other countries, Russia was called "mellifluous" (flowing with honey) and was famous throughout the known world for its honey.
How much honey does it take to gain that type of fame and be called mellifluous? The records for one estate in Russia at the end of the 1500's show that around 72,000 gallons of wild honey were collected. Seventy-two thousand gallons works out to four hundred and thirty-two TONS. This was just one estate out of a thousand, so the estimated tonnage would have been FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTY-TWO THOUSAND TONS! When it is taken into account that this was just the wild honey gathered that year and doesn't include the domestic honey from the beekeepers..., truly Russia was flowing in honey. As trade routes to the New World opened and sugar distillation developed, beekeeping declined in importance. Russia lost its title of mellifluous as beekeeping in America built to an annual exportation of over fifty thousand tons of honey.
Three separate streams of events, each of great significance in the history of bees and beekeeping, were set into motion from Europe in the 1600's.
1) It was during this period that honeybees were spread throughout the world.
Bees probably arrived on the North American continent in 1622 from England. As a vital livestock bees were included in the first shipments to the colonies. They landed in Bermuda in 1616 when a ship bound for Virginia with a load of bees took refuge there from a hurricane. The bees disembarked and happily settled in Bermuda. They had arrived on the east coast of America in the 1600's, but there is controversy over the exact date of their arrival in the west. The records show bees arriving on the west coast in the 1850's as a livestock shipment. However, other records tell of the churches in Sitka (Alaska) having to close because of a lack of beeswax for candles. The problem was solved by bringing bees in from Russia. It is unknown for sure whether they then moved south through Fort Ross in the 1700's or arrived as livestock in the 1850's.
2) There was a great deal of discovery of fundamental facts about honeybees.
Moses Rusden, a Bee-master to Charles II of England, was writing down his observations on bees as was Francoise Huber, a Swiss (1750-1831). He is often
Honey Bees 15
referred to as "the prince of beekeepers," a well earned title. The Encyclopedia Britannica is the authority for the following statement: "He was able to carry out investigations that laid the foundations of our scientific knowledge of the life history of the honeybee."(3) He published his investigations called New Observations on the Bee in 1795.
3) The third and final event set in motion in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries was the development of upright hives.
The development of this type of hive moved beekeeping into a new era; it was the forerunner of our modern hive.
Later in the nineteenth century these three major events of the former two hundred years came together and revolutionized beekeeping; there were greater advances made then than at any other time in the history of man. Beekeepers around the world were discovering, re-discovering, and building on the foundation of information to move beekeeping into the twentieth century in the forefront of agriculture. In 1814, in the Ukraine, P. Prokopovych perfected a movable frame hive, and started a popular school for beekeepers to disseminate information on modern beekeeping methods. Europe contributed more written observations, a press to make cell indentations on wax sheets, and a honey slinger. The press and the honey slinger led to the development of commercial foundation and honey extractors. Dzierzon, one of those who contributed information (Rational Beekeeping, English translation 1882), published his work on bee diseases, his theory on parthenogenesis in honeybees, and his re-discovery of the Greek bar frame. The re-discovery prepared the way in Europe for Langstroth's movable-frame hive.
In the 1850's America grasped her share of the limelight by futhering the pattern of modern beekeeping. In 1851 Lorenzo Langstroth realized that leaving "bee space" between the hive and the frames kept the comb from being attached to the hive. With this discovery came the implementation easily handled, standardized wood box hives with movable frames. Although Langstroth is referred to as the "Father of Modern Beekeeping" for his development of the movable frame hive and his publication of The Hive and The Honeybee (completely revised, but still in publication) he was just one of a group of investigators and teachers. This group also included Moses Quinby, "the Father of Commercial Beekeeping"; C.C. Miller, the "Nestor of Beekeeping'', and A.I. Root, who was the first commercial manufacturer of beekeeping supplies in the New World.
It was Moses Quinby who added to the modern beekeeper's equipment honey supers, bee smokers, and the uncapping knife. Quinby also added to the fund of knowledge with his publication of The Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained. The teacher in the group was C. C. Miller, whose studies on bee diseases led to improvements in the control of European foul-brood, a nasty contagious bacillus which turns bee larva into a sticky mess. However, Dr. Miller was well-known for more than his studies in bee diseases: he wrote a regular column for The American Bee Journal, in which he discussed every new piece of equipment and advancement in
16 Karen McNary
method. The beekeepers turned to him for final testing and approval of new ideas and equipment before they accepted them. It was during this same time that A.I. Root began writing and manufacturing bee supplies. The magazine, Gleanings in Bee Culture, and his book The ABC of Bee Culture, first published in the later half of the 1800's, are still in publication over a hundred years later. His manufacturing company is also still going strong and is now considered to be the largest manufacturer of bee supplies in the world. One other man from that time is still a household word in bees, and that is Dadant. In the 1850's he was the largest producer of extracted honey in the U.S. It was also during the 1850's that he became owner/editor of The American Bee Journal; twenty years later he started manufacturing comb foundation. Today, his business Dadant and Sons, is one of the leading producers of comb foundation and beeswax candles in the U.S., and they still pub-
lish The American Bee Journal.
It is estimated that today between five hundred thousand and one million people own hives. The bee boxes and equipment that were developed in the nineteenth century have undergone changes - motors and electricity added- but the principles are the same. Beekeeping actually moved into the twentieth century in the late 1800's.
The Tiny Livestock Arrives in the Lahontan Valley
When agriculture came to the Lahontan Valley in the late 1800's the bees came along. Beekeeping was a well-established industry by the time Lahontan Dam was built, opening up the valley to farmers. The 1904 Churchill Standard was running an article almost every week concerning the bee industry. There were carloads (thirty foot railroad boxcars) arriving regularly: seven on April 2nd from Los Angeles, two on the 16th and two more on the 23rd, but just one carload from San Marcos arrived on April 30th. By May 7, 1904, when five carloads had arrived in Hazen, there were only two more expected; most of the bees were already here
The woman in this photograph holds a live swarm of bees in preparation for their move to a new hive. Entitled "a good catch," the picture comes from the book, The ABC of Bee Culture, 1913 edition.
Honey Bees 17
working the early crops. The bee population had doubled from 1,500 colonies on April 2nd to 3,000 colonies on June 4th. But the papers weren't just recording the arrival of this very necessary livestock, they were also writing about other events in an industry that was "forging ahead." An article on April 9th of that year tells of the appointment of J. B. Verplank (who had settled in the valley in 1874) as apiary inspector. Fortunately an apiary inspector didn't have to take a magnifying glass and check each little lady for a brand, since there would have been almost 200 million of them hard at work. All he had to do was to check the 3,000 colonies for the presence of foul-brood. This is a job that is still done each spring. In June 1904 the bee men were forming a temporary organization and planning a state organization to protect the bee industry. By July of 1904, the newspaper had turned its attention to the product of this industry - honey. A large honey crop, superior to California's crop, boasts an article dated July 2nd, 1904. It goes on to say that H.S. Merriam with 250 colonies normally gets two to three tons of honey, but expects the first crop to yield five tons; five tons expected to bring top money in the East.
In the fall of 1907 a new beekeeper, Walter Nygren, arrived in Fallon to take up a homestead in the Harmon district. He had passed through the valley in 1906, and had heard about the plans for the irrigation system. This had interested him enough to send a letter of inquiry about homesteading, especially about the opportunities for beekeeping. The return letter from a local official informed him that beekeeping had been an important business in the valley for many years. The official further stated that the bee men that he had asked, responded that honey was averaging 75 pounds per hive and that the price varied from 81/2 to 10 cents per pound. He also wrote that there was a great deal of bee pasture and that the acreage was increasing with irrigation.
As the bee pasture increased, the number of colonies and their keepers increased so that by 1909 the Churchill County Eagle, in an article on May 20th, tells of printing honey can labels for E. G. Norton, who shipped his honey to California. Mr. Norton had moved to Fallon five years earlier from San Diego where he had kept bees.' He had started in the bee business in 1877.
So in the early years of the 20th century, the Lahontan Valley's warm summer air was filled with the contented, hum of millions of hard-working little ladies with more arriving every year. In May 1913, James Edison announced his intention of shipping a large number of colonies to Fallon from his brother's place in Knight's Landing, California. The bee industry was large enough by then that he had to apply to the Nevada State Guarantee Officer for a permit, and two California officials were named to inspect the hives. It was necessary to determine that they were free of foul-brood before they could be shipped. In that same month Dr. J. L. Small received a letter from a merchant in Franklin, Kentucky, who wanted 2,000 lbs of choice Nevada alfalfa honey. That article went on to state that Nevada honey was widely known at great distance, and "well it may be that Nevada alfalfa honey is the best on the market."
18 Karen McNary
With the arrival of the 1920's the honey market took a new turn; honey is a sugar, and sugar is needed in the manufacture of whiskey. One old beekeeper in the Stillwater district bypassed the middleman by converting his honey into "good whiskey," thereby increasing its value ten-fold. Other beekeepers like Walter Nygren, found some of their honey mysteriously disappearing. Nygren who had been increasing his hives and keeping careful records, reported a loss of 6 to 8 five-gallon cans of honey (72-96 lbs). It was widely assumed that the honey was stolen to convert to whiskey. The assumption was strengthened when it was discovered that the closed beet sugar factory housed one of the largest stills and bootleg whiskey operations in the nation. Whether there was an apiary nearby that utilized the factory (like the bees in an apiary in Kilmarnock, Scotland, used the blending works of Johnnie Walker) is unknown. The bees from the apiary near the Johnnie Walker blending works fly "merrily to and from the barrels extracting the 'nectar of the gods' and carrying it back to the hives. They still made perfect 'bee-lines! '"6 The honey is considered a winner as far as flavor. It has a strong flavor and aroma of scotch whiskey!
The bootleg thefts actually spurred Nygren to begin packaging and peddling his own honey rather than shipping to packers. Until the early thirties he also bought extra honey from other beekeepers in the valley. The list of the beekeepers in the valley at that time reads like a 1930's Who's-Who of Fallon. It includes
Lima, Dupont,
Harmon, Beeghly (known for having the clearest honey in the county), McCart, Grinnell, Raffetto, and Andrew. Mr. Andrew was the Bee Inspector for the Valley and known for the queen bees he raised and sold. By World War II Walter Nygren had increased his hives to around 800 and was buying out other beekeepers to expand even further. His son Earl joined him at that time and eventually took over the business in 1960. By that time
Earl Nygren at work on one of his bee hives. A bee smoker (a bellowed can filled with embers) provides smoke which is used to quiet the bees. It can be seen on the hive at far right. (Earl Nygren photo.)
Honey Bees 19
Nygren Honey had increased its operation until it was one of the largest if not the largest beekeeping business in Nevada. Earl ran Nygren Honey until around 1990; he then sold his equipment and stopped producing honey under the Nygren label. He wanted to retire from the labor-intensive business and his son was unable to take it over. He sold many of his colonies to Will Carver, a local beekeeper who put the little ladies to work in pollination of California crops.
Nygren, though, had shared in the growth and organization of beekeeping on a state level. It was in 1931 that the beekeepers finally got together and formed a State Association. The Association came about because beekeepers were, with easy transportation, diverging in two groups: migratory beekeepers and honey producers. Migratory beekeepers follow the spring and the blooming crops. They rent their hives to the farmers for pollination, but once the season is over they have to find fertile bee pastures for their little ladies, so that during the summer they can build up their stores of honey for the winter. The honey producers, on the other hand, usually keep their bees close to home, depending on the local crops that produce good honey. This divergence within the bee industry caused a problem. The migratory beekeepers were summering their bees in the Lahontan Valley, and although there was enough bloom to enable all the hives to produce winter stores, there was not enough for production of the excess honey that the honey producers needed. Thus an association was needed to settle the problem and set-up the rules and inspections to benefit all of the bee industry.
During World War II, the importance of bees was brought home to many people when the bee industry was declared essential. Metal drums, gasoline for trucks, and sugar, items that were otherwise restricted or rationed were available to the bee industry. A notice in The Fallon Standard of Nov. 4, 1942, informs beekeepers that if they didn't receive their full allotment of ten pounds of sugar per colony last spring, they could now get it, if the bees needed feed to carry them through until the honey flow started.' After the War as people left farming and moved to the cities the importance of agriculture in peoples' minds decreased, and a decline in beekeeping followed. During the fifties the number of hives in Nevada varied from seven to eight thousand, a decrease from what it had been.
The decline has continued to the present day. With the advent of air transportation, bees and cheap honey from Asia and South America were shipped around the world, and, with them, bee diseases that had been previously isolated. First the tracheal mite arrived in the fifties, and then the varroa mite arrived in the seventies; nasty little parasites that kill off whole colonies. Although the mites can be controlled it is expensive and difficult, and they are becoming resistant to the pesticide used. Rarely do feral bee colonies survive more than a summer. Although bumblebees are used in greenhouses, and alkali bees are being used in alfalfa (they are a smaller bee, able to avoid the alfalfa flower's habit of slapping - honeybees dislike being slapped in the face), people forget that honeybees are necessary to our food supply.
20 Karen McNary
Now, in 1996, the big orchards of fruits and nuts are in danger of not being able to produce full crops! There are not enough bees to provide pollination, because commercial beekeepers lost eighty-five percent of their hives during the winter of 95-96 to mites. Also feral hives are becoming rare because of the mites. The seed crops for vegetables may be next on the endangered list! People who live in cities have forgotten that their vegetable gardens and flowers need bees. They claim that they are allergic to the "nasty, stinging bugs" and make laws forbidding bee hives in their area. But, life-threatening allergic reactions to stinging insects are quite rare, and the allergic person is often a beekeeper or member of his family. People can and do get wide-spread skin reactions (about 17% of the population), but these are not dangerous, and the stinging culprit is usually not a honeybee at all but rather a yellow jacket, wasp, or hornet. The honey bee stings only if necessary, because she loses her life in doing so.
There is a bit of Appalachian folklore that says that on the day of a beekeeper's death any honey in the house must be put away, and no honey may be eaten until after the day of the funeral. It is also necessary for someone to go to the hives and inform the bees of the death, and ask them to stay, placing a bit of black ribbon on the hives so that the bees might mourn the death of their keeper. The bees are allowed to mourn man, but will man mourn the bees when they are gone, or will he mearly curse the lack of fruit, nuts, and flowers?
NOTES
1. Crane, Eva. The Hive and the Honeybee. Ed. Joe M. Graham. Midina, Ohio: Dadant & Sons, 1993,
pg. 1.
2. Eckert, John and Frank R. Shaw. Beekeeping. New York: MacMillan Publishing Co. Inc.1960, pg. 1.
3. Ibid. Pg. 5.
4. Nestor refers to "a wise old man," taken from Homer's Odyssey.
5. Churchill County Eagle, May 20, 1909, pg. 1 col. 4.
6. The American Bee Journal, June 1996, pg. 383.
7. The Fallon Standard. Nov. 4, 1942: pg. 5, col. 2.
REFERENCE MATERIAL
The American Bee Journal. June 1996, pg. 383.
Churchill County Eagle. May 20, 1909, pg. 1; May 24, 1913, pg. 1.
Churchill Standard. April, May, June, July, 1904.
Eckert, John E. & Frank R. Shaw. Beekeeping. New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc, 1960.
Graham, Joe M.,Editor. The Hive and The Honeybee. Hamilton, ILL.: Dadant & Sons, 1992.
loyrish, Naun. Bees and People. Translated from the Russian by Glynis A. Kozlova. Moscow: Mir
Publishing, 1974.
Nygren, Earl. Oral History. Research Copy, Churchill County Museum and Archieves, 1993.
Root, Amos Ives. The ABC & XYZ of Bee Culture (40th edition). Midina, Ohio: A. I. Root Publishers,
1990.
Snodgrass, R. E.. Anatomy of the Honeybee. Ithica: Comstock Publishing Association, a
division of Cornell University Press, 1956.
Teale, Edwin Way. The Golden Throng. Sherborne, Eng.: Alphabooks, 1968.
Fallon 1906: The Way We Were
Michon Mackedon
For several days in May 1996, I sat in the newspaper archives of the Churchill County Museum, reading the weekly issues of the Churchill Standard from the year 1906. The newspapers drew me into a world that seemed familiar, yet strange -- part historical novel, part mythological, part familiar history. Many stories emerged from the news accounts, editorials, and advertisements, among them the story of Fallon's growth and development in an unusually active year. As history books will verify, the community of Fallon in 1906 was in the middle of much change, change coming from all directions. It was an exciting place in which to live -- surprisingly modern, in this writer's view, yet still brimming with frontier energy and optimism. In many ways, reading the papers of 1906 was like viewing a community's rite of passage: from a small point on the Nevada map, surrounded by scattered rural homesteads, to an urban center of business and commerce; from a village out of the horse and buggy era to a modern burg of the automobile age, and, perhaps, from a land of innocence to one of experience.
In 1906, the Truckee Carson Irrigation Project had begun to attract farmers from across the nation; the mining discoveries at Wonder, Fairview, Eastgate, and numerous other places, brought even more people, excitement and resources to the previously rather quiet little rural community. In addition, the advent of the automobile, and the extension of the Southern Pacific rail line from Hazen to Fallon, opened up the community to further visions of progress and vitality. But, it was the way in which the citizens responded to challenges like these and forged a vigorous society that makes the story of Fallon, 1906, a study in small town spirit.
The beginning stages
of the Reclamation
Project were under-
way in this photo.
(Churchill County
Museum & Archives
Photo Collection.)
21
22 Michon Mackedon
A survey of the expanding business district tells part of the year's story. In that one year alone, the small business area of the town bounded to the north by the Courthouse on Williams and Maine and to the south by the I. H. Kent Co. building on Center Street and Maine, was transformed by a flurry of building and remodeling projects. The advertisements in the January 1906 papers give us an idea of what businesses already lined the street early in the year. The New River Hotel advertised a location on "Main Street" (the spelling of the street varies from ad to ad, article to article) and a "Table always supplied with the best the market offers." The River Saloon, Main Street, Fallon, offered billiards and pool tables. The Palm Saloon, The Richelieu Saloon, the Reception Saloon, and the Palace Saloon and Club Rooms, gave competition to the River Saloon. The presence of this number of saloons in a relatively small town tells us that there was still quite a bit of the wooly west in Fallon, although The Richelieu Saloon, as its name suggests, aimed for the more cultured elements of the community. Its ad boasted, "A resort for Gentlemen" with "up to date mixologists." Other ads beckoned customers to eateries. The Fong Wing Restaurant (in the Williams Building) served "Meals at all hours; Everything that the market affords, at prices in keeping with the times." The Barrel House Grill also advertised meals at all hours, indicating a busy night life in the town. There were several other hotels on or near Main including the Churchill, the Spoon, a bakery run by "Fong Long, an experienced baker," the City Drug Store, Rees' Drug Store, Allen's Confectionery Parlor, Vannoy's Harness and Saddle Shop, J. W. Richards General Merchandise store, The Kent Company, the Fallon Meat Company, Rosenberg's Household Furnishings, the W.W.Williams Store ("Good things to Eat; a fresh stock of choice Ashland Baby Cheese"), and the Churchill Bank. Other businesses (location not announced) which advertized in the early 1906 editions of the paper included Fallon Wood and Coal Yard, J. B. Young, Proprietor; Harry Clinton, Paint and Wallpaper; Burchell Bros. Hardware; E.W. Black's undertaking parlors ("Fine Hearse for Use of Patrons"); two laundries; E. S. Berney Blacksmith Shop; E. J. Maupin's Machine Shop; Orchard & Galloway, brickmakers; The Barrel House (Wine, Liquor and Cigars); and The Pioneer Line, ("Autos from Hazen to Fallon; Fallon to Fairview").
Newspaper editor W. C. Black expressed his opinion in March of 1906 that the business climate in Fallon was akin to that of a much larger place. He had personally undertaken a door-to-door survey to ascertain the population of the community (within the city limits), and while his unofficial head count was "398 souls" he maintained in an article published in his March 24 edition, that the town seemed much livelier than the numbers suggested: ". . . our little town liberally supports two newspapers, five doctors, two dentists, three lawyers, two banks, three general merchandisers, one dry goods store, and other business attributes that usually go to make up a town several times our size."
During the year, our effusive editor of the Churchill Standard reported each new stone or brick, piece of equipment, or decoration added to the town, as
The Way We Were 23
evidence of its promise and worth. On February 17, the paper announced that "Allen's confectionery parlor is now equipped with a peanut roaster, which is the first in Churchill county. This allows of the trade getting warm peanuts and popcorn at all times." On May 10, the paper carried a notice that local owner of the Island Ranch, R. L. Douglass, had announced construction work beginning on a modern four room commercial building of stone and brick. The building was described as being 100 x 80 feet, promising to become "one of Fallon's most modern structures". In the same paper, it was reported that timbers had arrived from Oregon for the remodeling of the Kent Co. building, to add another 4,000 square feet to the store. In July, "Fortune and Achey, proprietors of the Reception, one of Fallon's most popular resorts . . . inaugurated a number of new innovations . . . a card room has been added, and the place made attractive by new wallpaper and linoleum" (July 7). The Assembly saloon soon got into the competitive spirit announcing its planned improvements: "A full orchestra and a lunch counter will operate in the rear end of the saloon. Plate glass windows will be put in and the present bar will be supplanted with a modern Brunswick bar and fixtures" (July 14). In the same month, A. Popeno, "formerly of Oakland," opened a cigar and confectionery store (July 21). In August, things really got busy: work began on another story to the W. W. Williams Maine Street general merchandise store. Down the street, a new firm opened its doors as Fallon Supply Co., advertising a "complete grocery department and meat shop in the Lon Hammond building." Henry Jeantrout, a Reno businessman, leased a shop on Maine street for wholesale wine and liquor; Joseph T. Partain, opened a gallery "on Maine" and, in September, a
The Barrel House bar was the purveyor of wine, liquor and cigars. All those things are in evidence in this interior shot of the building which was located on the west side of Maine Street. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
24 Michon Mackedon
new millinery shop opened "opposite the Spoon Hotel." A one story brick and stone building was under construction in October for the Nevada Distillers' and Brewers' Company as their wholesale store, and work had commenced on the "S. J. Coatney lodging house." The newspaper claimed that this structure, when completed, "will be two stories high and will have twenty-seven large airy rooms for the use of the public" -- an impressive facility for any community of its day (October 13).
Aside from commercial expansion, residential construction was undergoing a boom of its own. The modern reader will recognize an early version of a now familiar story: the acquisition of subdivision land from a reluctant seller. Our editor tells us, in the May 5 edition of the Standard, that:
A deal was completed last week whereby the Verplank
addition, consisting of about thirty acres, passes into the hands of J. A. Bonham & Son and L. E. C. Hinckley, well-known real estate men and promoters . . . The new owners announce their intention of making a model residence district of the addition. Tree planting and street improvements will be given particular attention."
The editor goes on to educate his readers about the progress signalled by the purchase, given the fact that Mr. Verplank had repeatedly refused to sell his farm. "In the past, Mr. Verplank, who is an old man, has hampered the town's growth in that direction by reason of his many eccentricities."
The editor was quite detailed in some of his descriptions of newly-built homes in the community. In July, a "new 9 room residence" was completed by Harry Clinton [the painter], and F. B. Young [the wood and coal merchant] moved his new bride into "a modern five room cottage". Each residential area was also beginning to take on a character of its own. The December 8 edition of the paper noted that, "Taylor Avenue, traversing Williams addition is destined to occupy relatively the same place in Fallon that Van Ness avenue occupied in San Francisco before the fire." Editor Black then names those lucky enough to gain a place on Taylor Avenue; the list reflects back to the prosperous business climate of the
The R. L. Douglass Bank and the Fallon Meat Co. occupied this building in 1910. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
The Way We Were 25
town. "A number of very neat houses have been recently built . . . those of A. R. Jeffries, C. M.Burchell [the hardware merchant]; Sam Rosenberg [the home furnishings merchant]; George Coffin, while Geo. Villeneuve, W. R. Lee, W. R. Gilbert and W. C. Black [the enthusiastic newspaper editor himself] will soon have structures erected."
Money was also poured into public works and churches. A new high school was let out for bid in March. After a Reno firm backed out on the bid, the construction job was awarded to local contractors, Orchard & Galloway. The new four room brick and cement school was bid at $10,000. In November, surveyors were in town to measure the length and grade of Maine Street for the purpose of installing cement sidewalks its full length. Before the year was out, a Baptist Church had been built and an Episcopal Church planned. Electric lights and a water system were already in place, but, in November, newly-elected state senator R. L. Douglass announced his intention to ask the Nevada State Legislature to authorize bond sales for a modern sewage system.
The business boom, to a large degree, was a result of the new mines discovered in Churchill County at Fairview, Wonder, Eastgate and a myriad of other locations with names like Shady Run, Monte Cristo, and Hercules. These new strikes attracted throngs of hopeful prospectors and their families, and the center of all this new activity was the town of Fallon. Local businesses quickly adapted their inventories, sales pitches, and even locations, to capture an enthusiastic but shifting outlay of capital. For example, throughout the month of January, Burchell Brothers Hardware advertised plows and other farming implements. Then, on February 17 the ad changes, announcing in bold letters: MR. PROSPECTOR: before going to Sand Springs or Fairview call and see us. We sell picks, shovels and all kinds of camp equipment for your trip." The February 24 paper carried an article announcing that Harvey Burchell (one of the Brothers) and I. H. Kent had each purchased lots on the main street of Fairview for business purposes.
The local Standard carried front page stories boasting of high grade ore and describing the discoveries in mythical terms. On February 17, the paper ran an article headlined "FAIRVIEW: Prospectors Are Rushing to The New Camp At Rate Of Fifty a Day." The article informs us that "assays show that the ore is prin-
The newly-constructed Baptist Church in 1906. Today the County Administration Building occupies this site at 190 W. First Street. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
26 Michon Mackedon
The Episcopal Church under construction in 1907. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
cipally gold, with a large percent of silver and that is high grade." On March 3, a front page article reported that "The Sand Springs Mine, which can truthfully be spoken of as the mother of all new mines in this county, is destined to have a brilliant future . . . At the Hope group . . . on the northern slope of Fairview mountain, a phenomenal strike was made last Tuesday. A ledge . . . of good width, was encountered that shows values of $119 in silver, with traces of gold." On March 10, we are told that a local dignitary, Judge Curler "speaks in glowing terms of the future propects of Fairview and that Tonopah investor George Wingfield had taken over an investment group in the Fairview District. A May 5th headline shouts "Fairview will make Tonopah and Goldfield Look Like Thirty Cents," and the July 28 edition describes a new mining camp, Monte Cristo, as "a large lively camp . . . A large building for the accommodation of the men and for use as a store has been built and supplies are being sent . . . assays have been remarkable."
The Way We Were 27
Perhaps the best indication of the level of excitement and investment generated by the Churchill mining discoveries is indicated by an article on the front page of April 28 edition of the Standard, entitled "A Mecca For Millionaires." The gist of the story was that Fairview had become a gathering place for millionaires and that, at dinner in the Home Cafe one day, the previous week, "there were parties at one table, whose aggregate wealth totaled thirty million dollars." In any event, the enthusiasm most definitely brought people and dollars into Fallon in 1906. The paper reported in December that local activity was so lively that "The various hotels and rooming houses in the town are filled to overflowing each night" (December 8).
