In Focus Volume 11 No 1

In Focus Volume 11 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

1997-1998

Michon Mackendon
Marianne Peterson
Jane Pieplow
Eric Seiple
Ethel Hall Weaver
Sally Springmeyer Zanjani
Hilda Cadet Zaugg

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 POERY
THE CHURCHILL COUNTY MUSEUM ASSOCIATION, FALLON, NEVADA
1997-1998
CHURCHILL COUNTY
MUSEUM ASSOCIATION, INC.
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Mike Berney, Chairman
Diane Lowery, Vice Chairman
Cathy Stern, Secretary
Myrl Nygren, Treasurer
Pat Boden, Trustee
Gus Forbus, Trustee
Virgil Getto, Trustee
Lynne Hartung, Trustee
Bebe Ann Mills, Trustee
Glen Perazzo, Trustee
Glenda Price, Trustee
Lynn Pearce, 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. 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:
Jr. Member (21 and under) 15.00 Wagonmaster $ 50.00 -
Seniors (60 +) 20.00 Pioneer/Business 75.00 +
Individual 25.00 Homesteader $ 100.00 +
Family 30.00
Membership application and dues should be sent to the Director, Churchill County Museum & Archives, 1050 South Maine Street, Fallon, NV 89406. Copies of In Focus are also sold through the MUSEUM MERCANTILE shop, located in the Museum, by mail, and at several retail outlets.
Copyright Churchill County Museum Association, Inc., 1998. 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: An atomic bomb explosion lights Fallon's pre-dawn sky on the 6th of February, 1951. This postcard includes a hand written note on the back that says "I saw it from Fallon. " See related story on page 11. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
CHURCHILL COUNTY
IN FOCUS
ANNUAL JOURNAL OF THE CHURCHILL COUNTY MUSEUM ASSOCIATION
VOLUME #11 1997-1998 NUMBER #1
Contents
SOFT FOCUS
The Editors' Comments Michon Mackedon and Jane Pieplow 1
SHADOW CATCHER
Laura Mills: Photographer Pam Nelson 3
SHARP FOCUS
Southern Sunrise; Northern Exposure Michon Mackedon 11
All-American Family Houses: Fallon's Architectural Styles Jane Pieplow 36
Rawhide, Yesterday and Today Yianna and Doug Batchelor 57
PIONEER PORTRAITS
Anna Rechel: The Last Prospector in Rawhide Sally Zanjani 78
The Weaver and Hall Families Ethel Hall Weaver and Jim Scolari 94
The Basque People Hilda (Cadet) Zaugg 105
Who Are the Basques? Anita (Rubianes) and Tony Erquiaga 110
CREATIVE FOCUS
An Ecosystem Called Stillwater: The End and the Beginning
Marianne Peterson 121
SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE
Ancients in Nevada Eric Seiple 130
Ray Alcorn Remembers/Historical Geology Ray Alcorn 135
CONTRIBUTORS 140
SOFT FOCUS
The Editor's Comments
Michon Mackedon
Mark Twain would have us believe that the deserts of Nevada are alive with windstorms but dead to any culture except that of the rattlesnake and the ruffian. If we really believed that, and I don't think Twain really did, then there would be no reason to explore the story of our valley in as many ways as we have. Our story is everywhere the story of cultures: miners, farmers, professionals, pilots; Basques, Italians, Irishmen and every mix imaginable; rapscallions and millionaires (not mutually exclusive), poets and priests. It can be told in many styles, including banal poetry and historical cliche, but fresh voices continue to rise from the ashes of the "already told" and our story is given new life by the individual imprint, the personal touch. It is the aim of In Focus to seek out and print these variations on the themes which make up the life and times of our place. In this issue, the Nevada tale of prospecting and mining, rags to riches to reclamation, grows in texture and richness with two articles: "Rawhide, Yesterday and Today" and "Anna Rechel: The Last Prospector in Rawhide." One local treasure, the Stillwater Marsh, is rendered fresh by a newcomer to the area in her personal view of "An Ecosystem Called Stillwater." The portraits of several local families are infused with color and detail in articles about the Basques in Churchill County and the Weaver and Hill families.
In this issue we celebrate our local intellectual heritage and our place within the broader patterns of a national culture as well. We include works by two of the valley's best-known naturalists, Ray Alcorn and Laura Mills, both who, within their lifetimes, achieved national recognition. We also include a reprint of an article written by Eric Seiple for a national magazine, Rock and Gem. My own article, "Southern Sunrise, Northern Exposure" and that of my co-editor Jane, "All-American Family Houses, "different as they are in style and subject, are both efforts to place local events, reactions or trends within a framework of national politics and ideas.
The authors of this edition are a mix of young, old, in-between, deceased. They form an almost gender-balanced group of ten females and six males. We offer two articles co-written by husband/wife teams. Thus the way has been paved for you, whatever profile you fit, to add your individual voice to the story of this land and its people.
1
2
Jane Pieplow
Work on last year's In Focus produced a pleasant surprise -- too many good articles to run in one issue. To the amazement of this year's editorial staff, the same thing has happened again! The committee then decided whose articles should wait for the next issue; authors were very understanding and the cuts were made.
On another note, it was exciting for the In Focus committee to look down this year's contributors' list and see many new author's names. This is exactly what we want to see as this publication is meant to include stories and articles from all of you, our many readers. As the In Focus committee meets to coordinate Volume 12 in September, we'll be waiting for a story from you!
SHADOW CATCHER Laura Ethel Mills
Pam Nelson
Laura Ethel Mills was born March 3, 1883, in Elk River, Minnesota. She was the eldest of seven children born to John and Anna (Bailey) Mills. At a young age, Laura's mother, an avid botanist and taxidermist, introduced her daughter to the wonders of nature and to a variety of interests. Laura's uncle, Vernon Bailey, chief field naturalist for the United States government, was also instrumental in piquing her interest in the great outdoors.
In 1906, upon returning to Minnesota from a journey to the West, Uncle Vernon brought exciting news of a reclamation project under construction near Fallon, Nevada. This project, along with its promise of land, attracted the Mills family to Nevada, and a homestead was settled in 1908 in Churchill County, Nevada. Those that made the trek to Nevada included the immediate Mills children, their parents and grandparents, and several other relatives. This large extended family worked together, learned and played together and enjoyed a variety of interests, including sewing, gardening, horsemanship, hunting, fishing, camping and music. Laura's life was to be greatly influenced by the wide variety of activities she shared with her family during these early years.
In 1912, Laura graduated from Churchill County High School and then, passing stringent examinations from the Nevada State Department of Education, she obtained her teaching certificate. Her teaching career began at Tobar Station, a railroad stop on the flats of Elko County. This first teaching job, in such a desolate area of eastern Nevada, was accomplished in a one room schoolhouse with nine students. The rugged mountains surrounding the flats and the changing desert view of beautiful wildflowers provided the inspiration that would change Laura's life forever as here Laura became a photographer. The wide open spaces, hay ranches, and the flowering fields at Clover Valley became an ideal setting for Laura to branch out as a hunter, naturalist, hiker, fisherman and, most of all, photographer.
Laura shared her enthusiasm throughout her months at Tobar with her students. Whether she was leading her students on numerous field trips or accompanying them on pinenut hunting excursions, exploring these wonders of nature became as much a part of Laura's life as breath itself.
3
4 Pam Nelson
At the end of that first year, with her family heavy on her mind, Laura returned home to Churchill County and signed a contract to teach there. Laura taught at Union School, at Fort Churchill and then at Oats Park until her retirement in 1953. Laura's immense interest in the outdoors flourished, and she brought her love of nature into her classroom. Field trips were common. With camera in hand
she took her students to Virginia City, Pyramid Lake and to Sand Mountain to explore petroglyphs, ghost towns, rock formations and the wonders of the desert. Studying the flora and fauna, wildflower identification, bugs and Native Americans, her many students experienced and shared Laura's love of nature.
Laura's desire to teach did not end in the classroom. After school she could be found instructing 4-Hers in photography and entomology, or, for over thirty years, leading groups of Girl Scouts on outings. For Laura, Sunday wasn't necessarily a day of rest as she taught Sunday School and attended the Epworth Methodist Church for fifty-eight years, also singing in the church choir and playing the organ.
As one of twenty students to be admitted to the select Yosemite Field School, she took part in a six week, on-site study of the natural history of that area taught by professors of the University of California at Berkeley. Several summers were spent with this group and eventually led to her national recognition as an authority on natural history. Up until Laura's death in 1973, she continued to study and devote the majority of her time to hobbies and youth activities.
In appreciation of her devotion to her community, the youth and churches of Churchill County, Laura Mills Memorial Park, which includes an area of native plants, was dedicated in her memory by a group of her friends in 1976.
And Laura continues to teach even today. As an accomplished photographer, Laura recorded and documented much of Churchill County's history, centering on children, adults and their various activities. Many of these photographs are on file and available to the public in the Laura E. Mills collection at the Churchill County Museum.
Laura E. Mills
Laura Ethel Mills 5
"Absorbed" was the title Laura gave to this photograph she submitted to the Photographic Pictorial Division Picture of the Month. She took many pictures of children, acting as portrait photographer for the schools for many years. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
These girls in Laura's Oats Park class appear to be lined up for some event. They apparently escaped what her earlier students went through in their classes. Laura would call them to order, line them up single file and walk them to class by beating out their walking rhythm on a small drum. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
6 Pam Nelson
Sunday school children and adults celebrate a special event at the Epworth Methodist Church. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
As a Girl Scout leader for over thirty years, Laura had plenty of time to photograph troop events. Here Brownies spend the day at Oats Park. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
Laura Ethel Mills 7
Children and adults pose in one of the tufa caves near the Hidden Cave area on one of Laura's natural history outings. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
Surely Laura introduced the people attending the field trip pictured above to the area's petroglyphs. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
8 Pam Nelson
These two photographs, of Sand Mountain (above) and a desert landscape (below) demonstrate Laura's ability as a landscape photographer. She advised her students to wait until the clouds were just right in the sky before taking a picture. She often said to them, "If we could whistle up a cloud, the canyon would make an excellent picture." (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
Laura Ethel Mills 9
An avid gardener, Laura hybridized Irises and other flowers, often taking pictures of the results of her experiments. Every spring, Laura's classes would spend weeks painting and drawing irises. She taught her students to use long, flowing strokes with their brushes and she admonished those who ruined their brushes by rubbing and scrubbing them into their watercolor paper. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
Laura captured the drama of current events as well. Here the road gapes open as a result of the 1954 earthquake. The smudgepot along the crack in the road was lighted to warn drivers to beware. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
10 Pam Nelson
Naturalist, hunter, taxidermist and camper, Laura took this photograph of bow hunting enthusiasts on a campout. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
This photograph of Wuzzie George "Winnowing Hoopui (Buck Berries)," received an honorable mention from the Photographic Society of America's Picture of the Month contest. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
SHARP FOCUS
Southern Sunrise; Northern Exposure
Michon Mackedon
Introduction
In the history of America's nuclear age, the eyes of the nuclear barons have turned, over and over again, to the deserts of Nevada. There is something about the Great Basin that tempts designers of our nuclear future to appropriate its deserts and mountains for their own dark purposes: dumps, atomic bombing ranges, testing sites. A scant three years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Great Basin shows up in plans for the further development of the atomic bomb. In a search to locate a national proving ground, the army nominated a fifty mile wide corridor of land, located immediately to the east of Fallon's city limits and running two hundred miles to the
southeast. Two years after that, the deserts of southern Nevada near Las Vegas received the official nomination as the "site." Later, in the early sixties, Fallon was again searched out by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) as a potential nuclear test site; this time, it was chosen to host a 13 kiloton nuclear underground test. (A kiloton is equivalent to the explosive force of 1000 tons of TNT. The explosion at Hiroshima was approximately 13 kilotons.) That test, code-named Project Shoal, took place on October 26, 1963, in an area in the Sand Springs Range about twenty three miles to the east of the city limits, placing Fallon on the world's map of nuclear test sites.')
Many of Fallon's neighboring communities have also been coveted by the nuclear industry for test sites or potential sites. Five years after Fallon's Shoal event, in
11
Hood's mushroom cloud begins to form above Yucca Flats, Friday, July 5, 1957. Bushes and other ground cover were ignited by the intense heat. Their flames can be seen in the lower lefthand corner of the photograph.
12 Michon Mackedon
1968, an area of land south of Eureka, Nevada, close to the eastern edge of the strip of land surveyed in the search for a national proving ground, was used to detonate an 800 kiloton nuclear device in a test code-named Project Faultless. The area around Faultless was designated on state maps for several years as the "Central Nevada Test Site," and there is little doubt that at one time the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) had planned to move its larger tests away from Las Vegas to the region of the Faultless detonation.
In the late 1970s, another area in northern Nevada, a part of the Black Rock desert west of Winnemucca, was seriously considered as a site for nuclear "cratering" experiments. The search for the "cratering" site, known as Project Gondola, was conducted in secrecy. It actually represented more of a threat to Fallon than did the detonation of Project Shoal. This is because, by design, "cratering" experiments release radioactivity into the atmosphere, whereas underground tests like Shoal and Faultless are designed to contain radioactive gasses and debris in subsurface cavities.
So the images of secret searches, desert places, and nuclear tests come together in the chronicles of America's nuclear age. Those chronicles have left a legacy to the people of the state, a mixture of loss of innocence and discovery of their own "invisibility." For Nevadans, the initial pride in hosting the atomic tests gave way to the grim realization that experiments at the test site -- brutal preparations for enemy genocide -- were ironically taking American's lives in the process. When questions arose, it became clear the nuclear establishment viewed Nevada "sites" in terms of their disposability and the people next to them in terms of their demographic insignificance and their political impotence. The legacy is also one of increasing fear and diminishing faith. The fear of health consequences has increased as fallout secrets have been declassified. Faith in government has diminished in equal proportion.
Some of the questions which might arise from these observations are: "Why were lands in Nevada looked to for nuclear testing? For that matter, why Nevada, why Las Vegas?" "Given later fallout problems, were other locations better suited to nuclear testing?" "How did knowledge of fallout problems arise in the climate of secrecy?" "What evidence is there that Nevadans were treated as 'invisible' citizens?" In an effort to address these questions, the first part of this article will describe the 1948 search for a national test site and the role Fallon played in the process. The second part will examine some of the circumstances in which the problem of fallout became known to Nevadans and others. The third part will describe the fallout on Fallon and other northern Nevada communities from one specific atomic testing series conducted during the summer of 1957, under the code-name, Operation Plumbbob and will examine some of the official responses offered to the questions and concerns expressed by the citizens of the state.
Southern Sunrise; Northern Exposure 13
Project Nutmeg
The story of how the deserts of the Nevada Great Basin were searched out, described, and made to fit the criteria for a nuclear testing grounds is told in a set of declassified documents relating to a top secret government project code-named "Project Nutmeg."
The history of atomic testing prior to the Nutmeg search can be briefly summarized. Beginning in 1945, both the military and the United States Congress were engaged in a debate over how, where, and if their new weapon, the atomic bomb, should be tested. At the time, the bomb had been exploded on American soil only once, at Alamogordo, New Mexico, in a test code-named Trinity, fired on July 16, 1945, in preparation for the subsequent bombing of Japan. After the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 and the surrender of Japan, President Truman and his staff recognized that atomic bombs were unlike any other weapon the world had ever known. In two terrifying balls of fire, "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" had wiped out over 100,000 people. It was clear that atomic research and testing called for extraordinary planning. Some leaders called for civilian oversight of the weapon; others believed it belonged in military hands. As a compromise, in late 1946, Congress created the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), a civilian regulatory body but one linked to the military through a complex system of military advisory boards and committees.
While the legislation creating the AEC was still moving through Congress, the military began testing atomic weapons. The early testing was conducted far from the cities and shores of America -- on two small Pacific Ocean atolls, Bikini and Enewetak, in the U.S.-controlled Marshall Islands. In truth, during those first two years following the end of World War II, no one -- not the President, the military, or the scientific community -- seriously considered testing atomic bombs within the boundaries of the United States. The horrifying images of bombed out Hiroshima and Nagasaki had formed the stuff of many an American's nightmare, rendering quite small the chances of testing atomic bombs on native soil.
But the picture soon changed, and radically so. Soviet aggression coupled with the threat of a war with Korea created new urgencies within the atomic weapons community. Meanwhile, atomic testing in the Marshall Islands was becoming less and less satisfactory. One changing factor was that, because of the gathering political storms, safe sea routes for passage of atomic weapons and military personnel were no longer a surety. Another problem rested in the logistics involved in meeting the military demands for more tests, conducted closer together, considering that such tests were to be conducted in locations halfway around the world from the weapons design laboratories and bomb assembly plants. In fact, early in 1948, the scientists at the major weapons design facility in Los Alamos, New Mexico, had begun to privately lobby for a test site closer to their design facilities. Specifically, the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL) expressed a desire for a "backyard" test area for "relatively small devices." (3)
14 Michon Mackedon
Reacting to the unstable international situation and the private concerns of the weapons community, the Atomic Energy Commission sought a report from the Army Special Weapons Project (ASWP) on the feasibility of locating a test site within the continental United States. In 1949, the ASWP submitted their report, "Project Nutmeg," back to the AEC. The "Nutmeg" papers are a fascinating study in the politics of nuclear site selection, for they reveal a process in which stated safety criteria for site selection gradually gave way to unstated sociological and political criteria. It was the latter factors, which in the end, served to swing the choice of one site over another. The site was chosen because its populations were politically powerless and its landscape was judged expendable, not because it was the safest area in terms of fallout risks.
The "Project Nutmeg" report begins by announcing its intention to solve the problem of atomic test site selection by using the sole criterion of safety. It reads, "the solution to the problem (of site selection) will be answered as to how, when, and where these tests can be conducted within the continental United States without physical or economic detriment to the population. The political, security, and logistic aspects of such tests will be dealt with only incidentally, if at all." (4> Wind directions and fallout patterns are discussed next, the information based on knowledge gained from testing on the Marshall Islands. What is the conclusion? That weapons testing could be most safely conducted in coastal regions of the Eastern United States! "The climatological summaries for the humid Southeast of North America ... show periodic intervals of extremely favorable winds and weather for removing the waste products of nuclear explosions from the inhabited areas."(5) Several military meterorologists had agreed with this assessment.(6) Furthermore, the report specifically claims the advantages of an eastern coastal site over an interior one. If a site within the interior of the continent were chosen, the reports notes, "a certain amount of radioactive waste will fall out of the atmosphere to the eastward of continental sites following atomic tests." (7
Following this tidy safety assessment, the "Project Nutmeg" report launches a series of contradictory statements and reversals, all of which eventually led the AEC to justify selecting a test site in the interior deserts of the west rather than the coastal regions of the east. First, the idea that one site might be radiologically better than another is qualified with a statement that almost any area might be made safe by proper engineering, that is by paving ground zero to control the debris sucked into the atomic cloud to form "dirty" fallout. The report reads "Tests conducted within the continent of the United States at properly engineered test sites, under proper meteorological conditions, will result in no harm to population, economy or indus-try."(8) Next, the report contradicts its opening statement that safety should supersede public relations and logistics. "The decision," we read on page 42, "to hold future tests within the continent will devolve, not upon the physical feasibility of conducting the tests without harm, but upon the elements of public relations, public opinion, logistics, and security." The logic, seemingly, is this: the stated goal of the
Southern Sunrise; Northern Exposure 15
Project was to keep safety at the forefront of the search. But since testing could be safely conducted almost anywhere, other factors might be considered. For example, public perceptions and demographics might be examined in making a test site selection. The East Coast, notes the report, is "urban" and "densely settled." Therefore, the committee might look to "the West or Southwest," where it is implied, fewer folks might mean better acceptance of (or less resistance to) backyard atomic testing.
The descriptions of the West and its people were apparently written by men who had never lived there. For example, we learn that in the western deserts, "there are areas covering thousands of square miles having no permanent population." These western lands are further described as having, in contrast to the eastern lands, "population distribution . . . of the oasis type, dependent upon a water supply." (9> The images evoke scenes of cowboy sheiks on camels, clustered around rapidly shrinking watering holes. Nomads scratching out a meager subsistence from camp to camp. Then, the report more specifically pinpoints the part of the West to which it has most likely been referring to all along. "Between the 20-inch rainfall lines of the East and of the West lies an extended area in the Great Basin, having a density of less than two people per square mile, only broken by islands of density clustered around mining and irrigated interests."0°) A linguist studying metaphor would find the choice of the term "island" quite interesting given the context of the report. Weren't the authors seeking to replace the "islands" of Bikini and Enewetak with exploitable areas closer to home?
After delivering this astonishing description of the West and its dwellers, the "Project Nutmeg" report does not specifically recommend the selection of any one site, although it reiterates that the Eastern coastline between Cape Hatteras and Cape Fear (in North Carolina) looks like "a suitable area from which to choose sites." We also learn that since New Mexico is already "conditioned" to nuclear events, it too might make a fine location for a test site. (The reference is to the fact that the 1945 "Trinity" test had taken place at Alamogordo, New Mexico.)(")
After accepting the Project Nutmeg report, the AEC, with "guidance" from the report, continued its search for the ideal test site. They commissioned survey work and further meteorological studies to aid project directors in identifying precise locations. By the early months of 1950, five sites had been identified:
1) Alamogordo-White Sands Guided missile Range in New Mexico (the Trinity Site)
2) Dugway Proving Ground-Wendover Bombing Range, on the Nevada/Utah border (where B-52 bombers had practiced dropping blank orange colored atomic "bombs" called "pumpkins" in preparation for the bombing of Hiroshima.)
3) Las Vegas-Tonopah Bombing and Gunnery Range, Nevada
4) Area in west-central Nevada, about fifty miles wide and extending from Fallon to Eureka.
5) Pamlico Sound-Camp Lejeune area, in North Carolina.02)
16 Michon Mackedon
What is of interest at this stage of site selection is that the only East Coast area, Pamlico Sound, is on the selection list, and it's at the bottom. Three of the five are in Nevada (in the case of Dugway, close enough for the bombs to brush the state line.) During AEC meetings held during the summer of 1950, Pamlico Sound disappeared from the list altogether, as did Fallon. Lands associated with both potential sites were not entirely within the government domain, and it was feared that condemnation might be lengthy and messy. In the case of the Fallon site, it was noted that "one large mine property, the Mt. Hopi Zinc and Lead Mine, is located in the area. In addition, it is reported that the area contains a large part of the best stock range in the state."(") In regard to the North Carolina site, it was determined that several permanent residents would have to be evacuated from Pamlico Sound during testing, so it, too, was dropped from the list.
It is perhaps not surprising that by December 1950, the Las Vegas site had reached the top of the list. The chain of documents recording the precise steps by which Las Vegas eclipses Alamogordo is not complete. Some documents have been lost; others may still be classified. However, what is clear is that in the beginning of the "Nutmeg" process, the scientists at Los Alamos had asked for a "backyard" test site. The Los Alamos Lab had specifically stated that a site nearby would be helpful in "accelerating the pace of the weapons development program."(14) The nominated site closest to Los Alamos was Alamogordo/White Sands.
Early on in the search, the military also seems to have favored Alamogordo/ White Sands. A memorandum submitted for the record on July 17, 1950 by Colonel Schlatter, USAF, Division of Military Application noted what appears to be a general advocacy of the New Mexico site: The document says that "Lt. Colonel Harris favors White Sands" and that "all sites appear to have both advantages and disadvantages which, when balanced out, indicate that perhaps the best basis for selection would be the standard, business approach of logistics and utilities. White Sands certainly enjoys an edge over other sites on the basis of proximity to Los Alamos."0
Proximity may have been the problem. Alamogordo may have been too close a "backyard." There is some evidence that the Los Alamos scientific community prompted the decision to choose the Las Vegas site over the one too close to home. A document entitled "Desirability of an Area in the Las Vegas Bombing Range to be Used as a Continental Proving Ground for Atomic Weapons" was issued by the Los Alamos J-Division Laboratory on November 22, 1950. It referred to radiological (fallout) problems encountered in New Mexico following the Trinity shot.06)
In any case, by the time the chairman opened the December 13, 1950 meeting of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Tonopah/Las Vegas site, now at the top of the list, was quickly approved. Even so, the minutes of that same meeting make clear that the new site was not to be considered as a primary test site. According to the minutes, "in considering the need for an additional test site two fundamental uses are seen. The first is that of a site supplemental to Eniwetok [sic] and Amchitka (Alaska) for some purposes . . . The second is that of an emergency alternate to
Southern Sunrise; Northern Exposure 17
overseas sites.(17) (The underlining is part of the document). This initial intent on the part of the military and the AEC to use the Nevada Site in "emergency" situations only is further borne out by the presence of the word "emergency" in the title of a document prepared by the engineering firm of Holmes and Narver in 1950, "Report Covering the Selection of Proposed Emergency Proving Ground for the United States Atomic Energy Commission." (18) The "emergency" was quickly justified by the invasion of North Korean troops into South Korean territory. On January, 21, 1951, a month after the AEC meeting, in a test code-named Able, a two kiloton atomic bomb was airdropped to the floor of the Nevada desert at the Las Vegas-Tonopah Gunnery Range, marking the first of five atomic tests conducted that spring and the first of over one thousand tests eventually conducted there. Nevada's Congressional delegation and state officials were as surprised as were the residents of Nevada by the new role suddenly handed to the state. Pat McCarran, Nevada's senior Senator, found out about the planned use of his state's Las Vegas-Tonopah Gunnery Range just days before the news was released to the national press.
Bomb Watching
The Able test gave birth to a new cultural phenomenon in Nevada and adjacent states: the ritual of bomb watching. The brilliant flash of the bomb, in ideal weather conditions, was visible to those living within a geographic area known as the bomb arc. The arc stretched for hundreds of miles, from south of Tijuana, Mexico, to north of Portland, Oregon, and from the western California Coast to the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. It included Boise, Idaho; San Diego, California; San Francisco, California; Medford, Oregon; Salt Lake City, Utah, and almost all of Ne-vada.(09) Families living within the viewing area frequently set their alarm clocks on the eve of an announced test, rising at four or so in the morning to their dark homes and the predawn quiet. They would assume their customary positions for watching the atomic show: seated behind a picture window or standing out on the front porch. Some took to the family car, still in pajamas, and parked somewhere out of the line of trees or buildings, eyes turned toward the direction of the test site. While the coffee perked, or the engines idled, the senses strained until there appeared a singular moment of blinding light, one which left no doubt about the strangeness and power of the atomic bomb.
The appeal of watching the bomb go off was great enough that the New York Times published an article in its travel section of June 9, 1957 giving advice to tourists headed to Vegas to catch a glimpse of an atomic test. The article begins, "This is the best time in history for the non-ancient but none the less honorable pastime of atom-bomb watching." Tourists were cautioned to set their cameras at the smallest aperture possible to capture the best shots -- and to drive carefully. "A worse danger than the light is that in the excitement of the moment, people get careless in their driving."(20)
People living in Fallon didn't have to vacation to see the bombs. The dramatic predawn spectacle was clearly visible to residents of Fallon, Reno, and Carson City,
18 Michon Mackedon
many of whom never missed a scheduled test. For example, John Koontz, the Nevada Secretary of State during the above-ground testing years, noted in his diary the dates and times of the atomic shots, which he rose faithfully from his bed in Carson City to view.(21) In Fallon, bomb watching drew an enthusiastic following. Local newspapers from the early 50's contain many references to residents who rose early to view the light on the southern horizon. A remarkable photograph of the bomb's early light, as seen through Churchill County trees in 1954, is printed on the cover of this journal.
Despite the dramatic quality of the atomic shows, 100 in all, most people living in Nevada, at least those living outside the corridor immediately "downwind" of the test site, felt quite safe. The official message from the Atomic Energy Commission delivered in a special publication addressed to residents of the state was, "Your potential exposure to these effects will be low . . . Every test detonation in Nevada is carefully evaluated as to your safety before it is included in a schedule. Every phase of the operation is likewise studied from the safety viewpoint." (22)
The illusion of safety was shattered, however, in the summer of 1957. During a series of twenty four nuclear detonations and six safety experiments conducted under the code-name Operation Plumbbob, radioactive clouds were detected north and west of the Test Site, shaking the confidence of those who had considered themselves safe from fallout. People in Fallon, Reno and other northern Nevada communities began to worry in earnest about the effects of above ground testing. In letters to their Congressmen and to the Atomic Energy Commission, Nevadans expressed growing doubts about the safety of atmospheric testing and, in some cases, documented their fears with evidence of health effects, even death. The responses they received from Atomic Energy Commission officials and others in high places brushed off their fears, downplayed the dangers of radioactivity and justified the risks of atomic testing in the name of national security and patriotism.
Growing Fears Over Fallout
The reactions of northern Nevadans to Operation Plumbbob were foreshadowed by two series of atmospheric weapons tests at the Nevada Test Site which had raised questions about safety in populations immediately to the east of the site. Their questions had not been handled in the most truthful and open manner by the Atomic Energy Commission, and a public relations crisis was developing. In particular, by the time that the Plumbbob series was in the planning stages, AEC officials had been in a three year battle with those who would later be called the "downwinders," residents of southeastern Nevada and western Utah who claimed that the atomic weapons shots conducted at the test site were sending harmful radioactive clouds over their ranches, dairies, schools and homes.
A shot code-named Harry, one of the tests in a spring 1953 series code-named Operation Upshot-Knothole, had proven particularly troublesome for the government because so many residents of St. George, Utah, claimed that their health
Southern Sunrise; Northern Exposure 19
problems could be traced to fallout from "Dirty Harry." Harry, a fifteen kiloton bomb dropped from a 300-foot steel tower at 5:04 A.M. on the morning of May 19, 1953, was the ninth shot in the Operation Upshot-Knothole series and had been named, according to test site folklore, for musician Harry James. The detonation exploded into a fireball that was visible for an unusually long period of time, seventeen seconds.(23) Then the cloud boiled skyward, forming the signature mushroom shape. One congressman viewing the blast voiced his awe of the spectacle: "Today's atomic blast made the sunrise a candle by comparison . . . We were not prepared for what seemed to us an eighth wonder of the world." (24)
For residents of St. George, however, Harry brought a different kind of awe, the kind resembling terror. Winds at the test site blew from the west and northwest. At the 16,000 foot altitude, winds soared to 44 miles per hour; toward the top of the mushroom at 40,000 feet, violent gusts were recorded at 91 miles per hour.(25) Meteorologists quickly realized that there were going to be off-site fallout problems. Yet, as the radioactive cloud headed toward St George, newscasters read the familiar phrases of the AEC press release, "there is no danger."
Never in the past, though, had the folks in St. George seen "such an ugly, thick darkness overhead." (26) Resident Loran Bruhn recalled that it seemed "a giant reddish-black hand had obliterated the sun." Her husband, president of the local Dixie College, called her with a warning, "Don't go out, and keep the children in. The cloud is coming our way." (27) Another resident, Agatha Mannering, failed to get a warning. She was weeding her garden when the cloud from Harry passed over. Richard Miller, in his book Under the Cloud describes what happened next:
Toward sundown, she began to feel sick; her throat and lungs began to burn and her scalp began to itch. By morning, she felt as though her skin were on fire, like being stung by red ants. Upon visiting the doctor, she was told that it was only fallout, that there was nothing to worry about, and that 'it will go away.'. . .(28)
Fortunately, if one can find fortune in such a calamity, the cloud was a dry one. Rain falling through a nuclear cloud will create conditions known as a "rainout," increasing fallout and leaving behind radioactive puddles of water. The effects of rainouts had been detailed in a secret report commissioned in 1952 by the AEC, entitled "Project Gabriel." According to the calculations produced as a part of the Gabriel study, "some scientists later estimated that if St. George, Utah, had been visited by a thunderstorm while the Harry cloud passed over, the area would have become a hot spot so intense that half the population of the town would have been killed." (29)
Even without rain, estimates place fallout doses of Iodine 131 in the St. George area as being up to 500 times higher than the level then "permitted" by the AEC as a safe dose.(3°)
20 Michon Mackedon
In response to the St. George fallout, on May 21 Utah Congressman Robert R. Stringfellow asked that testing be halted at the Nevada Test Site. His answer came four days later on May 25th, when, during a test code-named Grable (for Betty Grable, the wife of Harry James for whom the Harry test had been named), an atomic weapon was fired from a cannon into the air with an explosive yield of 15 kilotons. On June 4 the 11th bomb in the series was dropped from a plane onto the Nevada desert. The June 4 shot, code-named Climax, provided a dramatic climax indeed to the 1953 Upshot Knothole tests. Its yield was 61 kilotons, twice that of Harry, making it the largest test exploded to that date at the Nevada Test Site. The atomic flash from Climax was seen in both Lethbridge, Ontario and Los Barriales, Mexico, towns separated by 2250 miles.
Over the next three years, evidence mounted that the Upshot-Knothole series had left a trail of sickness and death. When the spring 1954 lambing season arrived in Cedar City, Utah, ewes began giving birth to lambs with "missing legs or strange potbellies." The misshapen lambs attempted to stand, "then fell over dead." In the Cedar City area, ranchers "stacked dead lambs into piles." Over four thousand sheep and lambs were lost that year, but Atomic Energy Commission veterinarians stuck to their diagnosis: malnutrition.(31)
Even more serious was the plight of the Bardoli family of Nye County, Nevada. A Nevada topographical map will show the location of the Bardoli Ranch, nestled in a hollow where the Quinn Canyon Range meets the Grant Range to the east of Railroad Valley. The ranch sits about eighty miles from the most frequently used testing areas for atmospheric shots at NTS, Yucca Flat and Jackass Flat. During the early fifties, Martha and Alfred Bardoli were almost always up before dawn, busy running their ranching operation and raising their children. So they knew that the predawn sky to the south periodically lit up with the brilliant atomic flash and then darkened as ominous black clouds blew in. Martha Bardoli also knew almost from the beginning of testing that something was not right: "Our cows got white spots on them and cancer eyes. At school, children broke out with rashes from the radiation."(2) In 1955, seven year old Martin "Butch" Bardoli came home from school one day with a fever and was feeling unusually fatigued. He was diagnosed with stem cell leukemia, almost certainly a result of exposure to radiation. Butch died in 1956.
Despite the anguish felt behind closed doors in places like St. George, Cedar City and Tonopah, the controversy over fallout only briefly slowed testing at Nevada Test Site. During 1954, testing was moved back to Enewetak and Bikini, where the first hydrogen, or thermonuclear, bomb was exploded on February 28, 1954. In the spring of 1955, testing resumed at NTS for the Operation Teapot series consisting of fourteen atmospheric tests. Then, in 1956, testing was once more moved to the Marshall Islands, where seventeen weapons were exploded during the spring and summer.
