Neighbors Talking With Neighbors in Washoe Valley, Nevada
Reno Evening Gazette, October 30, 1880
A Grand Illumination.
Franktown was blazing last night. A procession with torches, banners and transparencies marched up and down. There were many ladies in the procession. Huge bonfires blazed at every corner. A unique feature was vast illumination on the mountainside west of town. A fire had been raging there for [...]
The San Francisco Call, January 14, 1896
Carson Opium Smugglers
Officers Find Fifty Pounds of the Drug and a Counterfeit Mixture in a Cache
Carson, Nev. Jan. 13. United State District Attorney Jones to-day found fifty taels of opium buried in one of the stalls at the racetrack. Lee Brooks, who hid the drug there, recently left town [...]
Or at least their effluent. Mercury was used extensively in the process to extract silver and gold from the native rock mined around the Virginia Range to the east. At the beginning of the development of the Comstock Lode, several mills located in Washoe Valley used the abundant water from the Carson Range to the [...]
Mark Twain bragged that Washoe Valley produced the best potatoes in the world when he was a reporter in Virginia City in the 1860’s.
Years later, in 1913, Washoe Valley rancher Gib Douglass reports he operation has produced two hundred tons of potatoes along with 700 tons of alfalfa. He also noted that heavy rains destroyed [...]
Reno Evening Gazette, September 21, 1877
Emerald Mine-Mr Holmes, of Franktown, informs us that work on the Emerald mine will shortly be resumed. This mine is owned by several parties in and about Franktown. It lies 8.5 miles northwest of Carson and just over the Washoe county line. The company will commence a drift to the [...]
Reno Evening Gazette, May 12, 1876
The rainstorm of day before yesterday visited Washoe Valley in a very severe form. The clouds burst, and large quantities of water fell, washing away rocks and earth in many places. The sand and earth was washed into Theo. Winters’ house, which is built up well from the ground, and [...]
The Chronicles of the Comstock site just posted an article on Washoe Valley history focusing on the Mormon presence in the 1850’s.
“Washoe Valley first was settled in 1852. The first settlers on Franktown Creek called the place “The Garden of Eden.” Within a year, other Mormon pioneers took up ranches eventually to be known as [...]
The historic and hotel and new “Firkin Fox” restaurant in the main floor are featured in True West Magazine this month in an article titled “Nevada Territory’s Best”. We don’t normally speak of much outside Washoe Valley but it is cool to see the landmark hotel in a national publication. It gives some good background [...]
It has been reported at the local Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) meetings lately that someone has expanded Joy Lake in the northwest valley with some sort of earthern dam structure without permits. We here at washoevalley.org don’t know all the facts on this development but it might be useful to review the effects of other [...]
From the March 2, 1889 Reno Evening Gazette:
A Magnificent Offer
A Proposition Which Should Be Accepted.
The Carson Tribune of yesterday says:
Mr Theo Winters , the great Horse and cattle breeder and ranch king of Washoe Valley, stated to this reporter last evening that he will donate the Bowers Mansion and some forty acres of land for [...]
