1913 History of Nevada

CHAPTER XLVI.

By George Springmeyer.

Early Settlement. It is probable that from 1834 until 1843, while Nevada was still a part of Mexico, several white trappers passed through what is now called the Carson Valley of Douglas County. Tradition credits Kit Carson with having been the first white man to see the valley, but in what year is a matter of speculation. In 1843 General Fremont, it is said, followed the Carson River to where Walley's Springs resort stands, and he then named the valley and river in honor of Kit Carson, his guide. Via Kingsbury grade, Fremont crossed to Lake Tahoe, naming it Lake Bonpland, which yielded to the Indian name of Tahoe, meaning bottomless, and went into California. During his expedition of 1845, Fremont once more passed through the valley, Kit Carson again being his scout.

Between 1845 and 1848 a few scattering immigrants, on their way to California, traveled Fremont's Carson Valley route. Probably in 1848 Mormons made the present site of Genoa a stopping place, but it is unlikely that there was a permanent settlement until 1850. It is to be said, however, that if the manuscripts of early Mormon settlers may be depended upon, in 1849 a double log house, without floor or roof, and a surrounding rude stockade, or corral, covering about an acre, were built in the place. The men who are said to have built these structures were H. S. Beatie, Abner Blackburn and his brother, and men named Kimball, Carter, Pearson, Smith and Brown. Beatie and Abner Blackburn crossed the mountains into California, but soon returned with supplies, which they sold to immigrants at fabulous prices. The route to California then was through Carson Valley, thus making the station quite a trading-post. In the latter part of 1849, or the early part of 1850, the Mormons returned to Salt Lake City, - except one, who remained at the station, according to documents found among Beatie's effects at his death. Whether or not one of the Mormons remained, it is certain that in 1850 the Indians razed whatever there was in the way of a station and left not a vestige of the white man's sojourn.

In 1851, John Reese, a Salt Lake City Mormon, probably having somehow acquired from Beatie his "claim" or "rights" in Carson Valley, and a party consisting of John and Rufus Thomas, and other Mormons named Lee, Condie, Brown, and Gibson, arrived at the deserted settlement. Kinsey rode ahead and on July 4, 1851, picketed his horse and awaited the coming of his companions. The party proceeded at once to build a trading-post of mud and logs. This cabin, the first house in Nevada, partly torn down and partly rebuilt, with a shingle roof placed upon it sometime in the fifties, remained standing until June 28, 1910, when it was destroyed by fire. Despite the efforts of the State Senator from Douglas County nothing was done, and Nevada thus lost her most interesting historical relic. During the interim while the Mormons were absent, traffic was diverted to the Truckee River route. But the enterprising Mormons soon contrived to get back the trade of the travelers, and the settlement presently became known far and wide as Mormon Station, a name which clung to it until the year 1855, when Probate Judge Hyde, sent from Utah by the church, renamed it Genoa in honor of the birthplace of the discoverer of America.

In 1852 a number of immigrants died in Carson Valley from a disease resembling dysentery. Nevertheless, the route through it grew in favor. A number of people, attracted by the climate, the abundance of water, and the fertility of the soil, located permanently in the valley. Besides the Mormons, a number of gentiles, including Joseph Webb, T. G. Barnard, James Fennimore, and Israel Mott settled there in 1852-3, and the first permanent female settler in the person of Mrs. Israel Mott arrived with her husband in 1852. On November 12, 1852, the settlers formed an organization, petitioned Congress to create a territory, adopted rules for taking up land, and elected John Reese recorder and treasurer. Reese recorded the first claim for himself early in December, 1852. Six other claims were recorded during the same month.