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Privately, however, between the Department of Defense (DOD) and some members of the Atomic Energy Commission, debate raged over whether to risk more public outrage by further conducting atmospheric tests in Nevada or whether to, instead, move all testing to the Pacific Islands. From the outset of nuclear testing, the Defense Department and the AEC had often been at odds over issues involving public health and safety. The AEC was a civilian organization, somewhat sensitive to politics and public response. The Department of Defense, on the other hand, answered only to the Secretary of Defense and the President. Thus it was distanced from direct public response and driven by the military schedules and priorities. The points of view of the two organizations had clashed before, for example in 1951 when they differed over the policies for radiological protection for soldiers witnessing the atomic tests. The DOD wanted to shorten the minimum distance for positioning of soldiers next to ground zero during a detonation. AEC had set a seven mile minimum for its own personnel and did not want to see soldiers any closer than that.(32) The Army Special Weapons Project officer kept pressing for shorter distances, citing "a tactically unrealistic distance of seven miles."(33) The military argument prevailed and, in the first of many abdications of responsibility, AEC gave the military officers the discretion to determine placement of soldiers during the tests. During the Tumbler-Snapper test series of 1952, they were placed less than three miles from ground zero. Squeezing the limits even tighter, the army during the 1953 "Nancy" shot, placed nine volunteers inside five-foot deep trenches just 2500 yards (less than a mile and a half) from the center of the blast.
Meanwhile in the debate over continental testing, members of the AEC themselves held split opinions, with Chairman Lewis Strauss expressing the opinion that all tests "except little ones" should be conducted in the Pacific, and Commissioners Libby and Murray supporting the military's position that such a move would impede atomic testing and threaten national security. The transcript of a 1955 AEC Commission meeting reveals how the arguments lined up:
Commissioner W.F. Libby: "I think this will set the weapons program back
a lot to go to the Pacific."
Commissioner Strauss: "We ought to take the two large kiloton . . . de
vices, load them on a ship and go out to Eniwetok [sic] and put them on a raft and set them off"
Commissioner Libby: . . . people have got to learn to live with the facts
of life, and part of the facts of life are fallout."
Commissioner Strauss "it is certainly all right, they say, if you don't live
next door to it."
Commissioner Murray: "This Pacific idea . . . you can talk all you want, Lewis, put them (military personnel) on a ship and get them out in thirty or sixty days, it will not be done . . .We must not let anything interfere with this series of tests -- nothing. "(34)
22 Michon Mackedon
And nothing did. The "biggest, longest, and most controversial" series of tests in the history of atomic testing began in the spring of 1957 at the Nevada Test Site.
Operation Plumbbob
Each individual test in the Plumbbob Operation bore its own code-name, as had Harry, Grable, Climax, etc. in the Upshot-Knothole Operation. In the case of Plumbbob, tests names were clues to their design origin. The tests designed by Los Alamos Science Labs (LASL) were code-named for deceased scientists, among them Boltzmann, Coulomb, Kepler, Owens, Pascal, Stokes, Doppler, Galileo, Franklin, Laplace, Fizeau, and Morgan. Tests designed at California Radiation Laboratory, now known as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, were given names of mountain ranges: Diablo, Smoky, Wheeler, Whitney, Rainier, and Charleston. Three small safety experiments were named for planets, Saturn, Venus, and Uranus.(35)
Ambitious goals were set for Operation Plumbbob. Both the Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of Defense laid out detailed plans for each of the tests. The AEC planned to test weapons for their effects and for their reliability in the nuclear stockpile -- in other words, to gauge the performance and consistency of atomic weapons designs. AEC scientists also planned to study whether fallout could be reduced by suspending devices from huge hot air balloons rather than dropping them from airplanes or detonating them from atop high steel towers. In previous tower tests, the metal structures had been vaporized, adding drops of liquid metal to the fallout clouds and increasing the number of radioactive precipitates that fell to the ground. After Upshot-Knothole and Teapot tower tests, Utah residents had often described a metallic taste in their mouths as the cloud passed overhead -- a result of this "metal vapor." It was hoped that the use of giant balloons, outfitted with cabs to contain the bombs before detonation, would reduce ensuing fallout. To this end, thirteen tests in the series were designed as balloon bursts.
There is also evidence that the sixth shot in the series, a shot code-named Hood, was actually designed as an experiment with thermonuclear, or hydrogen, explosives, even though exploding such a bomb violated AEC's public policies. According to their own announcements, atmospheric testing of thermonuclear bombs was specifically reserved for the Pacific Islands test sites because such large yields would create potentially massive fallout over the continental United States.
The AEC had good reason to exercise caution. In 1954, a hydrogen explosion, Bravo, detonated on Bikini Atoll, had produced unexpectedly heavy fallout in the Pacific. As readings of radiation detection equipment went off the charts, air force weathermen were evacuated by plane from nearby islands; two days following the blast, 82 Marshallese were evacuated from Rongelap Atoll; three days after the blast 157 Marshallese were airlifted from Utirik Atoll. A Japanese fishing vessel, the Lucky Dragon, had sailed, unbeknownst to the crew, into waters ninety miles from ground zero, where fallout precipitated to the decks of the fishing boat in the form of a light grey ash. All twenty three crewmen were exposed to large doses of
Southern Sunrise; Northern Exposure 23
radiation. The tuna on board was heavily contaminated, and after word reached the press, the bottom dropped out of the tuna market for several months. One crew member immediately showed signs of acute radiation poisoning and died within weeks of the Bravo test. The evacuated islands were left unfit for habitation. (Nine years later the first thyroid cancers appeared in Rongelap children. Of those children under twelve when Bravo exploded, nineteen of twenty-two later developed thyroid tumors.)
The Bravo incident had
placed an unwanted spotlight on the lethal fallout sure to accompany the detonation of thermonuclear, or hydrogen, bombs. Before Plumbbob, explosive yields from the atomic weapons tested above ground at NTS had peaked at the 61 kiloton Climax shot, but the yields of thermonuclear bombs were, by their design, much greater. Bravo, for example, had exploded with a massive 15 megaton (1500 kiloton or 150,000 tons of TNT) yield. Such a shot in the Nevada desert would surely contaminate a considerable part of the state and neighboring states.
Perhaps in answer to speculation about thermonuclear explosions in the forthcoming Nevada tests, The AEC issued a press release well in advance of the commencement of Plumbbob assuring the public that the Operation would consist of "low- yield tests." Specifically the press release states that "tests of high yield devices are not conducted in Nevada." (36) Nonetheless, material declassified in recent years has led to a belief that Hood, a 80 kiloton blast, the largest of the Nevada above ground tests, was not a fission (atomic) device, but rather a "two stage thermonuclear device," or fission/fusion bomb, technically a hydrogen device.(37)
In addition to the weapons testing objectives set by the Atomic Energy Commission for the Plumbbob series, goals were set by the Department of Defense, which viewed the Operation as an opportunity to practice troop maneuvers near ground zero and test the reactions of soldiers under atomic stress. Members of all the armed services were involved. The Marine Corps used the Hood shot to practice a helicopter airlift from near ground zero. More than 2,000 Marines from Camp Pendleton, California and El Toro, California assembled at Camp Desert Rock to participate in the atomic training. The Air Force Special Weapons Center crewmen used the tests for practicing cloud sampling and cloud tracking. Other Air Force and
Personnel begin a series of experiments to determine if anchored balloons may be used as detonation platforms for nuclear tests.
24 Michon Mackedon
Navy crewmen took part in projects designed to "indoctrinate personnel, practice photographic reconnaissance, and test indirect bomb damage assessment equipment and techniques." Fourteen hundred Army troops from Fort Lewis, Washington prepared defensive positions north and west of Smoky ground zero for inspection, after the shot. Various aircraft and ground vehicles from different military branches were exposed to detonations for assessment of blast and radiation damage. For example, tests were designed to determine such things as "in-flight structural response of the HSS-1 Helicopter to a Nuclear Detonation," and "Effects of Nuclear Detonation on Nike Hercules (missile). At shots Hood, Smoky, and Galileo, the Army planned maneuvers to develop "tactics applicable to the nuclear battlefield." One specific activity during the Galileo test called for troops "immediately after witnessing" the shot to perform a rifle disassembly/assembly to test their reactions under extreme stress. In another effort to assess psychological reactions to nuclear stress, sixteen volunteer soldiers were squeezed into four small bomb shelters, four men to each shelter. This test was also used to collect comparative data on bomb shelter designs. Two of the shelters were built to specifications of a French design, the other two were based on a German plan. To accomplish the various military objectives, over 6,000 troops were stationed at Camp Desert Rock, a bivouac assembled adjacent to the test site.(38)
Civil Defense Studies were also conducted during the Plumbbob tests. Reading the reports generated by these civil defense studies is an unsettling experience. Scenarios which some might call "unimaginable" were not only "imagined" but designed, staged, weighed, measured, and evaluated. Stage sets were constructed to replicate scenes in a potential nuclear war. In one area, card tables were set up on the sandy desert floor to hold the kind of items found on grocery store shelves and in home pantries. One table held a sampling of goods in bulk containers: coffee in burlap (open weave), oatmeal in cardboard; flour in "multiwall" paper. Another set of tables held retail packages, like those found in the typical American pantry of refrigerator: milk in cardboard cartons; raisin bran, shredded wheat and Special"K" packaged in their familiar cardboard boxes with waxed paper overwrap; onion soup in a paper and aluminum foil envelope; peanut butter in a glass jar with screw cap. Raw agricultural products were spread over a third cluster of tables: corn still in the husk, potatoes, beans. After the explosion, each item was tested for contamination, and studies compared the protection offered the various foods by their manufactured and/or natural packages.(39)
Test site crews built several structures to evaluate construction methods and materials against the crushing pressures of a nuclear blast. Positioned at various distances from ground zero were an underground parking garage, airplane hangers, a "man-made forest of pine trees planted in concrete blocks," and low partitioned structures resembling motels.(40 In another carefully detailed set, a mannequin family of four was seated at the dining room table of comfortable two story wood frame home.
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Dummies were stationed in various positions around ground zero, representing, for example, a man standing on a street facing the direction of an atomic explosion, a man standing on a street facing away from an explosion, a man seated while the bomb explodes, and so on. According to descriptive reports, they were placed at various distances from ground zero to "determine their velocity and distance of translation . . . caused by blast winds." After the blast "the coordinates of the final position with respect to the initial position were recorded." (41)
The scenes were made as realistic as possible. In one test, for example, pigs were dressed in flight jackets and army uniforms, some treated for flammability; others not. Some pigs were left bare. Different brands of sunscreens and lotions were applied to patches of the porcine skin to test their effectiveness as protection from atomic "sunburn." To heighten realism in tests using dummies, an "anthropomorphic" dummy was commissioned, described as the "50 percentile" design -- in other words, the average American guy. He stood 5 ft. 9 in. and weighed 165 pounds (169 dressed).(42) Some of the dummies were dressed in coveralls which had been stamped with a sequence of numbers from shoulder to toe; lower right arm of the coverall was stamped with l's; lower left was stamped with 2's; right half of torso was stamped with 5's; left half of torso, 6's, down to the 45's on the lower left leg (below the knee and 46's on the lower right leg. The idea was to facilitate post blast identification of "body" parts.
Bomb shelters were loaded with various "biological specimens." The purpose was to subject them to violent air blast pressures, thermal radiation and fallout. A Civil defense fallout shelter test report entitled Project 33.1 "Blast Biology" gives details of the tests. Blast and fallout effects were tested on a variety of animals, including 24 dogs, 8 pigs, 50 rabbits, 100 guinea pigs, and 380 mice, which were placed in or around fallout shelters. Inside one fallout shelter, dogs were individually harnessed; the harnesses were snapped to restraining lines which were then fastened to the walls or ceiling of the shelter. Reports describe the care taken to design the experiments so that the effect of the blast on each dog's position could be assessed. "Also a steel aircraft cable leash was attached to the harness by a ventral snap, with sufficient slack so to interfere with the possible trajectory of the animal, but to ensure his recovery subsequent to any survivable translation." (The word "translation" is used throughout the report documents to describe any movement of a live object caused by the violence of the blast). The dogs were carefully conditioned to accept their fate. The report tells us that before the experiments "all the dogs were trained to the harness and the muzzle and to being restrained as in the shelters in order that they would become accustomed to the procedure." They were numbered consecutively "in a counterclockwise direction" according to their placement in the shelter, K-1, K-2, K-3, and so on. Mice, rabbits and guinea pigs were likewise numbered and placed in cages within the shelter. Two of the pigs were placed in less sheltered positions, on the fallout shelter ramp, to test thermal effects as well as blast damage.(43)
26 Michon Mackedon
All in all 74 separate programs were designed to test the many effects of the Plumbbob nuclear detonations. With civil defense, military and AEC preparations completed, the first test in the series, Project Boltzmann, got underway. On the morning of May 28, 1957, at 4:55 a.m., a 12 kiloton device (about the same size as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima) was exploded from atop a 500 foot tower. Dust kicked up by the explosion surrounded the rising mushroom stem and cloud so that in pictures taken at the test site immediately after the blast the cloud appears to form a dumbbell shape.
The fireball rose 29,000 feet, high enough to be seen for many miles in all directions. In Sacramento, observers reported that the bomb looked "like an ungloved fist." As planned, fallout fell to the card tables stacked with foodstuffs. Interestingly, of the 18 types of commercial packaging tested, only the cloth and burlap proved totally inadequate in preventing fallout contamination. The waxed paper covering over the cereals proved stubborn in retaining fallout particles, but could be wiped clean with a cloth. (Instructions on what to do with the cloth are missing in the reports). The contents inside the waxed linings remained quite wholesome. The news was not so good for raw agricultural products; many crops would be inedible following an atomic attack. Fruits, soya beans, and cotton seed remained contaminated after repeated washing, but the corn, once the protective husks were removed, was edible, and potatoes, after being scrubbed and peeled, were free of contamination. The wheat after milling was cleansed of "a considerable amount of contamination," but apparently not all.(44)
There were mixed results with the biological specimens as well. The two pigs outside the shelter were killed instantly, as were two guinea pigs inside the shelters. Dog K-I was found severely injured lying in the middle of the shelter. Two mice in cage two were dead upon recovery, but "were no doubt killed by dog K-I that struck wall 2 and crushed portions of the mouse cage." The post-shot report contains a photograph taken of wall 2 in order to document that "blood and excrement can be seen on the wall . . ." The report further informs us of the fate of the survivors. "All animals were sacrificed for post-mortem studies except dogs K-8 and K-14 and 110 mice," these saved for studies of radiation effects. ". . . each animal was thoroughly examined for evidence of blast damage using conventional autopsy techniques." So ironically the dogs, guinea pigs, and mice fortunate enough to survive the initial blast were "sacrificed" so that their organs might be analyzed for blast and fallout effects. (45)
The fate of the dummies was visually more startling. One upright dummy was translated 255.7 ft away from the blast and 43.7 ft to the right. A prone dummy landed 124 ft. from his original station. The carefully numbered coveralls did not survive the blast.(46)
The mannequin family dressed for dinner were "just cut to shreds by the glass from the windows blowing in. Shards of glass were stuck along the opposite end of the dining room." (47)
Southern Sunrise; Northern Exposure 27
Meanwhile, early risers in Fallon, Reno, and Carson City had a good view of the bright flash to the south. An AEC public relations campaign had reached their local newspapers early in the year, calmly assuring them that "all tests are carefully monitored" and that "when weather reports are not favorable, we will postpone the shot."(47)
The term "favorable weather" should always be qualified with a clause answering the question "for whom?" The weather was indeed favorable for St. George and regions south of the site.
The Boltzmann cloud rose from the desert floor and headed west, toward the California border, then straight north toward Reno. In the words of one Las Vegas merchant viewing the cloud, it had "goofed and taken a walk." (48) The walk the cloud took brought it first over the western and northern reaches of Nevada, then into California, where it drifted over Quincy on its way toward Portland, Oregon. In Quincy, an amateur prospector watched in amazement as his Geiger counter began clicking away as it rested on his kitchen table.(49)
In Reno, rain began to fall on the morning of May 28, producing "rainout" conditions. Although the AEC must have been aware of the potentially dangerous situation developing in Reno, it was a private citizen, or several of them, who discovered the fallout and brought it to public attention. The Reno Evening Gazette of May 29th, 1957 gives credit for the discovery of fallout in Reno to T.D. Webster, a private electronics engineer.(50) A radiologist at Washoe Medical Center, L.J. Sanders, M.D. also began to note anomalies on his radiation survey meters and to make the link to the Plumbbob test in the south. He noted that it "was anywhere from three to six times above the acceptable tolerance level . . . for the first 48 hour period." Since measuring radiation was part of his profession Dr. Sanders knew what he was talking about.
K8 and K9 await their fate during one of the test blasts strapped to the solid baffle and shelf on wall 4 of shelter 8001.
28 Michon Mackedon
In a letter of June 3, 1957 to Nevada Senator Alan Bible, Sanders took the Atomic Energy Commission to task, stating, "The local newspapers quoted reassuring phrases from the A.E.C. to the effect that the . . . intensity of fallout was negligible and without danger and that the half-life of the radiation sources was calculated to be 12 hours. This last statement is erroneous." (51
Dr. Sanders was concerned not only about the specific Boltzmann fallout, but also about the cumulative effects of radiation. His letter to Senator Bible spoke to a public responsibility which reached beyond the immediate situation: ". . . we must consider that all radiation received by this population is on an accumulative basis; and if we are to be periodically exposed to this much radiation, the accumulation can mount up to levels, which in the light of our present medical knowledge, becomes quite significant and hazardous. Actually, no one knows at exactly what dose level significant genetic changes and malignant tumors may suddenly appear in the hu-man."(52)
Echoing the concerns of Dr. Sanders was University of Nevada Political Science Professor, Dr. James S. Roberts. In a letter to Senator Bible dated June 6, 1957, he addressed "the fallout which occurred in Reno and surrounding areas on May 28th." In light of what has been revealed about government secrecy and coverup in the years since Plumbbob, Roberts' statements are quite insightful, even prophetic. He raised the issue of public trust: "The statements made by various officials raised many more questions than they answered. Many of the statements were evasive, misleading, or contradictory. It seems to me that persons in this area have a right to clear and direct answers to the questions which follow:" And, his questions were very good ones. For example, he alluded to a statement made by James E. Reeves, the Nevada Test Site Manager, who had announced on the morning of the test that only light fallout would result from the Boltzmann shot. Asked Roberts, "What constitutes a 'light' fallout . . .?"
Noting that test officials had publicly stated on May 31, three days after the test, that the radioactive clouds had "thinned out and that future fallout will be insignificant," Roberts wrote, "This implies that the fallout previous to the 31st of May was significant. This raises the question: 'How significant was the fallout on Tuesday, on Wednesday, and on Thursday following the blast?'"
One of the most disturbing issues raised by Dr. Roberts was that the fallout itself was not announced by government and test site officials, but rather was "discovered" by private citizens who just happened to be paying attention. "This raises the question of the responsibility of tracking and measuring radioactive fallout. Did the AEC continually measure this fallout? If the movement of the radioactive dust was not monitored over the Reno area, it would seem that negligence on the part of the AEC is involved. If this movement was monitored, it would seem the responsibility of the AEC, not a private electronics engineer, to make this fallout known."
Local government response had been less than helpful. "People who phoned Edward. L. Randall, Director of the state food and drug administration, were told to
Southern Sunrise; Northern Exposure 29
take baths and to change clothes," so why, Roberts asks, "was not the same advice given to the thousands of people in the areas similarly affected?"(53)
K.E. Fields, General Manger of the Atomic Energy Commission replied to Roberts' letter. In his response, Fields minimized the risks of radiation and offered explanations of government actions (or inactions) in terms which implied the superiority of the AEC program. Fields stated that "it is not possible to predict precise radiation exposures at a locality on the spur of the moment," but that "the amount of fallout there was far below hazardous levels." He then used a phrase which shows up hundreds of times in AEC press releases and letters, pointing to the presence of "naturally occurring radioactive substances in the environment." "Each year," wrote Fields, "the persons living at Reno receive more exposure from naturally occurring radioactive substances in the environment than from fallout from all nuclear tests to date." Roberts' straightforward questioning of who was responsible for With clothes blasted away, the contorted mannequin of "the average American guy" lies waiting to be examined. Another mannequin in a similar condition can be seen in the background. Both dummies had been in upright positions before succumbing to bomb forces after shot 2.
monitoring the cloud and informing Reno about the radioactivity was ignored, and his painstaking and intelligent analysis of the fallout was dismissed with an offer to "assist in correct interpretation of the data." The letter contends that the maximum permissible exposure is 1/2 roentgen a year for general population, which would allow Reno 3 roentgens during the six years of testing to date. "The exposure to persons in this locality has been about 1/25 this amount."04) Fields also sent along the AEC publication, "Atomic Tests in Nevada," which emphasizes the safety of testing and its political necessity in a cold war world.
The questions Roberts asked were those that would trouble citizens in Northern Nevada throughout the summer of 1957 and well into the succeeding years, just as they had the citizens of Utah since testing had begun. Of the 29 shots in the Plumbbob series, at least four sent fallout over Fallon, Reno, and Carson City.
In December, 1958, Senator Alan Bible received a letter from a Fallon resident who reported that several children with severe birth defects had been born during
30 Michon Mackedon
the spring of 1958. The letter pointedly implied that there might be a connection between radioactivity from atmospheric testing and the congenital abnormalities found in the newboms.(55)
More anecdotal evidence for fallout problems in Fallon can be found in a story told to me by a Fallon woman a few years ago, a story eerily similar to one told by St. George resident Agatha Mannering. The story was about her grandmother, who lived in Fallon on Old River Road during the 1950's. She loved to garden and one summer day in 1957 went out to weed the flowers. It began to rain, and she returned to her house with a sunburn. From that time on I was told, "we all talked about the sunburn that never went away." Her grandmother's skin stayed red and blistered for a long time. When the blisters healed, the skin pigment had changed, remaining permanently pink. She died of cancer several years later, leaving her children and grandchildren with the belief that there was more in the air that day than the rays of sun and drops of rain.
Legacies
Perhaps the real story here lies not in events themselves, as disturbing as they are, but in the government's response to the events. The human drama rests on one level, but on another rests the issue of good government. Is there not a fundamental right of the American people to receive accurate information and fair treatment from those in positions of power and in possession of secret knowledge?
When words and actions of AEC officials are set beside documents which they had either written themselves or had access to, the gap between private knowledge and public disclaimer becomes all too clear. For example, when the National Cancer Institute released data about Iodine 131 exposure in populations from above ground testing, the maps showed that Churchill and Washoe Counties' populations had received 2 to 4 rads of radiation (rads are
Swine which were used to undergo medical experiments during Operation Plumbbob are photographed in pig pens at "Pork Sheraton, " better known as Frenchman Flat.
Southern Sunrise; Northern Exposure 31
roughly equivalent to roentgens) during the Plumbbob series, hardly the "1/25 of that amount" claimed by AEC Director Fields in his letter of response to Professor Roberts.(56) It might be argued that Fields did not himself possess accurate data, but that theory, too, raises issues regarding the public trust. For, in every official document and press release of the atmospheric testing years, the one thing that the public is assured of is that "radioactivity is being tracked and monitored to assure the public safety."
Furthermore Dr. Roberts and Reno radiologist Dr. Sanders were not the first private citizens to "discover" radiation from fallout and challenge the AEC data, only to have their efforts belittled, ignored, or contradicted. Following an explosion named Turk, known to the public as "Big Shot," on March 7, 1955, two University of Colorado Medical Center scientists, Drs. Ray R. Lanier and Theodore Puck, measured an upsurge in radioactivity that they called "appreciable" and called for an end to atmospheric testing. An AEC spokesman responded: "On the basis of the readings on which their statements are based, the commission is of the opinion there is no concern for the public and that the radioactivity is inconsequential." Colorado governor, Edwin C. Johnson, gave his opinion of the scientists' independent work in no uncertain terms: "The two scientists should be arrested. This is a phony report. . . . The statements are part of an organized fright campaign." (57)
In another example of official AEC response to unwelcome information, a document declassified in 1963 clearly shows that the AEC had been advised early on in its above ground testing program that there was a strong link between seasonal climate patterns and fallout. The document, authored by Robert J. List in 1954, advised the AEC to undertake testing during the fall months rather than the less stable spring months in order that fallout -- and adverse public reaction -- be minimized. "From the point of view suitable weather, both at the test site and throughout the country, it appears that the months of October and November would be most satisfactory for test operations." (58) Yet, of the test series undertaken following List's report, only one, code-named Operation Hardtack II (1958), was scheduled during the months of fall. Operations Upshot-Knothole, Teapot and Plumbbob began in spring; Upshot-Knothole ran March 17 through June 4, 1953; Teapot ran February through May, 1955; Plumbbob, May through October 7, 1957.
One of the more bizarre examples of AEC deceptive action concerns the plight of the Utah sheep following the Upshot-Knothole series of tests in 1954. As earlier noted, Cedar City ranchers lost over 4,000 sheep to fallout shortly after the "Nancy" test. Author Richard L. Miller summed up the official reaction this way: "There was little scientific doubt that the sheep had been killed by ingesting fission particles. Yet the AEC officials charged with dealing with the ranchers had stonewalled, refusing to own up to the scientific facts, haranguing and misleading the locals, even belittling their intelligence in matters of science, they had performed miserably and had generated a mistrust that would continue for decades." (59) The sheepmen lost a lawsuit in federal court when the AEC veterinarians held tight to their theory that the deaths
32 Michon Mackedon
were a result of starvation. Later, though, they won at least a moral victory when Dr. Harold Knapp researched the 1954 evidence and court documents and wrote to the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. He contended that not only had the sheep died from radiation poisoning but that "the government's case, as presented to the federal court by the government, was prejudiced by critical omissions, distortions, and deceptions concerning experimental data on the effects of infestation of radioactivity on sheep . . ." Such data was in possession of the AEC at the time it made its investigation into the death of the sheep . ."(60) In a subsequent new hearing, an almost unbelievable chain of doctored evidence emerged. Investigators uncovered internal memorandums which clearly showed that AEC veterinarians had measured lethal doses of radiation in the organs of the dead and dying sheep. Other evidence revealed that experiments performed on sheep at government laboratories had conclusively shown that large radiation doses to sheep produced symptoms identical to those in the Utah sheep.
Perhaps most outrageous of all were the responses made to the Bardoli family of Tonopah, Nevada, who had lost a child to leukemia. During the Plumbbob Operation, Mrs. Bardoli circulated a petition signed by 75 people, most of them ranchers living around Tonopah, asking the government to stop the atomic testing at the Nevada Test Site. Soon after the petition reached Washington, she received a letter from Nevada Senator George Malone and one from AEC director Lewis Strauss. Both letters serve as startling reminders of the official attitudes of those at the top when it came to nuclear problems. Senator Malone's letter alludes to the possibility that protests, petitions, and fallout scares were part of a Communist conspiracy, an allegation which stunned the grieving Martha Bardoli.(60) Malone -- apparently reacting to the fact that early in 1957, several famous scientists, including the later Nobel Peace Prize winner, Linus Pauling, had begun to question the government's nuclear testing program -- wrote to Bardoli, "The President has questioned these reports coming from a minority group of scientists, some admittedly unqualified to comment on nuclear testing, and as he has said it is not impossible to suppose that some of the 'scare' stories are Communist inspired. If they could get us to agree not to use the only weapon with which we could win a war, the conquest of Europe and Asia would be easy."(62)
AEC Director Lewis Strauss's reply to Martha Bardoli's petition was even colder. ". . the Government decisions regarding nuclear testing have not been made lightly. . . . the risks from the current rate of nuclear testing are small, exceedingly small in fact when compared to other risks that we routinely and willingly accept every day."63)
In 1963, a limited test ban treaty was signed by the United States and Russia, moving atomic testing in both countries underground and greatly diminishing the risks presented by radioactive fallout to Nevadans and the rest of the world. In fact, Project Shoal, the test conducted near Fallon, was one of the first underground detonations to follow the signing of the treaty. Fallon, as a result of Shoal, is one of
Southern Sunrise; Northern Exposure 33
a handful of locations on the globe which has served as an atomic test site. In the United States, there are only seven other test site communities (if those surrounding NTS are excluded): Hattiesburg, Mississippi; Rifle, Colorado; Farmingham, New Mexico; Eureka, Nevada; Carlsbad, New Mexico; Grand Valley, Colorado; and Amchitka, Alaska. Worldwide, the exact number and location of test sites is still uncertain, due to prevailing secrecy in Russia and China. However, we can identify with certainty two primary sites in Russia, three areas in Australia used by the British; one area in Algeria and one in Polynesia used by the French; Lop Nor in Sinkiang Province, used by China; Ragasthan in India and various islands in the Pacific, including the Marshall Islands, Johnson Islands and Christmas Islands used by the United States and Great Britain.
What "Project Nutmeg" shows us about the politics of nuclear site selection might be applied to examining the above list of atomic sites. Nuclear sites all over the world were chosen in areas whose populations posed few public relations problems or political threats. Both Sinkiang Province in China and Kazakhstan in Russia are described by their respective governments in terms of their low economic status and minority populations. The Marshallese were described as "simple" and "patriotic." Utah residents were profiled in early AEC documents as unlikely to kick up much fuss -- politically passive, devoutly religious, and highly patriotic.
For empires, colonies made ideal test sites. Britain used Australia; France used Algeria and Polynesia. The United States at first turned also to "colonies," their trust territories in the Pacific. Later, although the word is not used, the concept of "colony" certainly appears in the characterization of the desert West and its dwellers. What Australia and Algeria provided for Great Britain and France, Nevada and the Marshalls served up for the United States. Aesthetic and cultural judgements have also been applied to landscapes in the determination of "suitable" sites. A description of the Nevada Test Site, included in a 1951 Army brochure prepared for Camp Desert Rock soldiers, tells them that the desert is a "damn good place for disposing of used razor blades." The British atomic establishment described the Emu and Maralinga sites in interior Australia as "unused wastelands."
Because of the ways in which governments have situated their test sites, the health consequences of nuclear weapons testing, both atmospheric and underground, have "fallen heavily on minority, rural, or disenfranchised populations." (65) Locations serving as nuclear sites in all parts of the world have been, in effect, treated as colonies and their peoples dismissed as provincials. What the nuclear establishment has failed to recognize is that "homeland" is as important to the poor aborigine, the uneducated island "native" or the Nevada desert dweller as it is to anyone else on this earth. Perhaps, more importantly, what has gone unrecognized is that the effort to restrict nuclear damage to specially selected "sites" has ultimately failed. Although the minority, rural and disenfranchised have carried a disproportionate share of the nuclear burden, we all -- weak or powerful, eastern or western, rich or poor -- share the consequences of atomic experimentation. Nuclear fission products have
34 Michon Mackedon
so far not respected fences, barbed wire or colonial borders. And, those who claim that they can predict, contain, and control atomic forces by monitoring, moving, fencing or entombing them in one "site" should not be taken seriously.
NOTES
1. See Michon Mackedon, "Project Shoal: Anatomy of a Nuclear Event." In Focus. (The Churchill County Museum Association, Volume 4, 1990-1992), pp.11-27.
2. The Nevada Test Site: A Guide to America's Nuclear Proving Ground. (Culver City, California: The Center for Land Use Interpretation, 1996), p. 26.
3. "Documentation of Establishment of Continental Test Site." DOE Opennet acquision # 125354, p. 2.
4. Project Nutmeg. (Deleted version only) DOE Opennet acquision # 32697, p. 2.
5. Ibid. p. 38.
6. International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. Radioactive Heaven and Earth : The Health and Environmental Effects of Nuclear Weapons Testing In, On, and Above the Earth (New York: The Apex Press, 1991), p. 54.
7. Project Nutmeg, p. 40.
8. Ibid., p. 42.
9. Ibid., p. 44.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., p.51.
12. Report by Army Special Weapons Project. DOE Opennet acquision # 28597, p. 2.
13. Ibid. p. 5.
14. AEC Minutes 141/7, p. 5.
15. Colonel Schlatter, "Memorandum for the Record," July 17, 1950. DOE Opennet acquision # 29373.
16. AEC Minutes 141/7, list of attachments.
17. Ibid., 5 and 6.
18. Ibid., list of attachments.
19. Gurli Pendergrass and Lorelle Nelson. The Mushroom Cloud and the Downwinders (Denmark: Forlaget Futurum, 1987), p.14.
20. qtd. in Ibid., p. 19.
21. The diaries of John Koontz. Nevada State Library and Archives.
22. "Atomic Tests in Nevada." Atomic Energy Commission, March 1957.
23. Richard L. Miller, Under the Cloud (New York: The Free Press, 1986), p. 174.
24. "Nevada Atom Test Affects Utah Area," New York Times, May 20, 1953.
25. Miller, p. 175.
26. Ibid.
27. John Fuller, The Day They Bombed Utah (New York: New American Library, 1984), p. 31.
28. Miller, p. 176.
29. Miller, p. 296.
30. Miller, p. 176.
31. The story of the Utah sheep deaths and the subsequent legal battles between ranchers
Southern Sunrise; Northern Exposure 35
and the AEC is recounted in many sources, including Miller and Fuller. Also see Harold Ball, Justice Downwind.
32. Carole Gallagher, American Ground Zero (New York: Random House, 1993), p. 107.
33. Miller, p. 139.
34. Rosenberg, Atomic Soldiers (New York: Harper and Row, 1982), p. 82.
35. Dan O'Neill, The Firecracker Boys (New York: St. Martins Press, 1994), p. 137.
36. "Atomic Tests in Nevada," p. 11.
37. www.envilink.org
38. DNA 6005F. Plumbbob Series 1957 United States Atmospheric Nuclear Weapons Tests. Nuclear Test Personnel Review. Prepared by the Defense Nuclear Agency, September 15, 1981.
39. WT-1496. Operation Plumbbob. Project 38.14. "Effect of Fallout Contamination on Processed Foods, Containers, and Packaging." Civil Effects Test Group, May 1, 1959.
40. WT-1497. Operation Plumbbob. Project 38.2 "Effect of Fallout Contamination on Raw Agricultural Products." Civil Effects Test Group, May 1, 1959.
41. ITR-1469. Operation Plumbbob. Project 33.3. "Tertiary Effectsof Blast-Displacement." Civil Effects Test Group, December 20, 1957.
42. Ibid., p. 14.
43. WT-1467. Operation Plumbbob. Project 33.1 "Blast Biology--A Study of the Primary and Tertiary Effects of Blast in Open Underground Protective Shelters." Civil Effects Test Group, June 30, 1957.
44. WT-1497, p. 18.
45. WT-1467, p. 29.
46. WT-1469, p. 29.
47. Gallagher, p. 34.
48. Reno Evening Gazette, May 29, 1957.
49. Ibid.
50. Letter from L.J. Sanders to Senator Alan Bible. June 3, 1957. Alan Bible Collection, UNR Library, Special Collections.
51. Ibid.
52. Letter from James S. Roberts to Senator Alan Bible. June 6, 1957. Alan Bible Collection, UNR Library, Special Collections.
53. Ibid.
54. Letter from K.E. Fields to Senator Alan Bible, June 28, 1957. Alan Bible Collection, UNR Library, Special Collections.
55. Letter from Fallon Resident to Senator Alan Bible, December, 1958. Alan Bible Collection, UNR Library, Special Collections. (The text of this letter is also available on the internet through the DOE Opennet.)
56. Available on the internet at WWW.envirolink.org
57. Miller, p. 198.
58. Ibid., p. 212.
60. Ibid., p. 203.
61. Gallagher, p. 107.
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid.
