Pre-historic findings are all around Nevada.  From Gypsum Cave, where in 1930 an excavation discovered not only the claws, hair and skull of an ancient beast – the long extinct ground sloth, a huge bear like herbivorous animal, but also proof of man having been there as much as 10,000 years ago.
        Deposits of dung were removed in six layers to depths of thirteen feet.  The bones of small species of camel and a prehistoric horse were unearthed.
        One of the most important discoveries was at layer five.  About eight feet below the surface of a solid unbroken layer of sloth dung was discovered a fire place.  Also found were two sticks shaped as tools, and an oval stone knife.
        Other areas of discovery were in 1885 in the Walker River Canyon area in western Nevada at Lake Lahontan, and in 1933 significant discoveries were made in the Tule Spring area of Vegas Valley.
        More significant areas of prehistoric  studies include the shores of ancient Winnemucca Lake, Leonad Rock Shelter in Humboldt Basin, Etna Cave in the Meadow Valley Wash and Stuart Rock Shelter a few miles north of Moapa.                                                        BACK TO TOP

The First White Man
       The first white man, although not an American, to enter the land that would later become Nevada, was Fray Francisco Garces, who in 1776, along with another monk, set out to create a trail to the colonies which had been established along the west coast between California (est. 1769) and Monterey (est. 1770).  Garces established the westward route from the Colorado River.  The trail became the western section of the famous Old Spanish Trail which eventually connected Santa Fe and the missions along the Pacific Coast.  Further exploration by Garces attempted to establish a trail to the Mexican capitol of New Mexico, but was hindered by the hostilities of the Hopi Indians. 
        Another monk, Fray Silvestre Valez de Escalante, also attempted to discover a different passage between the colonies and the Spanish Empire, but was likewise hindered by hostile Indians.
        Not ready to give up, he joined with Fray Francisco Atanasio Dominguez in 1776.  The expedition made up of ten men – the two monks along with a group of soldiers commanded by Captain Miera y Pacheco, was again unsuccessful in their attempts, only this time it was the rugged terrain, forcing them to go far out of their way, making them run short on supplies, and then the severe weather forced them to retreat.
        After their failed attempt in 1776 the Great Plains was left to the Native Indians for another half century.  The lure of wealth brought explorers back to the area again in 1826.  But it wasn’t gold or silver that drove men to challenge the forces of nature or the possible hostilities with the natives.  The wealth which attracted these early explorers was fur.  Specifically beaver, which was used to make fine felt hats, which was in great demand due to the current fashions in Europe and American social circles.
        This demand for beaver pelts gave way to a new breed of fur trapper, or Mountain Man.  Generally a young man, from various levels of society, but more often from the western frontier.  Sometimes educated, but more so not, the young Mountain Men learned quickly to survive.  He generally lived off whatever game he could catch, and used buffalo hides to cover a make-shift shelter in the winter, and for blankets or robes.  His clothes were generally made from deer or elk skin.
        They often married Indian women as they were more at home in the harsh wilderness, and became members of their tribes, which would tend to be in their favor.
        Conservation and ecology were not an issue the Mountain Man knew anything about.  Beaver was so easily caught they were quickly exhausted in a given area and the trapper would move on to new grounds.  Although this was not a good thing for the beaver, it did afford the Mountain Man the opportunity to learn about new mountain passes, main streams, rivers and lakes.
        Many became candidates to guide or become scouts for official explorers, the military, or surveyors of new lands.  Sometimes he would become employed by a wagon train to direct it across the wilderness.  Often he might be employed by the government to be a mediator between them and the Indians, especially if he’d been a member of a particular tribe.
        Peter Skene Ogden, British fur trapper led a group of trappers from the Hudson Bay Fur Company into Mexican territory, an area that later became Nevada, in 1826, although it was of such a short distance it played little if any significance in American History.       BACK TO TOP