The Truckee Carson Irrigation Project, too, was catching hold. In January 1906, the paper reported the arrival of the Sheckler Brothers, Benjamin, Daniel and William and their families from Washington, Kansas, to their new homesteads on what is now, eponymously, Sheckler Road. Will Sheckler told the Standard that "Opportunities in the East have vanished . . . . A good farmer in Churchill will live in a paradise before five years." Later in the same year, at harvest time, the editor sang the praises of the brothers in an article entitled "The Fruits of Industry." He tells us that "The experience of these brothers is a good example of what can be accomplished here by concentration of energy and unity of purpose. . . . they built two good houses with cellars, chicken houses, corrals, planted shade trees, cleared, leveled and planted 20 acres in cereals, squashes and melons." The Sheckler Brothers represented the new opportunity created by the completion of the Truckee Canal and several arteries distributing the waters of the Truckee River, including the S line and L line canals. Editor Black's March 3 column gives the reader an insider's view of the progress on the Irrigation project (Lahontan Dam was not yet built, but Diversion Dam was in place to help control the waters of the Carson River):
The coming season will witness an unprecedented activity in the work of constructing various enterprises that form a part of the mammoth Carson Sink irrigation project, compared to which the hey day times of 1905 will seem insignificant. . . . at least 150,000 acres of additional land must be ready for the settler by the opening of the farming season of 1907. . . . Among the various pieces of work to be set in progress during the coming year will be the building of Tahoe dam, the Alkali Flat dam near Dayton, and probably also, the draining of the Carson Lake bed of its shallow layer of water, which at the present time renders some 25,000 acres of rich soil unfit for tilling. . . . Water is going down S line to supply all farms under that ditch and down the L line south of town as far as timber structures have been completed . . . South Fork has been carrying a supply for the farms along its banks and plenty of water is reported on the Island Ranch. Water has been supplied to part of the lands around Stillwater and more is being sent down by way of Stillwater slough and the Kent-Sifford ditch.
28 Michon Mackedon
The October 13 edition of the paper documented crop values in the Lahontan Valley as exceeding a quarter of a million dollars. The agricultural production in the valley even received national publicity in an extended writeup in the periodical Orchard and Farm. Our astute forefathers on the 1906 County Commission immediately ordered 1,000 copies of the magazine to distribute for advertising the valley.
In one of his more poetic moments editor Black attempted to capture the flavor of a community burgeoning with such agricultural promise and excitement:
To fully realize the recent growth in Churchill county's population one should spend a Sunday in Fallon. Here the settlers from the surrounding county come the first day of each week -- some to absorb religious doctrine; others to do trading; the rest to pass the day away from their lonely ranches, in this thriving and growing town, where they find every diversion and recreation afforded by the most civilized community.
• • • Scores, perhaps a hundred strangers were in Fallon last Sabbath. They included men, women, and children. . . . They appeared to be prosperous people, too, their sleek horses and modern equipages speaking volumes for the possibilities of the soil hereabouts, nurtured by the blessings of irrigation.. . (March 3).
The completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad line between Hazen and Fallon was further cause for optimism and investment in the future of the valley. The March 3 Editorial column states that because of the new railroad, "Products will soon be ready to find their way into outside markets. Incoming supplies will be brought in great quantities. The passenger traffic is already grown to such proportions that it is taxing the owners of teams and automobiles to handle it. . ." Indeed, the 1906 papers are full of stories involving creative dreaming about the future of a fertile valley served by rail. For example, one news item describes the potential of Soda Lakes as a resort! "Some day Soda Lake will be a pleasure resort and the date cannot be distant. The new Railroad will provide easy access, and the opening for the establishing of a bathing place will be taken advantage of by some enterprising individual soon." In the wake of the news of the railroad extension, farmers throughout the valley experimented with growing various cash crops for export. Many varieties of grapes and citrus trees were planted drawing inspiration from visions of the vineyards and orchards of California. The March 10 paper ran an article entitled "ORCHARDS," which proclaimed that "Both the soil and the climate of the valleys of Churchill are peculiarly adaptable to the growing of fruit. The country around Los Angeles, Redlands and Riverside -- comprising California's orange, olive, lemon and apricot belts -- is similar in contour and soil to that of this
The Way We Were 29
district." Farmer A. R. Jeffries tried raising peanuts and grew "quite a few plants in his yard with the product well-matured . . ." Lieutenant Governor Lemuel Allen, a local rancher, farmer, and businessman, noting that his sugar beet crop was especially high in saccharine products, ordered bricks for a furnace for the manufacture of molasses.
These high hopes and multifarious business ventures freed up money to spend on more than just crops and real estate. 1906 saw the addition of several brand new automobiles to the community. In April, the paper announced that Dr. G. M. Gardner had ordered a new touring car. "The auto is a beauty," we are told, "and will cost the doctor something over $3,600, laid down at Hazen." The doctor, it seems, was even prosperous enough to employ a chauffeur for his new automobile, for we are later told that G. M. Gardner accompanied his chauffeur, William Staniger, on his first trip to Fairview . . . "Dr. Gardner expects to place his Royal car in Reno for the city traffic, and Mr. Staniger will have charge of its operations" (September 15). Ernest Freeman, scion of the prominent Freeman family, owners of the Freeman Ranch in Stillwater, returned in July from a visit with his family in Berkeley, California with a sporty new "fifty horse power Thomas Flyer . . . It is quite certain that he will find time to pilot members of the fair sex on short excursions." Later in the summer we witness the fact that R. L. Douglass and family had returned from Lake Tahoe in their new Royal touring car. While there, Mr. Douglass shipped his auto across the lake on the "big excursion steamer." Douglass was well-known throughout the west for automobile racing, and the March 31 newspaper reports that he was arranging an auto race with Barney Oldfield, of national fame. "The race will take place in Reno," we are told, "where a match was pulled off between the men about a year ago." The newspaper also reported tragic consequences of the new travel by automobile. In May, in a rather symbolic event, George Prothero, manager of the Sand Springs borax works, was seriously injured while driving a single horse, which became frightened at an automobile, kicking back over the narrow cart dashboard and striking him in the left side.
The cash flow in the community and its interest in the automobile is evidenced by the fact that in May, 1906, the town got its own automobile dealership. The May 19 newspaper announced that "J.W. Murdock, manager of the Boyer automobile line, arrived in Fallon and will make his future headquarters in this place. He completed a deal this week whereby he becomes the owner of the lot directly across the street from the Spoon Hotel, upon which he will immediately commence the erection of a building 24 x 64 feet to be used as a garage and repair shop."
Editor Black, like many of his early 20th century newspaper counterparts, was quite chatty by nature, so the reader quickly learns about more than the business matters of the community. Details of community events, political meetings, criminal acts, weddings, funerals, courtships, and even domestic discord were given at length, often accompanied by editorial comment. For example, we are told about events in the lives of his friends in such intimate and subjective terms as these:
30 Michon Mackedon
R. L. Douglass won the five mile race in Reno in 1907. The victorious passengers include Douglass (at the wheel), Ernie Maupin (#2) and Leo Pinger (#3). (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
County Clerk Brown overlooked his usual time for retiring on Sunday night, omitting that act until about midnight when he stealthily entered his lodgings, following his usual course in the most careful manner possible. A step or two sufficed to allow him to drop through a trap door that had been left open by the Indian chambermaid, and the fall of six feet that followed inflicted a number of painful injuries (February 24).
The bride is one of Churchill county's fairest daughters,
and the groom is a young man of upright character (February 10).
The editor also indulged his own prejudices in reporting crimes or any other behavior which didn't meet his approval:
TA. Hood, an Irishman and a laborer, who has been employed for several months past on ditch work, when he wasn't drunk, tried to hang himself Sunday afternoon on a cottonwood tree in the Oats' addition. . . . As soon as his present spree is over, he may see things in a different light (May 12).
Ole Olsen and John Greenwood, two county prisoners
convicted from the Hazen justice court, broke jail Thursday night,
The Way We Were 31
leaving for parts unknown. A note was left signed by the jail-breakers, thanking Sheriff Shirley profusely for kindnesses rendered. Neither of the men had but a few days longer to serve, and no effort was made to recapture them, as Sheriff Shirley figured that it would be better to have a few day's jail sentence hanging over their worthless heads, than to discharge them from jail and allow them the freedom of the community (February 24).
John Smith, a floater, was brought over from Hazen yesterday and committed to the county jail, where he will serve a ten-day sentence for purloining whiskey from a box car on the Hazen siding. John has the appearance of being a very bad sort of fellow, and his insatiable thirst has likely had him in trouble before (March 17).
The editor's bias and cultural superiority is especially shocking to modern readers when he describes minorities, in particular the Chinese or members of the Paiute Indian band, camped just outside the city limits. In one particular story, he informs the reader that County Recorder G. W. Likes engaged "a particularly strong and robust Piute squaw" to wash about three weeks' worth of his clothes. "True to a washer woman's instincts she commenced her task early Monday morning, and all went well until the bluing process was finished when Hiawatha discovered that the clothes had been practically ruined by an overdose of indigo." The article goes on to describe the frantic efforts of the woman to hide the clothes and concludes by stating that "the squaw in question, although a large and robust squaw is the object of much hatred among the tribe in the local Piute camp, which aver that she is `heap crazy.'
With similar patronizing rhetoric he recounts, in an article entitled "Medicine Man's Great Vocal Powers," how a stranger in town had complained that Dr. Bob, the tribal medicine man, had monotonously chanted all night to the Paiute band, keeping him sleepless. The newspaper explained that "When any member of the tribe is ill, it is the duty of the medicine man to peal forth soul-piercing incantations to drive all evil spirits from the sick one's bedside." Editor Black took it upon himself to interview Dr. Bob and quoted him as "muttering . . . Nice music; me good singer; devil heap hate melody and run away."
The Oriental races didn't fare much better than the Paiute in Black's paper. The April 14 paper announced that Leo Likes had been appointed the local agent for the Troy Laundry Company, of Reno, an establishment which "employs none but white help . . . If you have clothing that demands good laundrying, don't patronize the Japanese or Chinese but give Leo a chance."
Nevertheless, by and large, providing you were white, sober and industrious, Lahontan Valley was a land of business and personal opportunity. The overall picture which emerges from the news, the ads and the editorials is one of a commu-
32 Michon Mackedon
nity of unpretentious folks working hard at creating a good place in which to make a living and raise a family. The town was bustling, yes, but it was small enough to achieve what might be seen as remarkable community cohesion. For the size of the community, the civic activities underway indicated great enthusiasm for life in general and for life in Fallon in particular.
Early in the year, the community business leaders united to form a Fallon Booster's Club, to "boost Fallon and the adjacent territory." People in the community sported red buttons as proof of proper booster spirit. In October, a Chamber of Commerce was officially organized "to induce the settler to come and receive him when he arrived." About forty of Fallon's business men adopted the initial Chamber constitution. The year also witnessed the formation of a Fallon Baseball League, The Fallon Gun and Game Protective Association (whose aim was to build a number of hunting lodges in the county for its members), a Fallon Athletic Club, and a Fallon Band. The paper informs us that at the organizational meeting for the band "nearly every band instrument was represented."
Fraternal orders were quite popular with Fallon's men and women. 1906 saw the chartering of a Rebekah Lodge by thirty-seven enthusiastic women. Several other fraternal groups had already been locally chartered, including the Odd Fellows, Free and Accepted Order of Masons, Eagles, Rathbone Sisters, and Knights of Pythias. In fact, lodge activities had grown to such an extent that local entrepreneur W. W. Williams commissioned work for a second story to the building occupied by his general merchandise store. "This second story is to be a meeting place for the various fraternal and beneficiary orders of the town . . . it will be furnished in sumptuous style and Fallon will be able to boast of as fine a lodge hall as any in the state . . ."
Perhaps the best indication of the community "joie de vie" is the manner in which the townsfolk undertook to celebrate their Fourth of July, 1906. No second rate celebration would do for the community of Fallon. Elaborate plans were made in March, when a group of "the ladies," as Editor Black calls them, formed several committees to organize the events of the forthcoming birthday party. The plans called for, among other things, a Goddess of Liberty contest. Voting boxes were installed in the local shops, and, for a penny, you could vote for the maiden of your choice. The paper ran a weekly tally of the votes, which fueled the competition and infused the birthday budget with cash. At first, two local beauties, Myra Sanford and Maggie Day were neck-and-neck in the tallies, but Sanford, "one of the first girls in the town of Fallon," finally pulled ahead, netting a neat 4,000 votes to Day's 3,000. Over $400 was raised by the contest and used to finance the other events of the day. Of interest is a small news item in June announcing that "the first two-color posters ever printed in Churchill county were issued by the Standard office for the upcoming Fourth of July . . . The ladies believe in doing things right and the posters have excited many complimentary remarks."
The Way We Were 33
The Fourth of July parade was quite an elaborate affair, halted temporarily by the collapse of the superstructure on the Goddess of Liberty float caused by contact with a suspended wire. However, once going again, the Liberty Goddess led a procession of colorful floats (prizes to Rathbone Sisters, Knights of Pythias and Eagles), handsomely decorated carriages (first place to the hardware man Harvey Burchell), and "ladies and gentlemen on horseback." The new Fallon Band set the marching pace. Immediately following the parade, Percy Kinney sang a tenor solo "My Own United States," and an oration was delivered by J. W. Ferguson entitled "Fourth of July spirit and its effect on the life of our Country." A tug of war between the married men of the community and the singles was won by the latter. The day passed with foot races and a baseball game, but the pinnacle of the celebration was a dance held in an "immense" open air pavilion 40 x 100 feet and attended by over 125 couples. Our newspaper editor was euphoric over this event:
Staid business men laid aside the cares of life, lawyers and office men forgot for the time all cares, and indulged in the frivolity with a zest that would leave no doubt that genuine enjoyment followed the efforts of the ladies as entertainers. They danced and danced in a futile endeavor to make the girls say 'please don't' but never a whimper and the festivities proceeded until half past three on the following morning . . . The natal day celebration of 1906 will live long in the memories of Churchill County people big and small alike. It was in line with the other big things that are bound to soon enter into the life of the County . . .
Such was the spirit of Fallon, 1906. All in all, we see a lot of ourselves in this early community -- hopes and dreams, mistakes and cultural blindness. But we also glimpse something precious about a time and town gone by. We can call it naivete or innocence or foolish optimism. Or, we might see it as now-tarnished faith in the future. It sprang from a belief that we were living in the best of all possible places in the best of all times; that the future was full of the green pastures of the Truckee Carson Project and the golden hills of the mines to the east. Fallon's boosters did not know that those golden veins would quickly be emptied of their treasures or that the agricultural dreams would recede before the droughts and politics of the latter twentieth century. In any case, the Fallon of 1906 was a place of dreams and high spirits; it was riding high on a booming economy and community pride. It was far from primitive -- and, at least in the eyes of newspaper editor Black, close to ideal.
PIONEER PORT TS
The Immigrant Experience in Nevada
Each of the following three articles provides, in some respect, a commentary on the 19th century immigrant experience -- in America, in general, and in Nevada, in particular. They are the types of personal narratives which are often conflated in "statistics" or generally synthesized in terms of "trends" or "patterns."
The role of the immigrant in Nevada's history was examined by the late University of Nevada history professor, Wilbur Shepperson in his 1970 book, Restless Strangers. Shepperson pointed out that Nevada's destiny was largely shaped by foreign-born adventurers and entrepreneurs. In fact, in the later years of the nineteenth century, Nevada maintained the largest percentage of foreign-born residents of any state in the union. In 1870, for example, 44.5% of the state's population was born in another country. These percentages of foreign-born populations remained much higher for Nevada than for the rest of the country into the first decade of the 20th century.
Shepperson wrote that the state "long remained strangely attractive to the foreign born," and attributed its appeal to a free and fluid society (at least more so than that of the economically and socially hierarchical east coast.) "Enterprizing immigrants," Shepperson asserted, "boldly capitalized on the uncertainties" of the Nevada frontier, and many gained solid stature as ranchers, farmers, and tradesmen.
In some ways the most surprising of the following narratives is that of German immigrant Julius Brabant -- surprising both because of its early date (1851 is a mere five years after the disastrous Donner Party crossing) and because the trip from New Orleans to Placerville was fraught with enough terror and uncertainty to deter all but the most hardy (or foolhardy) English-speaking souls. Yet, Brabant braved not only the physical rigors of the immigrant trail but overcame language and cultural barriers as well to make his way west.
The Dietz/Jesch narrative and Bronzoni tale provide glimpses of immigrant experiences in Nevada at a later time period. In the early years of the 20th century, the quest for a piece of the American dream brought members of both families literally to the end of the line -- the railroad line ending at Hazen, Nevada, where they joined many others seeking their fortunes in the boom that accompanied the beginning of the reclamation project in Churchill County.
These two narratives share another theme: the backlash against the foreign born that followed the outbreak of World Wars I and II. Both the Bronzoni and Dietz/Jesch families suffered humiliation and ostracism even though they were well-integrated into their respective communities.
34
The Dietz/Jesch Connection
Nora Jesch
Nora Jesch's family lived in Fallon from 1908 until 1980 and many descendants
of Nick Jesch remain in Nevada. Nora Jesch begins her family history by tracing
the story of her paternal great grandparents.
The Early Years
Edmund Dietz was born in Dernbach, Germany on 11 January 1862. He was signed up as an apprentice by his father in September of 1877 in the town of Northeim am Rhone in Bayern in southern Germany. Unfortunately, while the dates and place of apprenticeship are given in his apprenticeship contract, the profession for which he trained is not clear, although the family assumes that he trained with a butcher. Edmund was 15 years old and served his apprenticeship for three years. From stories that he told and his attire in his formal portrait, it is also believed that he attended some sort of vocational training school or university in addition to his time as an apprentice. What we do know is that after completion of his apprenticeship in 1880, he posed for this formal portrait and shortly afterward set sail for America and a New World.
We can only guess at Edmund's reasons for leaving behind Germany, his training, and his family. He later gave his grandchildren the impression that he left his homeland to avoid conscription into the army. Family legend has it that he walked out over the Alps carrying with him his most prized possession, a zither, as well as the apprenticeship papers signed by his father and his master, possibly as identification, or as proof that he had training qualifying him for a job in his new homeland.
By 1884, Edmund had been settled for some time in Indianapolis, Indiana. He had a successful
35
Edmund Dietz in high school. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
36 The Dietz/Jesch Connection
butcher's shop in a nice suburb famous for the Dietz sausages in which he specialized. On 29 April 1884, he married Magdalena Schmidt. Magdalena had been born in October 1858 in New York to John Schmidt and Elizabeth Lesoing Schmidt, both of whom were German born. Magdalena (or Lena as she was called) was fluent in German, having learned it from her parents. German was also widely spoken in the area near Indianapolis, so Lena's choice of a German husband seemed natural.
In 1885 Edmund and Lena had their first child, Elizabetha Antoinetta, or Elsa. A boy named Paul Jacob followed in 1886. By all accounts Paul was a caring and intelligent boy, sensitive without being too delicate. Paul was also artistically talented, and there are still some pictures done by him in the family today. In 1889 the Dietz's third child, Bertha Magdalena, was born. There was still to be another daughter, Maria Margaretha, born in 1891, but she only lived for one month.
All three children were educated by the Oldenburg Sisters at their convent school in Indianapolis. Always strict, but often kind, the nuns exacted high standards from their pupils and insisted on obedience and diligence. Bertha's memories of this time centered chiefly on her horses and taking the horse-drawn trolleys back and forth to school in the big city from their suburb. Bertha was always a little proud of her success in school, notwithstanding some difficulties with her teachers. But her education at the hands of these nuns was without question a sound one; even in her senility at the age of 106, she remembered the Latin and German prayers she learned as a child better than the English language which she learned later. Having grown up with German as her native tongue, Bertha always spoke with a slight German accent, even though her English was excellent.
The three children had their share of rivalry and hurt feelings. Bertha complained in later years that she felt like an only child growing up because Elsa was so much older, while Paul had his own activities that did not include a little sister. At the same time, Bertha was devoted to Paul. Her big brother would look out for her and help her where he could, and made something of a pet out of his little sister. Bertha could always count on him to help her out of a tight spot and to take care of her.
Edmund and Magdalena Dietz on their wedding day. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
Nora Jesch 37
Bertha and Elsa attended St. Mary's school in Indianapolis. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
Tragedy came to the Dietz family in 1904 with Paul's sudden death. Another boy in his class at school became ill with
a lung ailment and Paul caught it from him. Within a few short weeks both boys were dead, and the family was in shock. After a funeral mass, Paul was buried in the Catholic Cemetery in Indianapolis. This event is considered the catalyst that propelled the Dietz family into Nevada, one of the last vestiges of the American frontier.
The Dietz Move
The loss of his only son a few years earlier plus a nagging lung complaint of his own encouraged Edmund Dietz to look for a new home, with a drier climate, for himself and his family. He had apparently already heard about the reclamation project proposed for the Carson Sink in Churchill County, Nevada, and so he decided to investigate for himself. He settled with his family at what was then the end of the rail line in Hazen (about eight miles west of Fallon), where he bought a small piece of property and resided for a
Paul Dietz. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
38 The Dietz/Jesch Connection
year or more. On 14 July 1908 Edmund and Lena concluded a deal with Jason and Emma Spooner to purchase their ranch of 360 acres on the Carson River about twelve miles down from the proposed site of Lahontan Dam. Shortly thereafter he moved his wife and two daughters to the ranch, keeping the property in Hazen for some years as well. The price paid to the Spooners for the ranch is stated in the abstract of title to be "ten and more dollars," but how much more is not specified and so remains a mystery. (Since Spooner's property originally had been bought from the Southern Pacific Railroad before the Reclamation Act, the 40-acre maximum lot rule imposed on all homestead properties in the Newlands project did not apply.)
The 360 acres that the Dietzes purchased were ideally situated along the Carson River in the valley below the site of Lahontan Dam. The land was rich and fertile, as was all the land in the area, but being just below the dam gave them the advantage of being practically assured of having enough water even in dry years. The proximity to the river also made it easier to build the lateral canals to carry the water directly to the fields. Edmund's site selection turned out to be a wise one; the ranch always did well and the family grew prize crops as long as they were able to work it.
Edmund seemed to settle into farming quite easily. Owing to his education, he was able to help his neighbors with fertilization techniques and estimating crop and hay yields. Lena, meanwhile, was busy with her animals and vegetable gardens. Between them they raised most of their own foodstuffs. Elsa and Bertha helped out in the house and gardens, and both girls developed a knack for dealing with sick and injured animals. Lena, Elsa, and Bertha were involved with the Homemakers' Club in the valley with other farm women. Within a few years, the family had built a reputation for being good farmers and good neighbors.
Years later, Bertha's children reminisced about their mother:
She told the story of one of her horses that was so well She liked Indiana. I've
trained that she would drive to the point where she picked been back there since
up the Inter- Urban and then let the horse go and he'd go and went into the area
home by himself. And she said one time when she was let- that I could imagine
ting the horse go, a man was watching her and he started was where she was
to laugh, and he said, "Oh, I see now what this is all born and raised and it
about. I thought it was a run-away horse and I tried to was terrible. That was
catch him, but that horse just wouldn't let me catch him." in the late (19)60's.
One time when they were going to go to catechism classes, She always wanted to
Paul noticed that (Bertha) had a red rash on her and there go back and I'm glad
were measles going around. He took her into a drug store she never did because
and bought some powder and put it on her face so that she would have been
they'd cover all the red spots on her face, because she really upset. wanted to receive First Communion with the class.
Helen, Bertha's daughter Raymond, Bertha's son
Nora Jesch 39
Dietz ranch in Churchill County, taken in February of 1913. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
The area around Fallon experienced a growth period after the reclamation project began. The increase in population in the more rural farming districts created the necessity of adding a post office to service the ranches along the Carson River near the dam. On 28 October 1908 Edmund was appointed postmaster of the Northam District, which was made up of the ranches between the dam and Fallon's outskirts. Apparently Edmund had a friend high up in the U.S. Postal Service (one source says this friend was United States Vice President, Charles W. Fairbanks) and it was through this connection that he was able to have the post office created and to be named its postmaster.
Off to the Big City
Shortly after the family moved to Fallon, probably around 1910, Bertha went to Reno to learn the millinery trade. She worked in a milliner's shop in Reno for some time, perhaps a year or so, learning how to make and trim the hats that were an important part of a lady's wardrobe at the time. While in Reno, Bertha was one of the original members of the Catholic Cathedral parish during the time that the Cathedral building was being completed. She was also active in the Cathedral's choir and altar society while she was there.
Edmund's granddaughter remembers her grandfather's talents:
He knew how to fertilize, which a lot of the people in the valley had never heard of. He introduced fertilizers, and he helped the other farmers with measuring their hay. He knew how to tell them how many tons they had in a stack. He had gone to what he said was the equivalent of a junior college here, but he knew more from that than people going to a university, at least relative to farming. He was able to help a lot of people.
Helen, Edmund's granddaughter
40 The Dietz/Jesch Connection
After learning the millinery trade in Reno, Bertha moved to Los Angeles, and Elsa went with her. Bertha used to tell wonderful stories about Los Angeles in the days of electric street cars and fashionable houses before it became an overwhelming metropolis. After Nevada, Los Angeles must have seemed very sophisticated and ripe with adventure, but it may have seemed a bit like home to two young women who had grown up in Indianapolis. It is not clear now how long the sisters stayed in California, or even that Elsa worked in the millinery shop with Bertha, but they probably stayed at least one or two years before returning to their parents and the ranch outside of Fallon sometime before 1912.
Bertha at age 23, taken during her millinery course training in Reno. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
The combination pool hall and barber shop at Lahontan City that the Jesch brothers operated. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
Nora Jesch 41
Lahontan City
In December 1910 the Lahontan Dam project got the final budget clearance and go ahead from Congress, and work began in the following spring of 1911. The city on the heights that grew to house and serve the men required to work on the dam was amazing. Seemingly overnight the desert was filled with men, horses, and equipment working together to create an oasis. Two of the men who came were Hungarian barbers who set up a combination pool hall and barber shop at the campsite to capitalize on the need for entertainment created by so many men working a long way from town.
The story goes that (my grandfather) intended to name the new post office after his home town of Northeim in Germany, but somewhere in all the paperwork the name was transposed to Northam, and the area is known as the Northam District to this day. Edmund ran the post office out of a small porch, off the kitchen, at the back of the ranch house. It was in this room that he spent many hours writing, presumably about Post Office business, and later for the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District. The Northam Post Office was closed on October 28, 1928, as the number of automobiles owned by the ranchers made it easier for them to go into Fallon to retrieve their mail. This was also about the time that Edmund's health started to fade, and it was likely that he no longer had the stamina necessary to keep up with the work required to run the office in addition to his work with the TCID board.
Helen, Edmund's granddaughter
Jesch Beginnings
Nicholas George Jesch was born on 11 August 1884 in a small town called Nitzkydorf, located in what was then Austria-Hungary, but became Rumania after World War II. Nitzkydorf, although in Hungary, was populated mostly by people of German backgrounds (there is some speculation about a German Duke who moved his serfs along with his family when he obtained the land and relocated). German was the common language and Nick grew up speaking it. Nick's extended family were mostly farmers; what kind of farm, the size, or the crops, is unknown. His father and older brother were both barbers.
Nick's mother died when he was an adolescent, and his father remarried a few years later. His stepmother was a little too much like those out of the Grimms' fairy tales for his comfort, or at least that is the impression he left on his children. Nick had an older brother, Matthew (known as Motts), and two sisters, Johanna (or Hanna) and Elizabeth (or Lizzie). When he was of age Nick apprenticed to the local barber, learning the trade in the days when barbers still made house calls. When he completed his training, he and his friend Johnny Bierjohn worked for a
42 The Dietz/Jesch Connection
time in Austria, and possibly other places in Europe, before deciding to seek their fortunes and independence in the New World.
Nick was fond of saying that he came to this country when he was sixteen years old with just sixteen cents in his pocket. That would mean that he arrived in New York in the 1900s. He and his friend Johnny went to New York first, because Nick's sister Hannah was working as a nanny there. After working for a few years and spending some time in Texas and other places now unknown, they decided to come out west. Nick was always something of a gambler, and family legend has it that the decision to go to Nevada rather than San Francisco where Johnny had some friends was based on a bet. They found a playing card on the street in New York and decided that whoever could come closer to guessing the number of the card would get to choose.