64. Gallagher, p. xxiv.
65. Radioactive Heaven and Earth, p.170.
All-American Family Houses:
Fallon's Architectural Styles
Jane Pieplow
In preparation for writing this article, I have driven slowly down nearly every street in Fallon, at the risk of being reported to the police as a suspicious person "casing the neighborhood," checking houses off my checklist. Let's see . . . Foursquare? "Yes." Concrete Block? "Yes." Tudor? Check "Yes" for that too. Victorian? "Yes." Bungalow? "Yes." What in the world have I been doing? Taking inventory of the architectural styles of some of Fallon's homes!
It's quite easy to not see what is around us everyday, to take our surroundings for granted, especially when we have driven by, walked past and lived in the same homes for years. My hope is that this article will lead you to a new recognition of some of Fallon's older architectural styles and will encourage you to look with new appreciation at some of the city's homes.
At the end of the 19th century, the community that was to become Fallon grew from a few buildings on Mike and Elisa Fallon's ranch (at the crossroads of Williams and Maine) into a bustling commerce center whose main purpose was to provide goods and services to support the increasing numbers of ranchers and homesteaders coming to farm on the Newlands Project. Unlike cities that grew in conjunction with silver and gold strikes or had a large number of lumber barons or railroad magnates, Fallon's beginnings were modest as there were relatively few people in town rich enough to build the grand homes seen in some other American cities. (R.L Douglass was an exception. His "city" home, begun in 1904 and now known as the "1906 House Bed and Breakfast," is the only large, elaborate Victorian home in Fallon.)
Folk Architecture
The fact that Fallon wasn't filled with legions of the rich and famous doesn't mean that its architecture is unvaried and boring. The first settlers to our area built the true folk architecture, whose essence is its sense of place. Think of log cabins in the midwest, sod houses on the prairies, salt boxes and Cape Cods in New England, adobe dwellings in the southwest and dog-trot houses in the hills of Kentucky. Folk architecture is based on traditional practices that have persisted over time in a specific region or locality, passed along through generations: father-to-son, master-to-apprentice, neighbor-to-neighbor. Its "architect" is a community rather than an indi-
36
All-American Family Houses 37
vidual. A few examples of this early type of architecture survive here in the form of adobe buildings and in some of the building styles immigrants brought with them from their birth countries.
Popular Architecture
The most common form of residential construction building styles in the older sections of Fallon could be labeled "popular architecture." Unlike folk buildings, these common houses can often be traced to an individual source and a particular time. Popular architecture is transmitted by mass communication, like architectural planbooks, and may have very broad geographical circulation. Any particular form may end as suddenly as it began when some other form supersedes it and becomes the new style craze.
Defined not so much by a high-style label but by their basic shape, or massing, two of these common house designs can be described simply as L-shaped or T-shaped. The L-shaped house consists of a gable and an ell while the T-shaped house uses two cross gables to create the plan.
Houses like these proliferated in the American landscape after the Civil War. They were simplified versions of houses shown in architectural pattern and plan books, whose publication began in the 1850s with those of A. J. Downing and Calvert Vaux. In the post-Civil War decades, catalogs of architectural plans flooded the market, fed by a voracious demand for single-family, middle-class housing. These picturesque designs, though they looked intriguingly complex, were in fact quite standardized. Thus they were easily and widely copied, often with minor variations, by local builders. Not surprisingly, one can expect to find such houses in areas settled from about 1885 to 1910 or so.
An L-shaped home with two gables connecting at a 90 degree angle
A T-shaped home with two intersecting gambrels at a 90 degree angle
3 8 Jane Pieplow
Construction on the L.L. Downs house, 190 W. Center, was completed in 1902. It is now the home of Don and Mary Carter. The original porch was open to the outside elements and bedroom and kitchen additions were added over the years.
Although there are many brick examples of both house types, most T- and L-shaped homes were constructed of wood. Balloon framing, invented in the 1830s, facilitated intricate connections of roofs and building sections. The introduction of central heating, and of cast-iron heating and cooking stoves with small, metal stove pipes, also allowed the construction of these types of houses with irregular massing. With less need to cluster work and social activities around one or two large chimneys, late-Victorian families broke out of the boxy shapes of earlier forms into modern and (as seen at the time) more individualistic L- and T-shaped plans. On the practical side, set-back ells suggested a location for porches on these relatively small houses -- a sitting porch on the front, as well as one or more service porches where deliveries could be made and household chores performed.
Interiors of irregular houses were more easily separated into public, family and work areas. The kitchen and pantry were usually at the rear or in the ell, while the ceremonial entrance and the parlor dominated the front of the house. Most bedrooms were upstairs, away from public contact. Porches and an abundance of windows and doors opened rooms to nature, in line with the cherished moral and aesthetic precepts of the day.
Examples of the T-shaped architectural style are rare in Fallon, but the L-shaped style can be seen in the home at 190 Center Street. Pictured above just after completion, the original Downs house has had many additions over the years. Today, the L-shape can be clearly seen from the front view if the front porch, which was originally open to the elements, is discounted. Victorian bric-a-brac in the historic view in the photograph above, includes decorative flashing ridges on the rooflines, scalloped and diamond-shaped shingles in the gables and bumped out bay windows.
While L-shaped homes can be found in Fallon, there are other architectural styles to be seen as well that were built concurrently with these folk styles.
All-American Family Houses 39
Victorian
Spanning the fertile period between the end of the Civil War and the Columbian Exposition (Chicago), the years 1865 through the early 20th century overflowed with architectural eclecticism. During this time, the development of American house styles is a particularly interesting one. In contrast to the stylistically tranquil days before the War, the period left us with a half-dozen or so styles now often referred to simply as "Victorian."
Little wonder so much exploration of form and style accompanied these years of explosive growth and change. This rush of thirty-five-plus years offered up the bounty of the Industrial Revolution: an unimaginable array of machine-made goods, and a sudden barrage of technological and social change. The American home could hardly escape the impact of this era.
On the design front, the years following the Civil War saw this country's first systematic attempts to train professional architects. Many Americans studied in Europe, and university architectural schools were established in the United States. Nevertheless, the unified and national look in housing would come largely from the plans of mostly anonymous designers working for mass-marketing catalogs. New highspeed printing presses, a transcontinental railroad and better mail service sent mail-order catalogs across the nation. These catalogs could supply Americans of average means house plans that included elevations, floor plans and details.
By the mid-1870s, middle-class buyers had the option of purchasing not only plans but also stock-milled house parts -- fancy mantelpieces, staircases, newel posts and front doors by mail-order.
And fancy parts there were! Victorian ostentation demanded some sort of decoration on even the most modest home. The house "footprint" was intricate in shape with cross gables, bay windows and turrets included in the mix. Porches were
House at 487 Esmeralda, built in 1910, displays many characteristics of the Victorian style: Diamond and fish scale shingles on the gable ends of the house, the front bay window, a roofline intersected at different angles by bump outs and decorative wooden fretwork on the front porch. Even the flashing ridges along the roofline end with decorative ball ends. Close inspection of the main window of the front bay features leaded glass.
40 Jane Pieplow
most often decorative devices marking major entrances, but as the century ended they grew in size, number and ornamentation to become the essence of the High Victorian style. Wraparound front and side verandahs (as can be seen on R.L. Douglass's home, the "1906 Bed and Breakfast House" on Williams Ave.) were really outdoor living rooms. Porch railings and posts were often turned in elaborate style, while different sizes of shingles made for ornamental accents. Houses were painted in multicolored schemes with the body of the house typically painted in a somber earth tone of light or rather dark hue, while two or three contrasting accent colors picked out details of the openings and trim.
In Fallon, there are a number of modest Victorian homes to be found. East of the home at 146 W. Center, Victorian elements can be seen despite the fact that more modern siding covers the original clapboards. The shingle details in the roof-end gables and the bargeboard that spans the front gable near its peak, reflect Victorian-era styles. The elegant two story white Victorian home at 150 S. Taylor has quite a bit of decorative shingle work, as well as gables and bay windows. These details place its contruction date close to that of the homes at 220 and 230 S. Taylor -- soon after 1900. Both of these smaller homes contain some of the original bric-a-brac trim of this time period although some of it has been covered up or discarded over the years.
While this style was embraced by Americans all across the country, it was inevitable that new architectural styles would succeed it. By early in the 20th century, younger home buyers began to rebel against the fussiness of the Victorian period, and new American styles were born.
Concrete Block Houses
During the first three decades of this century, it seems as though concrete block buildings sprang up across the continent almost overnight. In the suburbs, in small towns, on farms and even in urban neighborhoods, a new kind of construction brought the masonry house within reach of the average family. Concrete-block houses were built by do-it-yourselfers, or contractors acting as local real-estate entrepreneurs. The "cement blocks," as they were called, could be bought from a local building supplier but, far more likely, they were made right at the construction site.
Concrete is little more than natural or man-made aggregates. Adding water starts a chemical reaction that hardens the mix into a monolithic mass. Although the Romans built with concrete, the material was nearly forgotten until the early 1800s. In North America, large-scale production of Portland cement after 1880 gave concrete a new level of quality and availability. Dramatic building projects, such as the Panama Canal, made it a miracle material of the new century.
Block making at the turn of the century required machines, most of which were hand-powered. Vertical-face machines held the decorative face mold plate at one side of the casting box. Facedown machines located the plate at the bottom of the casting box. Hand-machine blockmaking used the dry process, close to what is called cast stone today. It permitted many quick castings with the same machine,
All-American Family Houses 41
and was a bit of an art. First the blockmaker lined the mold with facing mixture -typically 1 part Portland cement to 2 parts coarse, sharp sand mixed with just enough water to hold together. Then came an equally dry body mix of 1 part cement, 2 parts sand, 3 parts gravel or stone.
Thorough tamping was the next essential step. Tamping eliminated air pockets and consolidated the materials to form a delicate block that could crumble if mishandled. One- or two-man operations worked with a large wooden hand tamper, or one of the simple pressure plates often built into these
machines. Power-driven tampers were faster, but expensive. After withdrawing the core forms and releasing the box sides, the blockmaker gingerly moved the fresh block to a drying rack where it would cure for two to four weeks with daily sprinklings of water. The longer the bricks cured, the stronger they grew. Washing a little cement off the ornamental face helped enhance the stone effect.
The end product was either a solid or hollow block, in one of the scores of competing proprietary shapes. Solid blocks were used as veneer over a wood-frame or concrete block bearing wall. Hollow blocks produced their own wall with an insulating cavity. Adjusting or partially filling the molds yielded the half, quarter and pie-shaped pieces for corners, gables and arches. A good sized house might require 6,000 blocks.
Compared to today's plain, mass-produced concrete masonry units, early concrete block had character. Interchangeable mold plates turned the block face into imitations of standard dressed stonework. Egg-and-dart, wreath, rope or scroll "carvings" cast
into blocks made them ideal for friezes or beltcourses. Cobblestone-faced blocks provided a rustic look. Lattice patterns could be used for fences or concrete "skirts" under porches.
Like the material itself, the concrete block house's design was usually the work of the builder, copied from a planbook, manufacturer's catalog, or the house around the corner. Frequently, just the first floor was block, while the second floor was clad in clapboard or wood shingles. Many other kinds of buildings were constructed with concrete applications. The automobile was still a novelty, and thought to be a fire hazard, so garages seemed safer when built of fireproof concrete block. (Cye Cox's garage at 269 W. Center is built of decorative concrete block.) Many commercial buildings and churches went up in concrete block, especially in small towns like Fallon. Around the country there are concrete block schools, hotels, convents, railroad stations, bakeries, icehouses, feed stores and carriage houses, as well as fences and retaining walls.
A brick maker tamps down the concrete mixture into a face-down brick making machine.
42 Jane Pieplow
In 1915, Churchill County pioneer, nurse and rancher, Martha Baumann, worked at making concrete blocks for her new home five miles east of Fallon (1205 S. Harmon Road). Using a mold borrowed from a local mason, Martha and her brother Louis made the decorative concrete blocks while she worked with Lon Kaiser, who was just completing the construction of Harmon School, to lay the foundations for her new home and help build it from floor to roof. Farmers also made use of concrete blocks for their utility buildings. Many Grade A dairy barns were built in the county out of plain concrete blocks in the late 1940s.
In Fallon, a number of decorative concrete block homes can still be seen today. One of the oldest is the former Arthur Keddie home at 510 W. Williams, now the offices of Ranch and Home Realty. The Churchill County Eagle described the construction of the new home with enthusiasm on August 13, 1908:
Hon. W. W. Williams has let the contract for the erection of a handsome cement block dwelling which when completed will be presented to his daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. WA. [Ada] Keddie as a wedding present.
The building will stand on the north side of Williams Avenue and directly north of the public school building. The cement work will be done by Busch and Hendricksen and Mark Wildes will do the carpenter work and have supervision of the construction.
The building will be a modern story-and-a-half structure, on the bungalow style, with spacious apartments throughout, and will contain eight rooms with broad verandahs. The architectural design is very tasty, while the general appearance will be massive and substantial. The Keddie dwelling will be an ornament to Fallon.
Busch & Hendricksen have purchased Binkley's cement block machine for this special piece of work and yesterday commenced making the blocks on the building site. They also intend making a specialty of cement block buildings in this locality.
The rapid rise of the concrete-block house on the North American landscape is partially the result of a massive and targeted marketing campaign by block machine makers and catalog retailers. Sears, Roebuck & Co., the mail-order masterminds, promoted the new industry with typical sizzle in their 1908 catalog:
Anyone, anywhere, can make money, and lots of it by engaging in this new and attractive business! There is a big demand for concrete building blocks and this demand is increasing with wonderful strides.
All-American Family Houses 43
Arthur Keddie home at 510 W. Williams, now the offices of Ranch and Home Realty, during construction in 1908. The trees at left line Williams Avenue. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
Sears probably sold more blockmaking machines than anyone else. A basic outfit from Sears -- a standard manual machine, eight special-purpose molds and attachments, plus accessories -- cost $63.75 in 1910. One block machine ad noted that farmers and small land owners with gravel pits or sand banks on their property were the ones who could reap the greatest benefits because, "aside from the cement used . . . their material costs absolutely nothing. The farmer can make concrete blocks . . . on rainy days and at other idle periods." Records do not show exactly how many Churchill County farmers and ranchers made concrete blocks in their "spare time," but the fact that blocks were made in this area is evidenced by the comments in the 1908 newspaper.
Two more modest examples of concrete block houses can be seen at 181 and 197 E. Fairview. Both homes were built sometime in the 1920s, but close inspection reveals that a different decorative face mold plate was used in making the blocks on each building. Even the chimneys of the house at 181 E. Fairview were made of concrete block!
Probably one of the biggest indications of how appealing decorative concrete block homes were at one time in Fallon is the building at 102 S. Carson, the former Jones & McCall store, now the storage building for Jeff's Office Supply. Look closely and you will see that the outside of this building is not decorative concrete block at all, but it is pressed tin sheets nailed over the original wood siding to create the illusion of concrete block!
44 Jane Pieplow
The concrete block on the George Erb family home at 181 E. Fairview incorporates a more decorative pattern than its neighbor. Close examination of each stone shows that the pattern inserted into the brick making mold created the look of a large and a small stone on the face of only one brick.
Close inspection of the front face of this house at 197 E. Fairview and the front porch pillars reveals a decorative touch. Smaller concrete blocks were interspersed with larger blocks near the corners to make an interesting pattern, and, no doubt, to make the brickwork courses come out even at each end!
Despite the early enthusiasm for cement block, it could not keep up with changing architectural tastes and new building materials, such as veneer brick, plywood sheathing and artificial siding. In its heyday, however, ornamental concrete block was a homemade product that combined practicality with architectural style.
All-American Family Houses 45
The Foursquare
If a competition for the most popular new house type was held among the growing middle class of the early 20th century, the Foursquare would have won hands down. The style was sensible, sturdy, not too exciting, but nice to have around. Although few were built after 1930, Foursquares, with blocky facades, make up a large part of the landscape in city fringes, small towns and rural areas across the United States. Made up of solid, two-storey fronts, no-nonsense pyramid roofs, blunt dormers, overhanging eaves and deep, plain front porches, the Foursquare made the most out of the sides and rear of the house where large windows and French doors brought in the outdoors. These homes are reminders of the house-building boom that occurred before the Great Depression.
A Foursquare is a square house with four, almost equally sized rooms laid out like a grid, one per corner. In fact, the Foursquare can't properly be called a "style." It's a basic box that is presented in one of several stylish wrappings -- from Prairie School to Colonial Revival.
For the most part, professional architects gave the Foursquare a wide berth, finding it too limiting for their creative sensibilities. Therefore, popular literature of the era, such as Gustav Stickley's Craftsman magazine and the great number of house plan catalogs spread the popularity of the type.
Stylistically, Foursquares struck a chord with the new, house-hungry working and middle classes because there were a number of practical advantages. To a generation rebelling against their parents' addiction to ornament, Foursquares were not Victorian, not Queen Anne, not even remotely 19th century in feeling. Besides being more stylish, they were also cheaper to build because there were no towers, turrets, sweeping verandahs, turned ornament, or other lah-de-dah stuff to pay for or maintain. The lack of elaboration fit well with this generation's demand for simple building materials that made no false claims to richness.
Foursquares were also well-suited to modern building techniques and materials. They were constructed in almost any medium -- from a conventional frame covered in weatherboards, shingles or brick veneer to solid brick, cast-cement blocks or poured concrete. What really clinched the Foursquare's spot in America's heart was its practicality. The cubical shape made the most of every buildable inch, taking full advantage of small lots and tiny building budgets.
The home's entrance was most often off-center, set into one front-facing corner of the house, sheltered by a front porch featuring restrained ornamentation. Sturdy piers of brick, stuccoed concrete or shingled wood were topped with round, unfluted columns or substantial square posts of wood or concrete. The use of paired or even triple windows was common. Dormer windows were a necessity for lighting the upper storey of the house.
The Foursquare's appeal was due primarily to its compatibility with family living -- the most house for the lowest cost, plus a dignified appearance. Conventional, yet contemporary. Substantial, not flashy. The sort of thoroughly middle-class
46 Jane Pieplow
house everybody would build if everybody had good taste. And, just about everybody did build it, usually without benefit of an architect's direction. Amazingly, the resulting houses were not cookie-cutter replicas, as this versatile architectural style accepted endless tailoring to suit the individual buyer.
In Fallon, not many examples of the Foursquare can be seen. However, the house at 320 Lincoln is a classic example. Built in 1910, as the style was fast-becoming popular, this building exhibits the cubical shape, hipped roof and prominent dormers of the style. It is obvious that over the years the house has been remodeled, most likely from a one-family unit to the apartments it is today. If the numerous private entrance additions seen today were removed, the square shape would once again appear. There is also evidence that the large picture window to the left of the front door has replaced an original window. One wonders what the front porch had looked like in the past as well, for the existing porch does not appear to blend with the overall style of the home.
When the Great Depression cast a sudden chill over the nation's building boom, the popularity of the Foursquare began to wither as other revival styles began to come into vogue. When building began again after World War II, the Foursquare style had long since breathed its last.
The Bungalow
Bungalows hit the American housing market suddenly and sweepingly in the early 20th century. Originally, they had gained popularity in the 19th century as summer houses for returning British colonials. Imported to the United States after the American Centennial of 1876, bungalows quickly struck a chord with the nation's house-hungry middle class.
What exactly is a bungalow? The house style has predominantly horizontal lines, deep porches (often built right into the roofline), low-pitched roofs, broad eaves, an emphasis on natural materials and a general air of informality.
Additions to this 1910 Foursquare home-turned-apartment at 320 S. Lincoln disguise its original design.
All-American Family Houses 47
This large bungalow at 76 S. Russell was built in 1920. The bungalow style is characterized here by the low-sweeping lines of the front of the building, a porch that is incorporated into the roofline and by porch posts that flair at the bottom. Windows with multiple panes and exposed rafters under the eaves are hallmarks of this architectural style.
The term "bungalow" seems to have come from "bangla," the Bengali word for small, utilitarian, one-storey houses with verandahs and thatched roofs.
In America, bungalows were first used as unprepossessing vacation cabins. The small scale, informal floor plans, sheltering porches and inexpensive building materials made them a natural addition to the leisure scene. They were used mostly in places or during seasons that did not require sturdy construction or heavy insulation. Soon bungalows were being constructed as all-weather homes everywhere, in materials from wood to stone, brick to concrete. In California, bungalows quickly became a form of regional architecture while farther east the fertile plains of the prairie states produced a bungalow culture that had an equally innovative and dedicated following.
The small size and low maintenance demands of the typical bungalow made it an ideal home for an independent single woman or an easily-expandable starter house for a growing family. No wonder the bungalow is credited with being the most frequently constructed house type between 1909 and 1913! Its popularity benefited enormously from published house plans and ready-cut house catalogs.
In Fallon, examples of bungalow styles abound in many sizes. In addition to the large home featured on the next page, other examples can be found at 110 S. Russell, built c. 1932; 93 S. Allen, and 160 W. Richards, both built in 1920. Each of these homes exhibit characteristics of the bungalow architectural style.
Fallonite Carl Dodge grew up in another bungalow-style home, once located at the site of the present Norwest Bank at the corner of W. Williams Avenue and W. Russell Street. First Federal Savings and Loan, the banking company that
48 Jane Pieplow
built the Norwest building around 1976, owned the lot and donated the house to Churchill County with the stipulation that it be moved to make room for the new bank's construction. The Dodge home was then moved to its present location at 85 N. Taylor where it has served as the office of the County Health Nurse since 1983. Built in 1924, the original facade of the home has been changed by the addition of a closed-in porch. Again, the low, ground-hugging lines appear in the architecture along with exposed rafters under the eaves. Carl Dodge recalls that his great uncle was the builder and that after the foundation was poured and the subfloor laid, his parents marked where they wanted the walls of each room to stand. Then the building started!
As popular as the bungalow had been, the day came when the popularity of the style began to fade. Perhaps it was the 1930s advent of starkly minimalist modem architecture or the triumph on the popular market of the Colonial Revival house. Whatever the reason, even before World War II put a stop to home building, the bungalow faded into a gentle old age.
Art Deco
Someone once commented to this writer, in referring to the Art Deco style of architecture, that "Art" must have been a real progressive guy. In truth, Art Deco is an architectural and artistic style, not an individual! It's a style that railed against the vast array of nostalgic architectural types that kept architects busy recreating the past in the early-20th century -- Colonial Revival and Spanish Revival styles, to name two. It was inevitable during the beginning of the 1930s that some people were itching to get on with the present, and, even better, the future.
Two architectural trends came out of the renewed interest in looking ahead rather than backward: the Art Deco or Moderne Style and the International Style. In part, both styles were European developments that took on new characteristics when they crossed the Atlantic. Neither style could challenge the entrenched claims of the older styles on American homebuilders, however, so their immediate effect on housing was limited. The least long-lasting of the styles, Art Deco, began to peter out around 1940. The International Style, so called because it had roots in several European countries, particularly Germany, Austria and Holland, merged into the postwar modem movement that is still developing.
The critical point for Art Deco came from the Exhibition des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris in 1925. The Art Deco design had been around for a number of years before that, but nobody knew what to call it. The exhibition settled that. There were two phases of the Art Deco style: Zigzag and Streamlined. Zigzag was largely a system of low-relief, angular ornament applied to smooth building surfaces. Zigzag was popular from around the time of the First World War until about 1930. It was then overtaken by the Streamlined Art Deco style which is sometimes referred to as "Moderne."
All-American Family Houses 49
In the 1930s, Streamlined Art Deco was especially well suited to industrial design, from automobiles and airplanes to toasters and coffeepots. In fact, it was designers, not architects, who dominated this phase of the Art Deco movement. Sleek Streamlined designs implied speed and efficiency, so perhaps it was not surprising that airports and bus stations, airplanes and busses were built to its specifications.
The Streamlined approach to architecture also fit in with Depression-era economics. The stripped-down forms were ideal for mass production. Its forms, typified in architecture by horizontal bands of windows and rounded corners, often were its ornamentation. The emphasis was unflinchingly horizontal, an effect reinforced by bands of steel windows, incised string courses and flat roofs. Streamlined walls usually ended in curves rather than in angles and much of the window glass was often done in glass block.
In Fallon, the house at 605 Esmeralda is an anomaly in its neighborhood. Records show that the house was built in the early 1940s. The house features windows that form a horizontal band around the house. Two raised bands above and below the windows wrap around the house to further reinforce this horizontal look and the unique, rounded curve of the cantilevered front porch is a hallmark of the Art Deco style. Rumors flew when the house was being built that it was going to be made of steel. Today it is not known whether the steel is in the window casements or in the walls, or even if it was used at all.
Art Deco's cousin, the International Style, seemed especially well suited to the Machine Age. It was clean-lined, easy to reproduce, completely functional and potentially inexpensive once a prototype had been built. Proponents of the style believed that it could be used for any building in any price range, at any level of architectural sophistication. Not everybody was crazy about the idea. In fact, most American homeowners found the new building style ugly, and preferred to stick with traditional forms and styles. Experimental architects, on the other hand, took to the new style with enthusiasm. Typical construction had flat walls, flat roofs, bands of windows and a total lack of ornament. Even though the house looks deceptively like a simple rectangle, there are the projecting and receding walls and roofs that mirror the spaces within. Up-to-date technologies and modern materials were used in the construction of these homes -- steel, concrete, plastic and glass panes of almost infinite sizes.
The house at 79 W. Richards exhibits some characteristics of the International Style. Its appearance today casts some doubt on the recorded date of its construction, 1912. With its flat roof, bands of horizontal windows, projecting and receding walls and lack of extensive ornamentation, this building does not reflect the typical home building style in Fallon in 1912. Records also show that the small buildings behind this home were built in 1932. This would place the architectural style seen today with the International Style. Could this house have received a major face lift the same year the buildings were added to the lot? It is quite possible.
50 Jane Pieplow
79 W. Richards
The apartment house at 260 W. Center was built in 1920. The building facade also exhibits the International Style features of a flat roof, plain walls and horizontal window treatments.
Ironically, the Depression and World War II had helped to bring the modern styles to America's shores but they also played a role in stifling their development. The Art Deco style was already fading when the war ended. The International Style also lost some of its energy at a critical moment in its development. When postwar building resumed, new techniques and materials had come to the forefront and these architectural styles were displaced by the next building boom.
Tudor
One of the next archtectural styles to sweep the nation was the Tudor. Also known as English Revival, the Tudor style was loosely based on medieval English farmhouses, but the new models were equipped with every modern convenience that 1920s American technology could offer! Not only was English Revival a popular style, at this time French- or Norman-style farmhouses and cottages were seen, as were Mediterranean villas with Spanish and Italian features. Usually there was an intermarriage of regional architectural traits in American houses, which in the European prototypes would have remained geographically distinct.
This house style can be recognized by decorative half-timbering (not load bearing as in its medieval original), a steep, gabled roofline (with an especially steep "catslide" roof above the recessed entrance), the hipped dormers with diamond-paned windows and often a massive brick chimney placed in a conspicuous, front-and-center location.
All-American Family Houses 51
In Fallon, several homes have been built either in the English Tudor style, or using Tudor details. The house Andrew Drumm, Jr. built for his wife Doris in 1930 at 98 South Bailey is definitely Tudor in design. E.W. Stilwell & Company of Los Angeles did the designing and plans for the home. The steep-pitched gable roof, the decorative half-timbering on the second story, the catslide roof over the front entrance and the massive fireplace all echo this architectural style. The inside of the house has a few curiosities, according to Bobbie Taylor, whose family owned the home for twelve years. There are closets in the house that open into other closets and the diamond-shaped window in the dormer at the front of the house cannot be seen from the inside! Curious as to why, the Taylors cut through the wall to see what secrets might be found. The result? A hole in the wall with a view of the window. The house also may have hosted visits from a famous actor. In the early 1950s, one of the Drumm daughters dated actor Peter Lawford. His name is carved into the bannister of the basement stairs.
Other Tudor details can be found by looking at the facade of the house on 440 S. Taylor. The catslide roof, the curved, green asphalt roof shingles emulating a thatched roof and the recessed entryway are all Tudor in design. The original house, on the north side of the home, was built in 1932 as a small cottage. In the late 1950s the present owners added on to the south side of the home, keeping the Tudor style intact.
Meanwhile, Williams Avenue was also being graced with a home with Tudor style elements. The 1930s house that was built by longtime Fallon residents George and Hannah Smitten, and later occupied by Warren and Kaaren Hursch, is
Andrew Drumm, Jr. built this Tudor-style home for his bride Doris in 1930. A search of the old telephone books revealed their address as being on Liberty Street from 1930 until 1939 when the street was renamed Bailey.
52 Jane Pieplow
now occupied by Ferguson Realty. While not strictly tudor, it does have some tudor elements. Can you identify them?
By the late 1940s, the medieval architectural styles that copied English-, French- or Norman-style farmhouses began to wane as the influx of returning war veterans created a whole new market for small tract houses that fit the pocketbooks of middle-class Americans.
Spanish Mission
One final architectural style should be mentioned in this article because there are some excellent examples of it to be found here in Fallon, mostly in the form of public buildings.
During the early 20th century, most of America settled cozily into well-equipped modern houses built in styles that celebrated the English roots of our founding fathers. But out on the nation's new frontiers -- in California, Florida and the Southwest -- where the past was not English but Spanish, architecture took on an entirely different look. Spanish-influenced buildings had a double charm, for they not only bespoke an important era in American history, they also conjured up romantic images of faraway, long-ago European countrysides. Perhaps it is not surprising either that no fewer than three of the architectural sub-styles that evolved from this hispanic heritage -- Mission, Spanish Colonial Revival and Mediterranean (Spanish plus Italian plus French) -- spread across the country in the years between 1900 and World War II.
Despite their foreign ancestry, all of these styles are unmistakably American. The Spanish style worked surprisingly well for houses of every size, as well as for other building types, from city halls to the hotels, motels and service stations so necessary to the booming tourist areas in which they were born.
The characteristics that linked all these styles was the play of sunlight and shadow on thick, stuccoed walls and across tiled roofs. While the wall construction might be of any type of masonry, ranging from brick to cement blocks or hollow tile, or even of wood, the stucco finish was common to nearly every building in every Spanish Style, lending an impression of solidity. Once in a great while there was a brick example without stucco or, even more rarely, a clapboard house with a patio. The stucco could be smooth and white as plaster or roughly textured like that of a Spanish farmhouse. Sometimes it was applied in layer upon thin layer until it achieved an undulating effect that suggested annual applications over many generations.
Walls in these buildings were pierced with as few openings as possible, at least on the street facades, but the openings were deep and dark. Round-arched doorways and windows were often protected by wrought-iron grilles and balconies and were shielded from glaring sunlight and the gaze of curious passersby by striped awnings mounted on spear-like struts. Casements windows were of wood, or more often steel. Arcades (rows of arches), domes and bell towers were sometimes used on these buildings to add picturesque interest.
All-American Family Houses 53
Red tile roofs typified all the Spanish and Mediterranean styles. The roofs were usually flat or low pitches, hipped or with very low gables. While barrel or S tiles were standard, shingles were sometimes used. Chimneys, while often present, were not usually prominent.
Built in 1930, Fallon's City Hall is the most notable Spanish Mission style building in the community. Even though the exterior is brick, not stuccoed, the red roof tiles, bell tower, window grillework and ornamentation and scalloped decoration over the front entrance door speak to this architectural style. The wonderful thing about this building is the fact that almost everything inside the structure, including floors, doors, windows and hardware, is original. However, the bell tower did have to be rebuilt to a lower height after it was damaged in the 1954 earthquake.
The Smith Family Mortuary building, across from Jack-in-the-Box on W. First Street, is another example of the Spanish Mission style. In August of 1931 the H.E. Roe Mortuary was completed. The Fallon Standard described the building inside and out, commenting about its outward appearance on August 26, 1931:
Built for the use of the firm of Roe & Kaiser, the new mortuary recently completed by HE. Roe is rated as the most attractive of its kind in Nevada and is unequaled in arrangement.
Design is by L. W. Crehore, engineer, a modern type of architecture which has become popular by designers of business blocks and hotels during recent years in America. Floor arrangement was laid out by Roe and interior color scheme and selection of draperies was by Mrs.Roe [Mary Hook Black Roe].
Fallon's City Hall, seen here soon after completion in 1930. The Fire Department made use of the garage-like addition on the far right. The tall bell tower of 1930 was shortened to its present height after the 1954 earthquake. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
54 Jane Pieplow
The mortuary building includes a red tile roof (if only on the front facade, as the roof on the sides of the structure is done in shingles). A parapet-like facade echoes Spanish styles, as does the entrance.
A Fallon residence that exhibits the Spanish Mission architectural style is located at 601 Humboldt Street. The arched entranceway, the stuccoed walls and the arched, louvered window in one of the gables are all elements that are Spanish in style.
Although buildings in the Spanish architectural style were never as numerous as those built in English styles, Spanish houses defined the regional character of Spanish-settled areas for many years, and their influence is still felt today.
These architectural styles point to the fact that Fallon residents were concerned about keeping up with styles in their home choices as well as other choices in their lives. Some homes were built in the city using the services of architectural and design firms and others were built from scratch using few, if any, plans. Still others were built using mail order plans, and, in some cases, the whole house was shipped to town, precut and ready to be reassembled like a giant jigsaw puzzle.
Mail Order Houses and Plans
Until the 1880s, one middle-class house was pretty much like the other. The average person hoping for a new home was still at the mercy of his local carpenter/ builder, his own training and imagination and a few tiny woodblock prints in architectural pattern books. These pattern books were essentially style books, long on text and short on illustrations. Without an architect to direct design and construction, most middle-class houses reflected traditional skills and local building habits more than the owner's personal taste.
All that changed, though, with the mass selling of architects' plans by mail coupled with the newly-invented turning lathe to mass produce designs that had once been available only to the rich. Intricate wooden spindles and other decorations became cheap and accessible, allowing anyone of modest means to build a home in the architectural style of their choice. Entire plans for houses became common, and continuing until World War II, published house designs were usually prepared by experienced architects. For their time, these dwellings were more stylish or up-to-date than a local builder's creation. The floor plans of these professionally designed houses were also better thought out, often containing special laborsaving features. The practice of purchasing precut materials for houses became common in the early 20th century. The products were usually of the highest quality, so mail-order houses often were the most well-constructed dwellings in a neighborhood. Four major categories of catalog and mail-order houses were available between the 1840s and the 1940s:
1. Pattern books designs copied by local builders.
2. Pattern books with mail-order plans.
All-American Family Houses 55
3. House designs built with catalog-bought materials (not precut).
Some companies, noted later for precut houses, first offered enough materials to build a dwelling from the sill up, not cut or fitted. The advantage, of course, was that the owner received the correct amount of materials in one order. A local carpenter would cut the lumber according to the accompanying plans. Sears, Roebuck and Company advertised homes this way in their 1912 and 1915 catalogs.
4. House plans offered with precut materials.
First made popular by Aladdin Company in 1906-07, this method was soon picked up by other firms, notably Sears. The materials received
by the owner were precut and systematically labeled, simplifying the assembly process.
How can you know if a house is a pattern book or mail-order dwelling? According to Dr. Daniel Reiff, art and architectural history professor at the State University of New York, College of Fredonia and author of a book-length study on pattern book and catalog houses in America, there are several ways to find out. First, check for numbers written or stamped consistently on joists, rafters or other members in cellars or attics. Most precut houses had coded markings of one sort of another.