The First American into Nevada
        The third white man – the first American – to enter into the land to be Nevada was Jedediah Strong Smith who arrived two months after Ogden’s visit.
        Jedediah came from pioneer stock.  His father’s people, the Smiths, settled in the Plymouth Colony, and his mother’s people arrived from England in 1630.  Jedediah was born January 16, 1799 in Jericho New York.
        In 1826 Jed and his partners traveled down stream for several days, entering present day Nevada at the 114 (degree) west longitude, where present day Mesquite is.  On his journey through Nevada Smith discovered and explored Salt Cave.  He became the first American to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the first to have crossed and explored the interior of the Great Basin.
        Jedediah had his share of disastrous events and personal wounds.  In his second year of his expeditions, he was traveling with General Ashley.  They stopped at a Arikara Indian village to trade horses, but was attacked by the Indians and were devastatingly  defeated.  Forty six members of his party were ambushed by six hundred Arikara armed with modern rifles.  He lost fifteen men, and nine were wounded.
        At another point in Jed’s career as a true Mountain Man, he was leading the party on a trail when he was attacked by a grizzly bear.  The bear seized him by the head with his mouth.  The bear’s teeth ripped his scalp away from above his left eye across the top, and tore his right ear off.  Smith also received several broken ribs.  But he was a tough man, rugged and a survivor.  In spite of the pain he was able to instruct Jim Clyman on how to take care of the wounds.  He had him sew his scalp back on, as well as hand stitch the ear back on.
        By 1830 the fur trapping boom had come to an end, although there were other expeditions, such as the Walker-Bonneville Party of 1833-34, which crossed from northeast Nevada to the southwest and on to the Pacific coast.
        Smith’s last shipment of furs to St. Louis was the largest quantity of furs to have ever arrived in a single shipment in that city.
        With fur trapping at an end, Smith and his partners got into the freight business, and took a load of trade supplies down the Santa Fe Trail to the southwest.  They ran into a particularly bad dry area and Smith set out to find water . . . he was never heard from again.
        He is not only remembered for having been the first American to enter Nevada, but also for having survived three of the most disastrous Indian massacres in the fur trading industry, and for having learned first hand more about the west than any other person of his time, and for being the first man to make known any information about the great desert wilderness of what today is NEVADA.            BACK TO TOP

The Invasion Begins
        The white man’s invasion ceased in the Nevada area for a while.  Things were quiet in the desert until the wagon trains began to attempt their overland journey’s across Mexican territory to California.
Of the early overland emigrant expeditions to cross what was to become Nevada were wrought with tragedy from the very beginning.  From the start the first overland emigrants to travel through what was still Mexican territory en route to California started out all wrong.
        Within a party of emigrants the key figure is the captain.  A captain of a wagon train chooses the route, where to camp each night and when to stop and rest for several days.  A captain would usually be someone with wilderness experience, someone with trail blazing knowledge. 
        Of the early overland emigrant expeditions to cross what was to become Nevada were wrought with tragedy from the very beginning.  From the start the first overland emigrants to travel through what was still Mexican territory en route to California started out all wrong.
        Within a party of emigrants the key figure is the captain.  A captain of a wagon train chooses the route, where to camp each night and when to stop and rest for several days.  A captain would usually be someone with wilderness experience, someone with trail blazing knowledge.
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The Bidwell Party
            The first expedition to cross Nevada going to California was put together by John Bidwell, a twenty year old young man with adventure calling him to the west, hence the Bidwell Party.  Known as the Western Immigration Society, 500 people signed the pledge to make the journey.  Out of the original 500, only sixty-nine people gathered at the departure site at Independence Missouri with the intentions of joining the wagon train in 1841.  None of them had ever been to California before overland, or by way of the Panama Canal.  And none had ever led a wagon train.  They knew California lay west but that was the extent of their knowledge.
        The party elected one of the members named Col. John B. Bartleson, a prominent citizen of Independence, Missouri.  This was their first mistake, and their biggest.  Bartleson had no more knowledge of wagon trains, trail blazing or the wilderness than the rest of them had.  But he refused to go if he were not made Captain.  Apparently his investment in the expedition surpassed his lack of knowledge.  They were an impatient bunch.  Aside from having already pulled up stakes, and packed what they could carry, selling off parts of their households, they were getting antsy waiting to leave.  Waiting to begin the trek that would take them to the land of milk and honey, California, they departed on the 8^th day of May, 1841.
            By the time the party reached (present day) southern Idaho, only 32 decided to continue on to California with the Bidwell Party.  The remaining 37 chose to continue a known northerly route to Oregon.
The original 32 sought the headwaters of a stream they’d been told would lead them west.  They entered present-day Nevada near Pilot Peak in the northeastern part of the state.  It was at this point in their journey they decided to abandon the wagons.  The mules and oxen were to weary and could no longer pull the wagons across the mountains and through the sand.
        With hundreds of miles to go they continued on, walking, as the animals carried the packs.  Eventually they found the river they sought.  Mary's River later renamed the Humboldt, first discovered in 1828 by British fur trapper Peter Skene Ogden.  On the 4^th of November, 1841 they reached the ranch of Dr. Marsh, near Mount Diablo on the Pacific coast.                         BACK TO TOP