A dapper Nick Jesch shortly after his arrival in America. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
Nick won, so he and Johnny went to Lahontan, where Nick had heard a huge dam would be built. When they thought about the number of men that would be needed in a remote location for a project the size of Lahontan Dam, the enterprising young men realized that the workers would have to live on site, and would need some relaxation and an occasional haircut; a combination barber shop and pool hall was just what the market needed. Sometime in late 1911 or early 1912, Nick and Johnny arrived at Lahontan City and set up a clapboard building which served as their home, pool hall, and barber shop.
The Dietz ranch was doing well by the time construction was under way for Lahontan Dam, and with demand at the camp high for fresh eggs, produce, and milk, they did a brisk business on the top of the hill. Bertha and Lena would take
A joke played on Nick:
His father and uncle would make occasional trips in the city. And Dad always asked if he could go along, because they would come home with all these stories about the big city and he was interested. But they would always say, "Oh no, little children can't. If little children go along they've got to chew the chain in two before we can get into the city." But finally he kept saying that he sure would like to, so they came up with the idea of hiding him under their seat by covering him up with a blanket when they came to the chain that the children had to chew in two. So they started in, and when they got close to town they had him hunker down under the seat and they covered him up real good. Then they went across the border, and got into town and then got home again. I don't know whether he ever caught on. Anyway, it made a good story.
Nora Jesch 43
the wagon up to the camp to sell the farm goods to the workers; it was on these trips to the camp that Bertha got to know Nick. While Nick was courting Bertha he told her father that he was from Germany, thinking that he could make a more favorable impression as a German than as a Hungarian. While Nick was probably correct in this assumption, the fact that he lied to her father was always a sore spot with Bertha. Coming from an area of Hungary where German was the predominant language, Nick never had any problems passing for a German. Nick had been raised Catholic, although he had drifted away from the Church after he left home, but he assured Bertha that he would go back to the Church and raise their children as Catholics, so her family accepted him.
Nick's son reminisces about his father
According to his story they decided to leave over there, I never knew why, but they came over on the boat. He came with Johnny Bierjohn, a very good friend of his and a barber. They got to New York and I think Johnny had a relative or something in Washington. They were trying to decide where to go and they were walking along the sidewalk in New York and they saw a playing card on the sidewalk For some reason my father had heard about the dam construction in the Fallon area so he kind of wanted to go there and John wanted to go to the other place, and so they decided whichever could guess the number of the card closest, they would go there. So my father guessed the number that was the closest, and they both came out West and went to work on the dam project.
Raymond, Nick's son
Bertha and Nick were married at the Catholic Church in Sparks, Nevada, on 12 June 1913 there being no regular Catholic Church in Fallon at this time. Bertha lived with Nick at Lahontan City by the dam for a while until the number of workers required on the dam dwindled to such a point that keeping the barber shop and pool hall open was no longer profitable. Edmund and Lena had promised the newlyweds forty acres of their 360 for a wedding present, and the deed was formalized in 1915, but giving the property into Bertha's name only. It is curious that the transfer deed was drawn only in the name of Bertha Jesch with no mention of her husband. This
Nick and Bertha on their wedding day in 1913. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
44 The Dietz/Jesch Connection
Nick's daughter recalls:
According to Dad and Aunt Hannah's stories, Dad came over from Hungary with Johnny. They had worked together in Hungary and Germany, and Austria too for a while, barbering. He apprenticed with regular barbers, they did the hair cuts and shaves in the homes at that time over there. And these two young boys would be sent ahead to lather the customer and get everything ready so that the customer would be ready for the barber, that's how Dad got started. I guess by the time he finished his apprenticeship he had decided to come to America. Things were not going very well in Hungary and there weren't the opportunities that he saw in America, so he and Johnny came over together. And they spent the rest of their lives in this country together. They were in the same shops working together always. I think they settled in New York, and then he talked of being in New Jersey with a barber shop. Then he had a bad spell of pneumonia in the winter time and his doctor told him to go out west where the climate was dry.
Helen
seems to indicate a lack of trust between Nick and his in-laws, due possibly to his gambling, or it might have been simply a matter of Nick's citizenship at this time. In any case, Nick and Bertha moved into a small house on their forty acres a short distance from her family.
Nick seemed to enjoy being a farmer in the now fertile valley. The two ranches were always worked as one, which made sense because of labor and machinery costs. Bertha kept busy with the gardening and animals, such as rabbits, turkeys, and chickens, which were raised for food on both farms. And Nick worked with Edmund and whatever hired help was on hand to produce the crops.
Bertha and Nick Jesch pose with their children Lucille, Paul and Helen on their 40 acre ranch. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
Nora Jesch 45
Nick and Bertha's first child, Lucille Elizabeth, was born 17 April 1914. Lucille was a bright, cheerful child and doted on her little sister Helen, who was born one year later on 03 August 1915. When it was time for the girls to start school, the family moved from the ranch into Fallon so that they would be closer to the school in town. Nick had also decided that, due to his difficulties with hay fever, life as a barber might be better for his health than life as a farmer. So the family (which by this time also included Frances Johanna born 12 December 1916, and Paul Matthew born 05 October 1918) made the move and the girls started school in the growing town.
Nick and Bertha bought a good sized piece of land on what was then the outskirts of Fallon, just outside the incorporated boundaries on Maine Street. The
house was on a small rise, a short distance from what is now the junior high school building. The first house they built consisted of two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen and living area that ran together in one big room, and a screened-in porch in back. Bertha kept her animals in a large yard behind the house. She always had a collection of rabbits, chickens, turkeys, and even some goats. The children all helped her care for the animals and collect the eggs. The goats provided milk for those of the children allergic to cow's milk, as well as becoming family pets. It was in this small house that most of the children were born and where they spent most of their growing-up years, sharing the two small bedrooms and the one bath. As time went on, two more houses were added on the corner, one for Lena and Elsa after they moved off the ranch, and one where Nick and Bertha lived in their retirement. All three houses are still standing today.
Helen should have started kindergarten a year after Lucille, but she did not want to be separated from her sister, and Lucille begged, so both girls were allowed to start school at the same time. Studies at this time included phonics, coloring, and other academic and social basics for the thirty or so children in the class. Helen
Bertha with baby Lucille in 1914. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
46 The Dietz/Jesch Connection
was able to keep up with the class, and both girls began low first grade at the same time in 1919.
At this time in Fallon, the classes were divided into low and high sections of each grade, with each section taught by a different teacher. This arrangement facilitated children starting at different times in the year because of age and family moves. With this system, a child could miss some of one section and not have to wait an entire
year for the next class to catch up. It also meant that some students graduated from high school in the middle of the academic year when they were finished with high twelfth grade.
With four children in a small house, colds and childhood ailments must have been common. But on one of his visits to the Jesch house, the doctor brought tragedy instead of healing, in the form of measles. In the days before vaccines against childhood diseases, illnesses were not to be taken lightly. All the children came down with the fever and weakness at once, and Bertha was desperate trying to nurse them all. One by one the children pulled out of it and regained their health -- all except Lucille. For apparently no reason, the oldest child was the hardest stricken. Lucille died on 09 April 1920, just days short of her sixth birthday, without her sisters even being aware of it. The other children were too weak to handle the shock, so Bertha and Nick waited until they were on the road to recovery before telling them the sad news. Helen knew that her parents had gone to Mass on a day that was not Sunday, but it was not until later that she realized that that was when Lucille's funeral was held.
Lucille was missed by all who had known the sunny little girl, but perhaps by her teacher more than anyone outside of the family. The teacher had fallen for her favorite student, and consoled herself by talking to Helen, who was still in her class, about the lost child.
World War I and Outsiders
When the United States joined in World War I against the horror of the "Huns," it was really no surprise that Germans living in the country at that time came under suspicion because of their heritage. Living in rural Nevada, Edmund and Lena Dietz were no exceptions to the general anti-German prejudice of the day. Although the Dietzes had been living in the Northam District for ten years or more, there were a few neighbors who either enjoyed spreading malicious gossip or who were paranoid enough to believe some silly rumors. The rumors purported
Helen talks about her sister:
Mom asked Lucille why she didn't choose a boy partner like all the other girls did for musical chairs, instead of choosing me every time. And Lucille said, "If I didn't choose Helen nobody else would." That's how devoted Lucille was to me, we were just inseparable.
Helen
Nora Jesch 47
that Lena had plans to blow up Lahontan Dam and that Edmund had been voicing his support for Germany in local bars. Edmund published a letter in the Churchill County Eagle in December of 1917, reminding people that he did not frequent bars, and that when he became a United States citizen he took an oath of loyalty to this country that he meant very seriously:
Mr. Edmund Dietz, postmaster at Northam, has requested us to publish the following communication which is self explanatory:
It has come to my attention that a story has been circulated in Fallon to the effect that my loyalty to the government of the United States is under suspicion. With great particularity this story sets forth that I was recently struck over the head with a beer bottle in a saloon at Hazen for alleged disloyal remarks, and to cap this base fabrication, it has been related that my wife has threatened to blow up the Lahontan dam in reprisal.
To my friends and neighbors it would seem an insult to their intelligence to believe they would give credence to such a tissue of falsehoods, which are without the slightest basis of fact. All who know me also know that I am not a frequenter of saloons, nor am I given to loose talk.
I came to the United States in 1880 and in due time was admitted to citizenship and took a Christian oath to support the country of my adoption. That oath is a sacred obligation to me and I have never, in work, thought or deed, faltered in my loyalty to the United States government. My wife and my children were all born and reared in this country and have no sympathy with, nor interest in, Germany or its allies. In this, as in all else, we are one.
As postmaster at Northam I am the only representative of the U.S. government in that section of the county, as such I again took an oath to support the government of the United States, and at the outbreak of the war I reiterated my pledge of loyalty. We must assume that there is some honor in men or our government would not place reliance in an oath. I handle the U.S. postal department money; my neighbors have gone on my bond therefor, and in addition they trust me with their money going through the mails. I therefore owe it to all that I keep my character blameless and defend it against all slanderers. In this critical time it behooves us all to stand together against a common foe and to not sew discord by idle talk and false witness against each other.
48 The Dietz/Jesch Connection
In future I shall invoke the aid of the laws of my country to protect me and mine against false accusations.
Edmund Dietz
Even with the bad feelings that the Dietzes had to put up with during the war, they had it much better than those Germans accused of supporting Germany, either by actions or by rhetoric. Many people who spoke out against the government and its involvement in the war were actually imprisoned, and their rights of habeas corpus suspended. As Mack states in her Nevada history: "During World War I, a person who expressed sympathy for Germany or her allies or tried to thwart the efforts of the United States to win the War was sent to military prison for the duration of the War. They, too, did not have the right to ask for their release."
It was these troubles experienced by the family during World War I that convinced Nick and Bertha that it would be better to raise their children as strict Americans rather than allowing them to absorb German culture which could cause them difficulties later in life. To this end, the only time Nick and Bertha spoke German in front of their children was at Christmas or some other special time when they did not want them to understand the conversation. Many of their children now express disappointment that they were never given the opportunity to learn the language of their parents. Now they cannot read the documentary fragments of history left to them that are in German, and they feel they have missed a great opportunity.
Toward the end of World War I, Nick and Bertha invited Nick's sister, Lizzie Wallman, and her husband Konrad, along with their four girls, to move onto their forty acres of the Dietz Ranch. Lizzie had been writing pathetic letters to her brother for quite some time, telling of crop failures and bad winters on their farm in South Dakota. It was felt that the Wallmans' move to Fallon was the perfect solution for the need for a warmer climate and help on the Deitz ranch. But the family had not reckoned on the prejudices of the local residents. The Wallmans were not nearly so "Americanized" as the Jesch children were. Even though the children had been born in America, the family as a whole still kept the customs of the old country in dress, speech, and cooking. Apparently the community could tolerate Nick, who had learned the language quickly, and was part of a family who had been in the area for years, but they could not tolerate the newcomers with their obvious foreignness. The children were tormented and frightened at school, and Konrad and Lizzie had a hard time of it with the adults as well. After just one year, the family gave up the opportunity and moved back to South Dakota, where there were enough other Germans in the area that they did not feel out of place.
Nora Jesch 49
Children of the Jesch and Wallman families play together on the Dietz ranch before the Wallmans moved back to South Dakota. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
Nora Jesch has just completed a Master's Thesis in Public History at Cal State University using the history of the Dietz and Jesch families as her research materials. Oral histories were used as well. The preceeding stories are two chapters from her eight-chapter thesis which traces the Dietz/Jesch family history from the 1860's to the present.
Julius Brabant, German Emigrant:
A Letter Home
Volkmar Konig and Julius Brabant
On Saturday, September 30, 1995, Lahontan Valley was enjoying one of its warm and welcoming autumn days. Volkmar Konig and his wife arrived at the Churchill County Museum from Norderstedt, Germany, to deliver a hand-written letter dated 1851. Their enthusiasm was contagious as they told of retracing the route once taken by Volkmar's great-great-uncle, Julius Brabant, through the desert and over the Carson Pass.
The original letter was written in an archaic German script. Volkmar offered a copy of the letter, transcribed into modern German, to the museum. As he prepared to leave, he signed the guest book, "Volkmar Konig, Whose ancestor went through here 145 years ago (1850) on the California Trail." Later, hoping the material would prove to be an interesting story for In Focus, museum volunteer Jack Scheuermann translated it into English.
Volkmar had not visited the American West before. As he retraced the route of his great-great-uncle, he was struck by the wide, open spaces and treeless vistas. Back in his homeland, thinking about the emigrants stuggling along the California Trail, he wrote to the museum saying, "Most important was water for the animals. Therefore they went from river to river. [Where] the old trail crosses today's Utah highway 30 . . . there is not a single tree to be seen from horizon to horizon . . . only sand and sagebrush. But at this point there stands a single tree and some flowers and some shrubs because a small well or fountain comes like a wonder -- up from the ground and is at once swallowed up by the ground around this sprinkling water source! How glad they must have been when they reached this little source of water."
He continues, "Thirty miles northeast of the town [of] Wells, Nevada . . . the old trail can [again] be seen and near this town the Humboldt River starts. The emigrants followed it to the point where this river suddenly disappears in the ground at the so-called 'Humboldt Sink' north of Fallon. Here starts forty miles of desert they had to cross to the southwest to reach the Carson River at 'Ragtown'."
It was obvious Volkmar had a real interest in the history of the American West. Subsequent correspondence with him at his home in Nordestedt, Germany, provided more details of Julius Brabant's life. He was born August 7, 1825, in Neuenkirchen/Olderburg, Germany. Leaving home at about 14 years of age, he attended a coastal school in Papenburg where he acquired navagational knowledge. About two years later he went to sea, and in 1847 he arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
50
A Letter Home 51
The following letter was written by Julius to his family in Germany after he had begun his search for gold in California. It was postmarked at Stockton, California, in 1851:
My long silence has certainly made you upset and uneasy, or perhaps you thought that I had forgotten my parents and home, but how often I have thought of you. With heavy heart I have often lain on a hard bed and thought of the pleasant days that I spent with you. The reason for my silence was that I had always promised I would soon send the money to you. I am ashamed to write to you that I was not able to accomplish this. I will summarize what has happened since my last letter.
When I got off the schooner Forward in Philadelphia, I boarded a brig and travelled to Cuba. From there we brought honey and molasses to Philadelphia. Thereafter I shipped out on another ship to Mobile. Here I stayed for the winter and in spring went to New Orleans. From there I went to Vera Cruz and drove a wagon to Mexico City for the American government. When I came back from Mexico to New Orleans, there came the news of the discovery of gold in California. I immediately sought to leave by ship, but, unfortunately, few ships
were available and large numbers of sailors desired passage.
So, in spring I went up the Missouri to Lexington. From Lexington I drove a wagon to Santa Fe in New Mexico, but I was unable to go any further. So I had to spend the winter there, and the next year I came back and spent the winter around the Mississippi on steam boats. Last spring I was luckier. From New Orleans I went to St. Louis, and from there west, where, just in time, I met up with a 26 wagon train [which was traveling to the Great Salt Lake]. These wagons and goods belonged to a merchant who paid $20.00 a month to those who went with the wagon train.
We left in April with eight mules per wagon to go into the wilderness. There were about 38 men and the trip was very interesting. Occasionally we tray-
Julius Brabant as a young man. (Volkmar Konig photo.)
52 Konig/Brabant
elled over tall mountains and over the great plains and along the Platte River. There were many many buffalo, a type of wild ox, that have long black hair and appear to have a lion-like mane, but they are good to eat. We also saw many Indians, but they were friendly. In July we saw a lake surrounded by large mountains as we came over a high mountain pass. The people who live here are called Mormons. They have a new religion, believing in a prophet who was murdered [assassinated]. They pilfer everything and each has many wives as the Turks do. This is where our merchant had his business so 15 of us bought a wagon, 3 span of oxen, provisions for 2 months, put our packs on our shoulders and set out on foot. From here on it was not so nice, bad water and barren country.
We crossed a 40 mile stretch where there was no water. Both sides of the trail were littered with wagons, dried up dead oxen, horses and mules; the unfortunate remains of last year. In order to cross this country one must travel at night when it is cool. After daylight when we saw the green trees and grass, the fatigue was forgotten and soon we were bathing and being refreshed in the Carson River. Here Californians had set up to sell the emigrants supplies. At last we arrived at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Now we had eight days of climbing mountains through the snow and four days of down grade; finally, we were in California.
The first mines were in Hangtown [Placerville] and Webertown. Here I left the group with two others who also had a wagon and travelled toward the southern mines. The whole area here is mountainous. Every river, stream . . . the most gold.
We usually remove a foot of dirt because there is no gold in it and wash about 2 more feet down. That gets us to the rock for the first time. If it is soft and can be broken up easily it pays the best. The rock is usually granite, slate or quartz. It is washed in what we call a "long ton." This is built like a trough, lone and
"Both sides of the trail were littered with . . . the unfortunate remains of last year. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
A Letter Home 53
narrow with a sieve at the lower end. Under the sieve is an iron housing that catches the gold. The trough is at an angle so the water has a good fall, and the ore is then thrown in the trough. A man is on either side and one stands by the sieve, and they discard the larger rocks. The smaller stones, the gold and sand go through the sieve into the lower casting. The water then washes the small rocks and stones away and leaves the gold behind. In the evening we take the sand and gold out of the box and wash it again in a zinc tub, similar to what you have, only bigger.
In each district a meeting is held every two or three years where the miners determine laws and rules. A man can claim 150 feet of river in this region, but he must work three days or he forfeits his right to it. If a dispute arises, which seldom occurs, 12 men are gathered together to settle the problem. If robberies or murders occur they also gather 12 men to judge the accused. If he is found guilty, he is hanged on the first good tree.
We build our houses ourselves out of trees (logs) stacked one on top of the other, 14' x 14'. On top of that we put a canvas (tarpaulin), and a small chimney; we build two or three bedsteads, put on our blankets and then live in our own house. Our food consists of coffee, tea, sugar, bacon, meat, potatoes, cucumbers and etc. It costs us now about 5 talers per week. [Old Germanic currency.] Among the people we find here are well-educated Americans: doctors, lawyers and merchants in abundance who have traded the pen for the spade.
Totally alone, with my box of goods and woolen coat, after I had been walking through the mountains for two days, having to live on but wild cherries, I arrived here with $5.00 in my pocket, about as much as your six talers. It was approaching evening. I lay my possessions under a tree in order to sleep. A Portuguese invited me in to eat with him and to spend the night. I worked with him for four months but couldn't make anything. I then hired out at $4.00 per day, stayed 2 months and bought a portion of the business for $150.00. The next week I bought another portion for $120.00. This was last week. This week my share (payment) was $77.00. I can't say how long it will last. We have hired 5 men at $4.00 per day and room and board.
My partner is a very well-educated banker's son from Virginia. Klostermann from Steinfeld, who is bringing you this gold, is a nice, fine man. I already know him since we met in Antwerp where he was chief mate and he probably saved together around $2,000.00. I hope you will forgive my silence and that Frederike and Fritz' will also.
How much I would like to have a letter from you so that I would know how you are doing. How are our relatives? I send them hearty greetings. Fritz and Frederike write me as soon as you can.
Hope all is well with you.
Your Julius
Address:
Julius Brabant
Stockton, California
54 Konig/Brabant
P.S. Say hello (greet) Uncle H. and Uncle Br. and Aunt2. Frederike should write Papenberg for me. Also don't forget them as they were so friendly to me and I thank them greatly. Mother, please greet uncle and the children in Breman. Father will greet Uncle Fritz and Frederike and Julie3 for me. I am sending you 6 oz. of gold which is worth $96.00 here. In the big cities it is worth $110.00. When Klostermann brings this to you Fritz should see he is entertained well.
Your Julius
* * * * *
History does not record Julius in any archive, census or voting list in Stockton so it has been assumed he did not stay in that city for any length of time. Family research indicates that he sailed for Australia after hearing of gold discoveries there. It appears Julius made the right move and "struck it rich" near Brisbane. Money from his Australian adventure provided the capital for his new wool and tobacco trading company. He must have longed for home, however, because he returned to Germany in 1857, ultimately sending two nephews and a niece to Brisbane to oversee the company.
In 1858 Julius married in Bremen, Germany, and once again set sail for Australia, taking his new bride with him. For some years he was "counsel for Bremen affairs" in Brisbane. The couple had three children, all of whom died at early ages. Building his wealth, Julius invested in German (Kloeckner Steelworks) and in foreign companies. Over the years, he became so embittered by his unhappy marriage that he willed his property and fortune to a foundation that specifically excluded women. He died at the age of 87 on February 7, 1912. His widow died destitute in Spain during World War I. After the war, all his estate's remaining capital that was invested in foreign companies was confiscated by the winning countries and was lost.
No other members of his fam-
ily emigrated to the United States.
NOTES
1. Friederike and Fritz are Julius' sister and brother.
2. Uncle H. was the brother of his mother. The relationship of Uncle Br. and Aunt to Julius are uncertain.
3. Friederike and Julie Lanwer were Julius' cousins.
Julius in his later years, taken in Bremen, Germany. (Volkmar Konig photo.)
Memories of My Grandfather
Giuseppe Filippi
Velio Alberto Bronzini
When I was a young boy growing up in Oakland, California, my immigrant Italian mother, Clara Filippi Bronzini, always used to tell me that my grandfather had come to America many years before she did. She said that her father had come to America from the village of Piaggia, in the province of Pisa, although their mail was postmarked in the next village named Madonna Dell Acqua. These villages are still so small that they are not even on the map. She knew that he had come to Nevada and that he lived and worked in a railroad station but since she was such a little girl at the time, she did not remember the name of the town. Grandfather left her, at age two, as well as her infant sister, Maria, and my grandmother, Albina, to come to "the land of opportunity" to try to seek a better future for his family than what they had in Italy. Based on the birth dates of the two children that were born before his journey, my mother (Clara in 1904), and (Maria in 1906), and the birth dates of two that were born after he returned to Italy, (Olga in 1909), and (Gustavo in 1911), I have established that he had to have been in Nevada between the years 1906 and 1909.
It was not until I made a trip to Italy in 1949 at the age of 19 that I was able to find out the name of the town in Nevada. I asked my grandfather, whom I was seeing for the first time in my life, what the name of the town in Nevada was where he had been. He kept repeating the name Izzi over and over, and so I finally asked if he could write it down for me. He scribbled some letters down on the table cloth
• • • in those days that was commonly done as they didn't have any writing paper . . . and the word came out Hazen.
After many years of thinking about it, on June the sixth of 1995, my wife Mary and I decided to take a drive to find Hazen and to see if possibly there might be some trace of my grandfather having been there. I didn't really believe that there was any likelihood of this but I figured I had nothing to lose by trying. After getting some directions from a very nice lady at Hanneman's Service Station in Fernley we proceeded to Hazen.
The only building I could see that I thought I should stop at was the Hazen store, so we parked our car on the side of the building near where the U.S. post box is and proceeded to go inside. We looked around for a few moments but saw no one
55
56 Al Bronzini
in attendance. The first thing that I noticed was an old Coca Cola ice cooler in the middle of the store, and that, for a moment, sure took me back in time. I didn't see anyone so I called out in sort of a loud voice, "Hello. Is there anybody here?"
Then a rather faint voice came from the back of the store and asked, "Do you want gasoline?" I said, "No thanks; we just filled up in Fernley," and at that moment, I could see that the voice had come from an elderly woman sitting in the little kitchen area in the back of the store. I could tell that she was not able to get up easily as she had one foot and ankle heavily bandaged. So I asked, "Can we come in and talk to you?" and she graciously responded with a reply of, "Sure, come on in."
She asked us to sit down at her little kitchen set and she looked us over as you would any strangers who suddenly appear in your house. (I'm sure she knew that we were not locals.) I told her our names and she told us that she was the owner of the store and that her name was Agnes Sever. She also said she had been the postmistress for many years [1934-1977] but wasn't anymore; that her husband Tony [1906-1989] had passed away several years ago and that she had been running the store by herself, except for a young girl who came in every day at three P.M. to help her out. She told us that her father was Michael Hart [1876-1969] and that he had come from Ireland and was one of the early settlers in Hazen, and that he had worked on the railroad as a foreman. She told us that she was born there [July 15, 1907] and had never left much except for a few trips. She apologized for not being
able to get up as her foot was giving her quite a bit of discomfort. I said, "Agnes, don't be concerned about us; but, however, I would like to ask you a question if I may." She responded with, "Sure. Go ahead and ask. What do you want to know?" as if she welcomed the challenge.
I said, "Agnes was there a railroad station here in Hazen back in the early 1900's?" She said, "Sure was, it was right there," pointing to the back of her building. I asked what happened to it. She replied, "It burned down." I continued
Velio A. Bronzini poses in front of Agnes Sever's Hazen Store on his June 1995 trip to the Fallon area. (Al Bronzini photo.)
Giuseppe Filippi 57
my questions. I said, "Agnes, my grandfather came from Italy back in the early 1900's. He ended up in Hazen and took a job in a railroad station. Would you by any chance have any knowledge of this, or possibly remember a young man that came from Italy and worked here?" She paused for a moment as if to reach back into her memory bank, and then with a quick and very positive reply said, "Yes! Sure, he was the janitor and he had a nick name too." I asked if she knew what it was, and again pausing before she answered replied, "No I can't remember what it was, but I do know there was an Italian janitor that worked here." At that moment you could have knocked me over with a feather. I actually had to sit down as I felt I was being overcome with emotion. I did not tell her that he was the janitor; all I said was that he worked here. I then did some quick mathematics in my head. Based on the age that she told me she was, she probably was not born yet or at least had been so young that she could not possibly have remembered my grandfather. I continued to probe with caution as to not annoy her, as I could tell her foot was giving her a lot of discomfort. I said, "Agnes, based on the year of your birth I don't see how you could remember my grandfather." She replied, "I heard tell that there was an Italian fellow that worked here. My father worked for the railroad as a section foreman, and he often talked about the Italian janitor at the station." As she continued she said there were some Mexicans here and some Chinese too, but the Italian fellow was the janitor and he had a nick name. I took a stab at a few possible nick names like Joe, Dago, Wop, or Beppe (short for Giuseppe) but none of them rung a bell.
The fact that he, himself, told me he had worked as a janitor at the railroad station in Hazen, and that now, approximately 88 years later, Hazen's historian Agnes Sever confirmed this story clears up any doubts I may have had. I feel like it was my lucky day when I walked into the Hazen store. I am grateful to Agnes Sever for the lesson on local history. I feel like she really enjoyed talking about it. I also found her to have an amazing memory . . . especially to remember conversations of so many years ago about the Italian janitor . . . I found this to be quite incredible. It was also apparent that she was quite proud of her community of Hazen.
I wish to thank the staff of the Churchill County Museum & Archives for their interest and assistance on my visit there on June 6th, and also for encouraging me to write this bit of history, making it possible to keep the memory of my grand-
Agnes Seever greeted Al and Mary Bronzini from behind the counter in her Hazen store. (Churchill County Museums & Archives Photo Collection.)