The second method to use to search for signs of mail-order origins is in the house's hardware. Sears and other companies offered lighting fixtures, complete kitchens and bathrooms and plumbing and heating. From the catalog, the owners picked the styles they liked in the quality they could afford. By locating trade names and comparing them to the ones in the period catalogs, it is possible to zero-in on the house's origin.
Checking the blueprints of the dwelling is another way to identify a mail-order house -- if the prints can be found, that is! Carefully search the attic and built-in cabinets, even the cellar, if the house has one. Blueprints usually specify the company's name, the model number and sometimes the draftsman's name or initials.
Come to the Churchill County Museum to do research in local newspapers during the year of the house's construction. In the early 20th century, houses are often mentioned under "Building News" and in special building or home-improvement sections. Some citations are quite specific.
Finding a nearby mail-order house can even be helpful. A builder would often erect a row of precut houses "on speculation," knowing that the Sears or Aladdin reputation, and
Mail-Order Catalog
Reference Resources
The Preservation Press National Trust for Historic Preservation
1785 Massachusetts Ave., NW Washington, DC 20036
Publishes Houses by Mail, by Katherine Cole Stevenson and H. Ward Jandl.
Dover Publications, Inc.
31 East 2nd Street
Mineoloa, NY 11501
(516) 295-7000
Offers reprints of plan books in their
Antiques and Collectibles catalog.
56 Jane Pieplow
the up-to-date design would be selling points. Or search for "local tradition." Longtime residents of Fallon might recall that the material for your house was "all brought on a big truck" or "sent one day from the railroad station."
If the steps just outlined lead you to believe you have a mail-order house on your hands, finding out the company, name or model number and date means embarking on the last step of the mystery. Choosing editions from the time of your house's construction, make a careful search of the illustrations in any pattern book or catalog you can lay your hands on. Study the catalog plates carefully, keeping a few photographs of your home handy. Match your house to a design with great care. Published designs were often altered in execution. Even precut homes were changed during construction by modifying a number of elements, such as the size or placement of windows, the type of exterior wall cladding, the form of a dormer and the addition or removal of the chimney.
Of course, there was nothing to prevent a local carpenter from building a version of a Sears or Aladdin house based on illustrations or duplicating a catalog house with his own "improvements." These copies confirm the popularity of the mail-order house, reminding us of its enduring appeal then and today.
While this article has by no means covered the architectural styles of all of the early homes in Fallon, it is hoped that you will look at local residences with new interest and with a more educated eye. Perhaps you live in one of these old homes.
Does your residence have a story to tell? The Churchill County Museum is interested in hearing about it! Take a few minutes to write down the history of your old house and get it down to the museum. We'll keep the information in our files and your story may become part of another In Focus article!
SOURCES
Massey, James C. and Shirley Maxwell. "Planbook Houses: Architecture By Mail." Old
House Journal. November/December 1989, pgs. 40-45.
Massey, James C. and Shirley Maxwell. "Mediterranean Traditions." Old House Journal.
July/August 1991, pgs. 45-49.
Massey, James C. and Shirley Maxwell. "Art Deco and International Styles." Old House
Journal. March/April 1992, pgs. 56-60.
Massey, James C. and Shirley Maxwell. "Stalking the Stockbroker Tudor." Old House
Journal. March/April 1994, pgs. 18-20.
Reiff, Daniel D. "Identifying Mail-Order & Catalog Houses." Old House Journal.
September/October 1995, pgs. 30-37.
Massey, James C. and Shirley Maxwell. "The All-American Family House." Old House
Journal. November/December 1995, pgs. 29-33.
Massey, James C. Shirley Maxwell. "A Nation in Bungalove." Old House Journal.
March/April 1996, pgs. 32-37.
Massey, James C. and Shirley Maxwell. "That Which We Call Victorian: Houses 1865-
1893." Old House Journal. September/October 1996, pgs. 36-43.
Massey, James C. and Shirley Maxwell. "Victorians Plain and Popular: Two Common
House Types." Old House Journal. November/December 1996, pgs. 20-23.
Rawhide, Yesterday and Today
Yianna and Doug Batchelor
"I name you Rawhide," said Charles Holman, a cowboy from Wyoming, on February 15th, 1907, marking the start of what was, for a brief period in Nevada's mining history, considered to be the greatest and most phenomenal gold camp the world had ever seen. But the dreams of those who flocked to this new gold discovery were brief, lasting only a few short years. This is the story of the gold mining district known as Rawhide and of the people who took their place in its development. But the story did not start in 1907, it started far back in geological time in a period known as the Miocene.
Geology
About 24 million years ago, Rawhide, located on the northern edge of what is now known as the Walker Lane mineral belt, was the scene of repeated and intense volcanic activity. During this period in geological history, the Sierras had not reached the heights at which they stand today and consequently Nevada was not protected by the rain shadow which now gives it a desert climate. The climate during this period was more temperate, and extensive freshwater lakes covered much of what is now Western Nevada. The exact dimensions of the Walker Lane are unknown. However, the mineralization associated with it is approximately 60 miles wide, and evidence of this mineral belt can be found stretching from northern California to Las Vegas. The Walker Lane, in fact, represents a shear zone in the earth's crust, similar to that of the active San Andreas fault running down the west coast of California today. Gold and silver mineralization of the volcanic rocks in the Rawhide area was introduced by a siliceous hot spring system generated by magmatism about 15.7 million years ago.
After the volcanic and intrusive magmas hardened into rock, faulting disrupted these rocks and created pathways for the movement of mineralized fluids and openings for deposition of gold and silver during continued igneous activity. As gold and silver bearing fluids migrated upwards along faults and fractures, they permeated the disrupted rocks throughout the area, forming northwest-trending, pod-shaped zones of gold mineralization. This resulted in both vein type deposits and dissemination of fine gold particles and sulfide minerals throughout large vol-
57
58 Yianna and Doug Batchelor
umes of rock. A large tonnage, low-grade disseminated gold deposit was created, which is typically composed of submicron-sized particles often visible only with a scanning electron microscope.
The rocks that resulted from this intense volcanic activity were later fractured along a north-west fault zone. Geological and mineralogical processes resulted in the formation of two ore types in the Rawhide deposit. The uppermost or near surface ore type, known as oxide ore, occurs to depths of 700 feet. This type of ore occurs where oxygen and water, percolating through the subsurface, have combined to leach sulfide minerals from the rock. This natural leaching process leaves gold in the rock but removes sulfitic minerals.
The second ore type is non-oxidized, or sulfide, that typically occurs at greater depths, where the oxygen content is low. A general geological history of the area is shown in Table 1, shown below.
Location
Rawhide is located 22 miles south of U.S. Highway 50 on a dirt road extension of State Route 31 near the base of Pilot Cone Mountain. When the Rawhide Mining District was booming in 1908, the location was described as follows:
Table 1- Geological Chronology
'Geological time presented with names of geological time periods and approximate millions of years before present in parentheses.
Rawhide, Yesterday and Today 59
REGENT MINING DISTRICT
(Shamberger 1970)
60 Yianna and Doug Batchelor
The new camp is in Esmeralda County, about 25 miles east of the upper end of Walker Lake, 45 miles by stage from Luning, 54 miles by automobile from Mina, 30 miles by automobile and stage from Schurz, and about 50 miles south of Fallon. (Mining and Scientific Press 2/ 22/1908:238)
It should be noted that Rawhide was located in Esmeralda County before the creation of Mineral County in 1911.
The First Miners
Nevada's precious metal mining history began with the 1859 discovery of the Comstock Lode. Prospectors swept out from Virginia City in all directions and made other rich discoveries throughout the state. These numerous mining booms attracted approximately 60,000 people to Nevada between 1859 and 1880. The epoch pushed the Nevada Territory into Statehood in 1864. Miners extracted 250 million dollars in gold and silver for deposit into the U. S. Treasury. A period of decline came in 1880 after the rich veins became depleted and camps sputtered into abandonment. Towns with names like Austin and Eureka had become quiet. The roots of this drama had connections to America's post-Civil War industrialization and the related demand for capital. This resulted in paring away the bulk of Western high grade ore bodies.
The 1900-1910 southwestern Nevada silver/gold rush at Tonopah, Goldfield, and Rhyolite briefly breathed life into the American West (continental United States) gold rush mentality. Mining strikes quickly followed one another, as prospectors fanned out from the Tonopah excitement and located sequential strikes across southern Nevada. Indeed, Nevada's population grew once again, from 47,335 individuals in 1900 to 81,875 in 1910 (Elliott 1966:xi, 300-301).
While speculation has always characterized Nevada mining, it reached an apex at locations such as Rawhide during the early twentieth century mining boom. One mining historian wrote:
A veritable craze for mining stock swept the country in the early years of the twentieth century. Nothing seemed too absurd to be believed. Statements in the advertisements and prospectuses from the promoters were accepted at face value without a thought toward the most cursory kind of investigation. (Elliott 1966:86).
Many promoters took advantage of the public. Nevertheless, the public's desire to profit from the remaining turn-of-the-century mining frontier was strong. Mining speculation revitalized an ageless organism, a form of gambling which supported promoters who fed the investors what they wanted to believe. Boosters honed mining speculation to an art in the early twentieth century Nevada mines.
Rawhide, Yesterday and Today 61
Death Valley's Greenwater copper mines served as a measure for mining stock fraud. Between 1906-1907, salesmen sold $30 million dollars in mining stock from a district that only produced $2,600 in copper ore (Lingenfelter 1986:310-337). This deceitful legacy extended into the Regent (Rawhide) Mining District.
In the end, the district ultimately did prove to be a producer, although not at the earth-shaking volume its promoters promised in 1907-1909.
Rawhide became a mining town during 1900-1910, one of the busiest eras in Nevada mining history. By 1905, the rich mining districts of Tonopah (1900), Goldfield (1903), and Bullfrog/Rhyolite (1905) had risen out of the Nevada desert. The existence of a broad railroad network and automobiles delineated this era from earlier Nevada mining camps. Rawhide developed in this new twentieth century mining atmosphere.
Rawhide was one of the most flamboyant of the mining camps, with a glamour that was lacking in many of the others. However, the rise and fall of the boom days at Rawhide occurred in a period of less than two years. The population grew to 7,000 in a matter of eight months. Rawhide was known as a poor man's camp because it was developed almost entirely by lessees, each lease covering an area of about 300 feet by 600 feet. At about the same time as the rush to Rawhide began, the country was in the grip of a financial panic. This together with the fact that there was a labor dispute between the miner's union and the mine owners in Goldfield led many central Nevada miners to search for new claims. Rawhide therefore presented an ideal opportunity for the almost overnight development of a new mining camp. Stories of large quantities of high grade ore resulted in an influx of prospectors, promoters, newspapers, merchants, gamblers and men looking for work. There were two distinct and separate initial finds in the region which sparked the interest of prospectors, one in the Regent Hill area, the other on Grutt Hill.
Two ranchers named J.M. Schaedler and Wasson living near Fairview, Nevada, claimed gold discoveries on December 5 and 6, 1905 (Schrader 1947:140) in the Regent Hill area. A prospector by the Name of Jim Swanson is credited with making the first location in the Rawhide area, on December 25, 1906. He located the Poor Boy claim a few hundred feet to the north of what was later to be named Grutt Hill. One writer paid tribute to Swanson as follows:
On Christmas day, in the year 1906, when all the world was making holiday, Jim Swanson made the first location in which is now the Rawhide district. His was a lonely, dismal Christmas, but thousands of homes will be filled with cheer from the work he did that day. The trail-breakers of Nevada will not be known to fame, but they have woven some threads of gold into the somber warp of life, and although forgotten themselves, they will have a posthumous immortality in the comfort and happiness of future generations.
62 Yianna and Doug Batchelor
Z.T. Carson, the second prospector to stake claims at Rawhide, did so on February 12, 1907. Soon after, on February 15, 1907, Charles "Scotty" McLeod located claims in the Balloon Hill area. A detailed account of the creation of the mining camp at Rawhide came from F.W. Clark who wrote the narrative for a photographic promotional book of the town in 1908 called "Souvenir Views of Rawhide, Nevada."
Z.T Carson has the honor of locating the first claim in the camp, and was located on what is now known as 'Bluff Hill,' February 12, 1907, then on 'Balloon Hill' February 14, 1907. Thus he is the original locator of the camp. The first real values were found March Ist, 1907, on claims located by C.C. Dunning and Jack Davis,
on what is now known as 'Murray The first ore shipped from the camp was hauled out by John Snowgoose, July 4", 1907, and was taken from what is now known as the Kern's No. 1, on Balloon Hill. The first lease was let on Balloon Hill August 14th, 1907 to Charley Walker and Frank Clifford. About the latter part of August, Eugene Grutt (now known as the Daddy of Rawhide) bought an interest in the Mascot and Mascot No. 1 located on what is now known as Grutt Hill. The first townsite company was organized by Chas. Walker September 14th, 1907, and was called the 'Rawhide Improvement Association.' There were only about twenty persons in the camp at that time. On September 23rd R.M. Van Dorn reorganized the townsite and staked under the name of Van Dorn Townsite Company. He then laid out the townsite and staked off the lots, the first of which was sold September 25th for the sum of $10 each. The stampede to the camp did not begin until about October 10th as about that time rich strikes were being made on Balloon Hill, then the lots that were selling a few days previous for $10 increased in value and sold for as high as $1,500. (Johnson and Clark 1908:1)
Just as a variety of prospectors claimed to have made the initial gold discoveries at the site, the story of how the town was named also has some variations. The most popular version is that a local rancher attempted to organize the infant community's postal delivery by nailing a tin can and a cow's tail to a post with a sign stating "Drop mail for Rawhide here," (Myrick 1962:229). In another version, Wyoming cowboy Charles Holman, who claimed one of the initial gold discoveries, pronounced the town into being on February 15, 1907, by exclaiming, "I name you Rawhide" (Johnson and Clark 1908:2). A more elaborate version of the Holman story placed him at a tent camp with other initial discoverers Bovard and the two McCleods. They were discussing potential names for the camp as Holman worked
Rawhide, Yesterday and Today 63
on a piece of buckskin. Holman said, "There is a Buckskin on the map and there has to be a Rawhide." After this pronouncement, Mason McCleod wrote "Camp Rawhide" on the front of the tent. After Charles McLeod returned to Yerington from locating the claims, he had his brother Angus paint the name "Rawhide" on a board, and, when he returned to Rawhide to do the location work, nailed the sign to another piece of board in the form of a cross and stuck it upon the Balloon claim previously located by Holman (Shamberger 1970:4).
The name "Rawhide" caused Belle Dormer, a resident of Rawhide, to put her thoughts into words.
Here's to you Miss Rawhide I'll tell you straight and true. There's not a man among us Who hasn't faith in you.
For you're a little hummer and not one bit to blame. Just because some farmer Gave you such a name.
There were many interesting characters involved in the development of Rawhide, far too many to mention in these few pages. However, some are particularly worthy of mention:
Three men initiated the publicity for Rawhide's boom and they did their job so well that the Regent Mining District attracted 3000 to 5000 people in less than a year (Elliott 1966:94). George Graham Rice, whose L.M. Sullivan Trust Company collapsed in Goldfield leaving thousands of small investors skeptical of mining stocks, was Rawhide's most prominent huckster. Rice owned and promoted the Rawhide Queen Mine, the Rawhide Coalition Mine and the Black Eagle Mining
Top row, 1 to r: C. C. Dunning, Eugene Grutt, Charles (Scotty) McLeod. Bottom row, 1 to r: A. W. Drew, Joe Alexander, Z T Carson.
64 Yianna and Doug Batchelor
and Milling Company (Glassock 1932:290 - 291). He managed to persuade prominent New York Actor and comedian, Nat C. Goodwin, to serve as a front for his new company in Rawhide and help shield investors from knowledge of Rice's connection with the Sullivan scandal. Goodwin not only purchased worthless stock but sold similar shares himself (Glassock 1932:291).
To boost sales, Rice established the Nevada Mining News which disseminated his selected information widely (Myrick 1962:230). Rice's success is especially remarkable because, by the time of Rawhide's boom, his unscrupulous reputation was well known, and nationally published mining magazines were rebuking his actions (Elliott 1966:94).
Another promoter, Tex Rickard, came from Goldfield to Rawhide in one day in a chauffeur driven Thomas Flyer automobile and spent $10,000 for one of the choicest corner lots in town. On it he constructed the Northern Saloon, which was rushed to completion in 10 days, duplicating the successful pattern he had established in Goldfield (Myrick 1962:230; Murbarger 1956:5). The saloon rang up bar receipts of $2,000 on its opening night and its gambling tables were soon yielding to the house an average of $25,000 per day (Murbarger 1956:5). As he left Goldfield, it was Tex Rickard who hung the now famous sign on a closed Goldfield church bearing the words: "This Church is closed. God has gone to Rawhide" (Glassock 1932:287).
The arrival of Eugene Grutt and his brothers Emil, Fred and Leo, in August 1907, marked the turning point in the early life of Rawhide. Following their arrival, the camp quickly started to develop. As the Grutt brothers were widely respected as mining men, their activities in Rawhide soon attracted outside attention, and investment money started to come in. Eugene Grutt became known as the "Daddy of Rawhide." Eugene, the next to the youngest of the four brothers, bought an interest in the Mascot Claim on what became known as Grutt Hill. The Grutt brothers were all born in Jefferson, Wisconsin. In 1887, the family moved to the territory of Washington. Based on information acquired from an old friend, Eugene came to Rawhide in August, 1907. He liked what he saw and sent for his brothers. Despite the fact that the brothers got there early, all available ground in the vicinity of Rawhide had been staked. They therefore became investors from the start, and knowing their business, had secured the best mineral ground in the district. The Goldfield News of March 14, 1908, said of Eugene Grutt and his brothers (Shamberger 1970:4-5):
Until Grutt came on the scene, there had been "nothing doing" to speak of. No one on the outside knew of Rawhide, no trades or sales had been made. But he started the ball rolling by buying into 22 claims . . . Through the quartet, the first money for mining was taken into Rawhide. The indomitable courage and restless energy of Eugene Grutt instilled life into the camp and he at once earned the sobriquet of "Daddy of Rawhide."
Rawhide, Yesterday and Today 65
Plat of
RAWHIDE TOWNSITE
September 1907
Among the legitimate and respected promoters and developers of Rawhide and its mines, in addition to the Grutt bothers, Tex Rickard and E.W. King, were J.D. Murray, who owned a number of claims on the hill just south of Balloon Hill (later known as Murray Hill); J.E. Kerr, of San Francisco, who organized the Queen Regent Copper and Gold Company, consisting of claims on Murray Hill; A.A. Codd of Goldfield, who later became prominent at Rochester; Thomas Kearns, who paid $10,000 to the Grutt brothers for a lease which became famous as the Kearns lease No. 1 on Balloon Hill, one of the best producers in the district. (Kearns also tried to promote a water company.) C.C. Dunning, who discov-
The first miners shipping high grade ore from Rawhide pose on one of hills above the fast-growing boom town.
66 Yianna and Doug Batchelor
The developing town of Rawhide was filled with tents during the early days of the boom.
ered the first placer gold and who also staked the first claims on Murray Hill, which were the first to produce gold and silver values.
In addition there were R.M. Van Dorn and associates, who were responsible for developing the townsite; E.H. Whitacre of Yerington, who was the controlling spirit in the Mascot claim, located on the northern end of Balloon Hill and on Grutt Hill; "Swiftwater" Bill Gates, of Klondike fame, who operated the first mill at the edge of Alkali flat; and Zeb Kendall of Goldfield, prospector, promoter, and gambler. There were many others (Shamberger 1970: 41-43).
The Town of Rawhide
The Rawhide townsite came into existence in September and October 1907. In writing about the town of Rawhide and its environment, a 1908 Reno newspaper had these things to say under the heading "Scarcely Six Months Old" (Shamberger 1970: 10):
It is safe to state that the present population of Rawhide is 7000 that at least 4000 of these men and women are without means, excepting that they can borrow from those more fortunate. Three thousand men are employed - but not more than 500 of them are drawing salaries. So it is safe to say that 2500 enthusiastic fortune seekers are digging into the hills. Look over the history of the district, some of it as old as the world itself, perhaps, but known to man for not more than five months. Would it be possible without gold in sight to build up such a big camp as Rawhide in such a brief time ?
Rawhide, Yesterday and Today 67
Balloon Hill, on the right, where the first ore was shipped from Kearns No 1. Lease. Rawhide Queen Mines is visible in the upper center of the photograph.
By the fall of 1907, mining companies were becoming established and claims were sold and leased for $10,000 and even $100,000. The news of Rawhide had spread through not only Nevada but the entire West. The mining promotion of the century had begun.
During the rush, town lots were expensive and difficult to find. Some sold for up to $10,000. On a large plot in South Rawhide, one owned by the Gruff brothers, gold boomers who could not afford to buy land were given permission to camp at no cost, which was unusual at Rawhide in the boom days. By nightfall 250 tents were standing. After a couple of months, thousands of tents and even businesses constructed of wood were established at no cost for the ground, a reflection of the great generosity of the Grutts.
During the peak of the Rawhide boom there were 50 mining hoists in operation, 500 to 600 mining leases being worked, 3 banks, 2 water companies, 12 modern hotels, 2 very large dancing halls, 12 churches of different denomination, two telegraph lines, a long distance telephone, a daily auto stage and mail service from Schurz, Fallon and Mina, 90 saloons open around the clock and 200 to 300 houses of ill repute with possibly up to 500 gainfully employed ladies of the evening.
Main street, two miles long, was built up solidly on both sides. Over a period of one year, there were five different newspapers printed in Rawhide, not all at any one time.
Most of these papers, if not all, were subsidized by the mining promoters making some of the subject material suspect, particularly in reference to properties and value of the ore.
68 Yianna and Doug Batchelor
The Visit of Lady Elinor Glyn
In May 1908, Rawhide was near the height of its boom. Because of all the celebrities who visited Rawhide during this period, the arrival in camp of a person of some importance seldom caused much commotion. This was not the case, however, when the celebrated authoress, Elinor Glyn, arrived in camp on May 27, 1908. According to the Goldfield Daily Tribune of May 26, 1908, Lady Elinor Glyn visited Goldfield on May 25th and 26th, 1908. On the evening of the twenty-sixth a reception was given her at the Hotel Casey in Goldfield. The following morning she journeyed to Rawhide.
No one was quite sure of the purpose of Elinor Glyn's visit, but during her tour of the United States this unhappily married lady, eager for adventure, found rough hewn Rawhide far different from the European society to which she was accustomed, and was intrigued by the town and its people. Moreover, she showed everyone that she could make herself at home in the zinc roofed shacks and tent houses which made up the town of Rawhide.
Joe McDonald, a Rawhide resident, related that the first time he saw Elinor Glyn she was sit-
ting on the edge of a roulette table, rolling a cigarette. One of her escorts was Raymond T. Baker, who later became the director of the US mint. The other escort was Sam Newhouse, a noted Utah mining man. In quite an elaborate ceremony, the citizens of Rawhide gave her a gun as a token of their esteem for her and her book, Three Weeks. When Nevada Governor Denver S. Dickerson pinned the badge of a deputy sheriff on her, and told her she could arrest any man in Nevada, the crowd went wild, cheering and yelling. The highly emotional English authoress exclaimed ... "such chivalry, such innate aristocracy in the mining camps of Nevada, a splendid community of real gentlemen." (Shamberger 1970: 33-35).
Water
The precise history of Rawhide's water supply is difficult to disentangle, par-
ticularly as the town's newspaper accounts, at a time when the mining excitement
Street scene in downtown Rawhide.
Rawhide, Yesterday and Today 69
Arrival of loaded auto at the first Bank of Rawhide
was at its height, were so busy proclaiming the merits of so many obviously promotional schemes, and that Rawhide was to be the greatest of all camps.
During the initial and final excitement at Regent, water was hauled from Schurz, as most of the prospectors came in that way. In the early days of Rawhide, in fact up to 1908, practically all the water was hauled from Dead Horse Wells, about eight miles south of Rawhide on the old road to Luning. The well was owned and operated by John Murphy, who came to Dead Horse Wells in 1872, and who served thirsty travelers up until his death in July 1908.
A water company was formed known as the Dead Horse Wells Water Company. This company was probably the most remunerative enterprise in the area with the possible exception of saloons and gambling halls. An advertisement in the Rawhide Rustler of February 29, 1908, had the following wording:
Dead Horse Wells - Water Company
Water delivered to all parts of Rawhide at $2.50 per barrel.
The only water that has stood the test of time B. Hyland, Prop.
The cost of water was so high that a bath would cost $5.00. However, if one wanted to save money, used water could be purchased at $1.00 per barrel.
The citizens, however, remained optimistic that all the amenities of early twentieth century American life would soon be forthcoming. Eventually, a city water system was installed utilizing ground water some 400 feet deep which was pumped up from Alkali Flat, 5 miles south of town. This effort was conducted amid a variety of promotional schemes for several water acquisition systems, none of which became fully functional. The piped system from Alkali Flat, which was still under
70 Yianna and Doug Batchelor
Crowds mob the streets in 1908 as the stage arrives in Rawhide. The young man holding a bundle of newspapers at the front of the stage is Joe McDonald.
construction and only partly functional at the time of the town's fire in September 1908, was not completed until May 21, 1909 (Shamberger 1970:13-18); (Myrick 1962:229).
Rawhide Western Railway
The development and speculation in Rawhide spawned an attempt to create a railroad connection. The Rawhide Western Railway was formed as a business proposition with plans to link Rawhide with a 28-mile long standard gauge railroad grade line running from Rawhide Junction on the Carson and Colorado Railroad southeast of Schurz. The line would swing in to Rawhide from the north to the townsite. The California Construction Company (a large investor in the line), based out of Oakland, had crews begin work in March 1908 (Rawhide Rustler, June 13, 1908).
Planners intended for the line's first 16 miles to maintain a one percent grade. The last 12 miles would run south of the north-south trending autocoach road. From this point, the railway would curve around to Rawhide from the northwest and terminate in Stingaree Gulch. The original plans called for the line to be in use by early June, 1908. Surveyors under the direction of R.R. McGregor conducted the engineering work. Chief Engineer Tilden, Superintendent of Construction Scott, and Grading Crew Supervisor G.S. Gamble took over the work from there (Rawhide Rustler, April 11, 1908) (Rawhide Press-Times, May 7, 1908) (Rawhide Rustler, June 13, 1908).
Construction crews worked in units on the line. The California Construction Company crews began work on the Southern Pacific line and constructed the first
Rawhide, Yesterday and Today 71
16 miles. A second unit worked from the Rawhide end, and a third crew served in a floater capacity (Rawhide Press-Times, April 29, 1908). The California Construction Company subcontracted Sacramento-based Reed Teaming for grading work. Reed Teaming workers drove four-horse teams pulling Fresno scrapers. A construction camp five miles east of Schurz was described as having "stables, sleeping quarters, cooking tent, dining room, office and blacksmith shop and carpenter shop" (Rawhide Press-Times, May 7, 1908) (Rawhide Rustler, June 13, 1908). ,
The Rawhide Western Railway's general manager A.G. Renfro took advantage of the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad's fiscal problems and purchased two steam engines, coach cars, flatcars, rails, and 50,000 ties (Myrick 1962:231). Unfortunately, the construction crews had not progressed at a brisk pace. Working in the summer heat, water for the 50+ laborers and 80-90 draft animals quickly proved to be a problem. The railroad company excavated two wells south of Rawhide Junction to resolve this difficulty. The water supply did not expedite construction, and by mid-June the grade only measured 12 miles long (Myrick 1962: 231).
Construction continued to move along at a glacial pace, and fiscal matters became complicated by the September 4, Rawhide fire. Construction crews continued on the grade and finished it by October. At the north end of the line, the firm had installed rails for a Rawhide Junction supply track. As fall progressed, ore production amounts began to slide downward, and the railroad directors chose to abandon the project. With the exception of the Rawhide Junction supply track, the grade became an expensive dirt track (Myrick 1962:235).
Mines, Mills & Production
At first Rawhide had been heralded as a high grade free gold district. By the close of 1908, however, it was recognized that the deposits consisted mainly of secondary silver veins containing milling grade ore rather than shipping ore, though many of the deposits contained streaks and pockets of very rich ore. On the Grutt lease on the Wild West claim, $15,000 was extracted from a body about the size of a burro. In 1908 the Nat. C. Goodwin Company, E.W. King and Eugene Grutt, for $800,000 bought control of the Rawhide Coalition Mining Company. The property consisted of nearly 200 acres and included the townsite Hooligan Hill and part of the Balloon and Grutt Hulls. In 1909, two small mills were in operation, located about five miles south of the town, near the edge of the alkali flat.
By August 1910, 7500 feet of underground work had been done. More than 20 mines had been opened to depths of 150 to 560 feet. There were at this time three additional mills, the National, Klinker and Queen. Yet, of all the prominent mining camps which came into being during the period 1904 to 1908, Rawhide had the smallest production of gold and silver. These camps included Rhyolite, National, Wonder, Manhattan, Fairview, Rochester, Seven Troughs, Midas, Jarbidge and Round Mountain. The production at Rawhide as shown by the records of the Nevada Bureau of Mines from 1908 to and including 1916, which were the years of
72 Yianna and Doug Batchelor
greatest production, was $1,287,246. Of this total, the gold accounted for $933,883 and silver for $350,476. There were in addition some small values for copper and lead.
Mining continued at Rawhide on a small scale up to 1943, when only $976 worth of gold was taken out. During the period 1917 to 1943, the most productive year was 1920, when $44,429 in gold and silver values were mined. The total production from 1908 to 1943 was $1,610,718.
That great things were expected of Rawhide was evidenced in a 1910 report written by P.R. Whytock, an English mining engineer, which said in part (Shamberger 1970: 19):
Rawhide, since the day of its christening, has been a noisy kid of stunted growth. Many plausible and euphonious explanations might be offered, but however much other things have operated, the enormous burden of chance jiggling opportunities has had its effect; but no more so than the boisterous bands of burlesque philanthropists, offering the members of a suffering race a realization of their most avaricious dreams with 500 percent.
Rawhide is outliving the errors of its youth; a few of its undesirable companions of earlier days are still hanging around, but slowly and surely with silent though effective indignation, it is severing the bonds that now feebly bind the blatant bluff of 1907 to the active mines of 1910. The gambling, stock-jobbing, spread eagle booster and the vampires of the industry have been forced to leave by dint of circumstances.
As a mining camp, Rawhide is sounder today than ever. Less is being said and heard of it, more is being done. Rawhide is destined to be, I believe, a liberal producer of gold and silver, to say nothing of a liberal; educator to the gullible investor who heretofore has failed to analyze the hollow presentations of the rosy prospects and the green eyed author.
The Fire
Many of the mining camps in the early 1900s experienced fires, some significantly more serious than that at Rawhide involving greater property loss and even loss of life. Among these were Virginia City, Goldfield, Tonopah, Pioche and Hamilton. Why then did the fire at Rawhide draw such a great deal of attention? In typical Rawhide fashion, the fire was glamorized, like many other events which occurred there and was given great publicity throughout the West. The newspapers of the day conveyed the impression that the entire camp had been destroyed and that the population was destitute.
Rawhide, Yesterday and Today 73
The fire started at 9:30 a.m. on September 4, 1908, when a gasoline stove was upset in the Rawhide Drug Company's building. Aided by a slight wind coming down the canyon, the blaze rapidly spread through the wooden and canvas buildings. Eight blocks of the business section were destroyed.
The news of the holocaust was wired to Reno, Tonopah and Goldfield before the telegraph office was burned down. One newspaper screamed in big headlines: "Camp of Rawhide is Laid in Ashes." After the fire, much of the town was rebuilt.
However, many people started to leave realizing that their fortunes could not be found at Rawhide. In addition, two of the three banks failed and the economy became very depressed. By January 1909, the population had reduced to 2,000. By January 1910, there were 500 residents and by 1920 there were only 50 residents remaining. The last resident at Rawhide left in 1966. In all during this period, only 80,000 ounces of gold and 600,000 ounces of silver were mined in the district, representing a fraction of the money that exchanged hands in the development of the camp (Shamberger 1970: 29-32).
Resurgence of Interest
In 1930, the Idaho Dredging Company of Boise, Idaho, obtained a bond and lease on 1,800 acres of ground in the Regent Mining District and began sampling with the objective of dredging the ground if the sampling showed enough gold. As with earlier efforts, water was obtainable in the valley southeast of Rawhide. After a short time, the property and the sampling operation were taken over by the Hammond Engineering Company. The latter company continued sampling until May 1931, when operations ceased and the property reverted to the original owner. The reason for the relinquishing of the option by the two companies was never publicly stated, but in all probability it was the erratic distribution of the gold which resulted in low average values (Vanderburg 1936:121)
The Nevada Scheelite Mining Company began production of scheelite, a tungsten ore, at Rawhide in 1937 (Black et al. 1990: 827). By the end of 1957, the company had produced about $12 million in tungsten concentrates. Because of the
Fire victims watch helplessly from the hillsides as Rawhide burns on September 4'h, 1908.
74 Yianna and Doug Batchelor
importance of this scheelite operation to the state's economy, the Nevada Highway Department paved State Route 31 from its junction 2 miles west of Frenchman on U.S. Highway 50 to the Nevada Scheelite Mill, a distance of about 20 miles, and to within just a few miles of Rawhide. During this time, the town enjoyed a new influx of inhabitants who were employed at the mill. After this mine was depleted, the population dropped again and by 1966, the last resident had left Rawhide (Shamberger 1970: 43).
In 1959, Nevada Scheelite miner Charles 0. Ryan published his first-person account of the ghost town of Rawhide, population 5.
Four weather beaten old buildings with the old fashioned store fronts lined the street on the right and two buildings, one of rock, were on the left. The rock building, the jail, was still in good repair. In the distance, on a side street, an old shack could be seen overlooking the rest of the town. This was the home of Simon Goldwater, the mailman and mayor of Rawhide (Ryan 1959:14-15).
By 1968, only a few wooden structures were remaining at the townsite. The Wonder Lumber Company building, some residences and other commercial buildings were present, along with the stone jail with the cells still intact inside (Mordy and McCaughey 1968:135).
A Homestake-Getty joint venture in 1969-1971, completed 58 drill holes that partially delineated the ore zones of current interest. In 1982, Kennecott Corporation began an exploration program which led to the delineation of reserves of bulk-mineable gold-silver ore.
Modern day Rawhide
The intricate and highly complex mosaic of claims, town lots and patented land were consolidated by William Denton, a Reno developer, in the early 1980s. Denton negotiated with Kennecott to develop a large open pit mine in the district. A joint venture was formed between the Kennecott Corporation and Kiewitt Construction, and mining operations began in the fall of 1989. The first bar of doré (gold/silver alloy) from the new venture was poured on 27th April, 1990.
Mining operations were initiated in the fall of 1989 in the Crazy Hill pit. Proposed plans estimate a total mine life of 15 years with phased expansions of the mining activity through the Murray, Balloon, Grutt and Hooligan hills. In all, mining will remove some 190 million tons of ore and waste.