The advantages of toll-roads and bridges were soon seen, and in the latter part of 1852, or the early part of 1853, Reese and Mott secured from Utah a franchise to operate a toll-bridge over the Carson River, near Genoa and on the present Marquardt farm, a project which for years was immensely profitable. It is said that a rude grist or flour-mill was built at the station in the early part of 1852, for John Reese. In the mill there was a crude thrasher. Reports conflict as to the time of the erection of the first saw mill, but it was probably begun in 1853. The first lumber was sawed July 25, 1854. John Gary owned the mill, and at first sold rough lumber for a hundred dollars a thousand. School was opened in Israel Mott's house in 1854, Mrs. Allen being the teacher. James B. Ellis, the first white child, was born May 1, 1854. In 1853 settlers became quite numerous and the two merchants did a flourishing business. The community began to experience the ways of real civilization, for there was a marriage, a "divorce," without court formality, a dance, held December 31, 1853, and various other features of social life. There was a petty suit tried in the magistrate's court in March, 1853, and another in April, 1854. The Probate Court held a session on October 3, 1854.

Fortunately, there was but little need for courts. It was not until 1858, in the hanging of Lucky Bill, that lynch law was resorted to, and even then there was no necessity for it. A feature of this first hanging was that a timid young man, who attended out of curiosity and who still lives in Douglas County, was compelled to drive the wagon from under the tree around a branch of which the rope was tied; as the victim had been placed upon the wagon in order to prevent too much stretching of the rope, when the wagon was driven from under him he remained suspended in the air and the hanging was accomplished. In marked contrast with this first peaceful lynching, which was a public affair and occurred in the daytime, was the last lynching in the county, in 1896. Adam Uber had shot and killed Hans Anderson in Millerville, and it was believed that the killing was very atrocious. Uber was taken to the jail in Genoa. A number of the valley people, particularly those of the same nationality as the murdered man, decided on swift and sure vengeance and a saving of expense to the county. On a dark and stormy night the posse overpowered the sheriff at the jail, dragged the almost naked victim over the frozen ground in a most brutal manner to a tree in Frey's lane several hundred yards from the jail, hanged him and riddled his body with bullets. Though attempts were made to apprehend the offenders, nothing was ever accomplished. It is said that one of the two leaders of the lynchers lost his leg and almost his life in a runaway at the identical spot of the hanging, several years ago, and that the other always is peculiarly on the alert when passing it. Among the crimes to which no clue was ever discovered are the murder of Mrs. Sarman and the attempted burning of her home, and the murder of one Ledgeway, whose house was burned over him. During the days of squatters' rights, there were a number of disputes between Mormons and gentiles, and a few troubles with Indians. There have been very few robberies and crimes of a like nature. Considering the conditions, there has been a remarkable scarcity of crime. Today, whiskey-selling to Indians is the only crime heard of.

Sixty or seventy Mormon families came to the valley in 1856, and, also, a number of gentiles. In 1857 the Mormons were ordered by Brigham Young to return to Salt Lake City and defend the church against threatened action by the United States Government. All the faithful left, but others, whose religion did not mean so much to them, and who came to be known as "Jack" Mormons, remained in the valley. Gentiles seized most of the property left by the departed Mormons, and although they were later threatened with dreadful curses, they made no restoration or reparation. At the time of the discovery of silver on the Comstock, there were between two and three hundred inhabitants in the valley. Then came the "boom" days, for the travel through the valley was immense. A record of the first six months of 1854 shows that 360 horses and mules, 7528 cattle and 7150 sheep, besides several thousand people, passed through Mormon Station for California, but in the late fifties the traffic was much greater, largely because of the travel to the Comstock. This continued for years, during which the stations, that is, stopping places, did a flourishing business. In the sixties, and later, mines were discovered in Bodie, California, and in the Silver Mountains in California, both of which places adjoin Douglas County, and to them there was a rush of people, all of whom passed through Carson Valley. Stopping-places and trading-stations, flourished accordingly, those best known being Webster's Station, Old's Station, Desert Station, Cradlebaugh's Bridge, Twelve-Mile House, and Rodenbah's Station. All mining camp followers were rushing through the valley, people with an eye to agricultural possibilities were steadily settling upon the fertile lands along the river. Hay and grain commanded fabulous prices, even in the late sixties hay sold for as high as $300 a ton, and barley for even more. It may not be out of place here to relate that it was long a custom of the unscrupulous and covetous to thoroughly wet the hay before baling it, in order to get as much weight as possible! At first, hay was cut by scythes, a number of men attacking a field at the same time, as is the custom in Europe. When, in the sixties, the first mowing-machines, crude affairs, were used, the men did the laborious work of removing the hay from the path of the machine after each round. All the bottom or river land in the valley, and some sagebrush land easily susceptible of irrigation, was settled upon before 1860, and the farming population then numbered several hundred. Of course, at first there were only "squatters" rights, - all the Mormon "claims" were such, but when the first government surveys were made, such rights were legally perfected.