5 8 Al Bronzini
father alive. Although I only knew him for a few months he left a lasting impression with me, as a kind, generous and gentle man, who above all treasured his family. I am proud to say that he was my grandfather. I believe that he was best described in his epitaph. It reads:
During his long life he
was a luminous example
of family virtue, fervent
Christian, citizen,
exemplary husband
and father.
Giuseppe Filippi
1874-1958
I am happy that Hazen made a contribution to his life.
Velio Alberto Bronzini
* * * * *
This is the way the story went as told to me by my mother and years later reconfirmed by my grandfather. There was a man from the town in Italy where Giuseppe Filippi lived, who was going to America, as he had been assured of work there. Giuseppe, who at that time was 32 years old, convinced the man to let him tag along. Their destination was San Francisco.
They left Italy by steamship from the port of Genova. It took them the best part of three weeks to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Giuseppe recalled that the living conditions on the ship were very horrible and that the people were crowded in like cattle. After being processed at Ellis Island, he was held in quarantine for two weeks because there had been so many sick people on the voyage and they had to make sure that he was not carrying any diseases.
The two boarded a train in New York and headed toward California. When they got as far as Nevada they ran out of money and so their journey ended here.
He told me that when he arrived in Hazen it was "the ugliest, meanest place he had ever seen." Because he couldn't speak any English, the boss at the train station gave him a job as a janitor. There he stayed, working at the station, as well as doing many other jobs that didn't require him to understand English. He recalled that all there was to do in Hazen was work or drink . . . he was not a drinker
Giuseppe Filippi. (Al Bronzini photo.)
Giuseppe Filippi 59
. . . and avoid rattlesnakes. There were many fights between residents and at night he would sometimes hear gun shots.
While he was treated well, fed three meals a day, and paid more money than he had ever seen before, he felt great sadness. Though he had a good place to sleep, many nights were so cold that he could not sleep, and in the bunk house at night he would cry because he missed his family so much. He said that he terribly missed my grandmother and their two little girls, the oldest of which was to become my mother. He was so disappointed
that he had run out of money and was not able to realize his dream of reaching San Francisco, that he began to regret his decision to come to America.
He told me that there was lots of work when he had arrived in Hazen but after a few years conditions got so that jobs were difficult to find. Although he never said so, this situation may have been caused by the disastrous fire of 1908, or perhaps the boom in Hazen was over. At that time he considered going on to San Francisco, Oakland, or San Jose, as he had heard that there were some people from his home town who had gone there. Instead he made the decision to return to his family in Italy. Although he had done well financially and had saved enough of his earnings to repay his debt to the gentleman who loaned him the money for the trip to America, he never realized his dream of getting to San Francisco. His heart heavy with disappointment, he finally concluded that if this was America, he was better off in Italy.
When he returned to his native village of Madonna Dell Acqua (Goddess of Water) in the Tuscany region of northern Italy on the Mediterranean Coast, he had enough money to buy a piece of land and was able to build a house on it. He transported his money home by having it sewn into the lining of a heavy coat that
Guiseppe relaxes after working on his farm back in Italy. His wife, Albina, offers him some water. (Al Bronzini photo.)
60 Al Bronzini
he told me he didn't take it off for the entire trip. He used to say that America gave him a chance to better his life, so one can say that even then, it was the land of opportunity. He was later able to buy a larger piece of land and a horse to work the field with. He grew crops of vegetables and took them to market and was successful in climbing out of the level of poverty that the family had been stuck in.
Today, Giuseppe Filippi has three living grandchildren in Italy. Giovanni, son of Gustavo; Silvana Minuzzo, daughter of Olga; and Luana Pizzi, daughter of Maria. The old place was sold to a farmer a few years ago. None of the Filippi heirs live in the original family home which, for its age, looks pretty good.
Editor's note: When Al visited the house in 1990, although it still had no heat, relatively new indoor plumbing graced the home with its old red brick floors.
The Next Generation
My father, Guido Bronzini, was born June, 28, 1900, in the Italian village of Arena Metato. My mother, Clara Filippi, was born in Piaggia, about one mile from Arena Metato, on November 29, 1904.
Guido, following in the footsteps of his brother, Lepido [Louie] who had come to the States in 1914, left Italy and arrived in America in July of 1923 in search of a better life. Unlike his future father-in-law, Giuseppe, Guido fulfilled his dream and made the journey all the way to the 16th St. Depot train station in Oakland, California.
Lepido did not show up at the station to meet his brother as planned. Guido sat on a cement bench scrutinizing each person that passed attempting to get the attention of any black-haired, olive-skinned person that might be able to speak Italian. I remember Father saying, "It had gotten dark . . . I was twenty-three years of age. . . No speeka the English and with only $1.60 in my pocket . . I didn't even know where Melrose was, let alone have the means to get there!"
After twelve frightening and frustrating hours he finally got the attention of a fine, tall gentleman with olive skin. This man was half Italian and half Mexican and spoke both languages fluently. He said, "Si, to parlo Italiano." This new friend, Fortunato Sorisio, took my father to Melrose. Here they found my uncle Lepido and his drunken pals playing cards and drinking homemade moonshine in a basement . . . probably hiding from the Feds.
Mr. Sorisio was an accountant, insurance agent and travel agent. He and my father remained life long friends, with Mr. Sorisio taking care of Father's business affairs for the rest of his life.
Guido took any kind of work he could get. He even got into the business of making moonshine whiskey, which of course at that time was illegal . . . an activity which landed him and some of his Italian pals in the jailhouse for a few days.
Before he left his homeland, he told his "promised-not-engaged" sixteen year old sweetheart, Clara, that if she would wait for him, when he returned from America, he would marry her. The people of the community did not believe that
Giuseppe Filippi 61
Guido would return for her and teased Clara that once he tasted America he would do like the other men that went over and never return.
Clara waited and Guido kept his promise! He came home in late 1928 bringing with him the $9,000 he had saved during his stay in America. The young couple was married on February 9, 1929, in Guido's village of Arena Metato! When I went to Italy in 1949, the residents of the community told me what a beautiful couple they were and everyone in the village turned out to see the wedding of these two childhood sweethearts that were so in love. My mother had waited for him for six years . . . she stood true!
I was conceived in Italy. In late August of 1929 my parents made a decision to immigrate to America. Mother was heartbroken to leave her two sisters, her brother and parents but she was also excited to start a new and better life in a far off land with her beloved Guido. In order to get Clara on the ship, they had to put a tight corset on her and squeeze her in among the crowd of passengers for the sixteen day voyage. Although she was traveling with passport and legal documents she told me that at that time the government officials were not letting any expectant mothers out of the country by order of the dictatorial fascist regime which seized power from King Victor Emanuel III in 1923. They were building their Army and of course would not let the possibility of an unborn male out of the country. But for the grace of God and a clever father I might have been born in Italy and been deprived of the opportunity of becoming an American. Velio Alberto "Al" Bronzini was born on December 6, 1929, in Oakland, California.
Upon his arrival in California, my father began selling produce out of the back of a Model T truck. He used to park it on street corners between Oakland and Hayward and sell his wares. Clara sat in the front seat knitting and sewing, while I, the baby, observed life from an apple box next to my mother.
From that humble beginning Guido eventually owned a large produce market, fish market and wine store called the Banana Depot. We lived in the Melrose district of East Oakland and I learned to speak Italian fluently. I realized many years later that we were poor but I didn't know it as a child. I attended grammar school and junior high school here and worked after school in the produce market. My pay was fifty cents a day and I learned the value of a dollar from my father who became quite successful as an independent retail merchant for the duration of his life.
Mother never worked outside of her home. She grew all of her own vegetables; made tomato paste; and made sheets, pillow cases, undershirts and dish towels out of Sperry flour sacks. She used to boil the sacks on the basement stove in a potion of lye and Clorox to take the printing off of the sacks. Between this concoction and Father's wine fermenting, you could pass out from the fumes if you got near the cellar.
Along with being an exemplary housewife and mother she was a world class knitter. My younger brother, Lorenzo, and I used to wear the most beautiful
62 Al Bronzini
hand-knitted, long sleeved sweaters. They showcased her specialty, the cable stitch pattern, and could not be purchased in any store, especially in those days. She lovingly knitted sweaters for the neighborhood boys when they returned from World War II. People always said that she was a lot like my Grandfather Giuseppe . . . lots of heart, always giving and never taking. Mother was also the finest Italian food cook of all the ladies in the neighborhood. The husbands all used to tell their wives, "Why can't you learn to cook like Clara?"
I remember when we were growing up in Oakland, she handled the family finances. My father said she could squeeze a dollar so tight that George Washington's eyes would pop out of his head. She always used to put the money for the rent aside first . . . that was an untouchable item.
My parents became naturalized citizens after they were here a few years. They took out their first citizenship papers but did not complete their studies since it was so difficult, not knowing the language.
Life in America was beautiful for them. My parents were so humble, respectful and grateful for the opportunity and the freedom that this great land of ours had given them . . . but all that was so beautiful was not to last.
In 1939 when the war broke out in Europe, Italy was allied with Germany. The Bronzinis, like so many other Italians living in America, were instantly labeled as enemy aliens. The non-citizens who were sympathetic to the leadership in Italy were shipped to detention camps in Montana and Nevada.
This was not the case with my parents. I remember like it was yesterday when the Military Police came to our home and took away our big, new Philco radio because it had a long wave and a short wave band. I suppose the Police thought we would be listening to propaganda speeches that were then being broadcast by Fascist radio. It was suspected that the owner of the radio store gave our government the names of the people that had purchased radios.
My father had to leave his beloved produce market in the Fruitvale district of Oakland because it was close to the estuary which leads to the San Francisco Bay. I guess the Police thought that we might have some access to the military ships and there was fear of sabotage.
This was a very bad time for my family as well as for the Japanese and Germans that we knew. My mother took it the hardest; she couldn't believe that such a wonderful country that opened its arms to them just a few years before could suddenly turn its back on them. My father was a broken man. He, too, went from being a respected member of the community to a person who was scorned and spat upon. Some of the American born people who had been his friends called him Dago, Mussolini, enemy W.O.P. . . . W.O.P. was a term that meant "without papers."
I remember being walked to school by an America citizen because there was so much hatred towards us that my parents feared that my brother and I would get beaten up.
Giuseppe Filippi 63
What this country did to these people at that time was an embarrassment that will endure for many years. It was clearly a case of panic brought on by the uncertainties of war that made things so ugly. My parents were honest, law abiding people who loved this country and didn't want to be anywhere else. They came here legally under quota and with passports but admitted that the biggest mistake they ever made was not pursuing their citizenship status. Immediately they enrolled in night school citizenship classes and I would quiz them each night after dinner and grade them on their answers. They took the citizenship test in 1942 and passed with honors on the first attempt. They were the best Americans you ever did want to see. Mother used to say that the Star Spangled Banner was her favorite song . . . she would cry even when she heard it played on the radio. They stood at attention when the colors marched by in a parade. Shortly, Father became an Air Raid Warden for our neighborhood. He was so proud of that arm band that he used to wear it all the time. After they received their citizenship papers my father was allowed to go back to his place of business.
The authorities never brought back our beautiful Philco radio until the war ended. They said they couldn't find it. There was a nice Italian lady in Oakland that loaned us an old R.C.A. Victrola . . . the kind that you had to crank . . . along with a stack of 78 rpm records of Enrico Caruso, which I still have. Perhaps that is how I learned to appreciate opera.
As the war continued, the Germans troops occupied my folks' home villages in Italy. Once we went nine months without receiving any mail from our relatives. Mother was convinced that her family was killed in the Allied bombings. As a result of this worry she had a total breakdown and was emotionally disturbed for a long time. As it turned out, after the American troops liberated that part of Italy we received a letter that they had all been spared. Mother always blessed the American soldiers for saving her family.
My father wanted to get his family out of the city and out to the country so we moved to Castro Valley, California, in 1943. I worked as an auto mechanic after school for four years and graduated from high school in Hayward.
Guido Bronzini died in Castro Valley, California, on November 23, 1959, and Clara Filippi Bronzini passed away there on April 04, 1970. They had lived the American Dream that had eluded Giuseppe Filippi.
The Trip To Nevada
In 1939 the Bronzini family purchased a new Pontiac automobile. Father gathered up mother, my brother Lorenzo and me and we headed for Bango, Nevada, a railroad section quarters west of Fallon. We were going to visit my father's friend who was also from Metato. His name was Ulisse Del Innocenti . . . in English his name was spelled Ulysses. This Ulisse and his wife Ruby had eight children.
64 Al Bronzini
At this time I was ten years old and I remember that it was so very hot driving through the Nevada desert. Father thought that the Pontiac was capable of overcoming all obstacles and so we struck out over the expanses looking for our friends. Unfortunately we got stuck in the sand and someone had to come with a horse and a rope to pull us out.
My favorite spot at Bango was in the dirt covered ice cave where the family kept their supplies that came in on the train. The Southern Pacific railroad cars brought blocks of ice down to the section headquarters and put them in a large cellar so that the family's food could be kept fresh.
We also visited Ulysses's brother Renato, who was a bartender in Reno. He gave us all sodas and drinks when we got there because it was so hot. What fun that trip was . . . I suppose we went through Hazen, but at the time I did not know how important that tiny spot along the road would become to my story!
Velio Alberto Bronzini
The year after I graduated from high school, 1949, I went to Italy to meet my grandparents. When I returned home I pursued what turned out to be a forty-four-year career as a retailer of home furnishings. Over the years I owned and operated two furniture stores . . . one in Hayward from 1959 until 1984 and one in Pleasanton from 1984 until my retirement. Mary and I have been married for forty years. We have two sons, one daughter and four grandchildren, with another on the way.
I am proud to have been able to share the story of my Italian janitor grandfather with my new friends. Thank you, Agnes!
The Ratti Family
[Editor's note: Al Bronzini was thrilled to find out that many In Focus readers will remember this gentleman, Ulisse Del Innocenti, as Julios Ratti... "The Mayor of Bango. "J
Ulisse Del Innocenti was born April 6, 1899, in Toulon, France, to Ettore and Argiea Pellegri Del Innocenti. Mrs. Del Innocenti had been called to France so that as soon as her own baby was born, she could also nurse the baby of a wealthy family. Ulisse grew to young manhood in Pisa, Italy, and immigrated to America when he was about sixteen years old.
He began working for the railroad in 1915 . . . a lifetime career which would be temporarily interrupted by his enlistment in the 1st U.S. Regular Infantry in 1917. Unfortunately, it was his lot to draw a sergeant who teased him unmercifully about his surname . . . Del Innocenti was transformed into "Dig-A-Hole-In-Center." Ulisse so disliked the ridicule, that he had his name changed to Julios Ratti. It seems that the Roman Catholic Pope at that time had the name Ratti. Julios said, "If he isn't going to use the name, I will use it!" And, he did.
Giuseppe Filippi 65
The Bango section crew, Julios third from left, poses for this photograph in 1940. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
Railroad careers started at an early age in Bango! Julios and Ruby's sons, Ulysses (standing) and Reno, show the photographer they know the right thing to do to keep the Southern Pacific trains running smoothly. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
Upon his release from the Army, he met Ruby Ruiz, a direct descendant of Don Francisco Sepulveda, whose Santa Monica rancho originally encompassed most of the western portion of Los Angeles. Ruby was born on November 20, 1904. When she was eight years old, her mother, Antonia Martinez Ruiz, died. Ruby was raised by her grandmother until age fifteen when she again went to live with her father.
She and Julios were married on January 8, 1921. In 1923 he was employed as a relief foreman by the Southern Pacific Railroad and was transferred to an area near Hazen.
Many years later, Ruby recalled that as a child she had never traveled or been away from home. When her husband sent word that she was to join him in Nevada, her daughter Olga was just over one year old and Ruby was again pregnant. They boarded the train with all of their worldly belongings and set out for a new home. The train stopped at Ocala, Nevada . . . between Fallon and Lovelock. Having been reared in green and civilized California, Ruby could not believe that she was being dumped off in such a desolate area. Here her son Ulysses was born
66 Al Bronzini
and she made a fine home until the family was transferred to Elko, then to Moore, Nevada and later to Mt. Whitney, California.
A final career move was to Bango, in the desert north of Lahontan Dam, in 1929. Here the Rattis were allowed to fix up their railroad home and transformed this barren piece of alkalai desert into a veritable oasis abloom with flowers, shrubs and trees.
In addition to Julios' duties as "Mayor of Bango" he was very active in the American Legion and Local 85, Brotherhood of M. and W. Employees. He is credited with having spent one entire vacation selling war bonds to fellow Southern Pacific employees throughout Nevada.
The eight Ratti children, Olga, Ulysses, Linda, Reno, Stella, Ralph, Robert and Nancy grew up near Fallon, attended grade school and all graduated from Churchill County High School.
Julios retired from railroad service in 1965 and he and Ruby bought five acres along the Carson Highway where they built a home and where he spent his last happy days. It stands today, surrounded by unique rock work and landscaping which serve as a monument to their creative talents and industry.
Julios passed away on July 16, 1969. He was so very proud to have been an American citizen. Following his death Ruby moved into town were she remained very active in the American Legion Auxiliary, V.F.W. Auxiliary, W.W.I. Auxiliary and homemaker clubs. Ruby died December 30, 1994.
Ulisse Del Innocenti (Julios Ratti) left America a much better place for his having been here!
The Ratti home in Bango, a lush oasis in the desert. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
"Mail Order" Bride:
Eva Mae Edwards Lawrence
Judy Pritchard [Lawrence] Dial
and Marcia Lawrence Ernst
The following article ran in the Lahontan Valley News on July 21, 1976. Written by then granddaughter-in-law Judy Dial, it told the story of her grandmother-in-law's unusual courtship. Grandaughter Marcia Lawrence Ernst loaned the couple's original letters for use in this story.
As she stepped down from the train, one of many on which she had been a passenger, she realized she had finally made her way from New Mexico to Fallon, Nevada. Eva Mae Edwards felt relief at the end of the exhausting journey while at the same time feeling much excitement and a little doubt at finally coming face to face with the man she felt she knew so well, yet had never met.
For hadn't their long distance acquaintance, an introduction through the mail by mutual friends, continued for some nine months now? Those many letters crossing each other on their routes between a small rural farm, and the remote logging camp near La Madera, New Mexico, where Eva Edwards served as traveling school teacher to loggers' children.
Eva had soon discovered that trying to teach reading, writing and arithmetic to the off-spring of wandering logging families was not exactly her mission in life. Moving from one camp to another along with her pupils was a rough, lonely existence and packing and unpacking all her worldly possessions into the little trunk she carried with her on these frequent moves was becoming a tiring chore which left little time for school hours.
"I wasn't a very good teacher, really," Eva later told her family. She had come to New Mexico from her birthplace and home, Missouri, for reasons of health, having been plagued with bouts of tuberculosis. She resented that her brother, Smith, insisted she take the teaching job so far from home in the wild West, but realized that it was, indeed, a much healthier climate for her condition.
But the $65 a month teaching position meant living in a remote, rugged area which offered rare beauty but little entertainment to a young woman of twenty-seven. She boarded with a couple who also happened to be from Missouri and they together passed the time with much reading, card playing, and occasional evening picnics.
67
68 Judy Dial
Teacher Eva Edwards with her class in La Madera, New Mexico, in 1920. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
Eva's letters to Charlie, at the time of her arrival and during her stay at the logging camps, reveal alternate feelings of enjoyment and loneliness. Her first letter from New Mexico dated January 15, 1920, explained, "this is the 'Wild and Wooly West' for you", but in the same letter she expressed a yearning to hear word from home. "I am teaching in their log camp about twenty-five miles above La Madera. This place is way up in the mountains about 9,000 feet above sea level. It is a beautiful place. When I came up here one week ago today, the pines were all covered with snow and the scenery was wonderful. The sun is as bright and warm as summer time. The houses here are built of the rough lumber and are left unfinished on account of having to move them from one location to another. . ."
In her next writing to her newly acquired correspondent, Eva described an outing to take lunches to the men who were logging quite a distance from camp. "It was quite an interesting trip. We went in a sled drawn by four horses. Part of the road was so sliding that one had to hold with might and main."
Interspersed in these newsy letters of outings, weather reports, and books recently read, Eva and Charlie exchanged little bits of information to each other about their appearance, interests, and opinions on things they cared about. Pictures were sent both ways providing each with a visual image to add to the character they were beginning to know.
Eva Edwards and Charlie Lawrence 69
This was a considerable improvement over trying to piece together the other's physical appearance from vague descriptions sent back and forth. Charlie answered Eva's request for a picture of himself, "In regard to the picture you asked for, will have some made as soon as I can get around to it. There is not a very good photographer in Fallon (and of course I want to get as good a one of myself as I can). Charles, at fifty, was no doubt uneasy about the impression his photograph might have on Eva, who was twenty-three years his junior.
His curiosity as to her physical appearance was
keen also and he responded to her mentioning the fact that her hair was dark by further questioning, "In one of your letters you said your hair was dark. Did you mean black or dark brown?"
Charlie's letters of this period were full of news of his farm in Stillwater and the chores of raising hay, cattle, turkeys and his prize mares. Then the postmark on the letters changed as Charlie was taken ill and spent time at St. Helena Sanitarium in California. His bad health was a constant factor in Charlie's life and his letters mention several ailments.
His stay at the sanitarium was not an unpleasant one and he described it to Eva as, "a large place and lots of people here. And you see all kinds of high toned people here more like a high toned fashionable hotel that is for the people who are up and around."
After returning to his Stillwater farm in March, 1920, Charlie made the first mention of a desire for her to come and, "see how you would like the country (also the people.)"
His following letter dated April 9, 1920, carried this vague suggestion a bit further as Charlie writes,"If you care to come to Nevada on a visit I will send you the money to pay your expenses out here and back to Denver, which I think would be the best plan. For after you have seen Nevada, you might not want to live here and I would not want you to come out here and be dissatisfied."
The sanitarium in St. Helena, California, where Charlie received treatment for his illness. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
70 Judy Dial
This offer to finance her trip was turned down by Eva as she didn't consider it proper, but his invitation to visit was accepted. For by now, early spring, she had come through a long, hard winter and was finding life in the logging camps less and less tolerable.
She wrote Charlie in March, "I am afraid that these letters will get monotonous to you as this is a very uneventful place. The weather is about all that ever changes. School is about the same old seven and six. The work is very easy for I only have about a dozen, but it gets monotonous just the same."
As the snow of winter began melting under the spring sun, the work of the logging camp had come to a halt in bogging-down mud. With the cessation of the logging work, the men moved on to other stands leaving the camp and Eva's school house nearly empty.
This only heightened Eva's growing discontent. She shared her feelings with Charlie, "this is sure one lonesome land. I think anyone who has nerve enough to live here could live most anywhere."
Apparently, Eva was convinced this was so, for she soon afterward accepted Charlie's invitation to visit his farm and, "see the layout there." She advised Charlie of her plans in the last letter she wrote from New Mexico, dated May 24, "I have decided that I will come to Nevada. It has been pretty hard too, as I have been away longer this time than I was ever before and the folks were anxious for me to come home, too."
Her first impression of Nevada, after rattling along day after day on various succession of smaller and smaller railroad spurs, was not entirely favorable. She vividly recalled her arrival in Hazen. "When I got to Hazen I thought I'd come to the jumping off place of the world."
Charlie awaits Eva in his new Buick (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
Eva Edwards and Charlie Lawrence 71
But, after another switch of trains and the trip from Hazen to Fallon, Eva arrived in Fallon on Decoration Day, 1920, to meet her friend, Charlie Lawrence.
Charlie, meanwhile, was driving his new Buick, which Eva admits made quite an impression on her, along one of the many dirt roads which meandered around between Stillwater and Fallon, heading to town to pick up the woman he hoped to convince to become his bride.
Their meeting seems to have been highlighted by Charlie's exclamation at his first glimpse of Eva, "I believe that's the tallest woman I ever saw." For although Eva, at height of six feet, had referred to herself as being tall in her letters, Charlie had obviously not anticipated the tallness of the woman before him. Eva, for her part, hadn't realized what a large, bushy mustache Charlie sported and took an instant dislike to it. "I got that off of him pretty quick," she later told her grandchildren.
Eva was escorted to the home of friends in Stillwater, where she stayed while becoming better acquainted with Charlie and his Nevada. Evidently, the friendship they had shared in correspondence was now growing stronger and both seemed well pleased with the results of their postal introduction.
"He liked me well enough to ask me to stay," Eva later said simply, and added, "It sure seemed good to move my trunk into a place where I knew I could stay."
The two were married on July 10, 1920, in Fallon's Methodist Church. An article in the July 15 edition of the Fallon Standard reported the union and offered this comment:
Edwards Laurence [sic]
At the Methodist Parsonage, Fallon, Nevada, on July 10th.
Miss Eva Edwards and Mr. Chas. A. Lawrence were united in
marriage. The ceremony was said by the Rev. Henry A. Hoyt.
The bride formerly resided near Clark, Mo. Beside having
been a successful teacher she possesses the qualities required in
the making of a happy home.
The groom is a well known rancher in the valley, the fact
that he has won such a charming young woman suffices to say
he is a man of sterling qualities.
The happy couple will reside on their ranch near Stillwater.
No sooner were the two married than Eva was hard at work performing the many chores, she, as a farmer's wife, would be expected to do. There were eight men to cook for three times a day as the haying crew moved onto Charlie's place to begin the long process of mowing, raking, shocking, and stacking the hay crop. The hay was stacked loosely by derrick into bents of hay. Eva remembered receiving a whopping $4 per ton for their hay one season.
72 Judy Dial
Life in Stillwater was a pretty lively scene at this time: dances were held quite regularly at the courthouse that then stood in the Stillwater township, and great excitement was generated by the hopes of oil riches the new derrick erected in Stillwater offered. Alas, only water spurted from this glory hole.
Their lives seem to have been busy and full as Charlie and Eva worked together to care for their farm and livestock. And the birth of a son, Dale, paid for by the sale of one of Charlie's fine mares, was a joyful event.
But Charlie's health, never good, was gradually worsening as the years passed. It declined to the point that he had to be taken to a sanitarium in California accompanied by Eva, who
got a job nearby, and Dale.
High blood pressure, amid other complications, led to Charlie's death in 1929. Well-meaning friends counseled Eva to give up the ranch as they didn't feel she would be capable of running it. But she chose to follow the advise Charlie Kent gave, to stick it out and go on, on her own.
Getting by on her own meant going into the egg business and she did so to the tune of gathering, sorting, washing, and boxing some 360 eggs every day. Mother and son continued running Charlie's farm and expanding the livestock operation, branching out into pigs and sheep.
In 1957 Eva moved from the Stillwater farm to town. On January 9, 1978, at the age of 83 and following a two week illness, she died in Fallon, in the county that had been, 55 years before, an unknown place on the address of her "friend's" letter.
Eva and Dale. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
Eva Edwards and Charlie Lawrence 73
(The following are excerpts from the letters that flowed between Eva and Charlie during their courtship.)
Stillwater, Nev.
Oct. 8, 1919
Miss Eva Edwards:
Through the kindness of Mrs. and Mrs. Stiles I take the liberty of addressing you. As I asked them to get your permission which it seems as if they did. As they spoke of you while they were visiting in Nev. and no doubt they have told you a good many things about me and this part of Nev. So will not say anything about myself or Nev. at this time. Only that I am 49 years old. Also that I am afraid that you will find me a very poor correspondent as writing letters is one of my many failures especially to young ladies as I have not had very much experience along that line (lately). Will be glad to answer any questions that you care to ask. Also would like for you to tell me all about yourself that you care to tell.. .
Hoping to hear from you soon.
Respectfully,
Charlie Lawrence
* * * * *
Denver, Colo.
Oct. 15, 1919
Mr. Charles Lawrence
Stillwater, Nev.
Dear Friend,
My cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Stiles, told me of meeting you during their visit in Nev. last summer and also said they told you of me and that you expressed a desire to correspond with me which I quite willingly consented to. This is rather an awkward proposition for both of us to correspond with someone whom we have never met but I feel that we have been duly introduced through mutual friends namely, Mr. and Mrs. Stiles and Mr. and Mrs. Brengle.