Walker-Chiles Party
        Over the next few years there were few willing to make the daring trip, despite the success of the Bidwell Party.  Most that left to go west willingly took the trail to Oregon to homestead there.  One group in 1843 was successful in bringing their wagons along the Humboldt and into California.  The Walker-Chiles Party was organized by Joseph Chiles who had previously been a member of the Bidwell Party.  It was led by Joseph Walker, an experienced fur trapper.  Previously, Walker had led a fur-trapping expedition along the Humboldt and was now familiar with a more practical route which would bring the wagons to the head waters.
        Even so, with experienced men leading the way they were faced with hardships.  Even before they arrived at the Humboldt they were nearly out of food.  Walker got them safely to California, even though they had to abandon their wagons at the foot of the Sierra Nevada.   It was getting late in the season and Walker was concerned about the snow that would block the passages.
It was also in 1843 that President William H. Harris commissioned John C. Fremont to lead an expedition westward.  Fremont’s journals were the first  true glimpses of what was to become Nevada.
        Newspapers in the east carried excerpts from his journals and the people of the civilized parts of the world were enthralled by what they were reading.  However, what they were reading wasn’t exactly word for word what he had written.  He sent his journals to his wife, Jessi Benton, who had a way of embellishing them for the newspapers.
        But Fremont’s journals not only gave the people new and exciting reading material, but it also fascinated them, instilled visions of prosperity, and dreams of a new and adventurous land.  By the time the California Gold Rush came around, the people were primed and ready.
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Stephens-Murphy-Townsend Party
        In 1844 an emigrant party of  23 men known as the Stephens-Murphy-Townsend Party successfully crossed the mountains to California, a feat that like those before it didn’t come easily or without suffrage.  A party of only fifty-one, including women and children, was led by their Captain, Elisha Stephens,  (a book from 1881 had his name spelled Stevens), an experienced mountaineer and fur trapper.  He had two other old mountaineers traveling along with the party, and was thankful for their added knowledge and experience.  They left Council Bluff May 20^th, 1844.
        The Shoshones and Paiutes they encountered along the way gave them no trouble, and it was even recalled by one of the members of the party, that the Indians had in fact helped them along.  At one point, near the Sink there was a moment of tension when one member of the party accused a Paiute of stealing a harness.  Weapons were readied on both sides, bows against rifles.  But sensible thinking won out, and peace was made by the giving of gifts to the Indians.
        One of the old Paiutes, who the party called Truckee, as that’s what his Indian name sounded like, told them about a river that would lead them to a pass that would get them through the Sierra Nevada.
        Filling everything they could with water they continued on across a great expanse of barren desert toward the river the Paiute had told them about.  An extremely long part of the journey, this stretch was waterless except for a hot spring about halfway across, and became known to future emigrants as the dreaded Forty-Mile Desert.  Upon reaching the river, grateful for the water as well as the pass through mountains, they named the river the Truckee.  It been previously named by John Fremont on one of his earlier expeditions, as the Salmon Trout River, but Truckee was what stuck. 
        The Sierra Nevada Mountains didn’t make it easy for this party.  They had their share of arduous narrow trails, and had to ford the river repeatedly.  They passed through the Truckee Meadows just south of present day Reno.  Then came the long climb up into the mountains. 
        Near the top some of the wagons had to be left behind, along with three men to guard them.  Other wagons were emptied then hauled up a steep wall with chains.  These were the first wagons to be taken across the Sierra Nevada into California. 
        Only part of the party reached safety before the snow came in blocking the trail.  Just about a mile below Donner Lake, (the name of the lake at that time is unknown) they built a cabin twelve by fourteen, and eight feet high.   It was constructed out of pine saplings with a roof of brush and rawhide.  It had a crude chimney and one window and door, and it was completed in two days.  They stored some goods and left a half-starved withered cow there for the three men to live on, in addition to whatever they could hunt before the snow came in to hard.  The three men left guarding the wagons, were trapped in the mountains.  Nearing starvation they were use to pioneer life and felt fully capable of surviving with their rifles to hunt deer or bear.  The snow came in hard the day after the cabin was finished and the bear disappeared as did the deer, moving to lower elevations. The three men survived on ox hides and trapped foxes.  It wasn’t until March of 1845 that all were rescued and the wagons made it safely into California.  In spite of all their hardships and difficulties, this was considered a practical route.  BACK TO TOP