Genoa was the scene of all the early political meetings in Nevada. There, on August 8, 1857, Congress was memorialized to create a Territory. Because of the feeling against the Mormons and their methods, the first territorial convention, held in Genoa on July 14, 1859, adopted a constitution which practically eliminated the Mormon influence, and elected the first territorial delegate to Congress. The constitution was approved at an election held throughout the territory on September 7, 1859. Thereafter, for several years, all political meetings of general importance to the territory were held in Genoa. The citizens of the valley took an active part in the organization of the territory, and later, in the adoption of the State Constitution and the organization of the State. The Daily Territorial Enterprise, the first newspaper in Nevada and which later became famous as a Comstock publication, was first published in Genoa as a weekly, its first number appearing on December 18, 1858. The Enterprise and other Genoa papers did much to influence and mold public opinion in the early days of the Territory and State.

Douglas was one of the nine counties created by the Territorial Legislature in 1861, when Nevada was first subdivided into minor divisions. At the time of the Mormon settlement, it was a part of Millard County, Utah, and later of Carson County. Douglas County was so named in honor of Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. Its area is 806 square miles or 515,840 acres, about an eighth of which is contained in Lake Tahoe.

In passing from the purely historical, it is interesting to note that David R. Jones, the oldest living Nevada settler, still resides on the ranch in Douglas County on which he settled in 1852.

Development. - Since the days of the first Mormon settlers, Carson Valley has steadily developed. The unusually friendly attitude of the Indians was no doubt a leading cause for this. Of course, for a number of years the Indians imposed upon their white brothers by begging food and by taking, without leave, whatever happened to strike their fancy; occasionally they killed someone, and a few times they threatened serious trouble; but, for the most part, they acted and conducted themselves in a singularly peaceful manner. Coincident with development there has been an increase in population, and in 1910 the census showed the county to have 1895 people. It is believed, however, that during the boom days in the sixties and seventies, and while logging was in full sway at Tahoe, there were at least twice as many people in the county as now, but they were not permanent residents. At first, the principal business was trading. Col. Reese, William Nixon and A. Klauber, the pioneer merchants, reaped a rich harvest from the travelers. Likewise, the keepers of stations and toll-bridges did a tremendous business. But it was the farmers and stockmen who settled all over the valley whose business endured. To-day, on the East Fork of the Carson River there are approximately thirty thousand acres of land being irrigated, and there is two-thirds as much on the West Fork. There are also a number of ranches along the foothills whose sources of water-supply are small mountain streams and springs, and there are several ranches in Jack's Valley and Long Valley. The constant production is an index of the richness of the soil as well as of the thrift and enterprise of the people. It is claimed by investigators that there is, no more productive soil anywhere, and that the per capita wealth of the people equals that of any farming community in the country. Much of the land was unlevel, but the bulk of it is now in splendid condition. The people, thrifty Germans, Danes and Italians as well as Americans, are a sturdy type, as it is shown by their modern homes, equipped with water systems, electric lights, telephones and all conveniences. The barns, machinery, and stock are of the best. About three-fourths of the farmers own automobiles.