Mining operations comprise three steps: blasting, loading and hauling. To prepare for blasting, a pattern of 6 inch diameter, 30 feet deep holes is drilled. The holes are loaded with explosives and detonated in a controlled manner. After blasting, material is excavated in 25 foot high benches using 13 cubic yard capacity front end loaders. The loaders separate ore from waste and load these materials
Rawhide. Yesterday and Today 75
View of the current open pit looking south down the axis of the Walker Lane. Hooligan Hill is in the lower right hand corner.
into 85-ton capacity haul trucks. The ore is delivered by truck to the crushing plant, whilst the waste rock is disposed of in a waste dump, or to backfill one of the old worked out pits. Support equipment, including dozers, graders and water trucks, enhance safe and efficient production in the mining operation.
Processing of the ore begins with multiple stage crushing. A 48" x 60" jaw crusher first reduces the size of the material to approximately 6 inches or smaller. The ore is then screened to separate desired size product from oversized materials. Oversized material is further reduced to product size by a 7 foot secondary cone crusher. Crushed product is then transferred by 36" wide belt conveyors to the leach pad. While ore is en route to the leach pad, an automatic sampler removes small portions of it for assaying and lime is added to aid leaching.
On an impervious lined leach pad, the ore is stacked in 20 foot high lifts. Cyanide solution is applied to the top of the lift by pumps, pipe and drip emitters similar to those used for watering gardens. As solution percolates through the ore, the cyanide dissolves the gold and silver and the solution is then said to be "pregnant." Pregnant solution flows to environmentally safe solution ponds. Recovery of gold and silver from the pregnant solution occurs at the process center. Solution is processed using the Merrill-Crowe technology. First, the solution is clarified in pressure filters. Second, dissolved air is removed by applying a vacuum to the clarified solution as it flows through a deaeration tower.
Finally, zinc dust is added to precipitate gold and silver. The precipitate is separated from solution and collected for refining in pressure filters. The solution,
76 Yianna and Doug Batchelor
now "barren" of metal values, flows to a storage pond for reuse on the heaps. The metal precipitate collected in the pressure filters is combined with flux in an electric induction furnace. As the furnace melts the entire batch, the metallic gold and silver settle to the bottom of the crucible as an alloy called doré. The slag is then poured off the top of the batch, and doré is cast into bars for shipment. The doré contains approximately one ounce of gold for every nine ounces of silver.
The crushing plant.
The Future
The currently delineated ore reserves will enable Rawhide to keep producing
gold and silver until the year 2005. However, a significant amount of exploration
continues to be undertaken within the claims area which is comprised of 898 claims
covering some 17,233 acres. Future discoveries could enable the Denton-Rawhide Mining Company to continue profitable mining for many year to come.
It is unlikely that Rawhide will ever be the bonanza that so many hoped for in 1907. However, it does stand true as a legacy of those decent men who through hard work, guts and determination, helped forge the future of the "Silver State."
The smelter.
Rawhide, Yesterday and Today 77
Additional information on Rawhide was discovered in the form of a series of newspaper articles printed in the Fallon Standard in 1939, written by L.A. Beckstead. The following excerpt is from the January 4, 1939 edition:
Glamor, Frenzy and Tragedies of Old Rawhide Are Recalled
By L.A. Beckstead
There will never again be another Rawhide nor anything anywhere else approaching the frenzy I found there upon my arrival in the fall of 1907.
The town of Rawhide then but a little more than a year old had only about five hundred people in it but, Oh, boy! from that time the population increased by leaps and bounds. Rawhide at the height of its glory and surrounding camps were said to have numbered twenty thousand people.
The stage line from Fallon owned by the I.H. Kent Company and other stage and auto lines from Luning and Schurz were jammed with passengers. Besides this onrush of new people, they were coming in on foot, by private conveyances, riding burros or leading them. Some were coming in with pack horses and others were even getting rides with freight teams.
It was a motley crowd representative of all classes, the rich, poor and middle classes; even old saloon bums from the larger cities. Many of these same derelicts died later on that winter from exposure and hunger.
With ordinary people and in ordinary times it would have been impossible for such things to happen -- that reasonable human beings, so to speak, would be plumb crazy and leave their homes and farms, their places of business to go into the desert where there was no wood for fuel, no water, no houses to live in. Some had tents but many others had no shelter but in the saloons and gambling houses -- there to remain while the snows came, the winds howled and Nature at her worst was against them . . .
I have been in mining camps the greater part of my life -- in Utah, Idaho, Montana and California -- but nothing to resemble the insane ecstasy to be encountered everywhere. This was their Eldorado, the land of plenty where Aladdin lived. They had only to rub the lamp when the genii would appear with all the gold they wanted -- in fact, anything on earth they wanted.
And so they rushed in. The sight of them was never to be forgotten. Hundreds of tents and tent houses going up. Lumber was built into offices, stores, hotels, dozens of bar rooms, gambling houses and other buildings. Big freight teams plodded in hauling loads of lumber, household goods, hay, grain and provisions and everything that is used by mortal man. Huge loads of timbers for shafts and tunnels, mining machinery and hoists were arriving hourly . . .
Such was the picture of Rawhide when I arrived and after I had lived in this mining camp of the wild west. It was Rawhide in its insane excitement which will never be known again in America's mining states. Never again in our time will people be stampeded into such a rush out into the desert in their quest for gold.
PIONEER PORTRAITS
Anna Rechel:
The Last Prospector in Rawhide
Sally Zanjani
Reprinted from A Mine of Her Own: Women Prospectors in the American West,
1850-1950 by Sally Zanjani. Used with permission of the University of Nebraska Press.
© 1997 by the University of Nebraska Press.
As Goldfield began sliding into decline, Tex Rickard sold his share in the once prosperous Northern Saloon and tacked a sign over the door of an abandoned church:
This Church Is Closed. God Has Gone to Rawhide.
If that was so, the Almighty neither stayed long nor exerted His influence strongly, for Rawhide became chiefly known for two things, the brevity of its boom and the chicanery of its stock promotions. Initial gold discoveries in 1906 northeast of Walker Lake in Nevada led to the organization of a mining district the following year and a boom that brought perhaps seven thousand hopefuls flocking into the arid hills by the summer of 1908. An instant city with every modern convenience sprang up, only to be partially destroyed by a fire in September of that year. Although much was rebuilt, it became increasingly evident that Rawhide's ore deposits had yielded little to support the fantastic promises of its promoters. Extensive development efforts had produced less than a million and a half dollars' worth of gold. A ghost town rapidly replaced the instant city. By 1910 only a few more than five hundred people of the teeming thousands once crowding the streets remained; ten years later the number had dwindled to fifty.(1)
As usual, women prospectors had joined the Rawhide boomers. Mrs. Lillian Hall, a former Kiondiker, her husband apparently divorced or dead, made locations in the area in the winter of 1907-8 and remained long enough to construct a large, two-story house. Newspaper woman Belle Dormer, another former Klondiker, secured claims in the area and wrote poetry in the newspaper. Irish-born Nora Boyle deserted Goldfield for Rawhide, where she prospected and thought of herself as a "lucky girl." As the exodus gathered momentum, however, even the lucky girl decided she would have no luck in Rawhide, and these women departed with the rest. By the time the woman who was to be the last living resident of Rawhide arrived on the scene, no memory remained of the women prospectors who had gone before her.(2
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Anna Frances Elleser was no native of the mining frontier. Born the youngest of seven children on January 1884 to prosperous German immigrant parents in Pearl River, New Jersey, she grew up in Tappan, New York, in a gracious, two-story suburban mansion with a veranda overhung by vines and a glassed-in sunroom overlooking green, wooded hills. Though she learned no more than a few words of German from her family, her cooking reflected her German background, and her sauerbraten is still remembered with pleasure. She became a beauty; a picture of her at twenty shows auburn hair worn in a smoothly bouffant upsweep, a dimpled chin, a slightly wide mouth, and an expression of calm sweetness. Her parents died in 1905-6, and Anna operated an ice cream parlor with a man who was to be her close companion and friend wherever she went for most of her life, her older brother Walter. She also married and bore a son, who died soon after his birth. Nothing is known of the marriage except that it was unhappy and Anna refused to tolerate her situation. As her daughter-in-law later said of her, "She was probably about five foot two or three. But when she was strong-minded, you'd have thought she was six feet tall." A divorce was still an unusual and daring step for a young woman in the East. Nonetheless, Anna obtained one, and when she learned that a technicality might invalidate her second marriage in 1911 to George Rechel, the dark, dashing clean-shaven man she had fallen in love with, the Rechels set off in 1912 for Nevada, already a mecca for easy divorce. There Anna divorced her first husband anew and remarried George.(3)
The old saying that the West was "fine for men and dogs but hell on women and horses" has been thought to apply with particular force to the deserts, and indeed women themselves not infrequently testified to this effect. Women who traveled the overland trails often saw the desert as an ordeal to be put behind them as quickly as possible; the wife of a Portuguese miner in Golconda wrote a poem concluding, "And women can never tell / How the desert makes our life a hell"; journalist Frederick Bechdolt observed of a woman reluctantly compelled to spend her life in a desert outpost she disliked, "The desert had defeated her as it had defeated many other women." Anna turned out to be the antithesis of this widespread female antipathy to the arid wastelands of the West. According to her daughter Rees, she "fell in love" with the desert as soon as she saw it, and during more than half a century of hardship and privation, it never defeated her.(4
Accompanied by Anna's faithful brother, Walter, the Rechels homesteaded a ranch south of Fernley, Nevada. Over the next nine years Anna gave birth to six children in the ranch house bedroom. Four survived: Rees, born in 1914; Fern, 1915: George, 1919; and Walter, nicknamed "Pal," in 1921. In the crevices between the hard work of a ranch wife and the birthing and raising of children, an obsession started to take root. A prospector named Bill Stewart began stopping by the ranch with his wagon and horses on his journeys to and from Fernley. The scene is a familiar one in the lives of mining women. Idah Strobridge wrote of the prospector's tale that carries "conviction to the heart" in a way that surpasses the written word: "For you will believe. Ay! you will believe it is true; you will believe that there is a marvel of gold there for the lucky one who is to find it . . . Strange thoughts will be
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yours, of things that -- in that strange land -- in your heart, you feel might very well be. And the truth of what you may hear, you will not question." Thus did Helen Cottrell listen to the story of the lost mine; so too did the Petersons fall under the prospector who drew them into the desert. As the big wood stove warmed the Rechel ranch house kitchen with its checked curtains and the Coleman lamp with the globular shade burned late into the night, Stewart spoke and Anna listened with rapt attention to his tales of fortunes narrowly missed, lost mines, and bonanzas waiting in the hills. It was the moment of enchantment.(5)
Anna absorbed herself in every book and journal on mining that she could find and began studying rock kits. The books were so worn from constant perusal that she had to re-cover them. Soon the family began heading into the hills in the hay wagon to prospect for the day or the weekend. The thought of finding a bonanza excited Anna's husband, but he strolled the hills rather casually and dismissed every rock he encountered as "malachite." Anna, by contrast, prospected intensively, pounding every likely-looking specimen and eagerly examining it with her glass. Nonetheless, many years would pass before even an enthusiast such as she struck a prospect worth developing. No matter. For Anna there was another dimension. "She was in love with the hills," says Rees. Prospecting gave her the way to enter the world she glimpsed on the horizon. (6)
Despite a great deal of hard work, the homestead failed to prosper. The Rechels tried raising rabbits for the San Francisco market in addition to their hay crop; they tried leasing part of their land to a sheep rancher while George and Walter took jobs in town and Anna did the remaining ranch work. As economic conditions for the small rancher worsened with the approaching depression, nothing they tried helped much. They decided to abandon the homestead, and after a brief sojourn in Fallon they embarked on a different life. Around 1931 they moved into the ghost town of Rawhide, where they could live cheaply and Anna could prospect full-time; George worked for the highway department as an inspector and visited his family on weekends.(7)
In those days the absence of trees, the piles of white and cream-colored tailings, the rounded hills, and the farther mountains, broken as though trampled and collapsed, gave the old ghost town the look of an abandoned sandbox. The venerable stone jail still stood, with the metal cage used as a cell inside; so did the stone cellar, but the trench beside it that used to give customer's in Tex Richard's Northern Saloon quick access to the prostitutes working in Stingaree Gulch led into empty space, like most of the roads that webbed the hills and crisscrossed the flats. The Rechels moved into one of the larger and better surviving structures, the two-bedroom frame cabin that had belonged to Tex Rickard. Saloon owners had always looked to their comforts, and Anna's soft quilts, antiques, and other touches made the old house a still more comfortable home.
Nonetheless, even in the best of cabins Rawhide offered few amenities. It had "no telephones, no gas stations, no water, no groceries, no nothing," said Jim Mortensen, one of Anna's sons-in-law, adding somewhat incongruously, "It was a great town." Rawhiders caught as much water as possible in rain barrels and hauled in the rest nine miles or more from Dead Horse Wells or the hot springs; the mineral-
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ized hot spring water turned so yellow within a few days that fastidious visitors refused to drink it. Later it turned black from repeated reuse. With no refrigeration or fresh meat, canned salmon was a staple of Rawhide cuisine. The most critical item, however, was "get away gas," the five-gallon can that every Rawhider kept at hand for getting out of town if necessary.(8) It was a very different world from the gracious suburban mansion where Anna had grown up, but she preferred it to any other.
Jim Mortensen estimates that about a hundred people lived and worked within a ten-mile radius of Rawhide at the time of the Rechels' arrival. In the cities, he remembers, "you'd starve to death" because there was "no work at all" during the depression; in Rawhide you could simply pick out a deserted cabin, move in for nothing, and make enough to feed yourself by mining, the sole occupation of the Rawhiders. In more abundant places, such as the Arctic village where Nellie Cashman spent her last years, people made "side money" and supplied their own needs in a variety of ways, hunting, trapping, fishing, berrying, woodcutting, and so forth. The gray sage desert of Rawhide offered no such opportunities. People lived by working the tailings left by the old mines of the boom days. They ran the dirt through a dry washer, agitating it up and down so that the heavy gold bits lingered on the riffle board; then they panned down the gold-bearing material and drew it out with quicksilver. On the next trip to town Rawhide miners sold what they had accumulated to the gold buyer in Fallon, who paid sixteen dollars an ounce, half the normal price, because Rawhide gold was low grade and came in small quantities. Rawhiders had lower expectations than the Coffeys on the Agua Fria in the same period. If a Rawhider made a dollar a day, he saw it as "pretty big money." Despite the melancholy message implicit in the old prospect holes that peppered the ground at every turn, the undying hope of uncovering the glory hole that others had overlooked leavened the harshness of this existence, for Anna no less than the rest. Said Rees, "She just knew that she was going to find it. It kept her going." Among all those working the Rawhide region Anna was the only woman prospector.(9)
When the Rechels moved to Rawhide, their sons George and Pal were only twelve and ten, and Anna faced the perennial problem of the woman prospector: how to educate her children in a remote place. The solution was a unique one. The boys attended a one-room school taught by their sister Rees until 1934, when the dwindling population of Rawhide could no longer supply the required minimum of five students and the school closed. The boys then boarded at Schurz, a village on the Indian reservation some distance away while they attended school. Later Anna's brother Walter returned from New York, where he had taken a job for some years after the homestead failed, and lived in Fallon to maintain a home for Pal during school terms. Anna may have payed a price for this separation in the rocky relationship that developed with her son Pal.(10)
Difficulties with her younger son were eclipsed, however, by the tragedies that struck Anna in the late 1930s. A stroke left her husband partially paralyzed and able to walk only haltingly with a cane. While boarding at Schurz to attend school, her son George suffered a burst appendix. Despite emergency surgery, he made a
82 Sally Zanjani
Anna's second husband George (in his wheelchair), after he had suffered a stroke. Family members gather around him for this photograph. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
poor recovery, and in July 1937 he died at seventeen from peritonitis. The following January, soon after her fifty-fourth birthday, Anna's husband died as well. Her daughters had married and moved away. Thus, of the family of seven once clustered around the kitchen table, there remained only her younger son Pal and her brother Walter. The disappearance of his entire savings in a depression-era bank failure had left Walter dispirited and almost childlike in his emotional dependence on Anna. His faith in her strength was not misplaced. Anna had lost a great deal but never her delight in the desert or her effervescent hopes. She stayed on in Rawhide.
Over the decades that followed, changes in the world outside reverberated in remote Rawhide. World War II came. Pal married and joined the army. Although he had never taken an interest in mining, Anna henceforth staked claims in his name to provide a legacy in the event of her death. With Walter assisting her, she poured all her energies into mining tungsten for the war effort. Wearing a hardhat and jeans, Anna would climb a twenty-five-foot ladder down the mine shaft they had dug, set the dynamite fuses, then hasten up the ladder before the blast. After the dust settled she descended to shovel rock fragments into a bucket attached to a pulley and Walter cranked up the windlass by hand. If that struck some as remarkably hard labor for a small and slender woman, it would not have occurred to Walter that there was something his sister could not do, and he usually left anything that came up in her capable hands. On one occasion a flat tire needed patching and repair. Anna left it for quite some time, hoping that it might dawn on Walter that he should fix it. Nothing happened,
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so Anna finally hauled out the tire and took it off the rim. Walter made no move to help, but he and several men standing about him did offer comments and advice!(11)
The shadow of greater loss fell over Anna when word came that Pal was missing in action. But on a memorable midnight his bride, LaRae, arrived in Rawhide, driven by a friend who knew the road, with news that Pal had been taken prisoner by the Germans and might yet be alive. When daylight came LaRae saw the old ghost town for the first time and thought to herself that Anna must be "a little off her rocker" to live in such a desolate place. LaRae had been raised in green, lush farming country near the Snake River in Idaho: "I thought, 'Where's my mountains? Where's my pine trees? Where's my green grass? Where's all the greens?' She taught me to see the beautiful colors in the mountains here ... She taught me to love the desert." And instead of regarding Anna as slightly mad, LaRae began to understand her mother-in-law: "I got to know her, and know what she was, and what she stood for, and her reasons for what she was doing. I got to admire her more all the time because I thought, 'This lady does what she wants to do. She goes ahead and does it. She doesn't listen to what other people tell her you ought to do.'" That admiration only increased in the years after Pal came home and settled down with LaRae in Fallon.(12)
Proud mother Anna watched her son "Pal" receive a purple heart at this 1943 ceremony. Left to right: Jack and Lucy Morgan, LaRae and Pal Rechel, Anna Rechel and Jean Morgan. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
The 1950s arrived, bringing the uranium boom that electrified the mining world, its women prospectors along with the rest. Anna walked the hills with a Geiger counter, Panamint Annie declared she had found uranium, and Josie Pearl fantasized about making a million with some "elegant" uranium claims. The craze that produced more
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than three hundred thousand mining claims in four Utah counties undoubtedly included other women who embarked on their mining careers too late to fall within the confines of this book. The main exceptions, precursors to this midcentury surge of amateurs with clicking machines and scant acquaintance with mining, were two Wyoming women, Mrs. S.F. Gillespie, an experienced prospector who found radium in 1929, and somewhat better known Minnie Belle McCormick. While she was still a small child, Minnie Belle's father abandoned the Kansas farm where she was born around 1880 to go prospecting in the Rockies. She grew up in Leadville and Cripple Creek, Colorado. Before she turned ten she began waiting on tables, the commencement of a life of hard work as a cook similar to Josie Pearl's. She also resembled Josie in a passion for prospecting that dated from girlhood. In 1903 she married William McCormick, a man who shared her interests; the press described him as "a rancher by trade, but a prospector at heart." The couple moved to Wamsutter, Wyoming, with their three children in 1916, and Minnie Belle continued to work as a cook and to prospect. Her first notable find, carbon and alum deposits south of Wamsutter, came in 1925, but she failed to attract investment capital to develop them.(")
Minnie Belle's next discovery came in 1936 after her usual seasonal work cooking at a sheep shearing camp. One of the sheepherders had told her of seeing gold nuggets in the Lost Creek area, so when the McCormicks set off for a family picnic, Minnie Belle suggested Lost Creek. After her initial investigation yielded no treasures, her little grandson lost interest and slid down the steep bank to wade in the creek. And there they were -- yellow stones gleaming in the furrows cut in the red earth by his heels. What they might be proved a difficult question, however. As Minnie Belle collected samples, she quickly realized that their weight was too light and their color too greenish to be gold. She considered sulphur, but the taste seemed wrong. Back in her little house in Wamsutter she pored over her mineralogy books without finding any answers. Numerous analysts to whom she sent samples declared themselves equally puzzled. A year afterward a Harvard scientist confirmed her theory that the mystery rocks were carnotite, a complex mineral compound often containing uranium. Later the substance was positively identified as uranium.
For several years nothing happened. Until World War II and the advent of the atomic bomb the American market for uranium remained small. When the national atomic energy program began after the war, government geologists tested the Lost Creek claims and Minnie Belle received one of the limited number of licenses granted by the government for mining uranium. Asked what she planned to do with the great wealth that now seemed within reach, Minnie Belle voiced no grandiose plans. She felt disinclined to leave her little house, papered with calendars and magazine covers, for anything more luxurious, but at nearly seventy she confessed to feeling "old and tired" after a lifetime of hard work. She would have liked to hang up her apron and quit cooking. Unfortunately, like most uranium prospectors, she found no buyer for her claim. Overshadowed by other discoveries, the Lost Creek deposits remained undeveloped, and at the time of her death in 1951, Minnie Belle still had not achieved her one modest ambition. (14)
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Anna Rechel also had her share of big mine sales that failed to materialize. She corresponded with a number of investors, and some actually came to Rawhide to examine her claims. Others never quite arrived. The promoter Bill Brettner announced five or six times that he was bringing in a serious investor eager to develop Anna's properties and make millions for everyone concerned. Sometime later Brettner would glibly explain that his investor had suffered a heart attack at the airport or some last minute calamity. Despite the fact that she never sold a claim, Anna continued to believe that Rawhide mining would yield bountiful returns when, and only when, a large company brought in sufficient capital to develop the mines. Time would show how right she was.
Brettner's charades failed to dent Anna's enthusiasm for prospecting. After her titanium mining ceased with the end of the war, she worked with an exceptionally competent Rawhide miner named Smedley, who prospected with her and taught her a great deal. Every morning at an early hour -- for Anna believed and often quoted the old German saying that "the morning hours have gold in their teeth" -- she would walk a half-mile down the trail to meet Smedley, and they would spend the day side by side dry-washing placer gold. After Smedley pulled up stakes, she prospected alone once more. She rediscovered an old Spanish turquoise mine not far from Rawhide and polished and sold the greenish, heavily veined turquoise herself. Dreams and intuition played no part in her prospecting. She relied on her pick and on various mechanical aids: her metal detector, her Geiger counter, and her black light, a battery-operated device about the size of a large camera that was supposed to reveal metals by showing different colored lights. Like Panamint Annie and her Death Valley family, Anna often continued her prospecting into the night. She would bed down on a mattress she kept in the back of her truck and enjoy the beauty of the desert by moonlight. She spoke to her family of the pleasure she took in watching a pack of wild dogs race yelping over the hills. Perhaps in spirit she ran with them.(15)
The pickup truck in which Anna slept was an old rattletrap that barely ran and continually tried her patience. If those rich investors who repeatedly vaporized at the airport with Brettner had ever presented her with real cold cash, the one fantasy she would have indulged in was as modest as Millie Belle McCormick's desire to quit cooking: she would have liked to buy a new truck. Since she visualized it as an unstoppable powerhouse roaring straight up the mountains, her family was slightly relieved that she never realized her wish. It was through the vagaries of her old truck that Anna's last romance began. Her prospecting had taken her far out in the hills when the battery in her truck died. Fortunately, Alvin Nelson, an old miner from Gabbs, happened to be prospecting not far away, and he presented her with his spare battery.
Soon Nelson began stopping by to visit Anna in Rawhide. He saw that this slim, still beautiful woman was the mistress of a comfortable home and so fine a cook that people used to say, "I'd rather had Anna's leftovers than anyone else's banquet" (unless like the customer in Nellie Cashman's restaurant, no one had to be forced at gunpoint to eat Anna's cooking). It did not take Nelson long to figure the way to Anna's heart: he promised that if she married him they would buy a new
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Anna loads buckets of rocks into her old truck after a day of prospecting. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
four-wheel-drive vehicle and prospect together far and wide over the hills. And Nelson was a talker. He held forth for hours, painting a picture in glowing detail of the exciting life that lay ahead of them. Anna listened. The death in 1954 of her brother Walter, the lifetime companion who had outlasted husbands and children, may have left her a little lonely. At seventy-two, she thought a companionable marriage to someone who shared her interest in prospecting made a good deal of sense. Besides, there was the lure of that new truck. When Anna and Alvin Nelson went to the courthouse for a marriage license, county officials, who had never seen such elderly applicants before, laughingly gave them the document free of charge.
A rude awakening ensued, Nelson did not buy a new truck. In fact, Anna soon realized that her bridegroom was too elderly and infirm to do any of the things he had so vividly described. He had really wanted not a prospecting partner but a nurse who would stay home, take care of him, cook delicious meals, and wash his socks. Anna declined to be anyone's nurse. Her life's work lay out in the desert, and as Rees put it, "She wasn't about to be tied down." In short order, Anna divorced Nelson. Her admiring daughter-in-law saw this refusal to allow the husband who had promised Anna a full and active partnership in mining to turn her into a housewife as an integral part of her strength of character and modern sense of women's rights, "about fifty years ahead of her time." Q16)
Although this brief marriage late in life was now behind her and all her family had died or departed, Anna never lacked company. Because of her gracious, hospitable ways and her gift for making every visitor feel warmly welcome, Anna's kitchen
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became the gathering place for the remaining residents of Rawhide, and a good deal of socializing was characteristic of old mining camps. Anna herself remarked, "As for seeing people, I probably see more than I would in Fallon. In towns everybody is just too busy to visit." In times of crisis, as on pleasant evenings and during convivial winter lunches that lasted well into the afternoon, Anna's kitchen was the gathering place. When the Atomic Energy Commission embarked in 1962 on the Plowshare Project, an experiment in using atomic power to dig harbors, canals, and other evacuations, an atomic blast was detonated not far from Rawhide. Barbara and Dorothy Powell, who then lived "just a whoop and a holler" from Anna's home remembered, "Now what we decided to do -- this was a human need -- was to get together. And the place you would naturally get together was at Annie Rechels' kitchen . . . Nobody thought about going anywhere else." They found Anna's calm fatalism very soothing: "She was so relaxed about it. Her way of looking at it was if the government blew us up, they just simply would blow us up." (17)
Anna may have viewed the possibility of being blown to bits by atomic bomb testing with equanimity, but many of her political ideas were forward looking, deeply held, vigorously expressed, and far from passive. As Rees says, "she was always reforming the world." In the presidential campaign of 1924 she passionately favored the third-party candidacy of the midwestern Progressive Robert La Follette. She leveled many a withering blast at the railroad monopolies. She believed in an equal opportunity that would allow people to choose the work that interested them. She saw an oppressed working class, its members compelled to work at jobs they disliked for subsistence wages in order to live. In a rightly ordered society, she often said, women would not be compelled to work for such low wages that they could barely support their families, or to depend on men for their support. The government should provide free day care for children, women should receive equal pay, and above all, society's attitude toward the working woman needed to change. Instead of being tied to the roles of mother and housewife, women should be free to pursue the careers that interested them. This included prospecting, which she considered essential, because the American economy depended on the prospector's discoveries. And none could doubt that Anna had lived what she believed. In Rees's words, "she was a women's libber from the beginning."(18)
Overall, the available sources do not support the theory that women prospectors were too removed from normal society and too absorbed in their wilderness adventure for political involvement. Even before the days of woman suffrage Nellie Cashman had exerted her political influence and raised funds for the Irish cause; Josie Pearl had been a Republican activist and had lobbied the Nevada legislature to revise the teacher's pension law; Lydia Adams-Williams, a descendant of the famous New England family, and the first woman locator at Dutch Creek, Nevada, in 1906, ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in the 1922 Nevada primary; and Panamint Annie, who had emphatic opinions on every subject from speed limits to women's rights, treated the Nevada governor to her unsolicited advice. The main exception was the Coloradan Mrs. Atwood, who proclaimed disinterest in politics and only once exercised her right to vote.(19) Possibly, the thread of activism among
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the women prospectors originated because staking out a position far beyond traditional boundaries obliged them to define and defend it. Women who had crashed through the occupational barriers would scarcely turn back from political participation as an unsuitable activity for females. Nor would these almost uniformly strong-minded, self-confident, and independent women suddenly mutate into hesitant, deferential creatures when they entered the political realm.
Anna's political ideas, like her conclusions on most subjects, emerged as the result of deep and searching thought. More than any other woman in a century of prospecting the mining frontier, she typified the intellectual side of the prospector, and there is evidence to suggest that the prospector's common image as an illiterate primitive missed the mark. Among the prospectors at South Pass, Wyoming, journalist James Chisholm met "some grave and temperate men of sedate habits and superior intelligence with whom it is a pleasure to converse; who love to talk on history, politics, science and literature; who are well versed in geological theories . . . They take broad and liberal views. They are thinkers, for their experience is obtained at first hand and they have to shape their information into thought for themselves." Author Robert Marshall administered intelligence tests to the gold miners in the Koyukuk and found four times more in the superior range than in a group of typical Americans. Anna would surely have ranked equally high. For pleasure, a stimulating discussion of ideas, especially controversial ones, was second only to a conversation on mining. Although her education had not advanced beyond the eighth grade, she could do algebra and played chess whenever she could find a partner. Day in and day out, she read voraciously. Despite her preference for mining books and journals, she was intensely interested and well informed on a plethora of subjects.(20)
As the years passed and the last hangers-on in Rawhide died or "skinned out," it became harder to find a chess partner. Anna stayed on. In the earlier years she had dashed off with the rest when new mining excitements erupted at Talapoosa, Rabbithole, and other sites. "She couldn't wait to get up there," said Rees. "It was a dream and a story . . .When they'd hear about it, they'd have to go look at it. It was just in their blood." But she had always returned to Rawhide, drawn back to the hills of cream-colored sand, speckled with tiny dots of gray sagebrush and topped with squared gray crests of exposed rock, back to the familiar lavender-gray shape of Pilot Cone, like a volcano with a rounded tip, and to the rose-banded mesas in the far distance. Anna came to see herself as the guardian of Rawhide. She would not allow even members of her own family to take as much as a board from the deserted buildings with their fine wooden desks and other furnishings undisturbed inside since the day their owners had departed. Occasionally, tourists curious to see a ghost town peered inside the windows. Often they were invited to have a cup of tea by a gracious old lady whose refinement amid the crude ruins took them by surprise. Some visitors were so charmed that they returned each year, less to see the stone jail and other old buildings than to see Anna. Like Panamint Annie, she lived long enough to become something of a tourist attraction in her own right -- but never what Josie Pearl would have called a "pet coon."(21)
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Anna hits the hills in her prospecting garb, hammer in hand. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
Finally, the time came in the 1960s when no one remained in Rawhide but Anna and a big, rugged old miner named Bill McGrath who had lived there as long as she, more than thirty years. McGrath, quiet, clean-shaven, and always gentlemanly, came over each evening to have dinner with Anna, and one night he died there, sitting in his usual rocking chair. Anna had him buried in the Rechel family plot because in the deepest sense he was family.= Now Anna was alone.
Although worsening arthritis curtailed her ability to prospect for the same long hours as in her younger days, she still walked the hills with the same spirit. An observer visiting in the Sierra found that working for years at claims yielding scant returns usually altered the miner's personality: "Disappointments have often changed his whole nature . . . His energy has about died out; he is content to work in the primitive way of mining, living from hand to mouth . . . Solitude has soured his temper, and made him morose in the society of his fellow men." Anna, by contrast, belonged among the few the traveler encountered with hearts "still fresh." More than thirty years of scraping a lean living from the Rawhide hills had not altered her conviction that she would strike a bonanza at any moment. "Oh, this is going to be good someday!" she would enthusiastically exclaim over each promising streak of ore. It was characteristic of Anna to christen the last claim she staked, in the spring of 1960, the Hope.(23)
90 Sally Zanjani
If the spirit still soared, the flesh was failing. Sometimes even Anna was obliged to acknowledge it: "I don't think I'm any older than eighteen -- it's just my body that's too old." One day, struggling to start her antique truck, she decided to push it down a hill and jump on the running board as it began to roll. The truck knocked her down, leaving her bruised but not otherwise harmed. She waited for quite some time before telling Rees about this incident, because her children, worried about the hazards that could befall an old woman in so remote a place, had started pressing her to move into Fallon. Nor did she hasten to inform them about the huge rattlesnake that entered the living room and slithered slowly over her feet as she, with remarkable sangfroid, sat still as a statue in her rocking chair. Anna had shot that snake, but dangers brushed aside in past years began to loom larger.
Newer anxieties started to surface as well. Disturbing incidents of vandalism erupted in Rawhide. People broke the windows of the deserted buildings and blasted away with guns at the purple bottles of desert glass that Anna picked up and placed on her roof to turn a deeper shade before she sold them. One night two strange, longhaired men came to Anna's house asking for a drink of water. With the sixth sense that develops in people who live in solitude Anna sensed danger from them, and for the first time in her life, she felt afraid. She told them she had no water, and the strangers went away. Yet her instincts may not have lied. Not much time would pass before Charles Manson wrote his name on the wall of the Belmont Courthouse and unsolved murders occurred in the Death Valley country. Nor were Manson and his followers the only dangerous ones roaming the deserts in the sixties.
Finally, Anna's children insisted on moving her into Fallon. "It is breaking her heart to pack up and move from the town she loves," observed the newspaper re-
Anna's portrait, shortly before her family convinced her to leave Rawhide and move to Fallon. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
Anna Rechel 91
porter who visited her. "One wonders if it might not be kinder to let her live out her days where she is happy." Anna would not accept the move and at first kept running away to Rawhide. Idah Strobridge, knowing the prospectors as she did, would have understood: "All the years of his life the Old Prospector gives to the Desert his best and his all -- gives hope, and joy, and love, even as he gave youth. He gives his very soul; then, finally, he commits his body to the Desert's keeping -- to sleep there in its everlasting silence . . . In death the body rests where the heart found its joy in life. What lover could ask more?" (24)
If that was the death Anna would have preferred, it was not the one she received. In the middle of the night LaRae and Pal received a phone call from Anna's little house in Fallon asking them to come over because her heart hurt. When they arrived they realized at once that Anna had suffered a heart attack. LaRae wanted to call an ambulance, but she was overruled because neither Anna nor her son would concede that she might be incapable of walking into the hospital. "Strong-minded" Anna remained, to the very end. By the time morning came on 21 August 1967, she was dead.
Rawhide did not long survive her, nor had Anna believed it would when she was no longer there to keep watch. One night, it is said, young vandals put Rawhide to the torch and drank beer while they watched the town burn. Only the old stone jail and cellar and the hills remained.
Rawhide mining followed exactly the course Anna had foreseen. When new technology and high gold prices made working low-grade deposits highly profitable in the 1980s, a large company with development capital came in to work the pock-marked ground that Rawhide miners had dry-washed for their daily bread during the Great Depression. Because of legal technicalities, the family received nothing for the Rawhide properties on which Anna had paid taxes throughout her lifetime, taxes her family continued to pay, as a memorial to her, after her death.(25) The woman who had delivered such eloquent diatribes against the railroad monopolies and the oppression of the working class might have made a few remarks about that.