The California Trail
        After the successful arrival of the party of ’44, the California Trail, as it came to be referred to, became quite popular.  In 1845, about 50 wagons made it across and along the Humboldt without any major trouble or problems.
        Although it was that same year that serious trouble came between a wagon train and the Shoshone and the Paiute living in the Humboldt River region.  A Indian was killed by a guide from one of the wagon trains because the Indian had startled his horse.  Then another Indian was captured and made to act as a slave in another party.  Incidents like this began to increase the Indian’s resentment and bitterness toward these people who were invading their land. 
        In 1846 nearly 200 wagons and a thousand men, women and children had crossed the Mexican territory that would be Nevada some day. 

The Donner Party
        This year in particular is remembered for the worst tragedy to befall the overland emigrants since the beginning.  This story illustrates just about everything that an ill-prepared party could possibly do wrong.
        The Donner Party is remembered for the now named Donner Pass.  This party, first of all, thought they could get by without an experienced guide, since a newly published guide book was available.  Relying on a “short cut” described in the book, they ran into more and more problems which delayed their passing through the Sierra Nevada, and they became trapped in heavy snow. 
        The severe winter of 1846-47 claimed the lives of just about everyone in the party.  To read the entire story, go to the Donner Party Web Site.
        As the news of the ill-fated Donner Party swept the east, few were as willing to attempt the trip too quickly.  And those who did sent back reports about increasing difficulties with the Shoshone and Paiutes.  Unlike the Native Americans of the Plains, the ones in the Humboldt Region had very little to offer the wagon trains.  Already existing on inadequate resources they would often take advantage of knowing the terrain better, and make off with the stock belonging to the emigrants.  The emigrants often retaliated with violence to these attacks, which then in turn made it even more dangerous for the next wagon train to follow through.
        New trails began to open up in 1848, and one which led from the Humboldt Sink headed south to the Carson River, then turned west through the mountains, and became known as the Carson River Trail.  To get to this trail one still had to cross the dreaded Forty-Mile desert. 
        Another route in 1848, the Applegate-Lassen Trail was longer and headed northwest through the Black Rock Desert.
        1848 was the year that also brought the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in California.  By 1849 word had gotten out to all points east and the great California Gold Rush was on.  All of the earlier wagon trains, the overland emigrants that came before them, dying on the trails, and losing much of their belongings actually paved the way for those of the Gold Rush.                                     BACK TO TOP
 

Mormon Station a.k.a. - Reese's Station
        The spring of 1851 found John Reese and his associate Stephen Kinsey with ten wagons loaded with flour, sugar, eggs, etc, leaving Salt Lake City heading west to seek out a favorable spot to establish a trading-post somewhere on the overland road road east of the Sierra.
        The wagon train stopped at Ragtown located on the banks of the Carson River.  Reese was considering this spot until they heard from other parties traveling in the opposite direction of a more favorable spot in the Carson Valley. Kinsey went on ahead to scout out the location.
        Upon Kinsey’s recommendation, Reese choose a site for the station nearby an area that had previously been occupied by the De Mont-Beatie-Blackburn group a year before.  He secured the deed by purchasing the claim of a Mr. Moore who supposedly had purchased it from squatters the previous season.  (To be continued . . .)    Meanwhile . . .