The great staple product of the valley is alfalfa, which, by the way, was, according to the belief of valley people, planted in Douglas County before it was planted anywhere else in Nevada. This is the evidence: S. A. Pettigrew, in 1864, filed on what is now the D. Winkleman ranch and began work on his ditch, and the next year he sowed a little alfalfa, according to eye-witnesses. It may be, however, that some was planted in the valley before that time, for in 1868, when H. H. Springmeyer bought the Cottonwood ranch, his present home, he found roots as large as a man's arm, and his men bear him out, which, from later experience, could belong to plants not less than seven or eight years old. According to this, C. Topham sowed the seed in the early sixties, before Pettigrew settled on his homestead. It is an amusing fact that at first alfalfa was believed by the unknowing to be a noxious weed, because of its rapid growth, but the fondness of stock for it soon dispelled that idea. The first alfalfa produced on a commercial basis was when in 1875 H. H. Springmeyer baled and shipped some to Virginia City, where it found immediate favor. As the two forks of the Carson River are mountain torrents, they carry down and deposit in the valley each year large quantities of mineral silt, thus peculiarly adapting the soil for alfalfa production.

Experience proves that alfalfa and timothy mixed, is the best hay for feeding horses, and several thousand tons of it are shipped each year to the Southern Nevada mining camps and some to California. The large cattle owners ship into the valley each fall hundreds of head of cattle and thousands of sheep for fall and winter feeding, and many thousands of tons of hay are used for that purpose, straight alfalfa being preferred. The dairy herds also require much pasturage and hay, for dairying is one of the principal industries and supports two creameries, the Douglas County Creamery Co., whose plant is near Waterloo, and the Minden Butter Manufacturing Company, located at Minden. Each creamery manufactures and ships about a thousand pounds of butter a day, on the average. About a fourth of the cultivated land in the valley is sowed to wheat, barley, and oats. It is found that "breaking up" the alfalfa land about once every five or six years and sowing it to grain for a few years greatly increases the yield; the alfalfa appears to enrich the soil for grain, and the grain supplies elements or produces such chemical action in the soil as to fit it for heavy alfalfa crops. There are two flour mills, the Douglas Milling and Power Company (which also has a small power plant in connection with the mill), at Gardnerville, and the Minden Flour Milling Company, at Minden. The mills together handle about four thousand tons of grain a year; each has attached a steam rolling plant for barley, and each is valued at about fifty thousand dollars.

For years past, gold and silver have been mined in a more or less desultory fashion in the Pine Nut hills in Douglas County, the total production being in the neighborhood of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It was generally believed that the belt was too pockety for successful mining, and the additional fact that it seemed to be badly broken up for the most part retarded mining activity. Lately, however, some extensive development work has been done and it has been demonstrated that there are a number of rich mines with extensive ore bodies. Before long it is expected that sufficient capital will be interested to make some of the mines heavy producers. There are now several small mills ready for operation. The copper camp of Buckskin is in Douglas County, near the Lyon County line, and is attracting general attention. Deeper workings should put the camp in the class of large producers. Copper has also been mined in the hills back in Genoa for many years, but, unfortunately, the owners have shown no disposition to bring in capital. There is now one copper mine being operated near Jack's Valley whose showings are said to be immense. Gold placer mines in the Pine Nut hills are worked each spring until the water gives out. Some day water will doubtless be brought to develop these mines. They are believed to be very rich.

During the height of mining activity on the Comstock, lumbering in the mountains surrounding Lake Tahoe was one of the principal industries of Douglas County. Captain Pray erected a mill at Glenbrook in 1861 and another in 1864 and actively went into the lumber business. Later in the sixties, Bliss and associates acquired practically all the valuable timber land and built new saw mills and several miles of a narrow gauge logging railroad, the first railroad in Douglas County. Lumber was in great demand and sold for from fifty to seventy-five dollars at the mills. The splendid forests all around the lake were denuded of timber, the logs being towed across the lake. The lumber-men had absolutely no regard for future generations, and left the land in such condition as to prevent future growth, for the most part. So it has been also, with the wood-choppers who destroyed the forests along the entire range from Job's Peak to the Ormsby County line. If they had exercised even a little care, the hills would now be far less barren. The result is that while for years Douglas County produced more timber than all the other counties in the State together, the lumber industry is now at a standstill and hills and mountains once superbly beautiful in forests and verdure, are almost barren. The rainfall would also be greater.

