Red-haired Giant Cannibals at Lovelock Cave? Really?
By Brendan Riley
Colorful tales of the American West don't fade away easily, even when they seem to have been discounted. Take, for example, the story of legendary red-haired cannibal giants whose alleged existence in...
Winnemucca Valley Road Trip, Sutro Tunnel Update, & More
Winnemucca Valley Road Trip
A Sutro Tunnel Update
Jeff Nicholson Art Show in Elko
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Winnemucca Valley Road Trip
This road trip was inspired by the book Twenty Miles from a Match by Sarah Olds. It tells the story...
Butch Cassidy and the Great Winnemucca Bank Robbery
Winnemucca is a tranquil town on the Humboldt River, a trading post transformed by the railroad into a lively shipping center, a bumptious cow town and county seat. Its history resembles that of dozens...
Yank Van Duzen, Hero
by Harry Gorham
To return To the subject of ventilation — those men in Gould and Curry could not escape to a shaft a thousand feet deep or a tunnel 1500 feet long because the...
Edna Purviance: Nevada’s Forgotten Movie Star
Wholesome . . . Delectable . . . Enchanting
Watch Her Movies Here
by David Toll
You might think that a state with so few celebrities to brag about would make a big deal about a movie...
150-Year-Old Locomotive Reno Returns to Virginia City
Most Famous Engine in Movie History, Star in 100+ Films
The most historic existing icon of Nevada’s past, the 150-year-old Virginia & Truckee Railroad steam locomotive Reno, has made its final run full circle, returning...
Adding to Your Nevada Bookshelf
Ten years ago I wrote a piece about essential books for your Nevada Bookshelf. When I came across it recently and decided to update it, it occurred to me that because lots of likely...
Day Tripping for Ceramics and Pottery
There are a number of fine ceramic and pottery studios within a few hours of Reno and they are all having sales just in time for the holidays. Great Basin Pottery and Joe Winter...
The Great Escape from Carson City, September 17, 1871
Volney Rollins checked his sidearm and buttoned his coat against a cold draft as he walked down the concrete hallway toward the dining area. His last duty was to secure the prisoners. It had...
Sutro’s Tunnel Vision
Sutro’s Tunnel Vision
By David Moore
In the early 1860s Adolph Sutro, a 30-year-old Prussian who ran a cigar business in San Francisco, joined the rush to Virginia City and the Comstock Lode. Like most of...
Mark Twain’s First Letter
by Jim Reed
In signing his famous “letter from Carson City” on January 31, 1863, the man directing the pen morphed from Samuel Langhorne Clemens to Mark Twain with just a few wriggles of his...
The Ghosts Have Nearly Gone
If I had a time machine, my first journey (after taking care of some personal business) would be to Goldfield. I'd set the chronometer to arrive on the morning of July 4, 1923. I'd...
The Lost Ski Lodge of the Rubies
"The Ruby Mountains in Northern Nevada weren't always packed with sleds, and the lot of cars full of folks looking to draw their line down Terminal Cancer."
Even prior to Carl Fischer's 1976 proposal to...
A Visit to Battle Mountain During HPV Speed Challenge
We are in Battle Mountain for the World’s Fastest Human-Powered Speed Challenge, which is a contest to see whose bicycle can go fastest on five miles of straight, flat Highway 305 about 15 miles...
The Famous Garcia World’s Fair Gold Medal Saddle from Elko
The book follows the journey of G.S. Garcia and J.M. Capriola, two legendary saddle makers in northeastern Nevada who made their living from the working cowboys and ranchers in the Great Basin. Entering into...
Mark Twain Couldn’t Take a Joke
“There were many practical jokers in the new Territory. I don’t take pleasure in expressing this fact, for I liked those people; but what I am saying is true. I wish I could say...
NevadaGram #223 – Butch Cassidy & the Great Winnemucca Bank Robbery
Winnemucca is a tranquil town on the Humboldt River, a trading post transformed by the railroad into a lively shipping center, a bumptious cow town and county seat. Its history resembles that of dozens...
Jackrabbits in Winter
by Larry Hyslop
I was walking my dogs along a snow-covered dirt road, bundled up since the temperature was in the teens. A black-tailed jackrabbit emerged from the base of a large sagebrush to sprint...
The Helping Spirit at Wabuska Nevada
by Eddie Ann Miller
"Wabuska" is the Washoe Indian word for "White Grass". The natives appropriately named this area for the chalky white alkali soil, which dusts everything, including grasses that grow near the hot...
Hiking Among Carson Valley’s Spring Bloom
by Amy DeMuth
As winter days lengthen into spring, nothing ushers in the new season like an ample dose of sunshine, a big breath of fresh air and a ramble among the company of nature....