I entered the training school for nurses here the last of June. We serve two months on probation so I did not receive my cap and blue uniform until the 5th of Sept. I am on night duty now. I started the 1st of Oct. and will be on for one month. There are two nurses on this landing. This is Woman's landing. We have 20 patients tonight. Sometimes they keep us pretty busy but taking the time as a whole we have had a very easy time. . . We work from 7:30 - 7:30 and sleep in the daytime so there is not much time for going out.
74 Marcia Lawrence Ernst
I am tall, have dark hair and eyes, weigh 135 lbs. and am 26 years old.
When you write again tell me all about yourself and the country there. I shall be
glad to answer any questions you may wish to ask concerning myself.. .
Your friend,
Eva Mae Edwards
* * * * *
Stillwater Nev
Nov 4, 1919
Miss Eva Edwards
Dear Friend,
I received your letter a few days ago and was glad to hear from you. . . I believe I told you that I am 49 years old. But if I do say it myself I am more like a fellow that is 40, both in looks and in my ways. My hair is very dark with hardly if any grey hairs in it. I have a dark moustache with several gray hairs in it. My friends all tell me that if I would cut it off I would look to be 35. I am 5 feet 11 inches tall and weigh 185 lbs. And usually have very good health but have rather a bad cold now. I like to take in everything that is going on and have a good time.
Fallon is the County seat and the only town of any size in this Co. I go up there and stay all night most every Saturday night and take in the movies. I was up there last Sat. night and they had quite a fire burned up two stores.. .
Hoping you are well also that you will write soon. With kindest regards as ever, your friend
Charlie Lawrence
* * * * *
Denver, Colo.
Nov. 7, 1919
Dear Friend:
Your welcome letter was received this P.M. I had begun to think that you were sadly neglecting your correspondent for I had been anxiously watching for a letter in the pigeonhole marked "E" only to be disappointed.
I am a day nurse again now. We came off of night duty the morning of the 1st of Nov., thereby having a whole day off as we didn't have to report for duty again till the next morning. It surely was a luxuriant feeling to have that day off . .
I like my new roommate for she is quiet and very sensible. Some of the girls are younger than we are and are awfully noisy and giddy. I guess that I am old for my age really but I don't think I ever did go through that "giddy age". I wonder if it will come yet.. .
Your friend,
Eva Mae Edwards
Eva Edwards and Charlie Lawrence 75
A view of Charlie's Stillwater Ranch home. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collec-
Stillwater, Nev.
Nov. 19, 1919
Miss Eva Edwards
Dear Friend:
Your letter was received a few days ago and was glad to hear from you. Am glad that you are on day duty for I should think it would be a great deal better than night work. I do not imagine that I would like to be a nurse for I do not like to be around sick people.. .
Stillwater is only a small place, just a post office, a small store, hotel and there was a saloon until prohibition struck the county. Stillwater is about a mile from where I live. We have a daily mail which comes from Fallon, the nearest railroad town, which is fourteen miles away and is also the County Seat. Stillwater is an old place and was the County Seat in the early days when the gold rush was on to California in 1849. About fifteen years ago the Government started an irrigation project in this valley so Fallon, being nearer the center of the County, the Courthouse was moved there.
Fallon is a very nice little place. I came to this valley about the time the project was started. Was working for the Government and helped to survey all of the ditches and then finally bought one of the old ranches that had been in cultivation for several years and settled down here. . . If you have had any photos made lately would be glad if you would send me one. Am feeling some better than I was when I last wrote. Hoping you are well and that I will hear from you soon.
With kindest regards as ever your friend, C. A. Lawrence
76 Marcia Lawrence Ernst
Stillwater Nev.
Dec. 13, 1919
Dear Friend:
Rec. your card a few days ago and glad to hear you were getting along so well [Eva was recovering from a bout of Scarlet Fever] . . . Fred Brengle brought your photo over the other day. Thank you very much for it. Also think you a very nice looking young lady. (Of course it is not a very good idea to flatter a girl too much for it is liable to make them vain.) You spoke about me coming to Denver Xmas. I hardly see how I can come as I just sold my hay a few days ago to some cattlemen and will have about 300 cattle in a few days to look after the rest of the winter besides my own stock. Of course I do not have to feed them myself but there needs to be someone here to look after them.. .
• • • kindest regards to yourself.
As ever your friend,
C. A. Lawrence
* * * * *
3316 Osceola St.
Denver, Colorado
December 28, 1919
Dear Friend:
Your welcome letter was not received until yesterday. It was sent to St. Luke's Hospital and I suppose they overlooked forwarding it.
I got out of the Steele Hospital Dec. 20 . . . I am feeling fine. I had a very light case of Scarlet Fever. My cousins tell me I am looking better than I did before I got sick.. .
I am glad to hear that you received the picture O.K. You needn't be afraid of making me vain for I have lived long enough to know that people do not always mean everything that they say. Now I think "turn about is fair play." I want you to send me your picture.. .
I will close by sending you best wishes for a Happy and Prosperous New Year.
Your friend,
Eva M. Edwards
Eva Edwards and Charlie Lawrence 77
Stillwater, Nev
Jan 2, 1920
Dear Friend:
Rec. your letter a day or so ago and was glad to hear from you (as I always am).. .
I sent you a box of chocolates about the 21st of Dec. in time for them to arrive in Denver by Xmas.. .
In regard to the picture you asked for will have some made as soon as I can get around to it. There is not a very good photographer in Fallon (and of course I want to get as good a one of myself as I can). In one of your letters you said your hair was dark. Did you mean black or dark brown?
Was glad to hear you were feeling well after your sick spell. I have not been feeling as well this winter as usual. Have been troubled with a too high blood pressure. It should be about 125 deg. and sometimes it gets as high as 165 deg. and it makes me pretty nervous so that I do not sleep well. Have been taking medicine for it for the last two months. Am feeling some better now than I was.
Well I guess I will close for this time.. .
As ever your friend,
C. A. Lawrence
La Madera N.M.
January 15, 1920
Dear Friend:
No doubt you will be surprised to get a letter from me postmarked New Mexico.. .
I decided not to go back to the hospital after I had Scarlet Fever. I was afraid the work was too hard and that I would rather teach school again so I applied for a school and got one near La Madera.
La Madera is a lumber milling town in the northern part of N.M. It is quite an enterprising place. The Hallack and Howard Lumber Co. of Denver owns the mill there. I am teaching in their log camp about 25 miles above La Madera. This place is a way up in the Mountains about 9,000 ft. above sea level. It is a beautiful place. When I came up here one week ago today the pines were all covered with snow and the scenery was wonderful . . .
The houses here are built of the rough lumber and are left unfinished on account of having to move them from one location to another. We have plenty of pine wood and it is no trouble to make a fire and keep warm . . .
There are about 6 or 8 American families here, the most of their laborers being Mexicans. I have a room to myself and am living alone. I take my meals out
78 Marcia Lawrence Ernst
and have a very good boarding place. I felt a little "shaky" about staying alone at first as it was the first time I had ever done so but have gotten bravely over it and don't feel one bit afraid now.
This is the "wild and wooly west" . . . I have about 20 pupils ranging in ages from 4 to 15. All but 2 of them are Mexicans. Most of them can understand English . . . None of them are above the 5th grade . . . I suppose I shall be a regular Mexicano before I get away from here . . .
Your friend,
Eva M. Edwards
Stillwater Nev.
Jan. 23, 1920
Dear Friend,
Received your letter yesterday so you see I am answering it pretty promptly. Was glad to hear from you as I always am. Was surprised to hear of you being in New Mexico but had heard you were thinking of teaching school . . . I think you must have a good deal of nerve to tackle the [job] you did in that out of the way place . . .
Wishing you success with your new school. Also that you are well and that I will hear from you soon . . .
With kindest regards as ever, your friend,
C.A. Lawrence
La Madera N.M.
February 1, 1920
Dear Friend:
Your welcome letter was received Friday.. .
Yesterday a bunch of us went with the man who takes the lunches over to the men who are logging. They have been so far away that they have had to send them their lunches but yesterday was the last day for that as they will be working nearer camp now. It was quite an interesting trip. We went in a sled drawn by four horses. Part of the road was so sliding that one had to hold with might and main.
I like this place fine although it is rather lonely at times. My sister wrote to me and said "I don't see how you can stand to be in such a God-Forsaken place, why, I would be scared to death all the time." . .
• • • I was in poor health when I came here and am now strong and well so I have a good reason for liking the West.. .
You asked the color of my hair. It is dark brown. What about the picture of you? I am afraid that you will forget if I don't keep reminding you of it.. .
Eva Edwards and Charlie Lawrence 79
Three weeks of school are gone. It would have been quite nice for me to have
taught in Nev. I like to see all the country I can.. .
As ever, your friend,
Eva M. Edwards
La Madera, N.M.
February 8, 1920
Dear Friend:
Perhaps you will be surprised to get this letter as I don't "owe" you any but thought I would "just slip one over on you" and write to you today.
This is Sunday and a very lonesome day. It is noon now and it has been cloudy and snowing fine snow, which is almost rain, all morning . . .
I don't think that I shall ever be satisfied to live back [east] again. There seems to be something very fascinating about the wilderness and ruggedness of this country, even New Mexico. It is something rather undescribable and intangible but it is undoubtedly here . . .
My folks are very anxious for me to visit them this summer and I, too, find that I am homesick when I allow myself to think about it. I think that I will go home sometime during the summer [as I] don't think I will have the nerve to stay up here so terrible far from civilization longer than the 1st of June anyway. This place is almost out of the world.. .
Ever, your friend,
Eva M. Edwards
St. Helena Sanitarium
Sanitarium, Calif.
Feb 17, 1920
Dear Friend:
I suppose you will be surprised to hear from me from this place. I got here the 6th of the month. Am not feeling so very well but will write you a few lines to let you know that I have not forgotten you. Had my tonsils taken out Friday. Just got out of the hospital a day or so ago. Will probably be here until the middle of next month.
I got your two letters yesterday. Was very glad to hear from you and that you like your school. Am too nervous to write much so will close for this time. Write as soon as you get this for I like to hear from you.
With kindest regards,
C.A. Lawrence
80 Marcia Lawrence Ernst
La Madera N.M.
February 23, 1920
Dear Friend:
I was very much surprised when I received your letter today with the Cal. post mark upon it. I had been expecting a letter for several days. I thought you surely had forgotten me. I had just about decided that you had the flu and that was the reason I had not heard from you. The two letters I wrote last surely were a long time reaching you.
I am very sorry to hear that you are not feeling well and have to be in a sanitarium but from the pictures you sent of the place I think that one's health could do nothing but improve in such picturesque surroundings. When you are able you must write me a long letter and tell me all about the place.
We have been having very fine weather until the last two or three days. It has been warm and bright and the snow was all gone . . . [but] the men were unable to work today. I am afraid they won't be able to do much until the snow goes and the mud dries.
I have been real well, we have had no flu here I am glad to say. My mother and brother had it but were recovering the last I heard.. .
School is progressing nicely. It seems like the time flies. I don't have so many pupils now.
Do you still plan to take your trip East this summer? Mr. and Mrs. Stiles told me you were planning it last year.
I will close hoping that when this letter reaches you it will find you much improved in health. With kindest regards as ever.
Your friend,
Eva M. Edwards
[No date or heading]
. . . in most any direction you look from here the valley on the card I sent you is directly in front of the Sanitarium but some lower than where the Sanitarium is as the Sanitarium is built on the side of the mountain. It is quite a large place and lots of people here and you see all kinds of high toned people here. More like a high toned fashionable hotel that is for the people who are up and around. I do not know whether I will get to take my trip east before fall or not but rather think that I will go home this summer and go east this fall as I have not rented the ranch and will almost have to be there during the summer. Well as it is about time for me to take my treatment will close for this time. I have three treatments a day. I suppose you might as well address your next letter to Stillwater as I will probably be there by the time you write so far as I know now. Hoping you are well and enjoying life.
With kindest regards, As ever your friend, Charles A. Lawrence
Eva Edwards and Charlie Lawrence 81
La Madera, N.M.
March 1, 1920
Dear Friend:
I have been expecting to hear from you again but as yet have been disap-
pointed and knowing how welcome letters are to one confined in a hospital I have
decided to write again without waiting to get an answer to my last letter.
I am afraid that these letters will get monotonous to you as this is a very
uneventful place, there seems to be nothing to write about . . .
I have just finished reading Jean Of The Lazy A. I spend most of my spare
time that way. I have read a lot of books since I have been up here.
I hope that you are feeling better than when you wrote last. I will close
hoping to hear from you real soon.
As ever,
Your friend,
Eva Mae Edwards
La Madera, N.M.
March 9, 1920
Dear Friend:
Your welcome letter was received today and I was very glad to hear from you. I am glad that you are feeling better than when you wrote last. I had been expecting a letter for several days and was afraid you were not feeling well.
Everything here is much the same. This is an uneventful place. The weather is about all that ever changes and it changes quite often and when one least expects
I suppose you are getting real anxious to get back to Stillwater for "after all
home's best."
School is about the old seven and six. The work is very easy for I only have
about a dozen but it gets monotonous just the same.
I will close for this time hoping to hear from you soon.
As ever,
Your friend,
Eva Mae Edwards
Stillwater, Nev
March 23, 1920
Dear Friend,
You will please excuse the lead pencil but I find myself too nervous to
write with a pen. The Dr. who was treating for high blood pressure before I went
82 Marcia Lawrence Ernst
away gave me some very strong medicine which seemed to upset my nerves and I don't seem to get over it very fast. So think that you would rather have a letter from me written with a lead pencil than no letter at all so am using one. . . I got home a week ago tomorrow as was glad to get home it had been raining most of the time in Cal. for two weeks before I left there. . . Speaking of pictures reminds me that I owe you one which I intend to send when I get to feeling a little better. Our photographer in Fallon is also a farmer and is only in his office on certain days so when I get to feeling better will go to Fallon and have some taken. . .I thought I would have some taken while I was in St. Helena but the Sanitarium was three miles [away]. And as I took three treatments a day it kept me busy most of the time. The treatments were mostly hot and cold baths and electricity as they do not give any medicine there. I feel a great deal better than I did before I went away and hope to continue to improve. It seemed to be mostly my nervousness that caused the high blood pressure as they could not find anything else wrong with me.. .
Well this is rather a long letter for me to write and you might get tired of reading it [I will] draw it to a close. Any time you care to slip over an extra letter to me do so for I am always glad to hear from you. Hoping you are well and will write soon.
With kindest regards,
As ever your friend,
C.A. Lawrence
La Madera, N.M.
March 30, 1920
Dear Friend:
Your most welcome letter was received today. I had begun to despair of ever hearing from you again as it had been so long since I had a letter but I guess I shall have to excuse you this time, under the circumstances.. .
There are not nearly so many men here now as there was a few weeks ago as they were compelled to suspend work for a while on account of the mud. They expect to begin again as soon as it is dry enough to log on wagons. This is sure one lonesome land. I think anyone who has nerve enough to live here could live most anywhere.
There are only 8 pupils in school now. It is worth more to stay in a place like this than it is to do the teaching. I don't think I will stay much longer. I think I shall go home but did not want to go until later in the summer. . . I should like to visit Nevada, get acquainted with "some" of the people there but I don't see how that can be done.
I was glad to get your picture as I had about racked my brain endeavoring to picture what you looked like but I shall expect to receive another picture soon. .
Eva Edwards and Charlie Lawrence 83
I was glad to hear that you were feeling better and hope you continue to
improve.
I suppose I will go through Denver as I go home. Don't you think that you
could arrange to be there at the same time?
I must close. Write again soon (with a lead pencil if you want to) and you
needn't be afraid I will get tired reading it so write as much as you can.
As ever,
Your friend,
Eva M. Edwards
* * * * *
Stillwater, Nev
April 9, 1920
Dear Friend:
Received your welcome letter in due time . . . was glad to hear from you. there is very little news to write about as everything is about like it was when I last wrote. Am feeling quite a lot better than I did when I last wrote.
In regard to me coming to Denver any ways soon I hardly see how I can as it is a hard matter for me to get away in the spring as it is always a busy time on a ranch. Although I would like to very much. . . If you care to come to Nev. on a visit I will send you money to pay your way out here and back to Denver. Which I think would be the best plan. For after you have seen Nev. you might not want to live here and I would not want you to come out here and be dissatisfied. I like the country here as well as any place I have ever lived and I have lived in quite a good many places. Of course Nev. has its draw backs as well as all other countries which one has to expect. So I think it nothing more right that you should see the country before you decide if you want to live here or not. So if you want to come out on a visit you needn't hesitate to accept the money for your expenses as it will be alright.
Everything is beginning to look very much like spring as it is getting green most every place. Hoping that you are well and that I will hear from you soon. Also that everything will be satisfactory. Will close for this time.
With kindest regards,
As ever your friend,
C.A. Lawrence
* * * * *
La Madera, N.M.
April 16, 1920
Dear Friend:
I will write you a few lines this morning in answer to your letter I received
a day or two ago.. .
I know I should enjoy visiting Nevada as I have never been any farther
West than I am now but can't say yet how it will be. It was very kind of you to
84 Marcia Lawrence Ernst
make the offer that you did also but I don't know what to say about that either. I
think now I will stay here until the last of May possibly I can come to some conclu-
sion later, I will think about it.
They have a new phonograph where I board. It came about a week ago and
we have been enjoying it immensely.
I must close as it is about time to go to school. Hoping to hear from you
soon also that you continue to feel better, I am
As ever,
Your friend, Eva M. Edwards
* * * * *
Stillwater, Nev.
April 25, 1920
Dear Friend,
Received your letter a few days ago and was glad to hear from you as usual I am like you -- haven't any news to write about as everything is about as it was when I last wrote. Have been busy all week irrigating the ranch -- will be through tomorrow. . . In regard to you coming out here on a visit of course you know best what you want to do. So do just as you please about it. So far as me giving you the money to come out you need not hesitate to accept it. As I think it nothing more than right that I should. Even if I met you in Denver I would want you to come out here and see the country before you decide to live here. And if you do come you are under no obligation whatever to stay or even to come back later on unless you want to. For when you see the country and the layout here it might not suit you at all, so you will be perfectly at liberty to do as you want to about staying as I would not want you to decide to live here unless you were satisfied. So that is the reason I think it would be best for you to make the visit. And see how you like the looks of things. But of course do just as you want to about it.. .
Hoping you are well and that I will hear from you soon.
As ever,
Your friend,
C.A. Lawrence
La Madera, N.M.
May 5, 1920
Dear Friend:
Your welcome letter was received yesterday. . .
Last Sunday Mr. and Mrs. Wissmath with whom I board, and a bachelor friend of theirs and I went up on one of the hills and took our dinner. We enjoyed the trip and the dinner too very much but were a little tired when we got back to camp.. .
Eva Edwards and Charlie Lawrence 85
There is nothing for diversion here except an occasional card game. I never used to play cards but since I have been in the West so long I am getting to be a typical Westerner.. .
I suppose that the work on the ranch keeps you quite busy these days. I believe your principal crop is alfalfa, is it not? Tell me more about your work on the ranch. I shall be interested in hearing about it.
I am still thinking of visiting Nevada. I think I shall possibly go to California and stop off there for a few days. I have always anticipated a visit to Cal. I have several relatives there.
I thank you very much for your kind and generous offer to finance the trip there but after carefully considering the proposition I don't feel like I could accept it.
I must close for this time as it is almost school time. Hoping to hear from you soon.
As ever,
Your friend,
Eva Mae Edwards
Stillwater, Nev.-- May 18, 1920
Dear Friend,
Your letter was received and was glad to hear from you. There is not much news to write about. There was a carnival in Fallon all last week. I was in town two or three days . . . it did not amount to much.. .
The work on the ranch does not keep so very busy now as it is all in alfalfa and all I have to do to it is irrigate it which takes me about a week and then there is not much to do for two or three weeks which is about the length of time between irrigations . . . it is about a foot high now. We cut the first crop about the last of June. Haven't very much stock on the ranch now as I sold all the dairy cows I had when the "Stiles" were here except three which I kept for use on the ranch as it was hard to get a good milk man to take care of them. I do not know whether I told you about the oil excitement here or not. There is four or five wells being bored for oil not far from the ranch. They say they have struck oil in one of them so there has been quite a little excitement about it.
I am glad you like your boarding place and that things are more pleasant for you than they were. Will be glad to have you make Nevada a visit on your trip to Cal. If you have never been in Cal. I think you will enjoy your trip as Cal. is a very interesting state. I have been most all over the state. . .
As ever,
Your friend,
C.A. Lawrence
86 Marcia Lawrence Ernst
La Madera, N.M.
May 24, 1920
Dear Friend:
Your very welcome letter was received today. I had begun to think that you had forgotten me.. .
I have decided that I will come to Nevada. It has been pretty hard too as I have been away longer this time than I was ever before and the folks were anxious for me to come home too.
I intend to leave here Wed. (day after tomorrow) and go to La Madera. I leave there Thur. for Alamosa, Colo. and spend Thur. night and Friday there. From there I will go to Salida on Sat. and take the D & R.G. which leaves there about 4:10 P.M. for Ogden and get into Ogden Sun. at 1:40 P.M. then I don't know anything about the connection there with the S.P. train into Hazen.
If there has been no change made in the time table I think that is the time I will get there. . .
Well, I won't write much this time so will close hoping to see you soon. As ever, your friend,
Eva M. Edwards
Eva and Charlie. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
Eva Mae Edwards was born February 23, 1893, at Clark, Randolph County, Missouri. She was the daughter of James Monroe Edwards (born May 6, 1848) and Mary Florence Stiles (born April 10, 1855) both of whom were from Clark, Missouri.
Charles Lawrence was born January 29, 1870, in Charleston, Coles County, Illinois. He was the son of Theodore C. Lawrence (born March 19, 1838, in Vevay, Indiana) and Mary Ellen Dunbar (born April 19, 1839, in Charleston, Coles County, Illinois).
Eva and Charles Augustus Lawrence were married on July 10, 1920, in Stillwater, Nevada. This union produced their only child, Dale Edwards Lawrence, born February 21, 1923. He resides in Stillwater.
Charles died June 12, 1929, in Fallon, Nevada. Eva followed him many years later, passing away on January 9, 1978, in Fallon.
Marean Family
Stanley Reed (S. R.) Marean
The following narrative is a composite, taken from a 1932 newspaper article and two transcripts written about 1966 by S. R. Marean, who came to Lahontan Valley in 1906 to work for the newly-established Truckee-Carson Project. This venture had been authorized by the Secretary of the Interior under the Reclamation Act of 1902 on March 14, 1903. It was not until February 27, 1919, that the Truckee-Carson Project would be renamed the Newlands Project by the Secretary. Through his participation in a number of positions with the reclamation service, he watched government sponsored projects across the West turn the barren desert into productive croplands.
With great sensitivity Stanley openly speaks of his childhood, his physical frailties, his undying compassion and respect for his loving wife, his pride in his children and the frustrations of being both an employee of the Bureau of Reclamation and a victim of their unfulfilled promises.
Stanley and his wife Ruth were the parents of Margaret "Peggy" Wheat, Robert Marean and John Marean. The original transcripts came to us through the courtesy of John, who now resides in Alberta, Canada.
In order to clarify for our readers the relationship of the characters featured in this story, we offer the following family tree:
Delzene Marean
(1848-1930)
Hannah Elizabeth Brewster
(1852-1940)
Helen Marean
1887-1965
William Tyler Coleman
1877-1951
Herbert Marean
(1878-1913)
Stanley Reed (S.R.) Marean
(1883-1966)
Ruth Hosie Johnston
(1886-1982)
Margaret "Peggy" Marean Hatton Wheat
(1908-1988)
Robert Philip Marean
(1911-1983)
John Herbert Marean
(1917- )
87
88 Stanley Reed (S.R.) Marean
Your author is not a native born Nevadan. I was born and raised in Washington, D.C. where my father, Delzene Marean, was employed as a telegrapher by the U.S. Weather Bureau. He had taken up telegraphy when it was in its infancy and went to work on his first job for the Delaware and Lacawanna Railroad . . . which became known as the "Road of Anthracite." Later he was employed by the U.S. Signal Service. This service was created during the Civil War to function solely as a weather forecasting agency for the Union Army. The agency logically developed into the U.S. Weather Bureau which employed him throughout his working days. The hours were long and the work was tedious, as weather is a phenomenon that bears close scrutiny. He worked from eight until six every day and from nine until one on Sundays. In order to meet the expenses of his family and household he also worked when Congress was in session four nights a week from eight to about midnight. He telegraphed news dispatches from a pressroom to the New York Herald.
My mother Hannah, a beautiful and talented lady, had been a school teacher in a typical American red school house before her marriage. I was the fifth of six children born into this union.
One of my burdens in life was a slight paralysis resulting from an illness which struck me when I was nine months old. The incident occurred while I was cutting my first teeth and the physician named my ailment "teething paralysis." In reality it was probably one of the early instances of polio. My illness demanded many medical services, braces, special handmade shoes, electrical and massage treatments and finally a minor surgical operation (I was the first polio victim in Washington D.C. to have my Achilles tendons lengthened surgically) all of which was a great financial burden to my parents.
In my preschool days I remember having my head covered in curls that hung down to my shoulders. I was dressed like little Lord Fauntleroy and the bane of my existence was those curls and the humiliation of having my hair worked on by my mother every day to keep them immaculate. My white blouse was starched with a white-ruffled collar falling over a velvet jacket, half hidden by the curls and knee breeches below, extending to a set of cruel, noisy metal braces -- an incongruous ensemble. If there was ever a day when I loved my mother, it was when she consented to allow my father to cut off the curls.
What education I got was in the public schools of Washington, D.C., through the primary and high schools. As a child I was never permitted to consider myself an invalid. As time went on I got so that I could walk more confidently and learned to fall down without hurting myself, for falling down was a frequent experience. The muscles in my feet and calves were practically useless and I could not stand on my heels and barely on my toes to help balance myself. Nevertheless, in later years I did develop enough reliable leg use to play some games, the most strenuous of which was tennis.
When my public schooling was finished I went to work in the shop of an optician assembling eye glasses and went to night school and took courses in typ-
Marean Family 89
ing and stenography. My other employment ventures were short-lived. At the beginning of this century, most of the residents of Washington D.C. were identified with government service. This employment appealed to me, but my hopes of getting such a position were blocked because Civil Service allocations went to states and I was not a native of any state -- a man without a country.
In D.C., where there was practically no private industry, there was little opportunity for young people looking for a job. When my brother, Herbert Marean, who was employed as a soil expert on the newly established federal Truckee-Carson Irrigation project, offered to finance me for a trip out to Nevada where manpower was in demand, I eagerly accepted. I arrived in Fallon by stagecoach on April 6, 1906, a year before the present railroad spur from the main line S.P.R.R. had been built from Hazen, 16 miles distant.
Fallon was only about three years old. The Churchill County seat had just recently been moved in from Stillwater, 15 miles to the east. The town was suffering the pangs of population explosion, due in no small measure to the demand for labor for railroad construction and reconstruction, the neighboring mining activities, irrigation project building and settlement. Many of the newcomers were of the tougher, transient, bindle-stiff, hobo-type, attracted by the gambling activities and labor opportunities found there.
Law enforcement was a nightmare for the sheriff's office in the unincorporated settlements of the mining and agricultural areas around Fallon. It was somewhat enhanced by a lynching party at Hazen when the body of a prisoner convicted of killing a barkeeper by a blow on his head with a bottle was left hanging from the telegraph pole for some time to be viewed by other possible law breakers. At my rooming house, the morning after my arrival in Fallon, I was a small scale victim of this lawless element. My wallet, containing all my possessions, was stolen from under my pillow by one of my roommates when I negligently failed to pocket it when I went out for breakfast.