It may be mentioned that from 1875 to 1893 an important industry was the logging of timber from Alpine County down the East Carson River to Empire, for use on the Comstock.

Coincidentally with the agricultural development of the valley, there has been a development of facilities for merchandise. At Gardnerville there are two large general merchandise stores, a furniture store and a drug store; at Minden, a general merchandise store and a dry good store; and there are stores at Genoa, Sheridan and Centerville. There is a large and prosperous bank, the Douglas County Farmers' Bank, at Gardnerville, and another, the Carson Valley Farmers' Bank, at Minden. Every profession and every trade is represented in the County, and the community is in every sense modern and up-to-date. There is one newspaper, the Record-Courier, a weekly, published at Gardnerville, by Mr. Selkirk, which has a reputation throughout the State. The plant was moved from Genoa a number of years ago. The same old town of Genoa, shattered now by the elements and closely resembling a deserted village or an abandoned mining camp, remains the county seat. But for the rivalry of the towns of Minden and Gardnerville, the county seat would now be located near the center of the valley, for the fire of 1910 destroyed the old Genoa Court House, and it may be that for years to come the people will be subjected to the inconvenience of having' the county seat where it now is.

Gardnerville was founded in 1880 by Lawrence Gilman, a Douglas County pioneer of the early fifties, and was generously named by him after John Gardner, a near-by rancher, who is often erroneously supposed to be its founder. It remained a small town until about 1885, when the needs of the farmers and the traders from Bridgeport and Bodie brought about the establishment of stores. It now has a population of about six hundred, and is three or four times as large as any other town in the county. Besides the institutions before mentioned, it has four excellent hotels, two jewelry stores, fruit and confectionery stores, two garages, two blacksmiths, two livery stables, and altogether too many saloons. The headquarters of Mono National Forest is in Gardnerville. The Methodist Episcopal church has a neat edifice in the town, and the Lutheran church is a short distance away. The county high school, a splendid institution in an ordinary building, is in Gardnerville. Among the finest residences in the valley are those in the town. The people are prosperous and enterprising, they declare they will not rest until a railroad is brought into the town, even if they must build and operate it themselves.

Minden, established in 1905 by the V. & T. Railroad company and the Dangberg company, is the terminal of the railroad and is situated about three-quarters of a mile west of Gardnerville. It is a beautifully laid out town, its streets are lined with trees and are kept in as good condition as those of the most modern city. It has a number of beautiful homes and justly boasts of the finest small theatre in Nevada. The theatre is also used for meetings and other social purposes. Like Gardnerville, the town has a complete water-system and an aseptic sewerage system. It is a thriving place, and next to Gardnerville, the largest town in the county. Waterloo, situated on the cross roads about a quarter of a mile from the Douglas Creamery, and Centerville, situated on cross-roads in the middle of the valley, about three miles west of Sheridan, are well known small stopping places. Sheridan, on the western slope of the Sierras, near Job's Peak, is one of the old stations in the valley and still is the business center for the near-by farmers.

Probably, in the hills and valleys, there are 100,000 acres of land available for cultivation. About 70,000 acres of it are in Carson Valley proper, about 3000 acres in Long Valley, situated toward California on the south, about 3000 acres near Lake Tahoe, about 2000 acres in Jack's Valley, which is northwest of Carson Valley, and the balance in the Pine Nut hills. There are nine school districts, and all are excellently conducted. The taxable valuations of the property aggregates a million dollars.

An organization of East Forks farmers, called the Alpine Land and Reservoir Company, controls a system of half a dozen reservoir sites in Alpine County, California, which have been gradually developed during the last twenty years until now they afford storage facilities amounting to about 10,000 acre-feet. In dry seasons, this water has been found to be of incalculable value to the farms, and the money expended, amounting to about $25,000, is regarded as well invested. The Dangberg company has a series of several small reservoirs situated directly west of the Pine Nut foothills, which store a considerable quantity of water. Mud Lake, a reservoir in Long Valley owned by Mr. Dressier, affords storage for sufficient water to irrigate about a thousand acres. Private enterprise, however, appears to be unable to cope with the task of storing sufficient water and reclaiming all the arid land in the valley.