Nevada Highway Patrol, 1972
I was driving north out of Carson City on a bitter cold night last February with a broken headlight and the fresh air vent jammed open, sipping at a can of beer when the...
Dirt Road to the Leviathan Mine and River Ranch
by Gage T. Smith, "The Picon Guy"
Lately I have been rediscovering the area around my home.
In September, a few friends and I decided that we would take the rocky, bumpy road from US 395...
NevadaGram #230 A Visit to Tonopah and Berlin
Bound for the Belvada
by Bob Naugle
We just had to get out of Vegas for President’s Weekend. These days dealing with COVID, and the stress of school, required a break. Besides if I stayed home,...
NevadaGram #224 – The Mind Reader
by Harry M.Gorham
Due to the frenzy of speculation occasioned by the ore discovery in the Sierra Nevada, every stock quoted in the San Francisco exchange was quoted at ridiculous prices, and those who could...
Railroad Motor Cars of Nevada – Part II
By Stephen E. Drew, Chief Curator (retired) California State Railroad Museum
Nevada Motor Cars Part I
Nevada Motor Cars Part III
The self-propelled passenger car, or motor car, was the savior of early 20th-Century railroad branches and...
Sparks: A Town of Two Times
by Wendell Huffman
Sparks was created in the early 20th century as part of the Union Pacific Railroad’s modernization of the Central Pacific line across Nevada. The old division point at Wadsworth, where trains were...
Skiing Elko’s SnoBowl
by Curtis Fong, "the Guy from Tahoe"
When skiers talk about skiing in Nevada, they bring up well know resorts such as Heavenly, Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe and Diamond Peak. but, no one ever mentions...
Gordon Frazier
Somewhere in the rocky high ground North east of Nevada's pyramid Lake there's a white Mustang mare that Gordon Fraser and I would like to bring out one day.
She's one of three or four...
Railroad Motor Cars of Nevada – Part I
By Stephen E. Drew, Chief Curator (retired) California State Railroad Museum
Nevada Motor Cars Part II
Nevada Motor Cars Part III
The self-propelled passenger car, or motor car, was the savior of early 20th-Century railroad branches and...
Railroading in Nevada
This Is What a Transportation Revolution Looks Like
by Laura Bliss
To understand a true transportation revolution, I wanted to drive a coal-fired locomotive. On the Nevada Northern Railway, I found one.
Thick black smoke spewed from...
Legislators and Lobbyists Guide to Power Dining in Carson City
Urban safari: Observe Legislators and Lobbyists
At Work from a nearby table in Carson City
by Barry Smith
As 63 legislators and hundreds of lobbyists arrive in Carson City for the 2019 session of the Nevada Legislature,...
A Visit to Laughlin
Laughlin should have been named Fun City — no-one comes here on business unless they are in the fun business.
We come for the food, the drink, the easy-going atmosphere and the fishing in the...
The Nevada Horoscope
by Ciphers
On October 31, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Act which created Nevada a state in the Union. As his pen touched the document the Sun and the Moon were in the sign...
Eulogy for a Gambler
The Funeral Oration for Riley Grannan
by Herman W. Knickerbocker
On April 3, 1908, a former Methodist minister faced a small audience crowded into a backroom dance hall in the booming mining town of Rawhide.
His name...
The Death of Indian Johnny
by David Toll
Now for some time travel. Buckle up, please.
While cleaning out an old building in Virginia City not so long ago, Winson Hong made a fascinating discovery. He found an advertising calendar from...
The McKeen Car, A Nevada Treasure
by Peter Barton
Administrator, Nevada Division of Museums and History
A little past Noon on Monday, May 9, 1910, a futuristic rail car rolled down the tracks along Washington Street in Carson City and eased up...
Boyhood Days in Winnemucca 1901-1910
by
James R. Chew
As a young boy, my family and I lived in Winnemucca's Chinatown on Baud Street. It had a population of about 400 Chinese, who were practically all railroad workers. Surprisingly, only four...
A Visit to Belmont Mill and Hamilton
In Nevada, even in our Age of Tesla, it is still possible to venture as deep into history and prehistory as you care to go. Here's a day trip from Ely or Eureka that will take you...
Nevada’s Dead Towns
by John Muir (1875)
Nevada is one of the very youngest and wildest of the States; nevertheless it is already strewn with ruins that seem as gray and silent and time-worn as if the civilization...
Thunder Mountain: A Monumental Undertaking
Dan Van Zant is determined to preserve and protect
a remarkable piece of Nevada history
Story and photos by Richard Menzies
A
Daniel Van Zant is a middle-aged desk jockey, who, when he’s not developing marketing strategies for...