        Frank Hall, an opportunist and entrepreneur of 1851 had become disillusioned with the California Rush, and was heading back from Bents Bar, Placer County, CA going east across the valley some miles north of the newly established Mormon Station.  He envisioned the site as the perfect place for another trading post, being on the path to the mines, as well as the valley itself being ideal for agriculture. 
        He and his five associates Joe and Frank Barnard, George Follensbee, A. J. Rollins and W. L. Hall erected a crude log station in November 1851.  In an instant of inspiration they took a eagle Hall had shot earlier that morning and tacked the skin and feathers up over the door, naming the place – Eagle Station.
        It turned out to be a good choice location.  There was an abundance of wild hay to supply the overland emigrants on their way west.  Hall’s crude log trading post became known as Eagle Ranch, and before long everyone was referring to the area as Eagle Valley.
        It was John Reese who applied for the first land claim when he recorded a one-fourth section claim extending “from Mormon Station to a lone tree, including all the mountain base and Carson River.”
        On the same day five more recorded locations claiming: one-fourth section each, to the north of Reese was recorded and to the south J. H. Scott & Brothers recorded one-half section.  No other claims were entered during 1852.
        Later that same day however, John Reese and Israel Mott applied for the rights of putting a toll-bridge on the Carson River, and to repair the road up into the mountains as part of the project.  They applied for a five year contract, right-of-way, which was granted providing they meet the following conditions.  That they invest no less than $1000 on the overall project by July 1^st.  They were also granted the right to collect the following tolls:               BACK TO TOP
 

	Wagon	$1.00
	Horned cattle – per head	.10¢
	Sheep – per head	.02½¢
	Horses or mules – per head	.25¢

Carson City
       Then along came Abe.  Abraham Curry, also on his return trip from the California rush, was seeking new opportunities.  However Curry was not an uneducated miner.  He was a serious businessman with a vision.  He too wanted to get into the trading post business. At another location, around Mormon Station – present day Genoa – but he was aghast at the unrealistic asking price of $1000 for the land he wanted.  As far as he was concerned, Genoa could “go hang”, he’d go elsewhere and build a town of his own.
        The Eagle Valley Ranch had changed hands several times by 1858, when Curry came through.  When Abe learned the present owners were in financial trouble and were happy to sell out, he knew he could strike a bargain.  He was able to buy not only the trading post, but the ranch which included a select herd of Mustangs, all for $500.
        This was the beginning for Curry.  It was his intentions to become the first real estate developer for the area.  Curry was certainly an optimistic man.  The population was so few at that time.  It became a local running joke that “if you gathered everyone from Eagle Valley, Carson Valley and Washoe Valley, you’d have enough for three sets in a dance”. 
        But Curry didn’t let anything get him down.  He brought in a surveyor and by autumn he had a town site laid out with 10 acres set aside to be used for the future Capitol building when Nevada became a state.  After the town was surveyed it would be named “Carson City”.  A man with a vision.       
        But Carson City wasn’t a quick success.  In fact, Curry offered to pay the surveyor with an entire block of property opposite the proposed plaza.  The surveyor turned him down flat, saying he’d rather be owed the money than to get stuck with a piece of worthless property.  The surveyor had no way of knowing of course, but the state Printing Office would come to occupy that block of worthless property for the next 100 years.
        Curry gave or bartered lots away.  He’d give a lot away to anyone who promised to build on it.  An entire block was sold to the Methodist Church for $25 and a pair of boots.  The church still stands there today.
        Even Curry’s partners from the start had little faith in his vision.  One of them sold out his portion of the business to Curry for a pony and 25 pounds of butter.  Curry was not to be discouraged.  He new when Nevada became a state his vision of a town with a thriving community, with neatly lined streets of nicely built homes and a town center would become a reality.
        Some time later, Curry discovered a bubbling hot spring on the outskirts of the ranch.  Being the idealist he was, he saw it as a prime spot and opportunity for a fine hotel.
        Curry’s perseverance would finally pay off.  Lady luck was on his side when silver was discovered in the Virginia City area.  With Carson City being the closest town for shipping and supplies, well things began to prosper in Carson City.
        Very soon Carson City became the hub for the hordes of cross-country travelers, prospectors and emigrants who came to explore the surrounding countryside in hopes of staking their claim.
        Houses were built.  A brewery was erected by Jacob Klein.  Major Ormsby built a fine hotel – The Ormsby House.  He became one of Curry’s best friends as he shared Curry’s optimism in the coming statehood of Nevada.
        The hotel Curry built at the hot springs had gone from being just a place used by locals to rinse off the dust, to a gathering place of the rich as the grand Warm Springs Hotel.
        Curry never lost site of his vision, that Carson City would become the state capitol when Nevada was granted statehood.
        April 1860 saw the start up of the Pony Express.  Although it lasted just under two years, it would deliver many important letters and documents across the country from Missouri to California, going through Nevada.                                                          BACK TO TOP