Today Rawhide is a large hole in the ground with a fence around it.
Special thanks to Darlene Short, one of Anna Rechel 's granddaughters, for allowing us to copy the photographs used in this article and to add them to the museum's photograph collection.
Notes
1. Lilliard, Desert Challenge, 267; Paher, Nevada Ghost Towns 456; Shamberger, Rawhide, 21; U.S. Census Bureau, Statistics for Nevada, 1910.
2. For Boyle, see Churchill County (Nevada) Eagle, 14 Aug. 1909; for Dormer, see Shamberger, Rawhide, 4; and Tonopah Bonanza, 2 May 1908. I have assumed that the Mrs. James Hall described in the Nevada State Journal, 21 Mar.1908, as an early Rawhide prospector, the Mrs. Hall referred to by Shamberger (p.10), and the Lillian Hall who appears in Esmeralda County, Index to Mining Locations, 1907-8,bk.H, are all the same person.
92 Sally Zanjani
3. Rees and James Mortensen, interviews with author, Reno, Nevada, intermittently from 13
July 1992 through 4 Nov. 1994; LaRae Rechel, interview with author, Fallon, Nevada, 28 Sept. 1992, and by telephone, 8 Dec. 1993. I deeply appreciate the access granted to me by the Mortensens to their family photographs and genealogical research on Anna provided by LaRae Rechel. On the continuing stigma of divorce in the East twenty years later, see Zanjani, Unspiked Rail, 333-36.
4. Mortensen interviews. Also see Bechdolt, "Stampede, 1936 model," 53; and Warrin, "Portuguese Pioneers in Nevada,"44.
5. Mortensen interviews; Rechel genealogical records; Strobridge, Sagebrush Trilogy, 25-26.
6. Mortensen interviews.
7. Mortensen interviews.
8. Mortensen interviews. Also see Shamberger, Rawhide, 38-39, 42.
9. Mortensen and Rechel interviews. Also see Marshall, Arctic Village, 101-2.
10. Mortensen and Rechel interviews.
11. Mortensen and Rechel interviews. Mineral County, Index to Mining Locations, bks. 2-4, Mineral County Courthouse, Hawthorne, Nevada.
12. Rechel interviews.
13. Mortensen and Riemersma interviews; Schulmerich, Josie Pearl, 265-66; Malone and Etulain, American West, 249 (Utah uranium prospecting); Pinedale (Wyoming) Roundup, 5 Dec.1929 (Gillespie). On McCormick, see Gipson, "Minnie's Yellow Treasure"; and Rawlins (Wyoming) Daily Times, 11 Mar. 1948.
14. Gipson, "Minnie's Yellow Treasure"; Rawlins Daily Times, 16 Aug. 1951. Gipson's account of Madame Curie identified the samples as uranium appears unlikely, because Marie Curie died in 1934, two years before McCormick's discovery; perhaps the ore was tested at the Curie Institute. On uranium mining, also see Gomez, Golden Circle, 10, 18; Taylor and Taylor, Uranium fever, 79, 101.
15. Mortensen and Rechel interviews; Mineral County; Deed Indexes, bks.2-3.
16. Mortensen and Rechel interviews.
17. Mortensen interviews; "A Woman's Viewpoint," undated clippings from the Mason Valley (Nevada) News, in the privately held Mortensen Family Papers. On the Plowshare Project, see Elliot, History of Nevada, 341; on mining camp socializing, see Marshall, Arctic Village, 8-9.
18. Mortensen and Rechels interviews.
19. Schulmerich, Josie Pearl, 152, 165; Reno Evening Gazette, 8 Mar. 1921, and Nevada State Journal, 7 Sept. 1922 (Adams-Williams); Stickney, "Colorado Women Successful," DPL, "Women a s Miners" file (Atwood).
20. Homsher, South Pass, 111; Marshall, Arctic Village, 53; Mortensen and Rechel interviews.
21. Mortensen, Powell, and Rechel interviews. On Talapoosa and Rabbithole, see Paher, Nevada Ghost Towns, 77, 123.
22. Mortensen interviews.
23. Downie, Hunting for Gold, 140-41; Mineral County, Index to Mining Locations, bk.5, 1960-65; Mortensen interviews.
24. Strobridge, Sagebrush Trilogy, 116; "A Woman's Viewport"; Mortensen and Rechel interviews.
25. Mortensen and Rechel interviews.
Anna Rechel
"She was
like all
prospectors;
she got
up every
morning
believing
firmly that
she was
going to hit
the Mother
Lode."
from A Mine
of Her Own
by Sally Zanjani
At bookstores or from University of Nebraska Press publishers of Bison Books 800-755-1105 nebraskapress.unl.edu
Here is the definitive story of women prospectors and their stake in one of the most stirring adventures of the pioneer experience. $32.50 cloth
also of interest
The Magnificent Mountain Women
Adventures in the Colorado Rockies
Janet Robertson
$12 paper
The Gentle Tamers
Women of the Old Wild West
Dee Brown
$10 paper
The Weaver and Hall Families in Fallon
Ethel Hall Weaver and Jim Scolari
Weaver Family Tree
L.C. and Nora Ellen (Wilcoxen) Weaver
Their children:
Coeur'd'Alene Beulah Ray (Buck) Ferla Harry Ted Leonard
Married: Jack Fult2 Their child Ora Married: Walter Bean
Married: Allen Inman Their children: Frank Ira Eleanor Myra Aleita Married: Marguerite McCuiston Their children: Harry, Dick, Tom, Wayne, Harold (Bub) Married: Mary Ethel Frederick Their children: Frederick Beulah Mardelle Coss Danny
Married: Ruth Baer Married: Ethel Hall Married: Nellie Baker Their children: Hillis Janeece Bob Rollie
Don Weaver Lurline Goertz
Leonard (Buck) Weaver
Joan Keller Their children: Mike Weaver Mike's children:
Leonard Ted,
Joanie Ray Chuck Weaver Chuck's child:
Cassie
Tim Weaver Kathy Weaver Ted Weaver, Jr. Caroline Christie Their children: Gail Weaver Gail's children: Julie
Ken
Dawn Weaver Dawn's children:
Jason
Tristin
Megan
Brianna
Pam Weaver Pam's children:
Ryan
Joel Leola Weaver Dan Scolari Their children: Rob Scolari Jim Scolari Jim's children:
Sam
Lucia
Lucas
Maygene Weaver Cecil Borden Their children: Sheri Borden Sheri 's children: Erin
Jenny
Terry Borden Terry's children: Josh
Shannon Susie Borden Nikki Borden Nikki 's children: David
Gabriella
94
The Weaver and Hall Families 95
On July 26, 1996, Ted ("Tater") and Ethel Hall Weaver celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary in College Place, Washington. They had moved to this area in 1989 from their longtime home in Fallon, Churchill County, Nevada. Fallon had been their home for nearly eighty years.
Ted's father, Leonard Cosseuth "L.C." Weaver, moved to Fallon in the autumn of 1910 from Kirksville, Illinois, where he had been a farmer and merchant and was employed as postmaster. He preceded the family in their trek west and bought an eighty-acre ranch, known as Poplar Grove Ranch, from Mr. Ted Frazier. The original ranch home still stands on the corner of Weaver Road and Corkill Lane, though greatly encroached upon by time and "progress." With remodeling and the construction of other homes in close proximity, I'm told it's not so easy to find as when it stood sentinel over our ranch in the old days, visible for the proverbial "country mile."
With the ranch ready and waiting, L.C. and his two oldest sons, Ray and Ferla, loaded a big railroad boxcar with two horses, a cow, a pig, and a dog along with the farming equipment and all their worldly belongings. In order to cut down on the expenses, L.C. did not buy tickets for his two sons.
The slow-moving freight train would take ten long days to span the six states and nearly two thousand miles to Nevada. L.C.'s wife Nora Ellen and the remaining children, daughter Beulah and sons Harry, Ted and Leonard, followed at a brisk clip by passenger train in just half the time. Nora had packed enough food to last the family throughout the five day trip. Remaining behind in Illinois was the Weaver's grown daughter, Coeur'd'Alene, who had already married Jack Fultz.
Many interesting things happened to L.C. and the boys on their slow trip west; the "stow-a-way" boys had a hiding place at the far end of the boxcar, far behind the furniture and ranching equipment -- when the train would stop the boys would retreat to their secret hideout, leaving their dad to exercise the animals and clean out their riding space. Once the train was underway, and the conductor out of sight, the wide-eyed, innocent boys would re-appear and join their father. Among the many capsule dramas played out in the boxcar on the ten-day trip was the addition to the traveling company of a surprise litter of piglets!
Despite the longer time spent in route, L.C. and the boys were waiting for the rest of the family when they arrived at their destination of Hazen, Nevada, some seventeen miles west of Fallon. L.C., also known as "Coss," or "Cossie" met the family with a wagon and horses, and they made their way to their new home just to the south of Fallon proper. It was September in the year of 1910, and the family of eight souls settled in to run the ranch.
Early Days On Weaver Road
One by one the children married and left home. The first to go was Beulah, who married Mr. Allen Inman. Allen lived down the road to the south where the Inmans operated a flour mill. To Beulah and Allen's union were born Frank, Ira,
96 Ethel Hall Weaver and Jim Scolari
The Inman- Weaver ranch home at the turn of the century. The place still stands at 5555 Weaver Road, Fallon, Nevada. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
Eleanor, Myra and Aleita. All five of the Inman children graduated from Churchill County High School in Fallon. Ira was a member of the Air Force and died somewhere on the Bataan death march from the Philippines to Japan early in World War II [June 1, 1942]; Frank married and served his country during the war in secret work in our nation's capital; Eleanor still lives in Wells, Nevada, with her husband Bill Goble; Myra passed away in Nebraska in October of 1996 and Aleita lives in Idaho.
Next to leave home was Ray, known as Buck, who married Marguerite McCuiston. Together they had five children: Harry, Dick, Tom, Wayne and Harold or "Bub," as he came to be known. All were schooled in Fallon. Harry was killed in Fallon in a car accident on January 17, 1941. His death was followed that same year by his brother, Dick's, who became the first Fallonite killed in World War II when he went down on the US.S. Arizona at Pearl Harbor. Tom married Anita Williams, daughter of well-known Fallonites Roy and Hazel Williams, and worked in the Fallon Post Office, later rising to become a U.S. Postal Inspector in the state of Texas. Wayne married Pauline Williams [1930-1993], daughter of Henry and Amy Williams, and they opened a flower shop on South Taylor Street in Fallon. Bub married Patsy deBraga from the Stillwater area and they moved to Canada after his graduation from the University of Nevada; he spent many of the subsequent years with Canada's Fish and Wildlife Service. Nowadays, Bub and Patsy live in Utah, where they own a farm and Bub is now with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
The Weaver and Hall Families 97
Service. Their two daughters live with their husbands and children in Canada; their son, Keith, an attorney, lives in California. Buck and Marge had built a home on the east end of the old Weaver ranch, where they lived together until Marge's death in March of 1990. Buck passed away July 20, 1994, at the age of 97.
Feria Weaver [1898-1975] traveled back to Illinois to marry his childhood sweetheart, Mary Ethel Frederick; he wasted little time in returning with her to Nevada to make their home. They, too, raised five children: Frederick, Beulah, Mardelle, Coss ("Carey") and Danny. Like their cousins, they all attended CCHS. Frederick, now deceased, with his wife Lola, pursued a career in the dairy business. Beulah married Bill Warren and still resides in Reno; Mardell wed Ray Hertel. A widow since 1996, she lives in Winston, Oregon; and Coss, now deceased, married Marilyn Burgess, a Fallon girl. Danny, the youngest, took a course in barbering and pursues that vocation in Winston, Oregon.
The next of L.C. and Nora's children to leave the Weaver family home was Harry, who married Ruth Baer and moved up to Washington State; though he had survived an Army tour in World War I, he didn't survive long in the Great Northwest.
After Harry, Leonard was the next sibling to leave home; he married a local girl named Nellie Baker. Together they had four children; Hillis, Janeece and the twins, Bob and Rollie. While Grandma Weaver practically raised the twins, Hillis and Janeece were raised by the Baker family. Rollie married L. Nora Fowler
Leonard Cosseuth (L. C.) and Nora Wilcoxen Weaver share the family spotlight on their 50th wedding anniversary in March of 1941. Back Row: Ferla and Mary Ethel Weaver; Allen and Beulah Inman; Ted and Ethel Hall Weaver and Marguerite and Ray Weaver. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
98 Ethel Hall Weaver and Jim Scolari
and they made their home in Gardnerville until Rollie's death in 1995. Bob never married and lives in Carson City. Hillis has since passed away as well, joining Leonard and Nellie in the "Great Hereafter."
Last of the Weaver children to settle down was Ted also known as "Spud" or "Tater" for most of his life. Tater, like his brothers, was a veteran of the Armed Forces; his hitch was served over three years in the U.S. Army, two of which he spent in Hawaii as a Bugler, First Class. Although he couldn't read a note of music, Tater marched with the Army band, playing by ear and, he would later claim, never missing a note. Blessed with a natural musical gift, Tater also learned to play the Hawaiian guitar while on the Islands, and later became an accomplished, and again, self-taught, organist.
Fallon, 1920: The Hall Family
As the Weaver family saga progressed, so did the Halls make their way in the first decades of the twentieth century. Isaac E. Hall, "Ike," as he was known, and his wife Mary Amanda Fuller, known as May, were both born and raised near Springfield, Utah. They were married in Idaho, where Ike and his brother had homesteaded 160 acres. Dad and Mom built a home on their eighty acres, a home that saw the birth of five children: Leah, Jasper, Ethel (yours truly), Max and Dick.
Early in 1920, Ike made a trip to Nevada as a member of the Rigby, Idaho, Chamber of Commerce. Falling in love with the area, Dad wasted little time upon returning to Idaho in selling our home and moving the family to Fallon. Dad had bought a home for us on the corner of Carson and B Streets, and it was there that we settled in that March. To us it seemed like a mansion, with its five rooms, two porches, and of all things, an indoor toilet! In the first of what would be several ill-fated partnerships, Ike joined two of his nephews and opened a real estate office under the moniker of Hall, Roylance, and Hall.
Sadly, we didn't have long to enjoy our new environs. In February of 1921, Mom passed away in the so-called hospital on South Carson Street. To say that Ike was devastated would be an understatement; it was their fifteenth wedding anniversary, and plans had been made for her to come home. Grandma Fullmer had been here from Idaho, and she took the little ones, Max and Dick, back home to live with her while Leah, Jasper and I went to Utah to live with relatives until Dad could manage us all again.
But once again, disaster struck. On March 25, just a month and ten days after Mom's passing, Leah was killed in an accident involving a horse. It was nearly dark that evening when my cousin and I found her lying by the side of the road; we raced for my aunt and uncle, who brought my sister, oldest of us all, back to the house where she died. I remember it snowed that night, covering all traces at the scene of the accident; we never knew exactly how Leah met her fate that evening.
Leah was buried in Springfield; Dad went up to Idaho and brought Max back with him. Max suffered from a heart condition, and poor Dad was frightened that it would be Max he'd lose next. Well, with all the shock, and worry, and goings-on, Dad fell ill with a bad cold that developed into pneumonia. Ida T. Rhodes,
The Weaver and Hall Families 99
L. C. and Nora Weaver, celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, are surrounded by children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Ethel Weaver, this article's author, can be seen third from right in the back row. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
a nurse my mother had befriended, came to our family's rescue. Between her ministrations and those of Doctor Consol, a good friend of Dad's, they brought him back from the brink. Ida was a wonderful nurse; she never gave up, so that Father lived to tell about what by rights should have been his death.
Ida Rhodes ended up renting our house for a nursing home, while Father lived in the back porch bedroom. Ida subsequently took Max in, then went up to Idaho and brought Dick, then a year-old-baby, home. One thing led to another, and Ida Rhodes became the second Mrs. Isaac Hall and our stepmother!
Would that this represented a happy turn in the life of our family, but it was not to be. You see, if ever there was a person with a dual personality, it was Ida T. Hall, and we all -- my father, we four kids, and their own daughter, Georgia Hall (Jo, as we called her) -- suffered at her hands.
The Hall's Trials Continue
Ida T. Hall was by birth a full-blooded Samoan. Brought to the United States by missionaries when she was just eleven years old, she lived with and was educated by a prominent Morman family. She was trained as a nurse in the L.D.S. hospital in Salt Lake City after graduating from Brigham Young University in Provo, and more than one Fallon family would swear that but for Ida Hall's ministrations, death would have come knocking on their door. Despite her mean streak, this maxim by all means held true for our family as well. No less than twice did Ida literally save my life; once from a bad case of pneumonia, and once from a very difficult surgery.
100 Ethel Hall Weaver and Jim Scolari
Yet this woman of medicine had a terrible temper that she never learned to control. As a result we were all scared to death of her, and our lives were an "on again, off again, home again Finnegan" existence. It was due to her menace that I came to live with and work for the family of Waldo and Lois Davis, in Old River District. Here I made friends with the Erb and Pirtle families, and from their homes went to stay with the Heritage family, and subsequently swore never to return to my own family home. The year was 1925.
In March of 1926 I moved out to the ranch of L.C. and Nora Weaver to work; my salary consisted of room and board, as always. As one thing, so they say, leads to another, in July of 1926 during my 15th year, and with L.C.'s, Nora's, and my father's blessing, Tater and I were married. Dad and Ida gave us a big wedding supper with twenty or so guests, and we received many lovely gifts. True to her incongruous nature, Ida bought me a lovely cedar chest and filled it with gifts that my father knew nothing about.
It was in 1928 that Father finally asserted himself and traded the home in town plus nearly every dime he had for a farm in southern Colorado. It was his plan to move there with Ida T.; their baby, Georgia; Jasper, Max and Dick - with the understanding that she would either make a real home for them or pack her bags for Samoa, and believe it or not, the ticket was bought and paid for! The family was living in a little house on Churchill Street until Dad got his business sold and they could move. Yet, once again, the happy plans were not to be; on August 6, 1928, Dad was killed in an automobile accident down in the Stillwater District. To make matters worse, his business partner, one Mr. George Forbes, managed to seize control of the business which he had been taken into. How the wily Mr. Forbes managed the take-over remains a mystery, but he did so, leaving the Hall family high and dry and without their rightful share of the business. All I can say is that he was a bookkeeper by profession -- and he certainly did some fancy bookkeeping in that venture!
Tater and I were blessed with five children; Don, Leonard, Teddy, Leola and Maygene (our youngest daughter, ironically delivered at Ida T.'s nursing home under her competent care). My brother Max was living with us at the time of Father's death, but he subsequently moved back with Ida T., Dick and Jo. Ida rented a house and some acreage out west of town from the Wallace family, where she opened up a little nursing home. They had a huge garden from which they sold produce, and she and my brothers raised rabbits as well.
It was to Ida T.'s nursing home that I was taken when I developed pneumonia in 1931. By this time Tater and I had three little boys, and while I convalesced, Don was taken in by the Bert Cushman family, Leonard remained with Tater, and Teddy was taken care of by the Harrigan family. At this point I would be remiss if I failed to pay tribute to dear Francis and Martha Harrigan. Mom Harrigan was with me when Teddy was born, and she nearly adopted me and our boys. What dear people they truly were.
Anyhow, Ida T. Hall, once my scourge, turned out to be my refuge; I say again, if not for her I would surely have died. She heard that I was very sick, and
The Weaver and Hall Families 101
called Doctor Myers on the telephone and ordered him to "go bring Ethel out here to me." Yet she hadn't spoken to us, or even allowed my brothers to speak to us for some time. Why? Who knows? No one ever knew for sure where they stood with this enigmatic lady, but in times of sickness she came through to beat the band.
Tater and Ethel's Legacy
For many days and nights Ida T. and Dr. Myers fought the course of my affliction, and at long last I was delivered back into the land of the living. After I had recovered, Ida T. and the boys continued to live out there, working and barely making a living for themselves. The disastrous turn of Father's last business venture had, with the scheming of his despicable partner, left them in dire straits. Ida tended the many babies that were born out at the nursing home, but Ida's treatment of Max and Dick forced county officials to have them delivered from her tyranny. The boys, county authorities decreed, would either come to live with Tater and me, or be sent to the orphanage. So it was that our little family grew by two; we were glad to take them, and the county paid us the princely sum of $25 a month for their care. Lest I seem to make light of the stipend, I don't mind saying it was a welcome bonus; we were living on the east end of the Weaver ranch at the time, and Tater was still working for his dad.
Max eventually went from our place to the home of Wayne and Theo Wightman, where he lived for the rest of his high school days. Upon graduation from CCHS, Max won an appointment to the U.S. Army Academy at West Point. He was followed there by his brother Dick, who had left us to live with the family of Ralph and Ruby Rice in Arizona. During this time our lives had changed as well; after the birth of our daughter Leola we lived in town for the better part of a year, in a little house on Humboldt Street. We were living there when Maygene was born.
In March of 1935 I had a risky surgery and pregnancy taken care of by Dr. Myers and my stepmother; again I received unparalleled care and was blessed with a speedy recovery. On November 7th of that year I gave birth to our youngest child, Maygene, there at Ida T's nursing home on East A. Street. Ida T. ran that little nursing home with great success for many years before marrying a Mr. Lane and moving to Ely and finally Hawaii, where she lived along with her daughter Jo and worked until her death some thirty years ago. Jo passed away in 1996.
Tater and I and our family of five children moved from Humboldt Street out to the Weaver ranch in 1936. From here we moved for a short time to the Allen place, and from there to nearby Fernley, some thirty miles from Fallon, where we bought an eighty acre farm and resumed our dairy farming, while Tater continued to take care of L.C.'s farm in Fallon.
L.C. and Nora Weaver had been married in Illinois on March 2, 1891. They celebrated their 50th Anniversary in 1941 in Fallon surrounded by children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
102 Ethel Hall Weaver and Jim Scolari
L.C. Weaver passed away in 1944; when Nora moved to a place nearer to town, we bought the old Weaver ranch and made it our own. We lived there and worked the place, with Tater hiring out to do custom tractor work on the side.
The Fallon Eagle article of June 26, 1937, attests to the L.C. Weaver's legacy in Fallon. The headlines read; "A Grandchild Of Couple In Every Grade In School. Eighteen Descendants of Mr. & Mrs. L.C. Weaver in Con B and High School."
Teddy was the only one of our children to graduate from Churchill County High School; Leonard, Leola, and Maygene all were graduated from the Laurelwood Academy in Oregon, while Don earned his G.E.D. while serving in the Army. Don married Lurlene Goertz in 1947 and went on to serve in the U.S. Marshal's Office, reaching the rank of Chief Deputy Marshal of the State of Nevada. They make their home in Las Vegas, where Don is a director of the National Horseshoe Pitchers Association, arranging tournaments around the western United States.
Leonard, known as "Buck," married Joan Keller, and together they had four children: Mike [Taleitha], the father of two children, Leonard Ted and Joanie Ray, lives in Utah; Chuck [Lori], the father of a daughter, Cassie, lives in Las Vegas where he works at the new New York, New York resort; and Tim and Kathy, both of whom live and work in Utah.
Teddy married Caroline Christie, and fathered three daughters; Gail [David Mello], with children Julie and Ken, lives and works in Arizona; Dawn [Andy DeVries], lives in Alaska with her children, Jason, Tristan, Megan and Brianna; and Pam [Mike Hollingsworth], and two children, Ryan and Joel, lives in Washington State. We lost Teddy in a traffic accident in 1970; his widow, Caroline, has remarried and lives in Grants Pass, Oregon.
The Future Of The Clan
Leola, known as Leigh, raised two sons, both of whom were graduated from CCHS; Rob lives and works in Las Vegas; Jim married Cami Lombardo and they have three children, Sam and the twins, Lucia and Lucas. They, too make their home in Las Vegas. Leigh owns her own advertising business in Las Vegas.
Maygene married Cecil Borden and raised four daughters in College Place, Washington: Sheri [Dave Perry], who lives and works in Stanwood, Washington, has two daughters, Erin and Jenny; Terry [Doyle Bell], who lives and works in Olympia, Washington, has a son and daughter, Josh and Shannon; Susie [Scott Hoover], lives and works in Seattle; and Nikki [Keith LaChappelle], with her two children, David and Gabriella, also resides and makes a living in Seattle.
Tater and I lived on the Weaver home place from November of 1944 until the summer of 1974, when we bought a mobile home in the Hanifan Mobile Park off of Maine Street and moved "into town." We lived there until the fall of 1989, when we made the move to College Place, Washington.
The Weaver and Hall Families 103
Wayne Weaver, son of Ray, was the last Weaver to reside in Fallon; he left in 1995 and moved to Sparks, where he resides with his second wife Darlene.
My brother Jasper Hall died in Fallon in 1971. Max died last year in Orlando, Florida, where he had lived with his wife of many years, Jean. He had retired after some thirty years' service in the U.S. Air Force with the rank of Colonel. Dick was killed in Normandy on July 30, 1944, leaving a wife and baby son.
Tater, the last surviving member of the L.C. Weaver clan and my dear husband of over seventy-one years, passed away last year at the age of 96. As for myself, Ethel Hall Weaver, the last surviving member of the Isaac E. Hall clan, I am alive and well and still reside in College Place, Washington. Amazing to consider that from such inauspicious beginnings did such a clan grow, but here it all is, set down in black and white. Like all families, we've had our ups and downs, blessings and banes too numerous to count. Through it all, though, I guess we did all right - our legacy of five children has at this writing grown to number fourteen grandchildren, and at last count, twenty great-grandchildren. I may not be much for reading the future, but I'd say it's sure that - the Good Lord willing - we, the descendants of L.C. Weaver and Isaac E. Hall, will number a good many more before we're through.
Editor's Note: Throughout Ethel 's life, even with its many ups and downs, she remains close to nature and young at heart. For many years her artistic talents bloomed in one of Lahontan Valley's most beautiful flower gardens. Now, in retirement, her inspirational poetry reveals her love of nature, her family members, her abiding faith and her sense of humor. Featured on the next page are two of her more recent poems.
104 Ethel Hall Weaver and Jim Scolari
Wandering Sock
I've been way out to Nevada,
But now I'm coming home.
For one lone sock without a boss,
'Twas a long, long way to roam.
I hid me in an old nightgown.
I thought a trick I'd play.
No one ever thought to look there.
There I was day after day.
Locked up in a dark old suitcase
While my mate was sore perplexed,
Wondering where I'd taken off to,
Finally even got quite vexed
And my master? Well, he threatened,
And he raved, and then he cried
Said he wanted "both his socks
Back in their drawer, side by side".
Then one night without a warning,
After I had traveled more,
Mrs. Weaver shook her nightgown,
And I fell out upon the floor.
So here I am, folks, do you want me,
After I have been so bad?
Let me tell you I was punished
There's no worse fate to be had
Taken clear to old Nevada,
When I didn't want to roam.
I'm a full fledged Minnesotan,
And as such I'm glad I'm home.
Pictures
As I look out my kitchen window And gasp at the sunset's bright glow. How I wish I could paint a picture, So all the wide world would know How I marvel at God's great creation; The beauty of things all around; From the flaming red of the sunset, To the flowers and grass that abound
Fertile valleys and soft rolling hillsides Purple mountains and shades of green trees Swift running rivers and lazy small brooks That are stirred with a quiet cool breeze Furry small rabbits and gentle brown deer Great soaring eagles and sweet cooing dove From forest to ocean and to the wide plain All things He's created tell of His great love.
God painted a truly great picture
No mortal could hope to achieve
The plan of redemption He's pictured for us
Is ours to behold and believe.
So if I can tell of His wonderful love
And bring comfort and peace to a friend
What matters if I, a picture can't draw
These things will endure till the end
The Basque People
Hilda Cadet Zaugg (1919-1986)
In Northern Spain and Southern France, among "the rambling hills and deep ravines, passing through gorges of Klaharta and Halzorte, where there are caves of wild beauty and waterfalls cascading into swift churning streams we find the Basque people." (1) Because of the unknown origin of these people, they are termed mysterious. They were the first settlers of the Iberian Peninsula, but from whence they came or how long they have been there is unknown.
In Roman writings, 2000 years old, we find mentioned the strange race living in Northern Spain. In 1500, the Latins speak of the "fierce and fearless people, making war, dancing and feasting to a nameless God," but these people, then, lived near the Elbro in the region around Cahalorra.(2)
Theories of the Basque origin are plentiful; only the great antiquity of the race is similar in each theory. The theories are so widely varied that "one may follow whichever theory is most sympathetic to him." (3) Anthropologists believe that the Basque people descended from some special stock as no kindred stock having their characteristic broad foreheads, bulging brows, and narrow chins has been discovered. Then they may have originated from the Etruscans or one of the lost tribes of Israel.Too, "many believe the Basques are descended from Tubal or his nephew Taras."(4) There is also a myth stating that the Basques are a people from the lost city, Atlantis. Others have them related to certain North American tribes; still others say they sailed in ancient times from Phoenicia, and later came into contact with the Celts.
Nelson's Encyclopedia states that the Basques are descended from the aboriginal race of Europe, which is partly grouped with the Ligurians of Italy, Po, and Rhine, originating in the Mediterranean. They are a Hamitic branch of the whites of which there are two types: The first is the tall, fair, and long headed people; the second type is the short, dark and round headed people.
The latest theory given by Bash Gimpera, "is that the Basques are a remnant of the Palaeathetic or Pre-Iberian inhabitant." (5) This would explain their physical characteristics. Later they were subjected to Iberian influences.
The Basques believe themselves to be direct descendants of Adam and Eve, with the Basque province as the old Garden of Eden.
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106 Hilda Cadet Zaugg
Although their origin is unknown, it is commonly known that the "Celts surrounded them, failed to immerse them, and passed on; the Carthaginians were received by them; the Gauls beset them and were repulsed."(5) Rome, the center of power, was also resisted by these unique people. Some time later the Basques took their customs and Christianity, but not without a struggle -- missionaries often suffered martyrdom.
The failure of other countries to immerse the Basque people has been a factor in preserving the language, the unique customs, and the purity of the race.
The Basque language resembles no other spoken language in grammar or pronunciation, and it surpasses all others in difficulty of mastery.
It is said, "The Devil came to the Basque country to learn the language. He stayed seven years and learned two words, but forgot them before he reached his home." (7) This myth illustrates the difficulty of outsiders in learning this peculiar language.
Mr. F. Gordon, in hopes of discovering the origin of the people through language similarities, "made a systematic comparison and study of the language." (8) He believed it to be of Arian origin because of the many words having Greek roots.
In opposition to this theory, some similarity has been found between its pronouns and those of the Hebrew. "Because of its marvelously complicated verbs and those of certain North American Indians, its vocabulary is a thing in itself; its numerical system and idealistic combination of the decimal and vegesmal [sic] are of Hebrew origin." (9) It is agreed that it is an agglivative (augmentative) language.
The difficulty of learning or understanding the language is partly due to the manner in which they build words. An adjective is often times fused with a noun and may take as many as eleven cases. The pronoun may take the role of subject, direct, or indirect pronoun. The transitive verb is passively conceived as " A donkey is had for me" and may have twenty-four variations. The singular idiom takes an article. To complicate the language even further there are thirty-eight consonants and thirteen vowels.
Tracing the origin of the people through their language has been a dismal failure. The earliest writing was recorded in 1545, and the first grammar was written in 1729, by Father Larnamendi, a Spanish Basque priest.
In spite of its ambiguity, the Basque people cherish their language. They carry it with them wherever they go and speak it -- in cities, in cafes, or in foreign countries; even in Nevada it is commonly spoken. Very seldom will they teach it to outsiders for it binds them together, and they do not wish anyone else to come into their little circle. The isolation of the country and the strangeness of the language has been a great factor in preserving the customs and traditions.
Greater reverence for the mother and father cannot be found. The massive stone house, the domain of the parents, has been handed down from generation to generation to the oldest child. There is hardly any distinction of sex where inheritance is concerned. Preference is sometimes given to the girl as the mother has trained her in home care and trusts she will keep the home intact. This law of transition is perfectly understood by the other members of the family, who will work outside the home or come to North or South America to make their fortune.
The Basque People 107
The livestock is kept in a partitioned portion of the building. This may insinuate filth, but that it is not the case as the stalls are daily strewn with fresh straw and the walls regularly whitewashed. The cows wear linen blankets and tassels on the head to keep away the flies. Cows receive careful attention, partly because of tradition, but mostly because they are used to pull carts and are a source of income.
With the rising of the sun, the old priest tolls the chapel bell, one toll for each year of Christ's life on this earth. He has done this since his youth; now he is old, and some youthful priest will replace his hands on the bell rope. It has been tolled for centuries; it will continue to be tolled. The old priest has always been a helpful companion to the community. His moral standard is high, and his standard has become the peoples' standard. The Basque people have no word for adultery in their language. Public opinion severely condemns any laxity in morals. Cat calls or "chaverius" are continued for a week in benefit of anyone who has become lax.
Centuries ago women, men, girls, and boys were hanged for witchcraft -but we also burned innocent people in Salem. Even now superstition is slightly present in the Basque country. Thunderstorms terrify them for they believe it is Satan fighting some unknown spirit.
One would believe them to be a simple, uncultured people, but that is not the case. They are exceptionally handsome; the men have well-cut features and the women are striking with fresh complexions, black hair and eyes. The people are independent with unassuming pride and the total absence of an inferiority complex, due to the centuries of background. Although it would be hard for one to maintain his dignity when leading a pig to market, the Basque can. They are usually good natured, but when aroused they disclose a fiery temper. A faint strain of cruelty, shown by their contempt of any suffering or pain, is fused into their character.
One author speaks of them thus, "The abiding impression made by the Basques is that of a fine stalwart people, healthy in mind and body. A race of hardy mountain virtues, who know their minds and can defend their traditions and convictions with courage and spirit, and whose hearts are set on one thing, namely to endure." (10)
Being a very athletic type of people, they participate in many games. The favorite game is "El Pelota," which originated in the Basque country, but has been commercialized with variations all over the world. The Italians and Cubans say it originated in their respective countries, but the Basques alone play it as it was originally played.
"Stone steps lead to the Pelota court, with roses and iris growing thickly amid the stones." This court or fronton is some one hundred yards long, thirty feet wide, and the wall is about thirty feet high. "El Pelota" is one of the most thrilling of sports. With bare hands or with the "Chistera," a kind of hollow osier hand, which is strapped to a forearm, the players toss the small, very hard ball against one or two walls.
White haired men will proudly show you their scarred hands and broken fingers, which to them, is the reward of playing "El Pelota." In lawn tennis, with their perfectly coordinated muscles, they are perfect players. They are the best Rugby footballers in France, where again, their natural coordination and endurance come into play. Poala Uzcuder, who almost won the world title in boxing, was a Basque.
108 Hilda Cadet Zaugg
Not only do they play "Pelota," tennis, and box, but after a day's work they can dance, with grace, the Fandango, which has not changed in the last century. Sailors from the harbor, farmers from the heights, girls with beautifully waved hair and black lace mantillas, coming from vespers, join in the dance. With simple music, pipe and drama or German accordion beating time to the gay crowd, they often dance all night and work hard all day.