Soon I was employed as a rough carpenter for the United States Reclamation Service -- my career in the new and strange field of irrigation had begun. I was doing miscellaneous work, including carpentry . . . building fly-proof meat storage boxes to be sent out to camps where construction crews were employed and fed while engaged in building structures . . . and excavating canals and laterals for the project. Shortly thereafter I was assigned to office work in Hazen where I was stationed when the disastrous earthquake and fire almost wiped out the city of San Francisco. Another change in assignments had me working in one of the survey parties at a camp on a plateau near Hazen, later known as Swingle Bench. Here the survey crew camped out on the desert . . . out of sight of any green thing. I was homesick and lovesick for the sweetheart I had left back east. My only solace was in receiving and writing letters, and a day never passed when I did not write to my lady love, and the days were rare when I received no word from her.
A little later I was transferred to Fallon to take on work in the newly-organized Operations and Maintenance Department of the project to start the first
90 Stanley Reed (S.R.) Marean
It was S.R. 's frequent practice to visit Rattlesnake Hill in the early years, where a wonderful view could be had of practically all of the valley floor. It was a constant inspiraton to see the progress made in the development of the project. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
deliveries of water from the completed portions of the water system. In this position I was able to exercise my limited ability in my stenography and typing, to do a little drafting learned in high school and to spend the mornings "riding ditch" to make and record water deliveries and enforce regulations. Ditchriders in those early days relied on saddle horses or carts to cover their territory. It was impossible for a ditchrider to cover his entire route every day . . . the average daily trip did not exceed 15 to 20 miles. This assignment ultimately developed into the position of Water Master and Superintendent of Irrigation.
In the meantime the Project was becoming settled by a new crop of farmers. The middle western states furnished the majority of the homesteaders, a courageous and energetic class, but with no knowledge of irrigation farming. But generally speaking, what the homesteaders lacked in knowledge of irrigation practice, they made up for in energy and perseverence.
In its zeal to get irrigation projects going across the West the Bureau of Reclamation made one major error in the Newlands project by constructing its distribution system and settling the lands before its water supply system was fully functioning. A few lean water years found the natural runoff of the two rivers, the Truckee and the Carson, almost dried up early in the summers before the second crop of alfalfa could be watered. The fault was the lack of storage and the improper control of excessive upstream diversions. Two measures were necessary to control these faults. The first was to provide storage by constructing Lahontan Reservoir
Marean Family 91
on the Carson River 20 miles upstream from Fallon (which was not completed and put into service until 1913). The second was the institution of a water adjudication suit in the Federal Court by the United States to allot and distribute the flow of these waters according to correct priorities of their appropriation. It took 25 years to obtain a Final Decree affecting Lake Tahoe and the Truckee River and the issue of a final decree affecting the Carson River is still pending and in my opinion will never be issued if California can prevent it.
Coincidental with the foregoing developments, Fallon and the Project were experiencing advances. Alfalfa was of course, the main crop and was produced in such abundance and high quality as to require more demand than offered by its use in feeding in the beef-producing feed yards. But new industry required capital, and it fell to a newcomer from the midwest, Charles Heisey, to see that dairy cattle could absorb a large part of the excess alfalfa crop without resorting to expensive baling and shipping. But good dairy stock did not exist in quantity locally and the importation of good dairy cattle could be too costly for the local producers without aid. Heisey was able to interest George Wingfield, a local banker and successful mining operator, to agree to finance the dairy venture. He paid the cost of Heisey's trips to California and as far east as Pennsylvania and New York where he bought high-grade dairy stock by the carload and shipped them to the project to be sold on time payment contracts to responsible farmers. A creamery, already built and operating in Fallon, absorbed all the dairy products, principally butter fat, the community could produce. Increasing hog and calf populations absorbed all available dairy bi-products.
Another valuable product from farm operation was sugar beets and this encouraged the construction of a sugar factory near Fallon. It was operated successfully for a couple of years but soon demonstrated that the need for farm workers to raise, harvest and market a beet crop could not be supplied locally. With the arrival of the "curly top" disease beet growers had to give up this activity, and the factory operations were suspended.
Mining activities were at their maximum in the area tributary to the project at its inception. Tonopah received the benefit of the construction of the Tonopah and Goldfield Railroad with the relocated SP line at Hazen. [Editor's note: For more on the development of this railroad, see page 98 of this article.]
Goldfield, Rawhide and Wonder were booming and all adding to the excitement. The transporting of supplies to the mines was responsible for train after train of jerk line horse and mule drawn wagon loads of freight and water. Many wagons were drawn by twenty and more head of stock. It was a sight to see the dexterity with which the skinner could maneuver all those animals and the tandem coupled wagons, with their six and seven foot diameter wheels, around abrupt turns in the roads with only a jerk line or long cotton rope attached to the lead horse to guide the whole string. The roadway was sometimes a foot deep with powdered soil and the dust clouds made it impossible to see beyond it. Soon the mining activities diminished and these towns subsided into the category of ghost camps.
92 Stanley Reed (S.R.) Marean
After being in Fallon a year and a half I persuaded "the girl I left behind me," Ruth Hosie Johnston, to come west and join me in happy matrimony. Ruth was only twenty years of age and we had not seen each other for two years. After my proposal of marriage had been accepted, I built a little four room cottage in Fallon.
My 4'10" fiance began her journey west, accompanied by an old family friend who saw her safely to Chicago. From there she travelled on alone, carrying a little leather purse containing only coins, clutched to her body. Before she left the east, she had been convinced that she could not use paper money in Nevada. Her trip was uneventful with the exception that somewhere along the way her luggage was lost.
On October 2, 1907, the day before our marriage, I drove to Hazen to meet her. I was apprehensive every inch of the way that she would be as unhappy in her new desert surroundings as I had been, but she loved the country and its climate from the very first. We were married the following evening in the home of the Project Superintendent, Thomas H. Means. The wedding was attended by the whole office force. My brother, Herbert, bought off the crowd who came to charivari us that night but the same group showed up again the following night. However, they were orderly and we all had a good time. If I had feared that my bride would be lonesome or homesick for the scenes and friendships left behind her, I was totally wrong. The same courage and determination that prompted her to embark on such an unheard of venture -- as it was considered in those days -- carried her forward into a new life of friendship and married happiness. Our home became the setting for many modest social gatherings and her ability as a cook and hostess was a joy to all her guests. She was particularly popular with the hungry bachelors of the United States Reclamation Service who were fed up with Chinese restaurant and camp chow.
[I have always believed] . . . the wife in the small shack called home, where she must toil day after day and year after year, raising a family within the very limited means her husband could produce, was possessed of more courage and fortitude than the head of the family, whose work of subduing the desert brought more or less tangible results, and whose accomplishments in making things grow encouraged him to renewed efforts and energy. If I were raising a monument today, it would be to the heroines -- the wives of our homesteaders and pioneers.
Among our prized possessions was an upright Steinway piano. My hunger for music was poorly satisfied, as my left hand refused to function as in earlier days, and I was unable to perform the pieces which I easily mastered when I was studying music. This was a great disappointment to us and the piano was disposed of in 1911.
We were deeply in love and shared our minor setbacks uncomplainingly. Our happiness and solidarity was greatly enhanced by the arrival of the first of three babies. In 1908 our daughter Margaret was born. She was followed by a son,
Marean Family 93
Robert Philip, in July of 1911. My sister Helen had also come to Fallon in 1908 to take care of her bachelor brothers and on January 15, 1913, she married William Tyler Coleman, a young man employed in the construction of the dam. The joy of these family events was diminished within a few weeks by the death, caused by pneumonia, of our brother Herbert, the man who had inspired us to move to the Lahontan Valley.
The Colemans had been living at Lahontan but soon moved to a small homestead tract north of Fallon which had been left to them by Herbert. While Herbert was surveying Lahontan Valley for the Bureau, he came upon a 40 acre tract of land surrounded by, and unclaimed by, the Warren Williams ranch. He immediately filed upon this property. Here the Colemans lived out their lives, raising a daughter Ruth.
By 1915 I was hounded almost constantly for water deliveries which the natural runoff of the rivers could not supply. I became so discouraged and frustrated at not being able to produce the needed water for lack of adequate storage that I decided to leave the Lahontan Valley. I accepted a cousin's offer of a job selling milking machines in an area in northeast Pennsylvania where he was in the milling and feed business and where nature supplied the water requirements of this thriving dairying community.
We sold our home in Fallon and I resigned my position with the Bureau of Reclamation and moved back to Pennsylvania. It was soon evident that it was an ill-advised move. The U.S. was still at peace but World War I was in full swing in Europe, and it was apparent that this country would soon be involved also. The dairy industry was not ready to take on any exploit such, as experimenting with milking machines and we soon found our finances dwindling. My wife was so unhappy at being uprooted from her beloved home in Fallon and her removal from desert surroundings that she eagerly approved my application for reinstatement in the Bureau. This resulted in my receiving an offer for employment with the Yuma Project in Arizona.
I arrived at my post in the summer of 1916 and my family joined me in October. We established a home in an old ant and cockroach infested adobe house.
At Herbert's passing the Marean family mourned the loss of the individual that had brought them together in Nevada. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
94 Stanley Reed (S.R.) Marean
With the onset of summer and its terrible heat we decided that Ruth should return to Fallon and stay with her sister Elizabeth Snow to await the birth of our third child. John Herbert was born on August 31, 1917.
The ensuing winter in Yuma was a nightmare. Serious illnesses plagued our family and my unhappiness with my position grew. The United States had become involved in World War I and an epidemic of influenza was sweeping the country. Yuma residents were beginning to die like in a plague. I was about to accept employment in Canada when a lucky break opened an opportunity to return to Fallon. We arrived the end of May, 1918, about the happiest bunch of people that ever lived.
My new duties as hydrographer landed me in the middle of the fight of adjudicating the water rights on the Truckee and Carson Rivers by the Federal Court suit mentioned earlier.
Late in 1923, during one of the happiest periods of our lives, we moved out onto forty acres about four miles west of Fallon and built a small house. With the exception of seven days of hired carpenter labor, its construction was accomplished solely by the labor of the family. I did not move my family into our new home until I was assured it had all the comforts of a "town home." This meant both hot and cold running water, heated by a coil in the wood/coal stove, and an indoor bathroom. Since there was no electricity, I installed a large water tank in the attic and a pressure hand pump at the well to keep the tank full. The well ran dry after just a few gallons were pumped up, so pumping was a frequent chore for our youngest son John.
Our ground was planted to alfalfa, grain, a two-acre garden and we experimented with fruit trees -- a large peach orchard. We were also one of the first
Ruth stands outside the Marean family home, located today at 4510 on the Reno highway. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
Marean Family 95
families to raise turkeys. Poultry and dairying occupied the main objective of the farming operation and every member of the family had enough work to do to expend all of their surplus energy.
This country life, which lasted until 1934, was of inestimable value in molding the characters and careers of my children. It developed in them an intense love of nature and the outdoors as well as observance of the practical application of the lessons of "the birds and the bees."
Aside from the farm, my work on the Newlands Project was demanding. Lahontan Dam was complete and offered the provision of ample storage water. But the Bureau of Reclamation still had to finish digging a drainage system in order to complete its obligations under the Federal Reclamation Act of 1902 before turning the project over to the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District to operate and maintain. So far they had spent over a million dollars and dug over three hundred miles of ditches but the end was not in sight.
In 1927 the transition was made on a consent vote by the farmers of the Project. Most of the government employees were retained by the new District to continue in their familiar duties.
Possibly the Lahontan power plant was the most important part of the Project. Earlier on, federal representatives had convinced the original vested water right owners that if they would turn over their vested rights to the government, an electric power plant could be built. The electricity that was to be generated would in time help create a flourishing community which would provide a viable market for their commodities.
The power house which was built as a preliminary to the construction of Lahontan Dam was now in full production. With the construction of a transmission line to Fallon the town took on the development of a modern city, where street lighting, residential services and domestic water and sewer services were generally available. Rural power distribution lines began extending outward from Fallon but for the most part these were financed and operated by local improvement districts instead of by the government or irrigation district. This energy development brought more happiness and relief to the farmers than any one other undertaking.
It is my impression that with the contract for turning the Project and Lahontan power plant over to the irrigation district, the Bureau soon found it had negotiated itself out of a number of jobs and the only acceptable excuse it had to remain in business in western Nevada. It developed that very shortly thereafter reclamation personnel commenced to arrive on the scene and talk began to be heard advocating reclamation activities toward the construction of another big development, the "Washoe Project."
This Washoe Project was to encompass the Upper Truckee and Carson Rivers, notwithstanding the presumed right to all of the waters of the Newlands Project which had been conveyed to the District by contract. That was when the Fallon and Newlands Project farmers first learned that the water supply which they
96 Stanley Reed (S.R.) Marean
had fought for and won in the federal water adjudication suit for the benefit of Newlands Project was not to be turned over unconditionally to the District. Under the contract with the United States, the District was to be subordinate to the Washoe Project. As was to be expected, when an election was held to determine the areas and water supplies to be included in the Washoe Project and the payment of its costs, the members of the Newlands Project and the Truckee-Carson District rejected its proposed inclusion. However, the propriety and feasibility of the construction of the Washoe Project did not appear to be in jeopardy by this action and plans were going right ahead for its fulfillment by using the water adjudicated to the Newlands Project, plus "surplus waters from Lake Tahoe and the Truckee River" -- a fictitious and nonexistent commodity as evidenced by the drying up of Pyramid Lake of more that 50 feet in depth in the last 50 years.
In the meantime America was suffering through a period of depression and the water users elected a new Board of Directors who ran for office on a platform favoring greater economy in the operation of the District. This policy of frugality, initiated out of necessity, would in time prove to be detrimental to the survival of the Project. Ensuing boards, in attempting to save money for their fellow water users, failed to take an aggressive stand against the federal government which blatantly refused to live up to its half of the contract agreements.
One of the new administration's first moves was to reduce the salaries of its employees -- a signal to several of us to find other employment. By 1934 my family responsibilities had shifted. Peggy and Robert were married and John was ready to enter college, so I resigned my position.
About this time the Bureau of Reclamation was organizing a force to undertake the construction of the Rye Patch Dam storage reservoir about 25 miles upstream from Lovelock, Nevada, on the Humboldt River. As soon as the Rye Patch Dam Project Construction Engineer, Leo J. Foster, learned of the availability of three of us who had resigned from the Newlands Project we were offered and accepted new employment at Lovelock. My new assignment was that of Hydrogra-pher . . . a job I held throughout the dam's construction. With the disbanding of the work force and the transfer of Engineer Foster to the Truckee River and Boca Dam Construction completion, I was appointed Project Superintendent of the Rye Patch Dam Project until the Pershing County Water Conservation District accepted the operation, maintenance and responsibility for the repayment of the costs of the project in 1939. I was next transferred to Burley, Idaho, to be Project Superintendent of the Minidoka Project on the Snake River, the largest federal reclamation project so far constructed by the Bureau.
In addition to the operation and maintenance of the five reservoirs in the project . . . extending from Jackson Lake, Grassy Lake and Island Park Reservoirs in Wyoming at the headwaters of the Snake River System to the American Falls and Minidoka Reservoirs above Burley . . . my responsibility included the power plant and pumping systems at and below Minidoka Dam together with several
Marean Family 97
pumping plants and many miles of main canal . . . three Civilian Conservation Corp camps . . . a Japanese Relocation Camp and a Prisoner of War camp located on the project near Burley . . . and 31 irrigation districts and canal companies that had contracts with the U.S. for storage water impounded and released for their benefit from the reservoir system.
I retained this position for ten years until my retirement in 1949 after 43 years service with the Bureau of Reclamation. We moved back to Reno, Nevada, to be near our family.
Ruth was a wonderful mother and life partner. During her stay in Fallon she was one of the founders of the Artemisia Club, active in the Red Cross during both wars and crocheted more than 1,200 pairs of booties which she presented to new children within our sphere.
I can not imagine a more satisfying career than I have experienced over my lifetime. It has been an honor to have been identified with the development of our great Western territory!
This photograph of Stanley and Ruth Marean graced their Christmas Card in 1950. The verse from the card is reproduced below. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
Well, Here We Are!
As age proceeds, we learn to know how nice it is
to sit and sew, or read a book, or idly chat,
or pet the dog, or stroke the cat, or toot a flute,
or ping a lyre, on cushioned chairs before the fire,
or in the yard, beneath the trees, enjoying flowers
and summer breeze.
Ah, yes as age proceeds we learn that
sitting is our main concern,
and offers us unequaled bliss -
but who thought life would lead to this?
98 Kyle K. Wyatt
The Railroad Comes to Hazen
Kyle K. Wyatt
In the beginning of the twentieth century the town of Hazen went from being a small settlement miles from the nearest railroad to being a station on the transcontinental mainline and the junction for two branch lines. First settled in 1869, not long after the Central Pacific Railroad passed through the region to the north of the townsite, it was named for William Babcock Hazen, an army officer and aid to William Tecumseh Sherman.
The first years of the 20th century were a major period of new rail construction around Hazen. By this time the Southern Pacific had acquired control of the Central Pacific Railway. Shortly after the turn of the century the Central Pacific line through Nevada was realigned, with Hazen becoming a stop on a new section of the mainline. The new line was placed in service on October 19, 1902. This was only the beginning for Hazen.
In March 1900 shortly before his death, Collis P. Huntington, President of the Central and Southern Pacific and last surviving member of the "Big Four", acquired the narrow gauge Carson & Colorado Railroad from D.O. Mills and Company. Mills also owned the Virginia & Truckee, with which the Carson & Colorado connected at Mound House. The Southern Pacific acquisition of the Carson & Colorado occurred just two months before the discovery of large ore deposits in Tonopah. In short order the Carson & Colorado went from being a sleepy little railroad to booming with more traffic than it could handle.
Part of the problem on the Carson & Colorado was that all freight had to be transferred from standard gauge cars to narrow gauge cars at the interchange in Mound House. For those not familiar with what "gauge" is, on a railroad it is the distance between the rails of the track. Standard gauge in the United States and most of Europe is 4 feet 8 1/2 inches (reputedly inspired by the wheel spacing on Roman chariots). The most common US narrow gauge is 3 feet, and this is what the Carson & Colorado was. Cars with wheels set to one gauge cannot run on track of a different gauge.
To solve the traffic problems, Southern Pacific wished to convert the Carson & Colorado to standard gauge. They also didn't like having to travel over someone else's railroad (the Virginia & Truckee) to get from Southern Pacific tracks in Reno to Carson & Colorado tracks in Mound House. The first approach was to try and purchase the Virginia & Truckee, but the parties could not agree upon a price. This was when Southern Pacific decided to build a new connecting line between their mainline and the Carson & Colorado track at Churchill. Hazen was selected as the junction point on the mainline.
. . .continued on next page
Railroad Comes to Hazen 99
Conversion of the Carson & Colorado to standard gauge started in Mound House in October 1904. The following April construction on the cutoff started in Hazen. The work was carried out by the Nevada & California, a new company formed by the Southern Pacific to take over the Carson & Colorado. In September the Hazen cutoff was completed, and the Tonopah traffic stopped passing over the Virginia & Truckee to Mound House. The Nevada & California was merged into the Central Pacific in 1912.
The Southern Pacific did not directly reach Tonopah. At Mina it interchanged traffic with the Tonopah & Goldfield Railroad, originally built as the narrow gauge Tonopah Railroad in 1904, and converted to standard gauge in a single day on August 14, 1905. The Tonopah mining region was also reached from the south by the Las Vegas & Tonopah and the Tonopah & Tidewater. Of these lines, the Tonopah & Goldfield was the first constructed, and was the last surviving when it shut down in 1947. In later years the old Carson & Colorado was cut back from Mina, but traffic still passes through Hazen on its way to the Hawthorne ammunition depot.
Also in 1905 Southern Pacific took the first steps for a line to serve Fallon. This line also left the mainline at Hazen. This was prompted by the [Truckee-Carson] Newlands irrigation project and the anticipated agricultural products that would be shipped out of Fallon. This branch line was opened in January 1907. To serve the locomotives used on the two branch lines, a six stall enginehouse was built in Hazen in 1909.
Railroad station in Hazen. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
NATIVE AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE
Reclamation and the Red Man
John M. Townley
Editor's Note: The late John M Townley wrote this article in 1978 for publication in The Indian Historian, a publication of the American Indian Historical Society. The article appeared in volume 11, number 1, pages 21-28.
"The Paiute is regarded as a worthless Indian ordinarily and I am inclined to believe that he generally lives up to his reputation," concluded a United States Reclamation Service (USRS) engineer in a 1907 report to the Washington, D.C. office of his agency.' Only four years after selection of the western Nevada area for development as a federally-administered reclamation project, and but a single full season of farming, the Indian situation had assumed problem proportions to the Reclamation Service and the Truckee-Carson Project.
The Department of the Interior's subordinate agencies, the USRS and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), jointly represented the homesteading public and the Paiute band of Lahontan Valley, as they implemented policy determinations of the various national administrations from 1903 until 1926, when the department contractually passed operational control of the project to the locally-directed Truckee-Carson Irrigation District. These twenty-three years of federal regulation are unusually well documented and offer an interesting opportunity to review the developing relationship between the Reclamation Service, formed in 1902 as a Progressive measure, the white entrymen and the Indian population.
Two groups ofwestern Nevada Indians were affected by the Truckee-Carson Project, the Pyramid Lake tribe and a Paiute band scattered between Carson Lake and Carson Sink in Lahontan Valley. Although there arose a later series of actions in the federal courts over the rights of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe to Truckee River water, the Indians of Lahontan Valley found themselves immediately threatened by the Truckee-Carson Project. The USRS considered their presence an impediment to development, since Dawes Act allotments awarded them in the 1890s occupied a significant amount of the better Lahontan Valley lands included within the project. Policies for termination of the individual allotments and exclusion of the Paiute band from the district became instant issues between the Reclamation Service and the BIA. While use of Pyramid Lake reservation lands was not scheduled until later in the project's development, incorporation of the Lahontan Valley Indian allotments had to be concluded soon after initiation of dam building and canal excavation in 1903.
100
Reclamation and the Red Man 101
Therefore, the impact of a federal reclamation program fell first on the Churchill County Indian population, and in the period 1903-1926 decisions imposed by USRS and Congress took about 30,000 acres from Paiute allottees in exchange for ten-acre plots within a reservation composed of only seven sections. After failing to exempt the Paiute entirely, federal and local governments combined to isolate the project's Indian entrymen to the reservation or in camps near ranches or towns. Throughout its quarter-century of management of the Truckee-Carson Project, the reclamation agency held fast to a policy of Indian containment within the reservation created for that purpose.
By default, the Pyramid Lake reservation remained geographically intact. Opening of bench and valley lands to homestead there, although a part of the initial USRS design, lapsed after engineering estimates of annual flow from the Truckee River were far overstated and proved inadequate for even the limited Churchill County areas first opened to settlement in 1904. Although the Reclamation Service considered that Truckee River "water now wastes into Pyramid Lake, conferring no benefit on anyone,"2they generally released adequate water for irrigation on the Pyramid Lake reservation, while subordinating preservation of the lake's fishery to reclamation. The integrity of the Pyramid Lake reservation was preserved, while the Lahontan Valley band lost their allotments, endured social and economic isolation and were systematically denied the benefits of the federal reclamation program open to other entrymen.
The Northern Paiute group which occupied most of contemporary Churchill County referred to themselves as the Toe Band.3 When first contacted by white trappers and explorers in the 1820s, they practiced a lake-based culture similar to other groups at Pyramid and Walker lakes. In 1858, as Major Frederick Dodge, Indian Agent for western Utah Territory, successively visited his charges, he found an estimated 541 members of the band residing near Carson Lake, a like number of the Agai band at Walker Lake and 970 Kuyui residents at Pyramid. A tribal council at Carson Lake on November 26, 1858, heard Dodge's suggestions for a Paiute reservation, and a year later, Indian land withdrawals were made surrounding Walker and Pyramid lakes. Dodge expected the Toe band to move to either of the reservations and take up farming as a move toward assimilation into the white community.4 The agent discounted the Toe band's internal ties of family and identity and the corresponding desire to remain in its geographical homeland.
The expected evacuation never occurred. As ranches, roads and mining camps sprang up in western Nevada following the discovery of the Comstock Lode, Lahontan Valley Indians congregated near towns such as Stillwater and La Plata to become seasonal laborers. Despite pitifully low living conditions, most of the band deliberately avoided the reservations where conditions were often worse. Some extended families visited the agencies, but usually just before ration distribution by the BIA.
102 John M. Townley
Paiute colony on Stillwater Avenue in 1906. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)i
In 1893, Dawes Act land provisions were extended to Nevada Indians living off reservations. A special agent was appointed to implement the program in northern and western Nevada. Paiutes and Shoshonis were called into prearranged councils and given quarter-sections on the public domain near Stillwater, Camp McGarry or Fort McDermitt. The land was irrigable from nearby streams, but required considerable investment of capital and labor to reclaim. Obviously, without the money or experience to develop the allotments, few of the Indian recipients took up residence. Some 196 allotments were made to Indians living in western Nevada from portions of Lahontan Valley, totaling about 30,000 acres.'
On June 17, 1902, Theodore Roosevelt signed the National Reclamation Act into law and instituted a federal program to develop the arid West. Less than a year later, on March 13, 1903, the first five construction sites were announced, including the Truckee-Carson Project. Reclamation Service engineers expected to develop over 400,000 acres along the Truckee and Carson rivers, with half of the total in Lahontan Valley. The USRS construction headquarters in Reno placed a high priority on terminating the 30,000 acres of allotment land within the valley and making provision for the Indian residents to relocate on either the Pyramid or Walker Lake reservations.
By mid-summmer, 1903, the Reclamation Service was well into a survey of private land holdings in Lahontan Valley, both white and Indian. Land cultivated by the existing ranchers would be provided a guaranteed water right, in exchange
Reclamation and the Red Man 103
for their individual systems for diverting water from the Carson River. The study identified some 20,000 cultivated acres among the white-owned ranches.6 The great majority of Indian allotment land was open range, without improvement. Those few farms worked by Indians were awarded water rights in the same manner as their white neighbors.
While visiting Washington soon after selection of the Truckee-Carson Project in 1903, Leon H. Taylor, the USRS on-site supervisor, met with BIA officials. After discussing the plans of the Reclamation Service and the need for withdrawing the allotments, J. R. Wise, a BIA staff representative, suggested that Taylor consider an exchange of each quarter-section allotment for a ten-acre plot with guaranteed water rights. The Indian Bureau carried their compromise further by sending W. E. Casson to Nevada in August, 1903, where he met with the Lahontan Valley band and obtained verbal agreement, after objection, to give up their allotments for individual ten-acre parcels within a reservation. On September 14, 1903, Casson and a surveyor chose a reservation site near Stillwater. The BIA hoped for a favorable compromise to the allotment question, since the Reclamation Service was proceeding with construction and advising potential entrymen to consider the Indian lands while selecting a site for their homestead. Casson reported, "I saw at Fallon, a map sent out by the railroad company in which the Indian lands were platted and a note across them saying that these lands would be open for settlement in two years."' It was assumed by both the USRS and local land seekers, who closely observed Casson's negotiations with the Paiutes, that relinquishment of the allotments would proceed smoothly, with the Indians relocated to the Pyramid or Walker reservations.
During the negotiations significant differences arose between the USRS and BIA over the degree of title held by the Indian allottees. L. H. Taylor advised cancellation without compensation:
I know these Indians very well, and I know that not
more than one in ten, if as many, will ever do anything with land that may be allotted to them. All of them prefer to live in the neighborhood of the towns or ranches of the white, doing a little work occasionally, and eking out such an existency as they can with the least amount of work. Unless it be purely a matter of policy, I see no reason why they should be considered at all in this matter, and my judgement is that the best interests of this district of the Truckee-Carson Irrigation Project and the communities to be built up under it would be sub-served by the absolute cancellation of all these allotments.9
Both Taylor and the BIA held that the allotments were in default since no improvements had been made to the land, and few Indians had taken up residence as required.(10) However, the BIA insisted on some token compensation for such rights as the Indians had acquired since allotment.