Virginia City & The Comstock - Click here

Territory of Nevada
        In 1861 President Buchanan signed a Congressional Bill which created the Territory of Nevada.  On March 2^nd, just two days later, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as the 16^th President of the U. S.  Lincoln didn’t hesitate to create the Territorial government, and assigned a political supporter, and friend James Nye of New York as Territorial Governor.  An act of November 25^th, 1861 made Carson City the permanent seat of the new territory. 
        In the autumn of 1861, shortly after the completion of the Warm Springs Hotel, the first Territorial Legislature met.
        The Territorial Legislature, for the record, was not made up of suit wearing fancy pants gentlemen wearing top hats.  In fact, most of the men were miners, ranchers and cowhands.  The meetings were known to be wild and wooly at times, each member carried one or two side arms, as well as a knife.  The pay was only $3 a day, the attraction was the honor and distinction.
        Curry was ready to grab every opportunity he could to get on the good side of those involved in big business or politics.  So he offered up the vacant second floor of the Warm Springs Hotel for legislative sessions, rent free.
        The offer was accepted without hesitation, since there wasn’t another place large enough, and funds had not yet been generated or made available for things like rent.  The only problem was that the Hotel was two miles from town, and the legislative members were housed at the Ormsby House.
        Then along came Abe.  Good ‘ol Abe.  The man with a vision.  Problem solving Abe went about building Nevada’s first streetcar.  It was small, horse drawn and thereby slow, but it solved the problem.  And although the politicians rode for free, Abe – the man with the vision, the entrepreneur – made money from this tiny enterprise.
        Sandstone was in demand for construction and the quarry was out by the Warm Springs Hotel.  The streetcar made the return trip into town with it’s payload on a flatcar behind the streetcar.

Reno
        Meanwhile, in 1864 there was another small town beginning to take shape along the Truckee River known as Lake’s Crossing.   The founder Myron Lake was a visionary.  He foresaw that behind the pony express and the telegraph line would come the railroad.  But due to economic downfall of the country after the Civil War, as well as the rough terrain, making it difficult to lay track, Lake’s dream would not be a reality until June 19^th, 1868.  it was then that the First Pacific Locomotive reached the valley from the west.  Lake formed a personal alliance with a man named Charles Crocker who along with Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins and Collis Huntington, they managed to raise money for the western portion of the transcontinental line.  With this done, plans to lay out a city were done without hesitation.  Many names for the city were suggested, but Crocker and his partner Stanford, both being Union supporters came upon the name of an little known Union General named Jesse Lee Reno, who’d been killed in a ambush after a Civil War battle a few years earlier.  So in 1868, Lake’s Crossing became “Reno”.
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The End of Nevada?
        During this reign of the Comstock, it was estimated that 20-30,000 people lived in the area, but by 1880 more than half had left.  The 1880 census showed there were only 62,000 in the entire state, with one quarter in the Virginia City area.  A depression had fallen on Nevada that would last twenty years.  By 1900 the states population had dropped to 42,300.
        There were those who felt the loss of silver in the mines wasn’t as much the cause for the depression as was the federal government which stopped minting silver dollars.  With silver in less demand, the price dropped to an alarming level.        
        Many Nevadans choose to head out in other directions seeking solutions to the Depression after the mines were closed down.  Some national politicians suggested that Nevada’s statehood be revoked.  As the rest of the country was building and prospering, Nevada seemed to be fading away.
        But in 1906, prosperity was once again in Nevada’s future with the discovery of gold in Goldfield.  Goldfield seemed like it might even surpass the mighty Comstock as one company paid out over 15 million dollars in dividends in the first six months.  In 1906 alone it produced $11,000,000 in gold.                                               BACK TO TOP