At festival time, the men may dance the Sword Dance to 5/8 time. It does not resemble the English sword dance and is much weaker. The dance became popular in 1660, but was started as early as 1485. Besides sword dances and the Fandango, the pastoral or Medieval mystery, usually with a ceremonial battle or a pantomime of the Moors fighting the Christians as the theme, are acted out. In these plays the pagan quality of their faith can be seen. God is one of severity and not one of kindness and love.
All is not fun for the Basque people; with the sunrise everyone is up. The carts heavily laden; the burros over-loaded; the women dressed in neat black; and the men dressed in velveteen trousers, short black jacket, and snowy white cotton shirts meander through lanes, thread through village streets, for it is Market Day. Oranges and lemons, dates, figs and raisins, heaped on large flat round trays, are waiting for the buyer.
In preparation for Market Day the Basque must toil in his gardens, his fields and his vineyards, and foster his cows. Farming has always been and always will be the principle industry.
The mines of Bilboa have operated since prehistoric times and are still the richest in the world. Some of the finest swords in the world, the Mandragen, famed before the Toledo sword, have been made from Bilboa ore.
Though mining is important, fishing is even more important. The Newfoundland cod fisheries were first discovered by the Basques. Many arguments and battles over fishing territory have arisen between Spain and France. With the tide, the fisherman come in, overloaded with the day's catch. The fisherwomen await for them, fill their baskets, and in loud voices inform the peasants that fish can be had for sale. A good livelihood can be had by the fishermen.
Although the Basques as a rule scrupulously obey the law, they do not believe it is disobeying it to smuggle. Smuggling on the Pyrenees is an ancient profession. On either side, the people are of kindred stock and will help mislead the government officials. During the war much food was smuggled into France through there; no one criticizes or speaks of it, and it is virtually an industry.
The Basque people have been adventurous and are still adventurers. Not only did they smuggle, but they also did their part in developing the early empire. The first man to cross Brazil was a Basque. Admiral Quevedo, one of Spain's doughty fighters, was a Basque. The word warfare originated at the Battle of Waterloo, where the Basques fought so ferociously. They have given several Presidents to Chile and Argentine, and at one time three quarters of the representatives in those countries were Basque.
They have the ability to govern but have had no opportunity within the Basque Province, although they are struggling for independence. The Basque people repulsed invasions of other people and were independent from Spain until the Carlist
The Basque People 109
Wars, when the province became the seat of Clerical reaction (1830-1870). By helping Spain repulse the Moors, they earned a code for themselves. By this code the Kings were forced to swear, beneath the famous Oak of Guernica, to observe the provisions within it. That is, they had to pay no taxes, but they must fight for the King in time of war; they were allowed a proverbial ruling committee; the Bishop could not lay taxes; they could elect their own judges; they could have their own system of land tenure; and they had the right of free testamentary disposition.
Slowly and surely these laws were overlooked until now, the code has been totally abolished, even the use of the National Basque flag is forbidden, and the Spanish language has replaced Basque in the schools.
The Basque still struggle for independence. Several years ago "they wished to fix their own tax rate, and decided to have a municipal council. Guards were sent to stop the election and to avert civil war, permission was given to elect a commissioner."
In 1910, the ministry endeavored to confiscate property for religious purposes; 50,000 men marched to San Sebastian in protest. The property was never taken.
Unless Spain gives them independence in the future, or recognizes the potentialities of the people, they will be a power to be reckoned with.
Sources
As Hilda Zaugg is deceased, we have referenced her quotes by
using her source notes. They are incomplete.
1. With the Basque People A.M.Tyler
2. Problems with the Basque R.A. Gallop
3. Story of the Basque People K. Fedden
4. Basques and their Country M.J. Lennon
5. The Basque Country K. Fedden
6. The Basque Country K. Fedden
7. Discontented Basques W.A. Hirst
8. Basques and their Country K. Fedden
9. Story of the Basque People Fisher, D.C.
10. Discontented Basques W.A. Hirst
Who are the Basques?
Anita (Rubianes) and Tony Erquiaga
The Basque people live in the Pyrenees Mountains in northern Spain and southern France. They have four provinces in Spain and three in France that they call home. Basque is not a country. It is a people who speak the Basque language and just happen to have lived in a relatively small area for a very long time. They are Spanish Nationals or French Nationals, depending on which side of the mountain is home. They remain somewhat isolated by their own choice. Those who live in the Basque country usually marry another Basque, and sometimes they are puzzled by second generation Americans who might not do this.
They take pride in their way of life, which involves such things as great strength, absolute honesty, a love of music and dancing, and a great tolerance for pain. The main thing that distinguishes them from other Europeans is their language, which is neither Spanish nor French. For many centuries linguists have searched and speculated about the possible connection between Basque and other languages but have found no conclusive connection.
Certain characteristics in their blood types show another marked difference from other Europeans. Of all the European population, the Basques show the highest rate of blood type "0" and the lowest rate of blood type "B." They also show the highest rate of the Rh negative factor of any population in the world. These peculiarities suggest to some that the Basques have been a small and somewhat isolated people for a relatively long time.
The stories of their origin are legend, and sometimes change from book to book. Caves have been located near the well known city of Guernica, and if you were to visit them you would find yourself climbing 500 meters to the entrance, and then you would drop down into the cave to find the remains of a civilization at least 20,000 years old. The drawings in these and other nearby caves would lead you to believe that the Basques may be linked to one of Europe's truly ancient cultures. Some historians say the present Basques are the direct descendants of these cave painters, while others say that the Basques moved into this area in fairly recent times. By "recent times" they mean between 5,000 and 3,000 B.C. Even those who choose that story will agree that would place the Basques in their present homeland long before the Indo-European speaking tribes came to Western Europe.
110
Who are the Basques? 111
You can choose whichever version you like about their origin. The one thing that most scholars agree on is that it is a very, very old race. Even the most conservative would say the Basques are the oldest identifiable ethnic group surviving in Europe.
Due to the scarcity of documents it is impossible to date the exact beginning of the whaling industry among the Basques, but it does seem that the Basques became the earliest whalers in Europe. The presence of whales in the Bay of Biscay, which borders Spain and France, was documented as early as the 4th century A.D. The winds in that area frequently washed the animals onto the shore. It is believed that the Basques learned the value of the meat, oil and bone quite by accident when these animals were marooned on the shore, and thus they became the first Europeans to recognize the commercial possibilities of whaling. It became a very orga-nized profession. A lookout from a high point would spot the whales and the boat, manned by six people, pursued the animal. After the whale had been harpooned they would let the animal pull the boat until it died from exhaustion and loss of blood. Then they would bring it ashore and process it.
As more and more people became whalers and the whale population of the Bay of Biscay diminished, the hunters were forced to go farther from home in search of their prey. Basque whaling ships, dating back to the early 1500s, have been found at the bottom of the sea off the coast of Labrador in Canada. In order to go across the uncharted waters of the Atlantic Ocean, it was necessary to build larger ships. That, in turn, created the Basque shipbuilding industry.
Christopher Columbus's first expedition was achieved by the use of Basque ships and sailors. From that time on the Basques were a part of the immigration to South America, Mexico, Spanish California and the American West. One reason so many of them migrated was that in Spain the oldest child inherited the land or the large stone house. It did not matter if the oldest was male or female. In fact, sometimes it was preferred that the heir be a girl because the mother had trained her in home care and felt she would keep the home intact. The siblings were often forced to go elsewhere in search of other ways to make a living. This question of inheritance was understood and accepted by the families.
It is impossible to make an accurate assessment of the extent of the Basque migration to the New World during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This is partly because they didn't enter as Basque, but rather as Spanish Nationals or French Nationals. Even the most conservative estimates place the number at 200,000 individuals.
The greatest influx at that time was to Argentina but soon spread to Mexico, and from there to California. The Jesuits, who had colonized a great deal of Mexico, went along the coast of California building missions. During this time immigrants were also landing at Ellis Island in New York. This was followed by a long train ride across the United States to Elko, Winnemucca, Reno or Battle Mountain.
112 Anita and Tony Erquiaga
Firmin Bruner [1899-1996], one of Fallon's Basque residents, provided the museum with this c. 1903 photograph which shows his mother (upstairs left window) in the stone home her family owned in Bedarona, Spain. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
Often the man of the family came by himself to find a job and get settled in a home. Then he would send the necessary papers, and perhaps, money to the wife and children, enabling them to come across. This meant a woman who couldn't speak the language, who was most likely very seasick, and who probably didn't want to leave her homeland in the first place, was making that long trip with small children that had to be taken care of all the way.
By 1930 there were about 30 Basque families and a dozen single men living in Churchill County. Most of them owned or rented farms because they had been farmers in Spain and that was what they knew how to do. In Fallon there was opportunity for them to get a start in farming. There were more Basques who went to Reno, Winnemucca and Elko, and in those towns there were always several Basque hotels, usually with a bar and restaurant attached. Many women who came over worked as maids.
A unique talent was brought to Nevada by immigrant Basque stone masons. Several outstanding rock buildings constructed by these artisans still stand in eastern Churchill County.
Ramon Arrizabalaga Sr. was a Basque man who owned a hotel in Fallon for many years. He had been in the United States since 1909 and had lived and worked on ranches around Campbell Creek and Dixie Valley. He was the owner of the Boyer Ranch in northern Dixie Valley for several years. In 1926 he sold the ranch and moved his family into Fallon as the older children were approaching
Who are the Basques? 113
high school age. He bought the Grand Hotel on North Maine Street, across from the Courthouse. The Grand Hotel did not have a bar or restaurant in it at this time.
Twenty years later his son, Ramon Jr.[1914-1984], purchased a hardware business from Ernest Gevelhoff. The building was located on Maine Street north of the railroad tracks [355-365 North Maine]. Ramon's partner was his brother-in-law, Lewis Moiola [1913-1997] and they called their business Consumers Supply Company. Several years later the partners built a new structure adjacent to the Grand Hotel [36 North Maine] on the northeast corner of Maine and Williams.
From 1913-1915 Mariano Villanueva and his brother owned The Hub Saloon. They put out a trade token which said "Villanueva Bros. Fallon, Nev. Good for 12 1 /2 cents in trade." The law prohibiting the sale of liquor went into effect on January 29, 1919. After that such businesses were no longer called saloons because they only sold soft drinks. In 1924 Mariano Villanueva owned the Barrel House and the newspaper advertisement said it contained a lunch counter, was open day and night and served all kinds of soft drinks. Villanueva and his wife, Belle, later
The Nevada Rooming House, owned and operated by Mariano and Belle 'Villanueva. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
owned The Nevada Rooming House, at 66 Court Street, near Mulberry Street, which is in the area behind the Fallon Arcade. The building no longer stands.
Later Luis Latasa and his family moved to Fallon where they owned the Owl Club bar with a coffee shop. They also had a farm in Old River district. The children, Louie and Frances, attended Churchill County High School.
114 Anita and Tony Erquiaga
Another of the Fallon Basque business owners was Grace Etcheverry Hillyard, who owned Hillyard's Drug Store. Grace grew up in Fallon with her parents, Thomas and Mary Vicondo. She had taken over the Olds Drug Company on Maine Street, and Ted Hillyard had come there to work for her as a pharmacist. They soon married and raised three children. In August of 1949, the Hillyards built and opened a modern expanded drug store on the corner of Maine and Richards Streets [now 88 Cent Video Store].
About 1960 the Ansotegui families moved to Fallon from Paradise Valley, Nevada. Brothers Ray and Bob Ansotegui purchased Builders Supply Company, which was a lumber and hardware business. Another brother, Vic, also worked at the family business. Some years later Bob owned Nevada Home Improvement further west on Williams. Retired now, the brothers still reside in Churchill County.
There were a number of midwives in Fallon in the 1920s and one of them was a Basque lady, Gregoria Ascargorta. (Her husband, Felix, was working for the Bureau of Reclamation in Fallon when he and Clinton Pirtle were killed in an accident [August 31, 1923] in which a large pile of stacked lumber collapsed and crushed them.) Most of Gregoria's patients were Basque ladies and when they went into labor, she would go to their homes to take care of them. When the birth was imminent the doctor was called and he would come and assist at the actual delivery. The doctor was the one who signed the birth certificate and registered the birth with the state.
Besides being a midwife, Mrs. Ascargorta would pierce your ears if you or your mother were a friend of hers. She would ask the person to come to her house and she would thread a needle with white thread. Then she put a potato behind the ear lobe, swabbed some peroxide on the lobe and jabbed the needle through the ear. She tied the white thread in a knot and you were to turn the thread several times a day for a week or more. Then the thread was removed and you could wear your earrings.
Mrs. Ascargorta was the mother of two daughters who were well-known in Fallon. One, Julia Cislini, was a long time resident of Ione, Nevada, before she moved back to Fallon. Like her mother, she helped deliver babies, took care of the sick and often acted as the mortician for the community of Ione.
Mrs. Ascargorta's other daughter is Mary Richards. Mary's husband Walter Richards, was the manager of Sprouse Reitz store in Fallon from 1935 to 1950. During that time Mary worked as the head sales clerk. When Walter died in 1950 she became the store manager -- Sprouse Reitz's first woman manager!
Leno Madraso and his wife, Ilene [Burr], owned a restaurant called Leno's on West Williams Avenue [now Tony's Seafood]. They built the restaurant in 1954 and kept it open for 22 years. Leno says the restaurant had a Basque flavor although it was not advertised strictly as a Basque place.
Leno Madraso was born in Fallon to Basque parents who had been living here since before 1920. His father, Marcelo Madraso, had been working for a large beet sugar factory in Sacramento. That company sent a cadre of men to Fallon to build the beet sugar factory in 1911. Marcelo's job was operating the presses. After
Who are the Basques? 115
a year at the factory he had the opportunity to buy the Spoon Hotel, east of Maine Street, which would later be owned by the Villanuevas. Marcelo continued to work at the factory while managing the hotel. During the summertime he and a friend went to Winnemucca to work in the harvest, and a man named Mike Arrascada asked Marcelo to accompany him to Reno to see a cousin, Engracia. She was working at the French Hotel and saving her money to go back to Spain. After she met Marcelo and they got better acquainted, they were married and moved back to Fallon. They sold the hotel in 1915. He worked on various ranches and finally purchased his own ranch on Rice Road. They referred to the property as "The Poultry Ranch" as they raised a lot of poultry, especially turkeys. Madraso also worked for the Bureau of Reclamation and, in his later years, was a custodian for the TCID. During the summer months he worked as a cook on some of the big local ranches and was considered an excellent cook.
A Basque lady named Tomasa Olano owned the Allen Hotel on Carson Street from 1945 until she retired in 1970. Her son, Manuel, worked for many years for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Her daughter, Rosie Olano Weddle worked for Mr. Forbes in his insurance, real estate and title business. When Forbes sold his business, Rosie went with the business, and worked 27 continuous years for the various owners.
Many young Basque men who came to the United States became shepherds. It was getting very hard to find capable Americans who were willing to stay in the hills day after day, month after month, with no one but the sheep and a couple of dogs to talk to. By the late 1940's there was a growing demand for Basque herders. If the herders worked for five consecutive years, they could leave that job and take some other employment. Many of them had been saving every dime they earned and they would buy their own herd. After awhile the U.S. labor officials worked to change the legislation, creating new laws whereby the Basque men would sign a contract to come and herd sheep for three years. After that contract ended they had to leave the United States but could come back later with another three year contract. This stopped a lot of potential immigrants from becoming permanent residents.
Tommy Ormachea [1896-1986] was a Basque who came from Spain in 1914 when he was 17 years old, and settled in Austin. He worked for the Welch cattle ranches and then about 1927 he came to Fallon. He and Felix Bernedo were buying lambs and hay and feeding the lambs through the winter on fields rented from local farmers. The partners were renting the Kallenback Ranch on Testolin Road when Tommy met and married Kallenbach's daughter, Marguerite. Eventually he became the owner of that ranch and he bought extensive holdings in eastern Churchill County including Alpine Ranch, Clan Alpine and Cold Springs. He branched out from sheep to include cattle in his operation. With the ranch in Fallon as headquarters and the outside range for the livestock he became a successful rancher. His daughter, Marie Ormachea Sherman, now owns the Lahontan Valley property.
116 Anita and Tony Erquiaga
She started working with her father when she was very young and learned to run the business. She was very capable of irrigating and harvesting crops as well as taking care of the cattle and sheep and so was ready to take over when her turn came.
Joe Ugalde, with his wife, Teresa, was a sheepman in the Gerlach area. He moved to a ranch in Hazen in 1952, and his son, Wes Ugalde, finished his last two years of high school at CCHS. Wes was the gunsmith for Fallon Sporting Goods from 1963 to 1974. After that he and his wife, Jackie [McCulla] operated the Montgomery Ward store, which was located in the building known as the Lawana Theatre. He also started his own gun shop and photo business in the same building. In 1988 they moved to New Hampshire where he worked for Thompson Center Gun Company in research and development. They returned to Fallon in 1993.
At least 20 of the Basques living in Fallon in 1930 were farmers. Most of them milked some cows and sold the cream to The Fallon Creamery. This gave them a regular paycheck. They all had gardens and raised chickens. They were always able to sell their produce and eggs to the I.H. Kent store. Some of them raised turkeys or cantaloupes which were also marketed through Kents.
Sam Solaegui was one who raised cantaloupes on a large scale. His wife had died and he was raising his six children, being both father and mother to them. When cantaloupe harvest came around Mr. Solaegui got a special permit for his daughter, Grace [Perrier], to drive because she was not old enough to get a license. Every morning after the melons were picked she would drive her father's pickup, loaded with melons, into town and deliver them to the grocery stores.
Joe Erquiaga, who had come to Fallon from Spain when he was five years old, had grown up taking care of sheep for his father, Marcelino Erquiaga. His father usually had about one hundred sheep. When Joe was 17 he left his parents' house and went to Plumas County in California to work for his uncle, David Erquiaga. His uncle had extensive holdings and several thousand sheep and Joe became the herder for the yearlings. The winter pasture was in Fernley and the sheep were trailed from Fernley to the mountain country for the summer. He said a young fellow was always put in charge of the younger sheep because they had a tendency to run, and it took a young man to keep up with them. After a year and five days, and several pairs of worn out shoes, Joe decided life was too short to spend any more of it herding sheep and he moved on to the lumber business in Loyalton.
The J.P. Sagouspe family lived along the "Old River" branch of the Carson River on the property now owned by Ron Albaugh. There was a dam in the river just above the ranch and it has been named Sagouspe Dam. Some people think they were a Basque family. In a recent conversation with a grandson, David Sagouspe of Los Banos, California, it was learned that his family is French. He said that because they had sheep many people thought they must be Basque. He and his dad have always belonged to the Basque Club in Los Banos and David cooks for many club parties. But his grandparents' home was in a province next to the Basque
Who are the Basques? 117
The Rubianes family. Back row, left to right: Pauline [Etchart], Jessie [Heinz] and Anita [Erquiaga]. Front row, left to right: Fabian, Mrs. Victoria Rubianes and Tony. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
provinces. He said the correct spelling of the name is Sagouspe. He noted that it has been misspelled on the road sign that leads to the Sagouspe Dam. (The sign currently spells their name as "Sagouspi.")
When World War II came along the Basques of Fallon were well represented in the fighting forces. Fabian Rubianes, in the 4th Armored Division, was one who was seriously wounded on Okinawa in May 1945. He spent the next two and a half years in hospitals fighting for his life, and was in rehabilitation before he could be discharged.
Daniel Solaegui was in the Navy and lost his life when he went down with his torpedoed ship. He was survived by a four year old daughter.
Tony Barrenchea and his brother Manuel were airplane mechanics in the U.S. Air Force. They served with the famous Flying Tigers, keeping the planes in good working condition so they could fly supplies over the Himalayan Mountains. They were both career military, and, when they retired, they came back to Fallon. After that, Manuel was elected County Clerk/Treasurer and served Churchill County for another 20 years.
The Barrenchea's mother and four of their uncles had lived in Fallon since 1920. The uncles were the Bernedo brothers, Felix, Tony, Patsy and Leon. They were farmers, sheepman and also did some trucking.
Another Basque who ran for office was Steven Erquiaga, a Fallon native. He was elected Churchill County Recorder/Auditor. After 2 years he resigned and went to work as an assistant administrator at Churchill Regional Medical Center.
118 Anita and Tony Erquiaga
The principal of Fallon's newest school, Numa Elementary, is of Basque descent. David Erquiaga is a Fallon native. He is the son of the sheepman, David Erquiaga, mentioned earlier and his mother was Marguerite Kallenback [Ormachea], whose parents were very early day settlers in Fallon.
John Achurra grew up on a farm in Fallon with his Spanish Basque parents, Joe and Consuelo (Connie). He served in the Army during World War II and after he came home he worked for Crescent Creamery. He married Firmin Bruner's daughter, Norma, and they raised a family of five children. In the 1950s they started a business doing custom haying. John would swath, bale and haul hay depending on what the farmer wanted done. A number of Fallon's teenage boys earned their college money while bucking bales and doing other jobs working for John. Their son, Robert, is a CPA in Fallon.
Carrying on their cultural traditions, children of the Fallon Basque Club dance along Williams Avenue behind their parade float in the late 1970s. (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection.)
During the 1930s the Basque families in Fallon would get together at someone's house a couple times a year to dance and have refreshments. Felix Arrizabalaga and a young fellow named Tony Ormachea, who farmed in Soda Lake District, played the accordions for dancing. As mentioned before, Basques love to sing and dance.
About 1977 some Fallonites organized a Basque Club. Enos Laca was the first president. Enos' parents, the Ygnacio Lacas, had been in Fallon since 1920 and were farmers. Today Enos and his brother Remo farm here and their children
Who are the Basques? 119
farm or work at other jobs in Fallon. The Basque Club fell by the wayside after a few years.
There are still about 50 Basques families in Fallon, and all of them are descendants of original immigrants who came here 60 or more years ago. Each in his own way has contributed something to the community.
Sources
Douglass, William and John Bilboa. Amerikanuak. Reno: University of Nevada Press,
1975.
Lane, Richard, and William Douglass. Basque Sheepherders of the American West. Reno:
University of Nevada Press, 1985.
"16th Century Basque Whaling In America." National Georgraphic Magazine. Vol. 168
No.1, July 1985, pp. 40-71.
Zaugg, Hilda Cadet. The Basque People. unpublished manuscript.
Personal interviews
Leno Madraso, Marie Ormachea Sherman, Rosie Olano Weddle, Walter Richards, Wes
Ugalde, David Sagouspe.
120 Anita and Tony Erquiaga
MINI BASQUE DICTIONARY: Selected words from the
Basque-English English-Basque Dictionary. Gorka Aulestia, Linda White
University of Nevada Press, Reno, Nevada, 1992
(Several sources tell us that there are differences in the spelling of these words depending on whether they are French-Basque or Spanish-Basque.)
Ama: Mother Ardi: Sheep
Ardizakur: Sheepdog dog Artzain: Sheepherder
Bota: A bladder type receptacle for carrying and drinking wine made from the skin
of an animal.
C: In the dictionary there are no words beginning with the letter "C" listed.
Ernarazi: Father
Irrintzi: A war cry or exclamation of joy and happiness. It begins softly and works
up to a crescendo: eeee! Yi!Yi!Yi!Yi!Yi!Yi!Y iiiiiiiii!
Jota: Basque dance of joy.
Mus: An old country card game similar to poker but played with a partner.
Ongi etorri: Welcome Txakur: Dog
Xirula: A Basque flute. Zaldi: Horse
Counting:
0 - utsa
1 - bat
2 - bi
3 - hiru
4 - lau
5 - bost
6 - sei
7 - zazpi
8 - zortzi
9 - bederatzi
10 - hamar
20 - hogei
30 - hogeitamar
40 - berrogei
50 - berrogeitamar
60 - hirurogei
70 - hirurogeitamar
80 - larogei
90 - larogeitamar
100 - ehun
1000 - mila
Months:
January - ilbeltza February - otsaila March - martxoa April - apirila May - maiatza June - ekaina July - urtaila August - aburtua September - iraila October - urrila November - azaroa December - abendua
CREATIVE FOCUS
An Ecosystem Called Stillwater.• The End and the Beginning
Marianne Peterson
Snowgeese take off and land at the Stillwater Marsh. (US. Fish and Wildlife photograph.)
"I wonder where this river ends," I thought to myself as my eyes drank in the Carson River which flowed past me for the first time. As a new resident of Churchill County, one of the first places I visited was the Sierra Nevadas -- source of the Carson River. Seeing that beautiful yet simple river that day, I had to know where it ended. Did its admirable journey end in a dramatic outpouring into one of the large and beautiful lakes I had heard about, or did the unassuming waters casually disappear underground to replenish the water table unceremoniously? Standing on the Carson's banks that day I had no idea how much I would actually come to learn about the land, close to my new home of Fallon, where the river ended. Known to locals as Stillwater, the resting place of the Carson would prove to be a very valuable and rich expanse of land.
The Carson River waters are fed mainly by snow melt in the Sierra Nevada. The river descends from the mountains and enters Lahontan Valley having nearly completed its 250 mile journey. Near Ragtown, the river branches into sloughs and channels -- one of which feeds Carson Lake, a system of sloughs and marshes
121
122 Marianne Petersen
southeast of Fallon -- and eventually makes its way to Carson Sink, the lowest part of the valley.(1)
The Carson Sink is an area that contains over 250 thousand square miles of wetlands.(2) The shallow lakes and marshes that lie within the area flood each spring when snow melt reaches the river. In years of heavy rainfall the mud flats which dot the sink also become shallow lakes.(3) It is in this flooded state that the waters seem to make an impressive attempt at reclaiming the land once owned by its grand ancient ancestor Lake Lahontan, the shoreline of which can be seen sculpted out of the surrounding hills. Within the boundaries of Carson Sink lie the Stillwater Wetlands and Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge. It is this area that holds most of the water and attracts most of the life in the area -- plant, animal, and human.
Having been raised in Tucson, Arizona -- an area with few naturally occurring bodies of water -- I have a keen interest in marshes and wetlands habitat. My instant fascination with Stillwater has led me on an interesting journey both on land and on paper.
My first trip to Stillwater was made on a mild January day. After seeing the Carson River I was eager to see the place where its waters end. I had heard that spring and fall were the best times to visit Stillwater because of the chance to see some of the thousands of waterfowl that use the wetlands as a resting place on their migratory route. But I found that the wetlands, even in the "dead" of winter, proved to be a rich ecosystem sustaining species that make their home there year round.
Accompanied by my husband and children, I made my first stop at Stillwater Point Reservoir. Here hills of dirt and holes made it obvious that construction equipment was in use in the area. But across the dry desert land and nestled against Stillwater Range, I saw hundreds of acres of cattail and tule browned by the cold and seeming to grow mysteriously out of the alkali desert. As we made our way on foot toward the fence which separated us from the reeds, we saw why the local Native Americans had named the area Stillwater.The bulrush was steadfastly protecting stretches of dark water which lay quietly between the plants. The melancholy silence was suddenly broken by a loud echoing squawking. A large pelican exploded off the water's surface and flew over the shallows. Our eyes followed it until it disappeared into the landscape.
There is something inexplicably fascinating about observing what you consider to be an ocean-going animal in the middle of the desert. It somehow gave me the sense that I had traveled back in time -- that there was in fact an ocean quite nearby. The sight of the beautiful bird would have been enough to satisfy my craving for nature, but we still had miles of Stillwater left to see . . .
As we drove along the muddy roads which curved for miles throughout the marshes, we did indeed see many more Stillwater permanents. Ducks small and large abounded in the waters along with chubby muskrats which we observed going about their business in the canals and disappearing into one of their many holes that lined the water's edge. We also saw three or four white egrets which quickly
An Ecosystem Called Stillwater 123
but gracefully flew away when our obtrusive car stopped to afford us a better view. We observed two large nests expertly balanced between the leafless branches of shoreline trees, and even saw the likely owner of one of these nests -- a large, regal looking hawk.
It is fascinating how some animals such as the muskrats did not notice our presence (or simply chose to ignore us!) while others such as the egrets flew away almost immediately. Either way I was a thankful intruder.
The marshes in Stillwater, as with water anywhere on earth, sustain specific plant and animal life depending on the chemical makeup and flow action of the water. Stillwater consists of fresh and brackish water marshes.When Carson River first enters Stillwater, it flows fresh and swift. This type of water supports the willow and cottonwood trees that line the banks. Each spring, flooding enables the rejuvenation of rush, sedge, and grass which grow outside the river's banks. The fresh, fast-flowing water also sustains mussels, and a species of fish called the Tahoe Sucker. Cattail and bulrush grow abundantly in the freshwater marshes supplying coots and redhead ducks with their preferred nesting place. The deeper water of these marshes sustain sago pondweed -- a staple for migrating swans and ducks -- while the open water houses minnows which are fed upon by diving ducks and pelicans.(4)
Brackish-water marshes emerged in Stillwater mainly as a result of the seeping in of minerals from nearby hills and evaporation. Agricultural runoff now plays a major role in the existence of alkaline and sodium-rich marshes. Alkali bulrush or "nutgrass" grows in the shallow areas of these ponds sustaining waterfowl which depend upon its seeds for food. The deeper water encourages the growth of musk grasses which are also eaten by ducks.(5)
Although not easily imagined when one is standing on the banks of a broad, rich pond, Stillwater does experience drought. In years of little rain and snow fall, the teaming waters dry up and the former lakes become mudflats, lying dormant until flooding once again covers the land with water.(6)
What is easy to imagine while standing silently in the midst of this Stillwater ecosystem are all the animals that are not necessarily visible or present year round. During my visit I found myself visualizing coyotes, deer, eagles, falcons, badgers and other animals that are attracted to Stillwater to prey, drink, nest, etc.(7)
Images of the people who once lived here are also easily conjured up. Archaeological evidence collected at Stillwater shows that earlier humans were also attracted to the richness of the environment. Known as the Marsh People, their existence in the area has been made evident by thousands of artifacts exposed by wind and water erosion. Ranging from tiny charred seeds to complete burial pits, the artifacts are unraveling a great deal of detail about the lives of the ancient people who called Stillwater home.(8)
The Marsh People's lives were intimately linked with the Stillwater ecosystem. They depended upon it completely for their survival. It is believed that half of all their meals were supplied by a large minnow called the tui chub. Their bones
l24 Marianne Petersen
are found in food storage pits and garbage pits in greater numbers than any other fish. Trout bones and sucker bones along with shells of freshwater mussels have also been found in abundance while fragments of fishing nets have been found in nearby caves.(9)
Coot bones account for over half of all the water bird bones found in Stillwater. According to the evidence, coots were dried or cooked, and their skins used for blankets and clothing.(10)
Charred bulrush and cattail seeds are found in greater numbers than any other seeds along with different types of grinding stones indicating the importance of wetland plants in the Marsh people's diet.(11) The large rocks used for grinding had to be brought in from the Stillwater Range foothills either on foot or on boats made from tule reeds.(12) Rodents also provided meals for the Marsh People while muskrat, mink, and otter skins were used during winter months.(13)
Although artifacts made out of wood, reeds, and leather have decayed, anthropologists know that different plants and animals were relied upon depending on the season of the year they were available. This provided the Marsh People with food, clothes, and shelter year round.(14)
More archaeological evidence continues to surface in Stillwater and many inferences about the lives of the Marsh People can be made by examining the lives of the people who came after them -- the Toidikadi or "Cattail-Eater Paiute." Anthropologists are not sure if the Toidikadi are the descendants of the Marsh people or of another group that may have driven the Marsh people out of the area. The knowledge of current day Pauites that are native to the area along with Toidikadi artifacts continue to shed light on this history.(15)
The Toidikadi, like the Marsh People, relied on the Stillwater Marsh for much of their livelihood. Depending on the season, different parts of the reeds alone supplied the people with food throughout the year. The abundants reeds were also used to make boats, huts, mats, baskets, and duck decoys. When warming of the climate in the Great Basin brought about the reduction of mink and otter populations, the Toidikadi were forced to utilize mammals such as jackrabbits and bighorn sheep found in the outlying deserts and hills. The Toidikadi also relied on the surrounding desert plants for fibers, medicines, and grains such as wild rye.(16)
Stillwater's rich tribal history and intact ecosystem lasted up until the 1870s when the valley saw its first European-American settlements.(17) As ranches and farms were established by the settlers and water diversions began as a way to encourage agriculture in the valley, the marsh began to dry up, and the Toidikadi were forced to depart from their homes. Many, including a band that subsisted on Carson Lake, turned to laboring on ranches as a result of both the natural and unnatural decline in the lake's water level which resulted in the decline of their food resources.(18) Although Stillwater remains sacred as a life-giving source to today's Pauites, few of the area's elders remain, making Stillwater's history even more precious.
An Ecosystem Called Stillwater 125
To the casual eye admiring the Stillwater expanse, the ecosystem appears to be in a healthy stasis, each member of the food chain playing its role in the circle of life. Even with the roads, dikes, bridges, and seemingly endless miles of canals that divide and slice Stillwater, it is easy to believe that its plant and animal life have been playing their parts in the same way for thousands of years. But this belief would be faulty. A trip to Stillwater is but one day in a never ending history of life. Human observers can behold all the wonderful sights the wetlands have to offer, then get into their cars and drive away thinking little more about the ecosystem which goes on adapting and changing long after they've gone. Stillwater, like any other ecosystem, is in an inherent state of compensating flux. This condition, known as homeostasis, is a dynamic balance of compensations and adjustments focused on an ideal state.(19)
One might imagine a gymnast on a balance beam holding out her arms, swaying slightly to and fro, bending her knees, straightening out again, even lifting one leg all to keep her from falling off the beam as she walks back and forth. Someone may come and slightly shake the beam or gently turn its position, but the gymnast, being an expert at maintaining balance, will adjust her body and adapt accordingly to remain balanced on the beam.
Nature's ability to adapt has fascinated and astounded people for thousands of years. The apparent ease with which ecosystems and their individual inhabitants seem to adapt has led many people to the incorrect conclusion that adaptation is unfailing no matter how big the cataclysmic event or how seemingly small the event (often the smallest cause precedes the biggest effect). Most naturally occurring events such as climatic change and erosion are slowly occurring processes which makes adaptation easier. The lizards that make their home in the sand dunes southeast of Fallon are adapted to the wind and constantly shifting sands. It is the cataclysmic events such as volcanos, meteor strikes, prolonged drought or flooding, and sudden epidemics that result in nonadaptibility and eventually the decimation of a particular species or an entire ecosystem. (In the 1940s the entire Stillwater muskrat population succumbed to an epidemic disease. California muskrats were introduced and populations recovered.)(20)
In the case of the gymnast, a number of different scenarios could occur. With slight stresses from the outside, she could remain walking back and forth on the beam indefinitely -- perhaps even being able to predict the beam's changes. The same stresses accompanied by a strong jolt of the beam, may make the gymnast stumble and lose balance momentarily. But with effort she may be able to grab hold of the beam and regain her composure once again. With slightly increased and unpredictable outside stresses, however, the gymnast may be able to compensate with the changes for a while, but may eventually grow tired and weak and fall off the beam. The final scenario demonstrates that if somebody were to tilt the gymnast's beam too far to one side, or even push the gymnast outright, compensation would be impossible and she would fall off the beam.
