Confusing Names

The second Rio Puerco is rather unknown to me.  I have not found very much information about it and, until a few minutes ago, I could not find it on a map. Here is what I do know about it: It rises only 4 miles southeast of the first Rio Puerco that I spoke of. It is also in Santa Fe National Forest in the
Sierra Nacimiento. It is in the national forest for about one-third of its length. It flows generally in a northeast direction and empties into Abiquiu Reservoir, which was created by a dam across the Rio Chama. The Rio Chama is one of the major tributaries of the Rio Grande, so the first two "Rio Puercos" are in the same watershed, the Rio Grande watershed, even though they start on different sides of a mountain range.
 This Rio Puerco is only about 45 miles long and flows past the villages of Arroyo del Agua, Coyote and Youngsville on its short journey. It also flows past a ghost town called Rio Puerco in its short journey. A detailed map I have marks it as a perennial stream for most of its length, but, that being said, I am sure the flow is small like it is in most of the rivers in New Mexico. The only major road this Rio Puerco crosses  is State Highway 96, which is a major connector between U.S. Highway 84 and U.S. Highway 550. The latter highway follows the first Rio Puerco for over 20 miles.
  The third Rio Puerco is commonly called "Rio Puerco of the West," but, officially, it is just "Rio Puerco."
It is west of the Continental Divide, whereas the other two rivers that share its name are east of the divide.
This Rio Puerco rises in two forks. The North Fork (the main stream) rises near Hosta Butte (elevation 8,620 feet) in central McKinley County about five miles south of Crownpoint, on the Navajo Indian Reservation. The South Fork rises in the Zuni Mountains, in Cibola National Forest near the town of McGaffey. The South Fork of the Rio Puerco is about 20 miles long. It meets the North Fork on the edge of Gallup, the county seat of McKinley County.  From the head of the North Fork to the mouth of the Rio Puerco just outside Holbrook, Arizona, it is a distance, in river miles, of 132 miles. From the confluence of the two forks of the Rio Puerco of the West, the river is in a nearly straight, man-made, channel for about 10 miles. It is entrenched between the railroad tracks and Interstate 40 and 'flows' just north of downtown Gallup, the principal city on the river.This river 'flows' west and meets the Little Colorado River just outside of Holbrook, Arizona, so it is part of the Colorado River watershed.
  The Rio Puerco of the West is one of the most polluted rivers in the country. For about 35 miles, from a mine on the North Fork near Church Rock, to a point a few miles inside Arizona, it has been a perennial,
or year-round, river in recent years. However, the river's year-round flow consists mostly of treated and untreated waste from uranium mines, waste from truck stops and trailer parks and repeated discharges of untreated effluent from the Gallup Sewage Treatment Plant.
  On July 16, 1979; 94 million gallons of radiactive water and uranium tailings spilled into the North Fork of the Rio Puerco after breaching a nearby tailings pond. It seriously contaminated about 50 miles of the river. This contamination was on top of the other contamination that had been occurring over the years from the effluent and other types of waste. The river is considered by most people to be a dumping ground unfit for humans and animals. At least in the past few years, some "progress" has been made. Most of the time, the Rio Puerco just a dry, sandy bed again. Normally, drying up a river is not progress, but in this case, it is. The Gallup Sewage Treatment Plant still sends the occasional discharge down the riverbed, but for the most part, the only time it flows is after spring snowmelt or heavy rains. I would prefer this situation to the alternative.
  The Navajo word for the river is "To Nizhoni," which means "beautiful water." But that description is no longer accurate.
  The Rio Puerco of the West lends its name to Gallup's shopping mall--Rio West Mall. Interstate 40 and the railroad follow the river for most of the river's length. The legendary Route 66 once shadowed the river for nearly 100 miles.
  To further add to the confusion of three  rivers in New Mexico called Rio Puerco, consider this: As soon as the Rio Puerco of the West crosses the state border into Arizona, it is no longer called "Rio Puerco."  Instead, it is called "Puerco River."  "Puerco River" appears on all highway signs in Arizona while "Rio Puerco" appears on all highway signs in New Mexico. The "Rio Puerco" appellation in New Mexico is due to that state's heavy Spanish influence, even though this part of the state has a heavy Indian influence and very little Spanish influence.