Negotiation between the two agencies continued fitfully from 1904 to 1907. Until 1906, there was little reason for a quick settlement, but, as construction neared
104 John M. Townley
Native American men with team and wagon. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
completion, the Nevada USRS office stressed the urgency of agreement to its superiors. Taylor intended to open most of the allotment area to homestead in 1906 "on account of the character of the soil and cheapness with which it can be irrigated, and generally the desirability of the location . . ." (11) There was no doubt of the fertility of the Indian land, which occupied areas west of Stillwater. Taylor estimated that 90% of the acreage would develop into productive fields.12
Nevada USRS staff also suspected the BIA of using the reclamation program as a means of insinuating the Indian into white farming districts, in hopes of eventually eliminating the reservation system. Washington was advised "that the Indian Department is endeavoring to work some kind of scheme for the reallotment of a portion of these lands to the Indians . . ."13 Not only were the allottees themselves to remain on the project, the USRS learned but they also feared an "apparent plan of the Indian Office to hunt up all the Pah Ute Indians they can find in this section of the country and locate them in the heart of this project." 14
Taylor remained adamantly opposed to the presence of Paiute allottees and would have preferred their relocation to either nearby reservation. However, by 1905, the Washington-based negotiations between high-level USRS and BIA representatives conceded the right of allottees to small farms within a reservation supplied irrigation water by the Truckee-Carson Project. The Commissioner of
Reclamation and the Red Man 105
Indian Affairs insisted that the exchange be made without cost to the Indian, (15) while USRS Director F. H. Newell proposed that a congressional appropriation compensate the Reclamation Service at the rate charged white entrymen.(16)
The compromise reached in 1906 satisfied few Nevadans. The BIA could settle any Paiute Indian with a claim to land on the project, but only within the reservation. Congress would appropriate funds to pay for land reserved as the Indian enclave.17 The USRS Washington office immediately advised Taylor to extend his ditch system through the Dawes Act allotments and open them to entry.18 Taylor still hoped to eventually remove the reservation by repeatedly insisting that any Indian lands revert to the public domain if not improved or cultivated.(19) Newell ignored the recommendations, rather than reopen the compromise negotiated by Secretary of the Interior Eathan A. Hitchcock.
Once the decision had been made to proceed with a reservation, 4,640 acres were withdrawn from the public lands dedicated to the irrigation district and identified as the Paiute reserve. In exchange, the 196 allotments made within Lahontan Valley for Indian purposes were cancelled at the General Land Office in Carson City.(21) W. E. Casson met with Indians living in the valley and near Fallon to inform them of the transfer.22 Throughout the transfer negotiations of 19041906, there was no representative from the Indian concern. The decision was made arbitrarily within the Department of the Interior with "agreement" of the Indians solicited afterward. In reality, the Lahontan Valley band could neither approve nor reject the transfer, they could only make the best of a situation they were powerless to prevent or influence.
The land upon which the reservation was sited has since been described as unsuitable for development and intentionally selected by the USRS for its lack of promise. This position does not appear sustained by accounts of the area in 1904, when it was surveyed; nor in 1906, when withdrawn for Indian occupation. Taylor found that "they have selected about the best body of land in the valley for this purpose."23 While Taylor's crews extended irrigation and drainage ditches into the reservation, BIA advertised the merits of reclaimed farming among, particularly, the urban Indians of Nevada and urged individuals or families to take ten-acre tracts. Some 350 persons signed trust deeds for land within the reservation, which was formally created by the Secretary of the Interior by Departmental Order on April 20, 1907.24 Despite the availability of water and land, there was little that could be done to promptly improve the area without tools, supplies or instruction.
Within the white community, once established, the reservation represented an obligation paid in full to its Indian residents. There was little understanding of the Paiute resistance to its isolation and poverty, which was expressed by a continuation of Indian camps about Fallon and Stillwater, where they maintained their pre-reservation lifestyle. The correspondence of the various reservation agents was primarily concerned with programs developed to attract the Indian to the reservation. These rarely proved effective because the agents could not supply the materials needed for the allottees to improve their lands and support themselves or
106 John M. Townley
their families. There was no rush to settle the reservation and for many years the large majority of Lahontan Valley Paiutes continued to live as they had done prior to the introduction of the reclamation project. White residents, anticipating the removal of Indians immediately to the reservation, rarely understood why no progress was made in converting the Paiute into a copy of his homesteading neighbor. They alternatively patronized or repressed the Indians who continued to satellite themselves on the white communities. Fallon benefited from the cheap Indian labor, but was repelled by the living standards and health problems posed by the camps.
Much of the failure of the reservation can be attributed to inadequate opportunity. Irrigation water was available from ditches extended through the reservation during the irrigation season of 1908, but the Indian Bureau failed to survey and identify the individual ten-acre plots or notify the allottee of the location of his farm.25 The Fallon USRS office understood that valley Indians could not be concentrated on the reservation unless there was a program to make the Paiutes self-sufficient. The office recommended that the BIA station a full-time farmer/ teacher as agent and offered to supply adequate water as the Indians cleared their lands.26 During the fall and winter, 1907-1908, a small number of allottees left the Fallon camps to open a few acres on the reservation. They lacked equipment and supplies, as well as experience in farming.27
An agency building and school was erected by the BIA in mid-1908. The agent, Walter A. Van Voorhis, advised on land preparation practices and taught some twelve children of all ages in the day school. (28) In August, 1909, 329 allotments were formally made to Paiute men, women and children. Title remained in trust for twenty years, pending improvement of the land and continuing residency.29 Few of the allottees were actual residents on the reservation, since none of the tracts had been developed enough to sustain a family unit. The Reclamation Service staff closely monitored events on the reservation and explained the lack of progress in clear terms:
The principal difficulty in the way of promptly
putting this land under cultivation by the Indians is the fact that they have not the capital to enable them to go ahead with the work. If some provision could be made whereby they could be given provisions or hay, with some outfit for work, I am sure that a large number of the allottees would promptly start the cultivation of their tracts.3°
Until the tracts became productive, those allottees interested in farming worked at jobs in Fallon, then returned to the reservation for short periods to level fields and make an initial planting. Without resources, the work was interminably slow and only those individuals with superior direction and foresight made the sacrifices necessary to reclaim the land under the most primitive of conditions. A visiting BIA inspector found it "pathetic to see some of these Indians trying to clear off and level their allotments without any horses or machinery, doing everything with the shovel and grubbing hoe."
Reclamation and the Red Man 107
Native American woman and child The woman appears to be a laundress. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
The obvious need of the reservation was support for converting the desert into arable land. Without this, few allottees could be persuaded to become residents. In 1910, with over 300 tracts assigned, only thirty were being improved. Three years later, there had been no improvement, despite establishment of a Baptist mission, purchase of a few farm implements, and free lunches for students at the reservation schoo1. (32) Fifty families resided full or part-time, cultivating 600 acres. By 1915, conditions remained stagnant, with most residents living in tents or wickiups. There were few work animals and only one or two milk cows. A new difficulty was encountered by individuals assigned tracts grown sterile through inadequate drainage or alkali buildup. Exchanges could not be made until a cumbersome mass of paperwork was approved by the BIA. Faced with the choice, most allottees simply abandoned the tract and left the reservation. By 1926, when the Reclamation Service passed administration of the project to a local organization, more and more reservation land became waterlogged, with the fields generating less income during the post-World War I years of drought and low farm prices.33
108 John M. Townley
As significant portions of the reservation became untillable, the BIA made a series of requests for acquisition of unsettled land adjoining the reservation. To each of these proposals, the local USRS office reiterated its long-standing policy of excluding Indians from the project except upon the reservation. Commenting on a 1917 request for additional reservation land, the Fallon Senior Engineer claimed "it would be a pity to allow the Indians to spread out over a larger area of the project before they have made a better demonstration as farmers on the lands now allotted to them."34 A later request met the same response from the local office, whose administrator summarized white attitudes to his superior:
I fear this fine body of land is being thrown away
by making a present of it to the Piute Indians. If the land was
still available for homestead entry it would be eagerly taken by
white settlers even at the $80 construction charge. If it remains
in the hands of the Piutes, I am sure no more will be done towards
leveling, irrigating and cultivating this piece of land than has
been done with the remainer of the reservation, which many of
our farmers hold as an eyesore to the project."
Attitudes toward Paiutes living apart from the reservation were even more antagonistic among homesteaders and local government. After 1903, the city of Fallon grew rapidly in population and activity as the reclamation project and nearby mining discoveries attracted settlers and small businesses. The county's Indian population gravitated to Fallon where they gathered in shanty camps on the outskirts of town. With business booming, there was ample opportunity for day work, with many households and businesses dependent on the Indian as unskilled labor.
The largest Indian camp was located in an undeveloped part of the Oats Addition and comprised some fifty shacks built of materials salvaged or stolen from local construction sites. More than two hundred men, women and children existed there, without running water, sewage or other municipal services. Itinerant laborers brought or attracted to the area by the reclamation project drifted to the camps. By 1906, when regular deliveries of irrigation water were first made to project farms, Fallon newspapers increasingly objected to the frequent violence and public health hazard posed by the camps and their residents.36
Alcohol became the basis for most contacts between the Indian and white communities. Politically untouchable Fallon saloons, as well as destitute white and Spanish-speaking itinerants, illegally sold liquor to the Paiutes. Few references to Indians in the Fallon press arose from reasons other than public drunkenness or assaults committed while under the influence." The ultimate result was a civic movement for restrictions upon the individual liberties of Indians within the city limits. An editorial found "altogether too much room occupied on our sidewalks by thriftless, loafing Piutes" who should be denied entry to the community during the hours of darkness. Moreover, if the Indians continued to spend their time in idleness
Reclamation and the Red Man 109
and debauchery, the lands allotted them should be condemned and sold to white farmers who could cultivate them." Prostitution among Indian women and widespread incidence of trachoma and other diseases were reasons for Fallon residents to generally conclude that all Indians should be strictly limited to the reservation.39
BIA Agent Van Voorhis agreed that forced Indian concentration within the reservation would speed improvement of the tracts, but without tools, supplies and rations to support the allottees for several years, pending improvement of the fields, he could not accept the hundreds of urban Paiutes to satisfy the demands from Fallon. Adequate resources for development of the reservation were requested from BIA, as were funds to employ Indian policemen in the Fallon camps to prevent other incidents. Van Voorhis recognized the lack of understanding or concern among whites, who considered the Paiute "as an incidental to the desert the same as the sagebrush and the jack-rabbit and are given about as much consideration, except when the squaw is needed to do the family wash, or the man is needed in the hay field." (40)
Although Fallon took little interest in the internal organization of the scattered Indian camps, much of the discord visible in assaults and drunkenness arose from conflict between Indian residents and itinerant Spanish-speaking braceros. Identified by the newspapers as "Mexicans," most were imported from California and Colorado as field labor for larger ranches. Ignored within Fallon and employed only seasonally, the itinerants found homes in the Indian camps where they formed liaisons with Paiute women, often rupturing existing family ties. As they became more numerous, the migrants terrorized the camps, taking Indian property freely and threatening the other residents. (41) The resulting violence was misunderstood in Fallon, where it was interpreted as simply another indication of Indian behavior when released from the confines of a reservation. Town government determined to end the wave of alleged Indian incidents and jailed any Paiute found in Fallon at night. A suggested chain gang for Indians would convince miscreants to leave the county or curb the idleness and dissipation so abhorred in Fallon.42 Only after the murder of an adolescent Indian girl during a prolonged drinking bout with a party of migrants in 1913 did the BIA send a representative to study the explosive situation and recommend action for improving relations between the two racial communities.43
Van Voorhis recommended that an Indian-only colony near Fallon, on public land and policed by Indian officers, offered a solution to the controversy. He found twenty acres of open land southwest of Toyeh Mountain (present day Rattlesnake Hill) with direct access to Fallon, which the USRS agreed to withdraw for Indian use.(44) Following BIA approval of the colony in late 1913, residents of all Fallon camps were pressed to relocate.45 By 1915 most lived on the colony, where Indian officers kept the residents isolated from itinerants. However, if the "Mexican" threat was resolved, the endemic conditions of poverty, disease and ignorance
110 John M. Townley
The Paiute colony on Rattlesnake Hill, taken by local photographer Rolly Ham. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
remained. An inspection by the BIA in 1915 found the colony obtained water through a single hydrant connected to the Fallon water system, alcoholism remained rampant, there was open prostitution and few other opportunities for work for either men or women. The inspection report piously mirrored local white sentiment by characterizing colony dwellings as "veritable plague spots. They know no moral, social nor religious restraint; liquor and vice with their attendant diseases are a menace to Indians and whites as well."46 The low birth rate among the band also concerned the BIA. Van Voorhis learned from the Paiutes that venereal disease was first contracted from Oriental railroad workers years earlier and adversely affected conception. Bureau officials blamed the falling birth rate on "moral depravity and the abortion habit," while refusing to recognize the causes of prostitution and alcoholism.47
Throughout the years of federal control of the reclamation project, (19031926), there is a flavor of missionary zeal in the correspondence of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. If the Lahontan Valley Paiutes would discard their pagan religion and sincerely adopt Christianity, they would mystically acquire the necessary abilities to become prosperous members of an open white-red society. Bibles would be more effective in the regeneration of the Indian than farm implements, medical attention or education. But until the red man underwent this enobling catharsis, he must be withdrawn from white contacts.
Reclamation and the Red Man 111
Relationships between Lahontan Valley Indians, white entrymen and the Reclamation Service became fixed in 1915, once the Paiutes lost the last vestige of free choice in residence and were limited to the colony or reservation. In either location, or on the few ranches that employed Indians, they were under the authority of white standards of behavior and were required to conform. There was no way to escape the domination of the Indian Bureau. To move to another reservation meant little difference in conditions, while the Indian had lost the ability to live off the land. He had become a dependent, but without clear opportunity to escape from that status.
Although there were continuing contracts between the USRS and the BIA over changes in reservation boundaries, subsoil drainage and irrigation water, the major issues between the two parties were resolved. The Reclamation Service, and its homesteading entrants, objected to the presence of Indians on the project and accepted the colony and reservation as a compromise means of reducing Paiute visibility to the minimum. Indians could leave their enclaves for day work, but were statutorily prohibited from "loitering" in Fallon during the day, and barred from the city at night. The public schools were closed to Indian children, except for a few mixed-blood students at Stillwater, where tuition was paid by the BIA.
As elsewhere, the open rejection displayed by the white community took its toll in Indian self-respect. Once restricted to the reservation, there was nowhere for the Paiute to go. Aspirations expected to develop as the Indian observed white accomplishments in reclamation turned instead to doubt. The Indian indeed learned from white society, but it was apathy, not resolution, that resulted from the exchange. Lacking a heritage of materialism and the work ethic, many Paiutes subconsciously accepted the white evaluation of their qualities and rejected Indian values. With loss of identity, the majority of the band satisfied the reclamation project and disappeared into the reservation, finding temporary relief in alcohol, drugs and gambling. They would appear in Fallon or on project farms for infrequent jobs and return afterward to the Indian reserves, as if visitors from another space and time continuum. Some acted out their resentment in public fits of drinking or assault, but most self-destructive behavior was conducted in private on the reservation and never reported.
References to the reservation or its inhabitants in Fallon newspapers fell significantly after 1917, as did public concern. It was casually assumed that the BIA was "doing something" for the savages and the project met its obligation by providing a shining example for emulation. Few realized that a dual society had been established by default in Churchill County in which its members were divided by race and opportunity. A society developed within a Progressive program funded by federal monies and created to extend opportunity to all those with a desire to live on the land. Despite the unequal access to that opportunity, the unwritten agreement between white and red residents of the valley was long accepted, tolerated and, until only recently, questioned.
112 John M. Townley
NOTES
1. Letter: Thomas H. Means to Frederick H. Newell, August 12, 1907, Box 39, Correspondence File, 1908. Truckee-Carson Irrigation District Collection (TCID-UNR), Special Collections Department, Getchell Library, University of Nevada-Reno.
2. Memo: Project Manager to Director, December 30, 1916, Record Group 115, "Records of the Bureau of Reclamation," File 244, Denver Federal Records Center (BOR-Denver).
3. Nellie Shaw Harnar, The History of the Pyramid Lake Indians (Sparks, NV: Dave's Printing and Publishing Company, 1974), p. 13.
4. U.S., Congress, Senate, Report of the Secretary of the Interior, 36th Cong., 1st sess., 1859-60, Vol. 1, Report 175, pp. 741-43. Dodge advised his superiors that the Paiutes were ready to learn farming as an alternative to hunting and gathering. Omer C. Stewart, The Northern Paiute Bands, University of California Anthropoligical Records, vol. 2, no. 3 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1939), pp. iv, 141, 147. Stewart stresses the strength of the bad kinship patterns and shows how this concept was ignored by white observers in the mid-19th century.
5. Nevada State Journal, August 4, 1893, p. 3. Ibid., September 23, 1893, p. 3.
6. Letter: W. E. Casson to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, October 2, 1903, Indian Allotments File, 1903-1907, Truckee-Carson Irrigation District Records (TCID Records), Fallon, Nevada. Casson recommended a homestead of 160 acres to be entered for Anna Williams, Indian, protecting a quarter-section farmed many years by the family. Ibid., Letter: H. L. Holgate, United States Geological Survey, to L. H. Taylor, USGS Engineer in Charge of Construction, June 15, 1904. Holgate found the Indian farms "have no water right but use surplus water from the ditches of others." Most farms were near Stillwater, where about six families or individuals worked the land in small plots. Other Indians preferred to work seasonally "for wages to secure funds for gambling . . . The ranchers are seemingly inclined to encourage any Indian who strives to improve his condition, and the fact that so few Indians grow crops of their own cannot be altogether ascribed to lack of opportunity. While these ranchers do not accept the Indians as pegs upon which to hang weakly [sic] sentiment, they treat them with a tolerance and consideration that ought to satisfy the most exacting long-distance sympathy."
7. Letter: L. H. Taylor to F. H. Newell, February 4, 1905, Record Group 115, "records of the Bureau of Reclamation," File 557-C, National Archives, Washington D.C. (BOR-NA). Ibid., Letter: Director to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, March 2, 1908. Director F. H. Newell explained "this would result in the allotment of about forty acres to the family, this amount being the area which has been found essential to the support of a white family. It is recognized that the Indian can not or will not probably utilize as much land as a white man, but it is believed that this allowance is very liberal considering the character of cultivation adopted by the Indians." It was only a few years before settlers realized that extensive agriculture was best suited to Lahontan Valley and the earlier USRS estimates of forty to eighty acres as sufficient for maintenance of a family unit rose to 320. The Indian remained tied to the ten-acre allotment.
8. Letter: W. E. Casson to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, October 3, 1903, Indian Allotments File, 1903-1907, TCID Records.
9. Ibid., Letter: Taylor to Newell, April 29, 1904.
10. Letter: Taylor to Newell, March 24, 1904, File 557-C, BOR-NA.
11. Ibid., Letter: Taylor to Chief Engineer, July 11, 1905.
12. Ibid., Letter: Taylor to Newell, February 4, 1905.
13. Ibid., Letter: Taylor to Newell, March 24, 1904.
14. Letter: Supervising Engineer to Chief Engineer, September 15, 1906, Indian
Allotments File, 1903-1907, TCID Records.
15. Letter: Leupp to Secretary of the Interior, August 30, 1905, File 557-C, BOR-NA.
16. Ibid., Letter: Chief Engineer to Secretary of the Interior, February 20, 1905.
17. Ibid., Letter: Acting Secretary of the Interior to Chief Engineer, August 15, 1906.
Reclamation and the Red Man 113
Rights other than land could be held by the Lahontan Valley band. See: Letter: Creel to
Dorrington, November 6, 1919, Truckee River Water Rights Adjudication File, TCID Records. "At the present time an effort is being made to adjudicate water rights on the Truckee River which involved this project through a suit entitles "The U.S. vs. The Orr Ditch Company and others." It occurred to me today that it might not be out of place to inquire of Mr. Withers who is acting for the government in this case, which is now in progress in Reno, as to whether anyone was looking after the interests of the Fallon Indians. He informed me that he was only handling the matter as a whole and had taken up no specific cases." It is possible that Winters Doctrine rights are held by the Lahontan Valley Paiutes, but they were not identified in the Orr Ditch Final Decree implemented in 1944.
18. Telegram: Taylor to Reclamation-Washington, September 14, 1906, File 577-C, BOR-NA. Ibid., Telegram: Newell to Taylor, August 16, 1906.
19. Ibid., Letter: Taylor to Chief Engineer, September 15, 1906.
20. Ibid., Letter: Acting Chief Engineer to Taylor, September 20, 1906.
21. Letter: A. P. Davis to Taylor, September 17, 1906, Indian Allotments File, 19031907, TCID Records.
22. Churchill County Eagle, October 25, 1906, p. 2.
23. Letter: Taylor to Chief Engineer, September 15, 1906, File 557-C, BOR-NA. Churchill Standard, September 1, 1906, p. 2.
24. Memo: Superintendent to Commissioner, December 17, 1925, File 360-Al, BOR-Denver.
25. Letter: Taylor to Director, September 9, 1907, BOR-NA.
26. Letter: Means to Newell, August 12, 1907, Correspondence File, 1908, TCID-UNR.
27. Churchill County Standard, June 4, 1908, p. 1.
28. Ibid., April 22, 1908, p. 1.
29. Ibid., August 12, 1909, p. 4.
30. Letter: Project Engineer to Director, December 3, 1909, Indian Allotments File,
1909-1910, TCID Records.
31. Letter: Abbott to Valentine, May 26, 1910, Record Group 75, "Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs," General Correspondence (Classified Files, Post 1907), File 150, National Archives, 'Washington, D.C., (BIA-NA).
32. Ibid., Statement of Robert Dale, February 14, 1913, File 047.
33. Ibid., Letter: Olberg to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, August 16, 1921, File 341. In 1921, of 5,480 acres then included within the reservation, 1,200 were waterlogged, 1,145 acres were tilled by sixty-two farmers, and only 203 Indians were classed as residents. Ibid., Letter: Supervisor to Peairs, May 15, 1922, File 806. Ibid., Carter to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, May 22, 1922, File 150. Carter recommends closing both agency and reservation in 1924, since it was an obvious failure and would force the Paiutes to enter and compete in white society.
34. Memo: Senior Engineer to Director, February 20, 1917, File 359-B, BOR-Denver.
35. Ibid., Memo: Project Engineer to Chief Engineer, April 27, 1921.
36. Churchill Standard, April 28, 1906, p. 1. Ibid., July 6, 1906, p. 1.
37. Churchill Standard, April 28, 1906, p. 1. Ibid., July 6, 1906, p. 1.
38. Churchill County Standard, June 5, 1912, p. 2.
39. Ibid., July 24, 1912, p. 1. The sheriffs office was urged to remove all Indians from
the streets of Fallon. Ibid., December 4, 1912, p. 2.
40. Letter: Van Voorhis to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, January 17, 1913, General Correspondence (Classified Files, Post 1907), File 162, BIA-NA.
41. Churchill County Eagle, June 21, 1913, p. 4. The annual dance was to continue at Stillwater for three days. Stillwater became the site because "some of the Piutes say the Mexicans made so much trouble for them about Fallon that they do not want to have the dance here." Ibid., June 28, 1913, p. 1. Letter: Van Voorhis to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, July 21, 1913, General Correspondence (Classified Files, Post 1907), File 162, BIA-NA. Fallon Indians repeatedly asked Van Voorhis for protection, but he could not recommend help other than for the
114 John M. Townley
individuals to move to the reservation, which means loss of employment at Fallon.
42. Ibid. Drunken Indians were customarily jailed overnight then released to white ranchers, for whom the Indian worked until money advanced for bail had been returned in kind. Usual daily rate for Indian labor was $1.50 - $2. The chain gang was a measure intended to discourage the Indian presence in Fallon, since the gangs would be employed under the harshest conditions.
43. Churchill County Eagle, January 4, 1913, p. 1. Ibid., April 19, 1913, p. 1. Feliz Andrad received a life term for the murder of Sady Stewart, a Paiute girl thirteen to fourteen years of age, during "drunken debauch."
44. Letter: Van Voorhis to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, May 5, 1913, General Correspondence (Classified Files, Post 1907), File 162, BIA-NA. Ibid., Letter: Van Voorhis to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, July 21, 1913.
45. Ibid., Letter: Supervisor to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, October 6, 1913. Twenty acre tract located in S 1/2, NW 1/4, Section 29, T19N, R29E.
46. Ibid., Letter: Supervisor to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, July 7, 1915. Letter: Asbury to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, March 1, 1915, Toyeh colony children were not admitted to white shcools and could not reach the reservation day school.
47. Ibid., Special Report on the Fallon Agency, November 21, 1916, File 150. Ibid., Letter: Van Voorhis to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, December 28, 1916, File 732.
CREATIVE FOCUS
Buckland Station
and the Buckland Family
Bunny Corkill
She stands alone -- in the shadow of the past, imprisoned by the present and anticipating the future. Though cracked and blistered by the harsh environment of her Nevada desert home, she stands proudly, encased by more than a century of memories.
The north winds that chill her to her very soul are somehow tranquilized by the rhythm of the Carson River waters passing nearby on their way to the thirsty lands below.
At night after the last hoot and howl of the neighborhood critters that live among the huge old cottonwoods have waned, she is left alone with the ghostly sounds from the past. The beat of Fort Churchill's drums can be heard as soldiers march in step; politicians' voices reverberate as they cast the destiny of a new state and county; fiddle and violin music rings from the rafters; the footsteps and joyous laughter of rambunctious children can be heard drifting through the rooms and finally the echo of haunting screams precipitated by a tragic fire, sends chills out into the dark.
Buckland's Station at Weeks, one of the most important historical locations in Nevada, stands today awaiting her final destiny.
* * * * *
Eliza and Margaret Prentiss, ages 19 1/2 and 16, respectively, left Council Bluffs, Iowa, early in April of 1860. The sisters were escaping a wicked stepfather. Eliza had the $90.00 she had saved to help pay her way. Margaret had no money but she had willingly agreed to work her way west. Together the girls drove dairy cattle and did all of the cooking and other odd jobs. Eliza's $90.00 did not pay for riding in the ox-drawn wagon so the girls walked most of the distance. On September 5, 1860, Eliza's 20th birthday, they reached the Carson River after five months on the trail. With only a few coins left they decided to stay on the River and work awhile before continuing the trip to California. Immediately Eliza found a job at the tent hotel established in 1858 by Samuel S. Buckland while Nevada was still a part of the Utah Territory.
Samuel, a native of Lirkersville, Ohio, had arrived in San Francisco, by way of the Isthmus of Panama, on his 24th birthday . . . September 13, 1850. He
115
116 Bunny Corkill
The remaining members of the Buckland family posed for their picture about 1859. From left: Nelson, Eliza, George, Samuel and John. (Nevada Historical Society photograph.)
joined with James 0. Williams of "Williams' Station" notoriety in mining and freighting in California and Nevada. After several lesser ranching adventures, he settled on his own property and established, at the suggestion of the Overland Stage Company, a station where he kept the stock and boarded the company men.
After spending a very severe winter in a tent, from which he merchandised liquor and supplies, Samuel built a good sized log cabin. On December 6, 1860, he would take as his bride, Eliza Ann Prentiss. During the fall and winter of 18591860, he built the first toll bridge across the Carson River which was in service until 1865.
When the County of Churchill was formed in 1861, Buckland's Station was chosen to be the county seat and remained so until 1864 when the seat was moved to LaPlata.
By 1864 the Buckland Ranch, also known as the Toll Ranch, contained 1,680 acres and furnished Fort Churchill and Virginia City residents with meat and dairy products as well as hay, grain and other commodities. Samuel dreamed of the City of Buckland, a 97.02 acre area, one mile below the Fort, near the Carson River, which he had surveyed and platted on April 15, 1862. His dream would never be fulfilled.