126 Marianne Petersen
The Stillwater ecosystem has been adapting to natural changes both small and cataclysmic for thousands of years as did the human occupants which once played an integral part. Stillwater's predecessor Lake Lahontan receded as a result of the warming climate, leaving behind Pyramid Lake approximately 90 miles northeast of Fallon, Walker Lake approximately 90 miles south of Fallon, and Stillwater Marsh -- each of which might be dry if it weren't for the rivers which feed them.(21) In years of drought, the seeds and root systems of marsh plants are able to lie dormant within the mudflats waiting for water. The eggs of fairy shrimp -- an important member of the ecosystem's food chain exhibit this adaptation as well. Birds exercise a number of different options when coping with drought. Already adapted to flying long distances, they can seek food in other areas, delay their nesting habits for a wetter year, or simply chose a different place to nest. Other Stillwater resident populations such as muskrats and minnows may decline as a result of the dryness, but recover their numbers easily when wet years return.(22) In much the same way, Stillwater's early human natives harvested, dried, and stored plants and animals, moved their homes, searched for new resources, or abandoned their site completely according to changes in the environment.(23) Even the Carson River itself after a season of flooding would naturally form new channels, also affecting the downstream habitat.(24)
Over the last 130 years of its history, the Stillwater ecosystem has experienced stresses much like the gymnast in the second scenario and is well on its way to the third scenario while it tries to compensate for the many changes brought about by the newer human population that has settled the valley.
The Carson River was immediately recognized as a valuable resource by the first explorers that traveled through western Nevada in the mid-1800s.(25) Stillwater saw its first Euro-American settlement in 1862 (26) and in the 1880s the marsh was forced to deal with its first major unnatural blow. Carp, an Asian species of fish, were introduced to Stillwater (no doubt to satisfy eager fisherman) but disrupted the ecosystem by uprooting water plants while they foraged along the bottom of the marsh. This muddies the water, thereby interfering with the spawning of minnows and suckers whose numbers decline while carp continue to wreak havoc on the ecosystem.(27)
Other major changes to Stillwater and to the Carson River were seen around 1904 after the Bureau of Reclamation gave birth to the Newlands Irrigation Project. The Lahontan Reservoir was created after the damming of the Carson River, and for the first time valley ranchers and farmers were supplied with a constant and reliable source of water.(28) Ranchers in the Stillwater area were also able to use the local source of water for their land.
The diversions and dams significantly reduced the flow of the Carson River which, of course, severely impacted the environment downstream and set off a chain of destructive events in Stillwater. One of the first signs of change came in the form of a huge increase in the number of tule and cattail plants which grow best in shal-
An Ecosystem Called Stillwater 127
low water. As marsh water levels declined, the reeds grew more abundantly and took over the habitat of the deep water musk grass, and pondweed. The decline of these plants, in turn, led to a decline in the great numbers of waterfowl that relied on the plants for food.(29)
Another change came in the form of the chemical balance of the marsh. Mineral-rich water runoff from farms increased the salinity and alkalinity of the Stillwater marshes. This has led to the near disappearance of the once abundant tui chub, the decline of the Tahoe Sucker which requires fast-flowing fresh water to spawn, and the loss of freshwater mussels which also depend upon moving fresh water to survive.(30) The reduction in these three species have without a doubt ruptured a whole in the food chain. Stillwater biologists are still working to fully understand the effects of the problem and find solutions such as supplying Stillwater with chub populations from Walker Lake. Archaeological evidence has shown that many more species of fish used to exist in the waters than can be found today.(31)
Both the reduction of fisheries and the loss of deep water plants has greatly reduced the total number of waterfowl that were once sustained by Stillwater. Recognizing this downward spiraling trend, the Nevada Fish and Game Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District reached an agreement in 1948 to set aside over 200,000 acres of land owned by the Bureau of Reclamation-Newlands Irrigation Project for cattle grazing and wild-life.(32) (Cattle grazing has, in fact, benefitted the ecosystem. Tiny grubs and insects that are attracted to cattle manure supply wading shorebirds with an extra source of food.)(") Two hundred twenty-four thousand acres were set aside as the Stillwater Wildlife Management Area, and 77,500 acres of this area makeup the Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge.(34) Organizations such as the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, Nevada Division of Wildlife, and The Nature Conservancy own parts of Stillwater under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.(35) The goal of the Fish and Wildlife Service is to continue to purchase the water required to invigorate the remaining 14,000 acres of land that were once marsh.(36)
But purchasing water rights is not an easy task when there are numerous organizations also trying to purchase the same water and disputing over who has the best reason to own it and who will make the best use of it. The disputes surround water resources from Stillwater all the way to the California-Nevada state line. Power plants, ranchers, farmers, recreationists, tribes, and wildlife all have a stake in the argument. Over the last 100 years, laws have been changed and agreements have been made to satisfy one or a few parties, but never, of course, all.37
Electric companies which own the power plants argue that they require more water to meet the energy needs of growing communities. Ranchers and dairy men need water to irrigate their grazing fields.(38) Farmers who must irrigate their crops argue that the future of agriculture in the valley depends upon this water and that Fallon would virtually not exist if it weren't for agriculture.(39) Recreationists argue that lake and reservoir levels should be maintained or even increased to ensure the future of boating and fishing.(40) Native tribes argue that the land and water
128 Marianne Petersen
belonged to them in the first place and is sacred.(41) And then, of course, there are the millions of species of plant and animals that depend upon the water for their very survival.
The disputes over water resources are very complicated. Farmers are being asked to prove that they can come up with more efficient ways to irrigate their land. This means that flood irrigation will one day be replaced. Today and in the past flood irrigation was beneficial because it washed away any mineral buildup in farm soils and carried it away (harming the land downstream). New methods are being attempted in the valley (such as sprinkler farming) which uses water more efficiently, but leaves the harmful salts in the soil.(42)
It has been argued by some organizations against the purchase of water for wetland habitats, that once the water flows into the ecosystem, it simply evapo-rates.(43) While this is true -- an average of 5 feet of water evaporates in the valley per year --(44) it is the evaporation of this water combined with evaporation from the Pacific Ocean, that supplies the rain and snowfall in the mountains, which, of course feeds our rivers.(45) In this sense, my journey to find and understand the once mysterious end of the Carson River has taught me that the river, in fact, ends where it begins. The conservationist John Muir once said, "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe." (46)
While attempting to decipher the hundreds of pages of legalities concerning Carson River, I realized also that while the laws and regulations concerning the river are constantly adapting to the ever changing "needs" of the people, the river itself has not, is not, will not, and cannot adapt to our individual and differing wills. We may be able to divert, dam, and bridge its waters, but it does not exist because of us. It is ultimately Mother Nature, that grand but elusive Matriarch, who determines the rain and snow, or lack thereof. She will determine the river's character and existence. Does She not, in the end, have her way with all of us?
Like the river, my journey to Stillwater ended where it began -- looking out across the silent water near the reservoir. The pelican we had seen a few hours earlier was out of sight, but I knew it was there somewhere -- not because of me or even for me, but just because it was. The simplicity of that realization was refreshing.
NOTES
1. Kendal Morris and Anan Raymond, People of the Marsh (Fallon, Nevada: Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge, 1993), p. 5.
2. Bill Henry, Stillwater biologist. Personal interview January 1998.
3. Morris and Raymond, p. 6.
4. William Cunningham and Barbara Saigo, Environmental Science: A Global Concern (Dubuque, Iowa: Wm.C.Brown Publishers, 1990), p. 79.
5. Morris and Raymond, p. 6.
6. Ibid, p. 6.
An Ecosystem Called Stillwater 129
7. Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge Nevada. Pamphlet. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, October, 1994).
8. Morris and Raymond. Who Were the Ancient People of Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge, Nevada. (Fallon, Nevada: U.S. Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service, Stillwater Wildlife Refuge, 1992), p. 1.
9. Morris and Raymond, p. 3.
10. Ibid, p. 20.
11. Ibid, p. 22.
12. Ibid, p. 21.
13. Ibid, p. 24.
14. Ibid, p. 3.
15. Ibid, p. 3.
16. Ibid, p. 15, 22-24.
17. John Townley, p. 13.
18. Ibid, p. 9.
19. Cunningham and Saigo, p. 6.
20. Morris and Raymond, p. 24.
21. Morris and Raymond, p. 5.
22. Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge, Nevada. Pamphlet.
23. Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims.
24. John Townley, p. 9.
25. Ibid, p. 1.
26. Ibid, p. 12.
27. Morris and Raymond, p. 18.
28. Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge, Nevada. Pamphlet.
29. Ibid.
30. Morris and Raymond, p. 18.
31. Ibid, p. 7.
32. Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge, Nevada. Pamphlet.
33. Bunny Corkill, Lecture. 24 September, 1997.
34. Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge, Nevada. Pamphlet.
35. Bill Henry. Personal interview.
36. Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge Nevada, Pamphlet.
37. John Townley, p. 149.
38. Ibid, p. 149.
39. Bunny Corkill. Lecture.
40. John Townley, p. 149.
41. Morris and Raymond, p. 1.
42. John Townley, p. 149.
43. John Townley, p. 14.
44. Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge, Nevada. Pamphlet.
45. William Cunningham and Barbara Saigo, Environmental Science: A Global Concern, p. 33.
46. Ibid, p. 31.
SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE
Ancients in Nevada
Eric Seiple
Permission to reprint the following article, originally published in the September 1997 issue of Rock & Gem, was generously granted by Rock & Gem, Miller Magazines, Inc. and the author.
In the Dead Camel Range, southwest of Fallon, Nevada, fossil collectors can have an enjoyable experience finding 13-million-year-old plant remains in what geologists call the Middle Miocene Desert Peak Formation. The site lies roughly 0.4 miles southeast of Red Mountain (elevation 5,338) on the northwestern slopes of a narrow, dry wash whose erosive power has exposed a series of hard shale, occasionally interbedded with intrusive basalt and basaltic tuff. Despite the fact that the sedimentary sequence has been invaded through time by volcanic activity, the oldest shale accumulations in the Desert Peak Formation, or those exposed lowest in the local stratigraphic section, continue to provide fossil-hunters with an abundance of nicely preserved leaves, samaras, needles and twigs from several types of conifers.
In all, some 22 species of ancient plants have been identified by paleobotanists from the Middle Miocene Desert Peak Formation. The floral list includes such varieties as evergreen live oak, quaking aspen, Utah juniper, white fir, and giant sequoia.
All of these varieties contrast dramatically with the desert extremes of the Fallon district today. The fossils provide incontrovertible evidence that, 13 million years ago, an extensive oak-juniper woodland thrived near the lower reaches of a mixed-conifer forest in a region subjected to volcanic activity.
While other collectors have found their way to the locality in automobiles, that practice is not advised. True, four-wheel drive may not be essential in this case, but most regular travelers of the desert agree that it is much better to be on the safe side in these kinds of situations. This journey requires travel over unimproved dirt trails subject to the desert elements, and is best undertaken in the appropriate kind of vehicle. In this instance a rugged, heavy-duty pick-up truck will likely suffice in the absence of four-wheel drive.
The trip begins on the western outskirts of Fallon, along Highway 50. Take the Sheckler Cutoff (State Route 117) south 1.9 miles to the intersection with Powerline Road. Turn west (right) on Powerline Road and travel 0.6 miles to Desert View Road. Make a left turn at this point, heading south only 0.1 miles before turning back to the right (west). From this point, go another 0.1 miles, then take the jog to the left
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(south). Travel on another 0.8 miles and turn left once again. Proceed now in a generally southwesterly direction 4.4 miles, to where a wire gate crosses the road. (You will skirt the southeastern fringes of the shallow waters of Sheckler Reservoir part of the way.) Remember to leave the gate in the condition you originally found it -- if it is already open, do not presume to close it.
Collectors must not abuse their privi-
leges here. Bear in mind that the famous Red Mountain fossil plant site remains open to the public only because the local landowners recognize the great recreational value of their vast desert surroundings. They encourage visitors to experience the rewards of back-country explorations amidst the challenging austerity of the Great Basin Desert.
Nevertheless, they maintain a stern vigilance over the natural domain. Should a clear
pattern of disregard for property emerge, rest assured that the Fallon flora in the
Dead Camel Range will not only become off limits to all amateur fossil collectors,
but also to desert enthusiasts.
From the gate, continue southwest an additional 1.2 miles. At this point , a primitive Jeep track takes off to the right, leading toward Red Mountain in the middle of the Dead Camel Range. Make the turn, following the general course of an unnamed dry wash off to the right (north). The primary fossil-plant-yielding outcrops occur in road cuts along the left side of the Jeep track and on the northwest slopes from 1.3 to 1.4 miles west of the main dirt road.
The Fallon flora occur in the basal portion of the Middle Miocene Desert Peak Formation, which consists of around 500 feet of thick-bedded siliceous shale (in beds 1 to 5 inches thick, on average) that weathers to shades of yellowish-brown, brownish-red, and maroon.
The shale frequently disintegrates through erosion to large plate-shaped fragments that tend to form rubbly slopes, a characteristic style of weathering which masks the true lithologic nature of the underlying strata. Interbedded with the sedimentary rocks are a few minor volcanic contaminants -- basalt flows and basaltic tuff -- which have locally metamorphosed the shale, obliterating any fossil material they might have originally contained.
The fossil-bearing shale are clearly of lacustrine, or lake, origin, and the plants that were preserved in them most likely accumulated near the shoreline. There is little evidence to support the idea that currents carried the ancient plants far from the margin of the lake into which they were swept by repeated storm waters over the course of tens of thousands of years, at the very least. If they had truly been preserved through the action of lake currents, the plant material would certainly be found as scattered, rare remains throughout the sedimentary deposit, not as a complete fossil flora concentrated within a narrow shale horizon.
At the primary fossil locality along the Jeep trail, the fossil plants are fairly common. They are typically preserved as pale brown to dark reddish-brown impressions that stand out in bold contrast on a paler-colored matrix of yellowish-brown
132 Eric Seiple
shale. But as the sedimentary deposits are traced away from that principal accumulation of Middle Miocene plants, collectors learn that the once-productive shale rapidly turns barren of organic remains; all fossils simply disappear due to the mysterious nature of sedimentary deposition some 13 million years ago.
The fossil locality apparently corresponds to a favorable position along the bottom of the ancient Middle Miocene lake, a place where plant debris swept into the waters from the surrounding countryside, and was buried rapidly by tons upon tons of inflowing mud and silt. Organic tissues were covered completely before any significant decay could begin.
To locate the best-preserved plants, the highly indurated siliceous mud within which they lie hidden must be successfully split, revealing the Middle Miocene treasures to their first light of day in some 13 million years. This certainly involves a lot of paleontological dedication and patience, not to mention hard work, but the ultimate reward of many perfect, complete leaves and an occasional conifer samara creates a burning anticipation for an encounter with the distant geologic past.
The basic idea is to first remove large chunks of potential leaf-yielding shale from the Desert Peak exposures using a good quality geology hammer. (The steel must be tempered properly or the metal will spall off with shrapnel-like ferocity, potentially inflicting serious injuries). Strike the shale chunks along their natural bedding planes where the mud and silts have accumulated, layer by layer, to form sedimentary rock. If nothing significant pops out at you, try again with another piece of shale.
The quality specimens are indeed present here, even if it takes a measure of dedication to recover them. Remember that this is an old and famous fossil locality -a favorite of rockhounding locals from the Fallon area in particular. As a matter of fact, a couple of rock shops at the western end of town, along Highway 50, frequently have Red Mountain leaf specimens on display, ready for sale. The upshot is that after decades of intensive collecting by amateurs and professional paleobotinists alike, it is indeed remarkable that the Fallon site continues to yield such a reliable selection of fossil plant specimens.
The history of collecting at Red Mountain goes all the way back to the first half of the 1900's. In the summer of 1936, two amateur collectors from Fallon, Laura Mills and Ray Alcorn, brought fossil leaves from the Dead Camel Range to the attention of Ralph W. Chaney, one of the more renowned paleobotanists of the 20th century. After making a preliminary assessment of the find, Chaney handed the project over to Daniel I. Axelrod. Several weeks later, Axelrod accompanied the pair to the discovery site, or what has since become known as the principal fossil locality roughly 0.4 miles southeast of Red Mountain. They collected a modest supply of fossil plants at that time -- a large enough selection for Axelrod to determine that the area demanded a formal paleobotanical interpretation, preferably in a scientific monograph.
Mills and Alcorn knew that they had discovered a productive fossil plant horizon. When they learned of the genuine scientific importance of it, they generously presented Axelrod with the large, extensive collection of fossils they had already taken from the locality.
Axelrod returned to the Fallon site several times over the succeeding years, accompanied by his wife, Nancy Robinson Axelrod, and his long-time field companion, Robert E. Smith. In time, they had amassed an exhaustive collection of some 1,390 specimens from the Desert Peak Formation -- enough fossil material to allow a definitive paleobotanical treatise on the subject. Axelrod eventually published his find-
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ings concerning the Fallon flora in the classic monograph Mio-Pliocen Floras From West-Central Nevada (University of California Publications in Geological Sciences; volume 33, 1950).
All told, Axelrod described 22 species of fossil plants from the Fallon locality. The most common specimens encountered are fragmentary and rare complete leaves belonging to an evergreen live oak, scientifically called Quercus pollardiana (formerly known as Q. hannabali). It is identical in every major delineating leaf characteristic to the living canyon live oak, ormaul oak (Quercus chrysolepsis), native to the western flanks of the Southern Sierra Nevada.
Even though the oaks appear indistinguishable, most American paleo-botinists give the Miocene variety a different scientific name in order to emphasize the great distance in geologic time between the two species. European paleobotanists, on the other hand, prefer to retain the modern scientific names for fossil species which appear identical to those still living.
After canyon live oak, in decreasing order of relative abundance, the 11 next most common forms encountered in the Middle Miocene Desert Peak Formation are the interior live oak (Quercus wislizenoides); an extinct water oak (Quercus simulata); the Brewer spruce (Picea sonomensis); giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron chaneyi); white fir (Abies concoloides); Oregon grape (Mahonia reticulata); a willow (Salix knowltoni); a second species of Oregon grape (Mahonia marginata); Pacific madrone (Arbutus matthesii); ash (Fraxinus alcoini); and Ponderosa pine (Pinus florissanti).
The ten rarest species found include a quaking aspen (Populus
contremuloides); a second species of willow (Sallix payettensis); California nutmeg (Torreya nancyana); the paper birch (Betula thor); mountain mahogany (Cercocarpis linearifolius); Utah juniper (Juniperus nevadensis); Chinese Scholar tree (Sophora spokanensis); Alaskan cedar (Thuia dimorpha); and the common cattail, or bullrush (Typha lesquereuxi).
The Fallon flora records an oak-juniper woodland community near the lower reaches of a mixed-conifer forest, similar to modern plant associations that inhabit the western flanks of the southern Sierra Nevada in California.
Axelrod believes the Fallon flora received as much as 25 inches of rain per year. This is in glaring contrast to the scant six or seven inches annually delivered to the area today, almost all of it falling during the winter months. Yet, 13 million years
Leaffossil. (Laura E. Mills photograph collection, Churchill County Museum.)
134 Eric Seiple
ago, there was certainly ample summer rainfall over the ancestral Fallon basin -- at least enough to support such sensitive botanical indicators as paper birch, Oregon grape and Chinese scholar trees. Middle Miocene times were probably mild and comfortable, with a frost-free season ranging from seven to eight months; today, the frost-free season barely lasts four months, and the Fallon district experiences extended episodes of wicked winter chilling.
That remarkable contrast in environments is on display in the rocks of the Dead Camel Range southwest of Fallon. Here, along a narrow dry gully in the middle of the Great Basin Desert (a land of brutal weather extremes and austerity of plant life), is direct proof of what one existed in this part of west-central Nevada some 13 million years ago: The lake-originated shale, exposed by powers of erosion, contains the fossilized remains of a widespread oak-juniper woodland that intermingled with a rich, mixed-conifer forest. It was an environment in which canyon live oak lived in proximity to white fir and Alaskan cedar and giant sequoia.
Today, Red Mountain Peak rises above the fossil locality, a rugged, barren out-cropping of solidified magma that postdates the accumulation of fossil plants in the Desert Formation below. There are no trees atop its summit, neither can a single variety be found along its slopes -- yet the shadow it casts across the tortured desert landscape crosses a place where old sediments hide an age of green.
Leaf fossil. (Laura E. Mills photograph collection, Churchill County Museum.)
Ray Alcorn Remembers
Ray Alcorn (1911-1998)
When the Alcorn family moved from Big Pine, California, to Fallon, Nevada, in 1929, I remember my father, William H. Alcorn, telling our family, "We have moved to a different area and I think it important for us to get out and explore the country by going to a different valley or mountain each month. When possible, someone acquainted with the area should go along with us."
It was on one of these trips that we saw the dead man and horse at the Black Rock Desert. Our discovery was written up in The Fallon Eagle newspaper [August 18, 1934] and quoted in its entirety as follows:
Fallon Men Find Skeletons of Man and Horse
with a Pack Saddle and an Old Rifle
Coming upon the old skeletons of a horse and a man, with a pack saddle and an old single barrel muzzle loading rifle was the unusual experience of W.H. Alcorn and son, Ray Alcorn, and Claude and Vernon Mills last Sunday while scouting around in the desolate country north of Gerlach on the northern edge of Black Rock desert, where the desert borders the foot of a rocky mountain.
Mr. Alcorn, who told the Eagle of the incident, said the skeletons were sufficiently well preserved to leave no doubt as to their being those of a horse and a man. There was no evidence of any bullet hole in the skull, as it was in perfect shape. The saddle could be recognized as a pack saddle, but the gun was pretty well rusted out, although the ramrod was there, and it was beyond question a single barrel, muzzle loading rifle. These three objects were the sole mute evidence of some sort of tragedy extending back possibly 50 or 60 years, or more.
It appears as if the body of the man had been covered and recently partly dug out, though the find is in a rocky gulch on the base of a steep mountain, surrounded by large boulders.
Someone had discovered it and stuck a stake down among rocks with a note saying not to disturb until a certain man had an opportunity to examine the find. Mr. Alcorn could not remember the name on the note. But it was his opinion that the man had not perished from hunger and thirst, for in that event it is hardly likely that his horse would have remained there. There was no evidence of a prospector's outfit as no tools or equipment were found. This seems to be one of the unwritten tragedies of early days on a Nevada desert.
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136 Ray Alcorn
In my continuing search to discover what the desert had to offer, I heard about the fossil leaves from the John and Anna Bailey Mills family who showed me several specimens they had at their house. I went with Laura Mills, a sister to Claude and Vernon Mills, to an area southwest of Fallon to the Dead Camel Range. At a distance of about four tenths of a mile southeast of Red Mountain we picked up some leaf fossils. I repeatedly went solo back to the area and within months I had filled buckets with them which I kept at my home four miles west of Fallon. After accumulating hundreds of them I was told that Ralph W. Chaney was a paleobotinist who could identify them for me. I contacted Dr. Chaney and he handed the information over to Daniel I. Axlerod who came to look at my specimens. I took Axelrod to the Red Mountain site. Within months Axlerod and his wife Nancy Robinson, with the assistance of Robert E. Smith, had gathered hundreds. I also gave Axlerod hundreds of leaf fossils I had gathered and Laura Mills gave them the other ones she had. Axlerod described 22 species of plant fossils from these 13 million years old leaves.
My association with the Mills family started soon after our arrival here in Fallon. My father bought a small ranch about a mile north of the Mills property. Also, Anna Bailey Mills, was a taxidermist and she taught me how to do taxidermy, work and prepare study skins. She was a sister of Vernon Bailey, the famous biologist who got me acquainted with E. Raymond Hall. While working with Dr. Hall at the University of California at Berkeley, I wrote material used by Hall that was published in his book The Mammals of Nevada, published by the University of California in 1946 and reprinted by the University of Nevada in 1995.
After working for Dr. Hall at Berkeley I went to work for him at the University of Kansas and over a ten year period I collected over 30,000 specimens in North America from Alaska to the Rain Forest of Costa Rico. Most of the specimen were of small mammals but some were of the larger kinds including bear and moose which are all in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of Kansas at Lawrence, Kansas.
While working for Dr. Hall I was credited with discovering 20 new kinds of mammals; some were named alcorni in my honor. A few examples include Alcorn's Pocket Gopher (Pappogeomys alcorni ), Meadow vole (Microtus pennsylvanicus alcorni); and Cactus mouse (Peromysus eremicus alcorni).
Also, I was involved in the collecting of numerous invertebrate specimens. A few examples of their new names are: Alcorn's leaf hopper (Edwardseana alcorni); Jellisonia alcorni and Plesiommata alcorni.
Ray Alcorn (Churchill County Museum & Archives Photograph Collection).
Historical Geology
Ray Alcorn
presented to Fallon Rock and Gem Club
February 13, 1953
It is impossible for a person to write the geological history of the last two billion years and to confine his story within the limits of a small paper. Therefore, only certain mechanisms of the events can be touched upon.
Historical geology reaches into many different fields of science. It describes the earth's changing physical features and the development of plants and animals from the time of their earliest appearance down to the present time.
A complete historical record has been written by nature and more or less permanently sealed in the rocks and formations of the earth's crust. This document lies all around us. True, some of the pages are missing, or as yet undiscovered, but the main truths may still be read.
The development of living things through the long geologic ages furnishes some of the most significant chapters in the earth's history. The most important factors in reading this part of the history are the remains of plants and animals that have been preserved as fossils in the sedimentary rocks.
One of the most obvious facts about the organic world is that no two individuals are exactly alike. This is true of animals and plants living today, and according to the fossil record it has been true in the past.
Nothing seems fixed in nature. Scientists do not know just why this inherent tendency to vary exists among organisms, but it is obviously a progressive action, called evolution. It is simply a belief that the animals and plants of today are the descendants of those that lived in the past. All the animals and all the plants are bound together by deep-seated relationships that have persisted from very remote times.
The great number of events that have occurred during the vast length of recorded geologic time has made it necessary for geologists to devise a system of organizing these events in a systematic way according to their respective time relations. The geologic time scale has been devised for this purpose. Although the divisions are somewhat arbitrary, this scale has proved quite satisfactory.
If we observe the various undisturbed layers of rock as they are exposed in the face of a limestone quarry or in the walls of a canyon, it is obvious that the bottom strata must have been deposited first and that they form the oldest part of the section. Hence, the strata must become younger and younger from the base of the formation to the top. This is the principle used in classifying the rocks according to their respective age. For example, the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon has washed away huge quantities of earth to expose rocks of three different geologic eras.
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13 8 Ray Alcorn
In mountainous regions thrust faults sometimes move great amounts of older rocks from their original positions and leave them resting upon much younger formations. Glacier action also moves great amounts of rock.
There have been periods in the geologic past when tremendous crustal upheavals have taken place. Also the continents have been invaded several times, rather widely, by marine water. These invasions of water have occurred in great cycles, each of which begins with the slow advance of the sea over the continent and ends when the land has once more emerged from the water. The complete withdrawal of a sea at the end of a cycle is caused by a broad continental uplift, which often accompanies a mountain-making disturbance. The extensive erosion and the resulting unconformity, together with the orogeny, serve as distinctive time markers that enable geologists to separate one period from another.
With the discovery of radioactivity, physicists, chemists, and geologists found a way of measuring geologic time in terms of years.
The Lead Method
Uranium is an important radioactive element found in igneous rocks and certain vein minerals, such as pitchblende. This remarkable element has the property of disintegrating at a measurable rate that does not vary, no matter what the conditions may be or how much they change from time to time. Helium atoms are emitted during the transformation, and the final products in the complete decay of uranium are lead and helium. When the age of a rock is being calculated, the amount of undecayed uranium, as well as the quantity of lead present, must be determined with great accuracy. Since the disintegration rate of uranium is known, the ratio of lead present to the uranium gives the age of the rock, or the number of years since the uranium-bearing crystal was formed in the vein or from the molten magma.
The Helium Method
This method involves considerable uncertainty, because helium is a gas and it escapes readily from most rocks. If the helium retentivity of the different rock minerals can be determined, then this means of calculating the age of certain rocks may become reasonably accurate. The lead method is satisfactory only when the age determination is made from a completely unweathered specimen of rock or mineral. If some of the lead has been dissolved and carried away by circulating water, the determined age will be smaller than the actual figure. Ordinary lead may be present in the rock, in addition to that which has been produced by the disintegration of uranium. This will produce a false time value unless the proper correction is made. A large number of age determinations have been made by the lead method, but only a few of them can be assigned to definite horizons in the geologic time scale. The widely distributed sedimentary formations that are of such importance in historical geology cannot by these methods be dated directly, but only indirectly, when they are found associated with some igneous rock whose age is known.
The best figures available show that one gram of uranium will produce 1/ 7,600,000,000 of a gram of lead each year.
With the dawn of the Cambrian period, much of the vagueness and confusion that have heretofore clouded the geologic record disappears, making it possible to present the rest of the earth's history in a clear and orderly manner that adds greatly
Historical Geology 139
to its value and interest. PreCambrian time, with its insurmountable difficulties and fascinating but unsolved problems, will always be contrasted with the succeeding eras, just as the Old Stone Age of human history is contrasted with modern times. One of the main reasons for this great change is the relative abundance of fossils in the rocks of all the periods after the Proterozoic era. From now on it will be possible to determine the time relations between various rock formations and to correlate outcrops over wide areas. The Paleozoic era, with its numerous periods, marks the beginning of systematic geologic history.
As the reader follows the geologic story of our continent during the remaining millions of years, he must remember that the North America of today is not the same as the North America of the past, and that the ability to visualize changing lands and seas, as well as the remarkable animals and plants of the organic world, is highly important to a full understanding and enjoyment of the subject. Forget the present while living in the past.
The history of North America during much of the Paleozoic era was profoundly influenced by two great geosynclines and by two persistent, and often mountainous, land masses, which are clearly outlined for the first time in the Cambrian period.
During this period, Alaska, extreme western Canada and the western U.S., as far as middle California, was land. A great sea extending from Southern California through Nevada and Canada connected with what is now the Arctic Ocean. In the late Cambrian time most of what is now the United States was covered by an ocean. About all that was left of the U.S. was an island centered by Kansas, another island centered by Florida; and Oregon and Washington were above water.
Just imagine then Florida above water and Nevada under an ocean. The invasion of a continent by a sea is a far more complex process than one might suppose. The movements of such vast bodies of water are not always steady, they advance and retreat with many fluctuations of their shore lines. In some instances the water rushes over vast areas with destruction of most animal and plant life in the area. This could be true of Death Valley today, if the barrier between the sea and the valley were removed.
The advance of the seas were in most cases so slow that during the average lifetime of an individual very little change in the position of the shore line would be noted. When these changes continue for thousands or millions of years great effects are produced.
If land should subside at the rate of one inch in 100 years, at the end of 720,000 years it would amount to 600 feet, which is the greatest depth of the ocean today at the outer edge of the continental shelf.
In conclusion, it can be said that scientists with interests in geology, animals and plants have recorded the changes that have taken place in the earth make up during the past millions of years. Of particular interest is the fact that students of geology, animals, and plants, all accept the theory that our world has been constantly changing.
[Information gathered from Historical Geology by Russel C. Hussey, McGraw - Hill Book Co.]
CONTRIBUTORS
Ray Alcorn, who passed away just before this book went to press, was an author, biologist and musician. He pioneered a number of wildlife field techniques in use today and developed the distress cry method of decoying coyotes and other animals. Ray was a life member of several scientific organizations and wrote numerous articles for their respective journals. He had lived in the Fallon area since 1929.
Douglas and Yianna Batchelor moved to Fallon in March of 1995. The couple had met in England at college and, upon completing their college education, they moved to South Africa where they remained for fifteen years. Doug and Yianna have two daughters, Katie (18) and Stephanie (15). Katie is going to college this fall. While Yianna keeps busy with Western Nevada Community College classes and pursues her other interests, Doug is employed as General Manager of the Kennecott Denton Rawhide Mining Company.
Anita [Rubianes] and Tony Erquiaga are the parents of four children, Steve, Carl, Dale and Diane [Lowery]. Lifetime Fallon residents, they live on a ranch north of Fallon. Anita is a volunteer with the Museum's Oral History Program.
Michon Maupin Mackedon is an English instructor at Western Nevada Community College where she was recently honored as the 1996 Instructor of the Year. She holds a B.A. degree in history and a Masters Degree in English, both from the University of Nevada. This year she is on sabbatical as she does research for a book on the nuclear age in Nevada.
Pam Nelson is Photograph Curator at the Churchill County Museum. She spent three years at the Nevada State Museum, interning with the exhibit and registrar departments and currently interns at the Nevada Historical Society. After working within the Churchill County School District for ten years, she has returned to the museum field and is pursuing a degree at the University of Nevada, Reno, in museum studies and library science.
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Contributors 141
Marianne Peterson was raised in Tucson, Arizona, where she studied anthropology at the University of Arizona. She moved to Fallon in 1997 from San Diego, California, with her two sons Anthony and Nathan and her husband Gary, who is stationed at NAS Fallon. She enjoys writing and volunteers at the Museum with the children's programs.
Jane Pieplow has been the Director/Curator of the Churchill County Museum since November of 1992. In addition to her museum duties, she also enjoys arranging music for and performing with her Fallon friends who make up Harmony Five. They have just released their first collection of songs, along with Fallon's cowboy poet Stan Lehman, entitled Harmony Five: Keeping Time.
Eric Seiple is a resident of Carmichael, California. He has generously allowed us to reprint his "Ancients in Nevada" article which appeared in the September 1997 issue of Rock & Gem magazine. His enthusiasm for the preservation of Fallon's "outback" is refreshing.
Ethel Hall Weaver lived in Fallon for over seventy years where she raised a family and actively participated in church affairs. Now retired and living in Washington state, she enjoys writing poetry, doing art projects and spending time with her extended family.
Sally Springmeyer Zanjani received her Ph.D from New York University and is associated with the political science department at the University of Nevada, Reno. The author of innumerable articles and award winning books, her latest effort, A Mine Of Her Own, Women Prospectors in the American West, 1850-1950, tells the definitive story of America's women prospectors for the first time.
Hilda Cadet Zaugg was a native of Battle Mountain, and of Basque descent. She graduated from the University of Nevada and taught in the Fallon schools for a number of years. Married to Roy Zaugg and the mother of three children, she was a homemaker at the time of her death on January 24, 1986.
CHURCHILL COUNTY
MUSEUM & ARCHIVES
1050 South Maine Street
Fallon, NV 89406
Phone (702) 423-3677
Fax (702) 423-3662
e-mail: ccmuseum@phonewave.net
Web site: ccmuseum.org
MUSEUM STAFF
Jane Pieplow, Director/Curator
Bunny Corkill, Research Curator
Karen McNary, Curator of Education
Pam Nelson, Photograph Curator
Shery Hayes-Zorn, Registrar
Paulie Alles, Hostess
Cindy Loper, Hostess
Georgine Scheuermann, Hostess
Bob Walker, Host
Brad Sumner, Museum Assistant
IN FOCUS STAFF
Michon Mackedon, Editor
Jane Pieplow, Editor
Pam Nelson, Photo Curator
Bunny Corkill, Research Curator
PRODUCTION CREDITS 1997-1998 ISSUE
Production Photography: 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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