Owing to the fact that in 1905 the United States Reclamation Service appropriated all the surplus water of the Carson River for use in the Truckee-Carson project in Churchill and Humboldt counties, it is now impossible to acquire water rights for the thousands of acres of fertile land still idle in Douglas County and Ormsby County. Realizing that unless action was quickly taken their farming development would practically come to a standstill upon the completion of the Truckee-Carson project, the citizens of Carson Valley took steps in the spring of 1912 to interest the government in building reservoirs at the headwaters of the Carson River as well as in Churchill County. The matter was pressed with characteristic energy, and presently the government engineers were sufficiently impressed to make an investigation into the feasibility of building the reservoirs. The fertile, level fields of the Carson Valley farmers and the tremendous resources of the valley greatly astonished the engineers. The well-kept highways, the square fields, the ditches laid out along engineering lines, all had an effect. After numerous conferences and almost endless negotiations, the government sent an engineer to the valley in the month of December, 1912, to make complete plans, surveys, and investigations. It was expected that the work could be completed in a month, but it has been found that several engineers cannot complete it in the space of three months. The dawn of a new era appears to be at hand for Carson Valley, and the people are greatly encouraged in their hope that a unit of the Carson-Truckee project will soon be constructed somewhere near the headwaters of the river, and that water will then be available for the irrigation of all the valley land not now cultivated. In the meantime, every drop of water is being utilized, and successful experiments for the development of artesian water and pumping from underground streams are being conducted, although of course, the supply of such water is inadequate.

A future asset of Douglas County is Lake Tahoe as a summer resort. Practically all the Nevada portion of the lake is in Douglas County. The magnificence and even grandeur of the scenery, the fine fishing, boating and bathing, and the excellent summer climate make the lake ideal for recreation. Glenbrook, in a sheltered corner in the northeastern part of the lake, is rapidly gaining a reputation, as is State Line Park, on the southern boundary. At the base of the mountains, near the mouth of the Kingsbury grade, and only a mile from Genoa, are numerous thermal springs called Walleys. There is a large tank, and bath-houses with accommodations for patients and tourists. The springs have unusual medicinal qualities, especially for rheumatism. There are similar springs, as yet undeveloped, in and near Jack's Valley, and on the old Kirman ranch, near the Pine Nut foothills. A tremendous fault of several hundred feet, still clearly visible to the naked eye from a distance of several miles, once occurred along the line of the hot springs and along the eastern slope of the mountains from Walleys to Jack's Valley and on to the Kirman springs, an indication, doubtless, of the volcanic origin of the valley and springs.

This narrative would be incomplete were mention not made of the marvelous scenic beauty of the hills and valleys. Viewed from the middle of the valley or its eastern part, the Sierras are sublimely beautiful. Few know that Job's Peak, named after Moses Job, a trader who settled in the valley in 1852, has a more steep and precipitous slope than any hill or peak in the West, not even excepting those in the Yosemite. The peak is more than 10,000 feet above sea level and over 6,000 feet above the valley. Across the top of the peak is the clearly defined recumbent figure of a woman, and on the south slope appears the figure of a grizzly bear. Throughout the county there are many such grotesque figures. One that is truly extraordinary is the perfect likeness of Shakespeare on the face of Shakespeare Cliff, a few hundred yards from Glenbrook. On the same cliff is the head of an Indian chief in full war regalia. On the Clear Creek road is a gigantic stone exactly in the form of a couchant lion, and innumerable figures of birds and animals. And, most beautiful and striking of all, are the crystal streams and the green fields, as they appear from Kingsbury grade. It is not strange that the history of the county is tinged with romanticism.

Source: The History of Nevada, Volume 2, edited by Sam P. Davis, published 1913 by Elms Publishing Company, Reno, Nevada, pages 806-817. Extracted 17 May 2021 by Norma Hass