After serving the surrounding area for less than eleven years, Fort Churchill was disbanded in 1869. Erected at a cost of $178,000, the Fort's buildings were auctioned in March of 1870. Here, Buckland purchased timbers, doors, window frames, a handsome winding stairway and other useable items for $750. With
Buckland Station 117
these salvaged materials he fashioned a large building to serve as hotel, station,
school and private residence.
The Buckland Station hotel building was 60 feet by 75 feet. The hotel-
home contained 19 rooms. The downstairs area boasted two formal parlors where
weddings, funerals and public meetings could be held. Ascending a grand spiral
staircase, one came to a ballroom, large schoolroom, teacher's quarters and a num-
ber of bedrooms on the second floor. In addition, there was an immense garret
nestled beneath the roof.
Though their business ventures were successful, the Buckland's personal
lives were filled with anguish. Samuel and Eliza were to become the parents of at
least eight children. Only three grew to manhood: George, Frank and Nelson. The
others died before they reached the age of nine. Samuel Theodore died of a heart
ailment . . . ironically, when Eliza took him to a doctor in California she finally
realized her childhood dream of going to the "Golden State." Charles Adelbert was
burned to death by a lighted candle he had taken from a table. Baby Eliza and
Sanford William also share the family plot in the Fort Churchill cemetery.
Eliza's life was one of service and hard work. She would not live to cel-
ebrate her 44th birthday. The stories of her demise vary but all agree that she was
washing her feet in a large crockery bowl when she dropped the pitcher, from
which she was pouring the water, upon her foot. This injury either caused her to
bleed to death at the time of the accident or die shortly thereafter from blood poisoning.
Devastated, Samuel sold the ranch and died at Dayton, Nevada, eleven months later on December 28, 1884. The Reese River Reveille reported, "Samuel Buckland died . . . from softening of the brain. He had been ill ever since the death of his wife."
During the next century the ranch property belonged to many owners. Among these were the Phillips, Towles, Depaolis, and Ghiglias. It was recently purchased by the State of Nevada Park System to be added to the Fort Churchill Park. When funds are available, the incredible old building will be restored and preserved . . . memories, ghosts and all!
(Churchill County Museum & Archives Photo Collection.)
118 Bill Cowee
Spending Time With The Buckland Family
This series of poems was written about the family that developed the Weeks area in central Lyon County. Each poem begins with the poetic inscription from their tombstone in the post cemetery at Fort Churchill and ends with a quatrain in harmony.
Bill Cowee, Poet
Post Cemetery
Fort Churchill, Nevada
1.
SAMUEL SANFORD BUCKLAND
58 Years, 3 Months and 15 Days
Died December 28, 1884
Dear is the spot where our Father sleeps
And sweet the strains the angels pour
But why should we in sorrow weep
He is not lost but gone before.
* * *
History has always recorded the struggle
between man and the virgin land. Stubborn
Carson River bottom land gave me
its native roots, laid the soil plane
enough to hold its precious irrigation.
Those Nevada nights we opened our cook-tent to all travelers for a modest fee and pointed the overflow toward the haystack for a nickel. On a clear night the overflow got the best deal.
But history is about growing, about toll bridges and the spring river that thunders under wood, about raising hay and oats for those that have California and Virginia City gold in their eyes, about the strength of the rails, silver roots of the Carson & Colorado and shipping milk to kids whose parents are sellers of other men's work and the produce of hands.
Buckland Station 119
It is about riding up to the river bluffs,
sitting in a hot saddle and feeling
the stubbornness rising right out of the wild
and into your chest. And it's about vision,
because if you can't see it coming out
of nature's sprawl, it doesn't happen.
Through it all, the Paiutes and the Succesh,
the hard winters of raising men, I do so miss
the fallen children. On the bright nights
when heaven fills with stars, I saddle a horse,
ride up to the post cemetery, walk there
with shadow falling alternately on sand
and marble stone, realize how temporary
it all is. What we planted and nurtured
are the best of us and often bears little
relation to the harvest we intended.
Young men, come again and bring your friends
where our beginnings meet their ends
where angels pour their sweet refrains
among the sage and hay and grains.
2.
CHARLES ADELBERT
Son of E.A. and
S.S. Buckland
Aged
8 Years, 8 Months, 4 Days
He suffered long
But his suffering o'er
He has passed away
Through the golden door
* * *
My chore was to light the candle wicks, to welcome neighbors in finest suits who dance in dresses and polished boots
120 Bill Cowee
in promenade and waltz and kicks.
It wasn't much, a short fall as fall goes
down stairs about a half a flight
with the candle's tumbling light
and the hot wax on night clothes
cotton shirt in a burst, ablaze.
And as the candle in me beamed
I inhaled flame and screamed
down the stairs in a smoking haze.
No more stairs to light the lamps.
No more nights of cold and cramps.
I've had my share of burning fire.
Now I've time for wings and lyre.
6.
DIED
"In Dayton, November 30, infant daughter
of M/M Samuel S. Buckland."
Territorial Enterprise
December 7, 1875
For Eliza Ann's only daughter,
best friend of two days, grey skies
hung light bunting of snow and rain.
She will see none of it now.
A girl so soon delivered of her
mother scarcely notices the fever,
sleeps soundly on an ample breast
and is too soon gone, like her name
spoken, yet never written or recorded. Today, unnamed still, she lies beneath sand moving the way a pick whispered her shallow depression deep enough.
Buckland Station 121
"Infant . . ." cut in the cracked marble fallen prone above her wooden chest, ". . . God's Kingdom" the remaining prayer spoken from the crumbling face,
invocations left alternately sand filled and resurrected by old Churchill winds.
7.
ELIZA ANN
beloved wife of
S.S.Buckland
43 years, 4 months and 2 days
Shed not for her the bitter tear
Nor give the heart to vain regret
Tis but the casket that lies here
The gem that filled it sparkles yet.
* * *
Early on, I wasn't sure I'd make it
with the sunup to sundown cooking,
washing clothes in outdoor kettles
and the lye soap turning my hands
tough as hide. But there wasn't time
for much hand holding with Sam.
He always thought he was making history.
For a woman, history is food set at
table and the peace to sit down to eat,
protection from elements and hostile men,
the luxury of time to hug the children
a hot tub and a chance to wash my hair.
But it don't mean I can't string fence
or drive mule better than most men, either.
It grew easier when our home was built,
white and two stories high, up where afternoon
breezes could play through the curtains.
What grand dinners we put on there, ranchers
122 Bill Cowee
coming from as far away as Elko, and soon as we could put away the tables, out came the fiddle and we danced until morning.
Every day after the children and I cooled
down the milk, we put the cans in the buckboard
to load it on the train. One morning, an ornery
cuss of an engineer left early, so I turned
the team into the field, handed the reins to
a visiting niece, stood up on the buckboard
seat and waved my apron at the damned man
till he stopped and took on the milk cans.
What's right is right, even for the railroad.
I wish I'd had good fortune with children, but with everyone passing through, I suspect disease and diphtheria are bound to happen. And the fire . . . and the flood . . . and then my foot swelling with blood poisoning.
To the Catholic sisters, my last request, a black shroud with white pleated breast a home to lay roots in my heart to hold my peace when kin depart.
Samuel Buckland's tombstone as it appeared in the Ft. Churchill Cemetery in 1990. (William C. Davis photograph.)
The Japanese Quarter Horse
Tony Testolin
Tony Testolin was born in Fallon, Nevada, on February 28, 1918, to Antonio and Italia Binotto Testolin. His Italian immigrant parents homesteaded in Lahontan Valley and frugally raised their family on the Newlands Project. Tony and Beulah Fowler were married in 1943 and with their daughters, Irene and Rachel, continued in the farming and ranching tradition locally and in the Reese River Valley of Lander County. Upon their retirement, the Testolins built a new home on their Fallon property where Tony writes poetry and carves windmills and animals when he is not gardening or fishing. In his poetry, Tony uses his subtle humor and his own experiences to record everyday life.
The Japanese Quarter Horse
Our methods of punching cows we thought we should change So we bought a three wheeler so we could ride the range
This three wheeler we did not want to abuse
Many jobs on the ranch a three wheeler we could use
I would use it to check out my trap line
It was fast and didn't take much time
The shortest way home I would always seek For this way I had to cross Tierney Creek
Off of this steep bank I had to go
Not fast neither was I going slow
123
124 Tony Testolin
Through the ice the front wheel went and into the mud
We turned a cartwheel and I landed face down in the water
with a thud
On the bottom I was that three wheeler on top
I got out from under, the motor kept running it never did stop
I had better hurry to the house that is my best bet
If I stay here I will freeze to death
When I got to the house all wet and a sorry looking sight I will not tell Beulah of my plight
Many time I was thrown far and wide
A bronco is very much easier to ride
At my misfortunes Eric was always full of laughter
He used it one day you better believe it was a disaster
He must of been on a furious and wild ride
When he got back in many places he was short of his hide
Many a spill we did on that machine take
But never a bone of our body did we break
Wear and tear on that machine wore out most every part It was so worn even the motor refused to start
On that machine we must have taken pity
A four wheeler we bought the first time we came to the city
All four wheels got traction at the same time
Amazing the steep hills we could now climb
Got to the house and Beulah had this to say
The horses at the homestead knocked down the gate and got
away
The day is about gone and it is getting very late
I went around a corner I cannot stop, I wonder who shut this
barbed wire gate
The Japanese Quarter Horse 125
My time on this earth must be spent
End over end that machine and I went
Again I was on the bottom machine on top
The motor is still going it did not stop
I got that machine on its feet and off of me
I am sure that my wreck no one did see
When I got back that evening it was very late
Beulah's sister Yvette said "I see you no longer stop to open a gate"
Riding the four wheeler is a lot of fun of course
But there never will be a machine made to replace a good saddle horse
SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE
A 10,000 Year Old Inhabitant
of Churchill County
Richard R. Burky
Who would have guessed we were dating one of the oldest known skeletons in North America?
Recently the Radiocarbon Laboratory at the University of California, Riverside had undertaken a study to evaluate the use of hair for radiocarbon dating. This involved comparing the dates obtained from hair and bone of the same individual. The purpose was to compare dating materials and dating techniques, not to look for old inhabitants of the continent. It came as quite a surprise when both the hair and bone of one of the individuals tested produced consistent dates on both items, of well over 9,000 "radiocarbon years." This meant that the individual was more than 10,000 actual calendar years old!'
Evidence for human habitation in the New World 10,000 years ago is not new to archaeologists. There is substantial evidence of human habitation in North America between 11,000 and 12,000 years ago. This is based on finding human artifacts in contexts that can be confidently dated by radiocarbon technique. Classic areas with well-dated artifacts from this early time period occur in southern Arizona, western Texas, eastern New Mexico, Colorado and elsewhere. Suggested evidence for considerably earlier human activity in the New World has been presented by some archaeologists, but it is not generally accepted by the majority of archaeologists.
Finding human artifacts older than 10,000 years is not common, but neither would it be considered rare. However, finding human skeletal material that old is indeed rare. Published dated skeletal material indicates there are only two or three older skeletons in the New World. One is a burial from the Anzick site in Montana dated 10,680 ±50 BP. Another human bone from the Mostin site in California has been dated 10,470 ±490 BP (Taylor et al 1985). A third skeleton from Midland, Texas was dated 11,600 ±800 BP but the dating method used (uranium series) may be open to some question of accuracy and validity on this type of material.
You can understand our excitement over finding such an old skeleton. Where did this skeleton come from? It is very important for an archaeologist to understand the context of any important find. The context can reveal many additional facts that cannot be discerned from the item itself. For example, if there were evidence of human activity in the strata below the burial it could extend the time frame of
126
Spirit Cave 127
occupation in the area. If cultural objects were found of an age equivalent to the burial, a better understanding of the life of the time could be obtained. It was, therefore, very important for us to find the exact location and setting for such a significant burial. Finding that location, however, proved to be more difficult than expected
Radiocarbon Dating: What it is and How it Works
We are often told an artifact or relic is known to be a certain age because it has been radiocarbon dated Can a piece of wood, bone or charcoal really reveal its age? What is this method and how does it work?
Atoms of the element carbon exist in three different weights. These are designated, in ascending order of mass as 12C,13C and 14C. Chemically all three isotopes behave essentially the same. They all become a key part of the organic compounds that make up all living things. 12C is the most abundant form comprising nearly 99% of all carbon. 13C is a little over 1% and 14C occurs in only minuscule quantities. 12C and 13C are stable atoms lasting indefinitely. 14C is not stable. It is radioactive and self-destructs at a statistically determined rate (Half of a given quantity of 14C will be lost in approximately 5,700 years). This uniform self-destruction with time provides the basis for an age dating technique.
But why hasn't all the 14C on earth been lost by this self-destructive process? Because it is continually being created out of nitrogen atoms in the upper atmosphere by nuclear reactions caused by cosmic rays. Once created it soon reacts with oxygen to form carbon dioxide (CO). This CO2 is mixed with the other CO2 in the atmosphere and is used by plants to produce carbon compounds that become part of the tissue of all living things, including the plants themselves. Since cosmic ray intensity and thus the production of 14C is relatively stable, as is its radioactive decay, a balanced ratio of 14C, 12C and 13C is maintained in the atmosphere.
When plants produce carbon compounds from the CO2 in the atmosphere this balanced ratio between 14C, 12C and 13C is maintained in those compounds. As these compounds are used to build and renew tissue of living organisms the ratio continues to be maintained Only after the organism dies and quits adding new tissue does the ratio begin to change, due to the radioactive self-destruction of the 14C atoms. They turn back into nitrogen atoms and thus can no longer chemically bond as before. The radioactive atoms of carbon disappear from the remains of the deceased organism at a known and predictable rate.
Since the original amount of 14C in the tissue is known, the rate of the destruction of 14C is known, and the amount of 14C that remains in the tissue can be measured, the amount of time since the death of the organism can be calculated These are the basic principles upon which radiocarbon dating is based There are many complicating technicalities and questions that must be considered for any particular dating situation, but those need not be examined here.
128 Richard R. Burky
Spirit Cave Where Are You?
Data records that came with the samples indicated that the individual had been discovered in "Spirit Cave." But where was Spirit Cave? It had been assigned an archaeological site number that indicated it was in Nevada, and more specifically, somewhere in Churchill County.
Donald Tuohy and Amy Dansie of the Nevada State Museum in Carson City were a great help in pointing us in the right direction. Spirit Cave was in the Lahontan Mountains southeast of Fallon in the vicinity of Hidden Cave and Fish Cave. This was a major step in the right direction. Dr. Tuohy also seemed to remember that Spirit Cave was the cave that irate miners blew up with dynamite because they were unhappy that it had been "fenced off." This added another significant bit of information.
Churchill County Museum employees in Fallon were most helpful in supplying copies of newspaper articles and the 1940 preliminary report of the excavation of Spirit Cave. From these we learned that Spirit Cave had been excavated in the summer of 1940 for the Nevada State Park Commission by archaeologists S. M. Wheeler and Georgia N. Wheeler.
A few pieces of the puzzle were added when we found the final excavation report on Spirit Cave (Wheeler and Wheeler 1969). However, in this report the authors recorded two facts involving the cave location:
1. It was a rock shelter facing west (Paragraph 2, p. 73).
2. Fish Cave was a mile north of Spirit Cave (Paragraph 2, p.74).
We found David Hurst Thomas' The Archaeology of Hidden Cave, Nevada, another good source of information. Two maps in Thomas' book (pp. 62 and 396) actually plotted Spirit Cave. The map location was apparently assigned from Wheeler's written description in the final excavation report. It faced west and was about one mile south of Fish Cave. A personal visit to this area, however, had failed to reveal anything like the description of Spirit Cave at the location plotted on the map. This was the first indication that locating Spirit Cave would be harder than we thought.
A little later Amy Dansie sent us a plot map of a mining claim that we recorded under the name "Kayo." The significance of this mining claim wasn't realized until we read the following explanation by Thomas:
Wheeler devised another ingenious strategy to protect
Grimes Point sites. During his excavations, he persuaded
several individuals to file mining claims on the sand, gravel,
and guano deposits inside Hidden Cave and other important
caves in the area. A Location Notice, signed by eight Fallon
residents and witnessed by S. M Wheeler was filed June 1,
1940 claiming 11 caves as the "El Vera Placer Mining Claim."
Spirit Cave 129
• A similar procedure was followed for the "Kayo Placer Mine." to protect excavations at nearby Spirit Cave.. . (Thomas 1985:52).
Now, at least, the mining claim made sense. Within the claim boundary six caves were identified by number. The names of two of the caves were penciled in by hand. One was Fish Cave, another nearby was Spirit Cave. Spirit Cave was referred to as cave #20 in the preliminary excavation report and it was noted as #20 on the mining claim. Fish Cave's location was not in doubt. It's clearly plotted on government topographic maps. There is even a road right up to it. Its relationship to Spirit Cave was very clearly shown on the mining claim.
There were three major problems. First, the "Spirit Cave" plot on the mining claim and that on Thomas' maps were about a mile apart. Second, while the Thomas site would have faced west, the cave on the mining plot faced north. Third, the mining claim plot site was only several hundred feet from Fish Cave, not the mile stated by the excavator.
A second trip was made to the area to examine the possible sites. Again, the area plotted on the Thomas map failed to give any indication of a cave of the type described. The area near Fish Cave produced more tangible results. At the site plotted as cave #20, Spirit Cave, were the exploded remains of what must have been Spirit Cave. While there was no sign that the area had been literally fenced off, the miners probably realized that the mining claim was only a front to protect archaeological materials. I would surmise that this "fraud" angered them and they blew up the cave out of resentment. Unfortunately, they may have destroyed a very important archaeological site in the process.
The best conclusion seems to be that this was indeed the site of Spirit Cave. What remains an enigma is how could, or why did, the excavators publish such misleading information about the orientation and location of the site? It doesn't seem to have been done on purpose to protect the site because they state that the site was completely excavated (Wheeler 1940:5, Wheeler and Wheeler 1969:75).
The general area of Spirit Cave, as well as its two possible specific locations, are shown on the map in Figure 1. Figure 2 illustrates what is the actual Spirit Cave site and its relationship to Fish Cave. Figure 3 shows the former cave opening, taken from the east looking toward the west. It also shows the destruction of the site.
130 Richard R. Burky
Figure 1
Spirit Cave 131
Figure 2. Fish Cave is the large opening in the center right of the photo while Spirit Cave remains are in the upper left. (Richard Burky photograph.)
Figure 3. The actual cave site as it appears from the north looking south over what had been the shores of ancient Lake Lahontan. (Richard Burky photograph.)
132 Richard R. Burky
Back to The 10,000 Year Old "Pre-Fallonite"
The burial was described by the Wheelers. The interior of the cave was dry and well protected from the elements because of its location and orientation. The body lay on its right side, with knees in a semi-flexed position on a fur blanket. The upper part of the body was wrapped in a twined mat which was sewn together around the head. Another similar mat was wrapped around the rest of the body. A coarser mat of tule (reeds) covered the entire body. The upper part of the body had mummified. When first discovered the tuft of remaining hair was said to be black, but it turned reddish when exposed to light for a short time. Clothing consisted of leather moccasins and a fiber breechcloth. The body was identified as that of a young adult male by a Dr. Sawyer of Fallon. There were no other burial goods. Bones of several cremated individuals had been buried in the cave much later than the original burial (Wheeler and Wheeler 1969).
At the time of its excavation, the burial was considered to be about 2,000 years old, based on the style of mats that had been used. The latest radiocarbon dates of 10,000 years were a surprise to everybody. We have yet to discover if this burial or its context holds additional secrets about life in western Nevada 10,000 years ago. Perhaps now that its age has been determined a more concerted effort will be made to examine both the burial and its context in more detail.
Is there a chance that all three radiocarbon dates thus far obtained are wrong? To test this possibility further dating tests are being made on the tule mat materials in which the burial was wrapped. Also plans are being considered to obtain additional dates on the bone. For the time being however, it certainly looks as if some of the oldest human remains in the New World have come from this small, blown up cave in the Lahontan Mountains just a few miles southeast of Fallon.2
How do we know that radiocarbon dating really works?
Perhaps the simplest and best example to show the method actually works is the dating of bristlecone pine wood. We all know how trees add a growth ring each growing season. When a tree is cut down, we can count the growth rings to determine how old it is. If the tree has 87 growth rings we know it lived through 87 growth seasons. In nearly all situations a growth season is equivalent to one year. We can say with relative confidence that the tree is 87 years old
The bristlecone pine tree is one of the oldest known living things. A number of living trees are three to four thousand years old We know this by counting their growth rings. To test the validity of the radiocarbon dating method wood from bristle cone pine trunks was dated by counting the rings. The wood of known age was then dated by the radiocarbon method The results showed that for the last 2,000 years the radiocarbon dates were within ±200 years of the actual date. By matching the tree rings of living bristlecone pine with dead trees, a tree ring, or dendrochronological record, was extended back beyond 7,000 years. When 7,000 year old wood was dated the date obtained was approximately 800 years too young.
The reason for this deviation from true dates is caused by long term variations in the production of radiocarbon in the atmosphere. The amount changes slightly continued on next page . . .
Spirit Cave 133
over long periods of time. Because of this, radiocarbon dates are consistently off a given amount in one direction for any given time period Since the deviation from reality for a given time period is known, the dates obtained can be adjusted to give a more reasonable estimate of true age. The radiocarbon dating method, though not perfect, is reasonably accurate.
Any specific radiocarbon date is subject to a number of uncertainties that must be evaluated carefully. As a dating method, however, radiocarbon does work. (More detailed information on the radiocarbon dating technique can be found in Taylor 198 7) .
Three hair samples produced radiocarbon dates of 9360 ±60 BP, 9450 ±60 BP and 9350 ±70 BP. The bone produced a date of 9430 ±60 BP (Taylor et al. 1995). For technical reasons these dates are reported as "radiocarbon years." A radiocarbon year is not directly equivalent to a calendar year and BP is not literally "before present" but before 1950. When converted or "calibrated" to calendar years, this gives a true age of well over 10,000 years!
2 Author's note: We have been informed since the writing of this article that three more dates have been obtained for this burial. Two dates obtained from the outer tule mat were 9410 ±60 and 9460 ±60. A date from the inner woven mat was 9430 ±60. A date from the inner woven mat was 9430 ±70. These dates further support the age determined for the burial.
NOTES
The Fallon Standard (August 14), 1940 Skeleton Discovered Near Hidden Cave Believed Important Scientific Find.
Taylor, R.E. Radiocarbon Dating. (Academic Press, 1987) Orlando, Florida.
Taylor, R.E., P.E. Hare, C.A. Prior, D.L. Kirner, L. Wan and R. Burky 1995 Radiocarbon Dating of Biochemically Characterized Hair. In press. Radiocarbon.
Taylor, R.E., L.A. Payen, C.A. Prior, P.J. Slota, Jr., R. Gillespie, J.A.J. Gowlett, R.E.B. Hedges, A.J.T. Jull, T.H. Zabel, D.J. Donahue and R. Berger. Major Revisions in the Pleistocene Age Assignments for North American Human Skeletons by '4C Accelerator Mass Spectrometry: None Older Than 11,000 '4C Years BP. American Antiquity 50:136-140, 1985.
Thomas, D.H. (editor) The Archaeology of Hidden Cave, Nevada. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, V 61. (New York, 1985).
Wheeler, S.M. and G.N. Wheeler Cave Burials near Fallon, Churchill County, Nevada. In Miscellaneous Papers on Nevada Archaeology 1-8, edited by D.L. Rendall and D.R. Touhy, pp. 7078. Anthropological Papers Number 14, (The Nevada State Museum, Carson City, 1969).
Wheeler, S.M. Preliminary Report Archaeological Field Work June 6 to November 18, 1940. (An unpublished report of the Nevada State Park Commission dated November 21, 1940. Copy obtained from the Churchill County Museum. Fallon.)
CONTRIBUTORS
Velio Alberto "Al" Bronzini is a native of California. Retired from a career in home furnishings, he and Mary, his wife of 40 years, are spending their retirement years fishing, traveling, working on family genealogy and enjoying their grandchildren.
Richard R. Burky has been a student of geology, paleontology and archaeology for more years than he cares to remember. He is currently completing a Ph.D. program in anthropology at the University of California, Riverside. His research centers on radiocarbon dating small quantities of protein found in numerous ancient materials.
Bill Cowee is an accountant by vocation and enjoys writing poetry and short stories as an avocation. He has served as poetry editor on the Bristlecone and as codirector of the Western Mountain Writer's Conference, and is a founding member of the Ash Canyon Poets. Five of his poems were recently anthologized in Desert Wood, an anthology of Nevada poets published by the University of Nevada Press.
Judy Pritchard Lawrence Dial is a former Fallon resident now residing in Sacramento. She has graciously allowed us to reprint her article which was published in the July 21, 1976 issue of the Lahontan Valley News.
Marcia Lawrence Ernst, a Fallon native and instructor at Western Nevada Community College, provided the museum with letters written by her grandparents, Charles and Eva Lawrence.
Nora Marlene Jesch, a Califronia native, is a member of a many-generation Churchill County family. She is presently employed as an office manager and will soon receive an M.A. in public history from Cal State at Fullerton.
134
135
Volkmar Konig, a resident ofNorderstedt, Germany, visited Fallon while on a trip across America doing family research and left a copy of his great uncle's letter.
Michon Mackedon is an English instructor at Western Nevada Community College where she was honored as the 1996 Instructor of the Year. She holds a B.A. degree in history and a M.A. degree in English, both from the University of Nevada.
John Marean, a native of Fallon, presently resides in Blairmore, Alberta, Canada. Several generations of his family have contributed to the betterment of life in Lahontan Valley.
Karen McNary presently serves as the Education Curator at the Churchill County Museum and has added a new perspective to the curriculum through her fascinating "Trips into the Past" and her knowledge of fibers. Karen has lived in the west for most of her life, moving to Fallon in 1993. She has a B.A. in Art and Ecology with extensive upper division studies in biology. Karen's interest in bees came about through self defense, as her husband is a beekeeper.
Janet Taylor Schmidt is the museum's new darkroom technician. Massachusetts-born but raised in Maine, she spent 6 years in the U.S. Navy. She was stationed in Fallon where she met her husband Keith. She has a B.S. degree in resource management and works as a volunteer for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Nevada State Division of Wildlife and the Nature Conservancy.
Tony Testolin, a Fallon native, is enjoying his well-earned retirement by writing poetry, carving wood, gardening and fishing.
John M. Townley (1932-1994) was a native of Oklahoma. A columnist and author, he devoted much of his adulthood to preserving the history of his adopted state. Among his best known works are Tough Little Town on the Truckee, Turn This Water Into Gold, The Overland Trail and Alfalfa Country.
Kyle K. Wyatt has been the Curator of History for the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City, Nevada, since 1990. He has previously been employed as a railroad history and museum consultant and worked at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento when it was being developed in 1977. He is currently finishing his Ph.D. in the History of Technology through the University of California at Davis.
CHURCHILL COUNTY
MUSEUM & ARCHIVES
1050 South Maine Street
Fallon, NV 89406
Phone (702) 423-3677
Fax (702) 423-3662
MUSEUM STAFF
Jane Pieplow, Director/Curator
Bunny Corkill, Research Curator
Karen McNary, Curator of Education
Janet Schmidt, Photo Technician
Cathy Stern, Registrar
Paulie Alles, Hostess
Cindy Loper, Hostess
Georgine Scheuermann, Hostess
Bob Walker, Host
IN FOCUS STAFF
Michon Mackedon, Editor
Jane Pieplow, Editor
Janet Bertaud, Assistant Editor
Bunny Corkill, Assistant Editor
PRODUCTION CREDITS 1995-1996 ISSUE
Production Photography: Janet Bertaud and Janet Schmidt
Typesetting: Laser Printer and PageMaker software
Production: Braun-Brumfield, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan
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 it 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.

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