A Land Of Little Rain

The majority of McKinley County, New Mexico is either desert or semi-desert, but the entire county is extremely arid. There are no permanent streams in the county, just "part-time" streams. The principal streams in the county are: Zuni River, Rio Nutria, Rio Pescado. Rio Puerco of the West, South Fork Rio Puerco of the West, Chaco River, Sand Springs Wash, Arroyo Chico, Fajada Wash, Whitewater Arroyo, Red Willow Wash and Bread Springs Wash.
  A point of clarification. There are 3 Rio Puerco's in New Mexico. The one in McKinley County is called 'Rio Puerco of the West' , but that is an unofficial name. It is officially Rio Puerco. The other 2 "Rio Puerco's" are east of the Continental Divide, this one is west of the divide. The longest river with this name is 237 miles long. It rises northeast of the little town of Cuba, NM on the west slope of San Pedro Peak in the Sierra Nacimiento in Santa Fe National Forest. It is a tumbling mountain stream in its nebulous beginnings in the
San Pedro Parks Wilderness Area.  It is mostly dry throughout its length, but early Spanish explorers wrote about all of the vegetation that once lined its banks and that the line of trees along the Rio Puerco could be seen from many miles away and were a welcome respite from the parched desert through which it travels. Today, most of the trees and other vegetation have disappeared and, through most of the river's length, it has steeply eroded banks. This was caused by a lowering of the water table because of excessive groundwater pumping.The disappearance of the vegetation that once lined the river has created serious erosion problems and excessive dust problems in the vicinity of the dry riverbed. This Rio Puerco meets the Rio Grande about 50 miles south of Albuquerque. I say "meets" because the Rio Puerco rarely flows anymore. The river generally runs in a south-southeast direction, but at its beginning in the Sierra Nacimiento, it flows west.
The most famous portion of the Rio Puerco is west of Albuquerque where old U.S. Highway 66 crosses it on a very narrow bridge. The bridge is still standing and is still in good condition, but is closed to traffic. People can walk across the bridge, however.
  Cuba, with about 800 people, is the biggest town on the Rio Puerco. It flows mostly through lightly populated or uninhabited areas, although it does just miss a major city, Albuquerque. When the old Route 66 bridge and also the Interstate 40 bridges nearby cross the Rio Puerco, they are only 9 miles west of the Albuquerque city limits.
  I will continue talking about the other 2 Rio Puerco's in the next installment of this blog before this installment gets too long.

A Diverse Land

I will now "move" north up New Mexico's western border and talk about McKinley County. McKinley is the poorest county in New Mexico and one of the poorest in the United States. The county seat, Gallup, is the most demographically and culturally diverse city in New Mexico.
  McKinley County is also diverse in terms of landscape. It ranges from aspen forest to spruce forest to ponderosa pine forest to juniper woodland to grassland to desert. It is also known for its stunning, red rock formations. This red rock country spills over from the more famous red rock country of southern Utah and northern Arizona. This is the eastern edge of that stunning, eroded, volcanic, red landscape. Most of the county consists of broad, desert to semi-desert valleys with a backdrop of eroded buttes and mesas. The semi-desert valleys are sprinkled with pinon and juniper trees and have a little bit more grass than the desert areas.
  The average elevation of McKinley County  is about 6,200 feet. The highest points in the county are all clustered near each other in the southeast corner of the county in the San Mateo Mountains. they are:
Cerro de Alejandro (8,989 feet), Cerro Redondo (8,976 feet) and Cerro Chivato(8,917 feet). While these are the highest points in the county, they are really mesas [flat-topped hills] and not really mountains, per se.
The "real" mountains in the county are the Zuni Mountains in southern part of McKinley County. Most of this range is in neighboring Cibola County. The Zuni Mountains are part of Cibola National Forest and are the most heavily forested part of McKinley County.

A Once Lively Place

There isn't much left of Cloverdale. The old adobe store is boarded up and shuttered. On one side of the cream-colored building there is a darker that looks like a door might have been located in that spot at onetime. farther west along the dirt road is an abandoned flagstone house that is still in decent condition and still farther west is an old wooden outdoor dance pavilion. There is little else to Cloverdale these days. A few broken chunks of concrete, rusty nails and tin cans and scattered detritus from years gone by. There are no substantial ruins to tell their story of this dead, isolated town, just two intact buildings and a dance pavilion. On my two trips to Cloverdale over the years, I was unable to even locate where the school once stood.
  That outdoor dance pavilion was a story in an of itself. In 1918, The annual Cowboy Picnic was launched to honor soldiers returning from World War I. In that first year, approximately 150 people showed up in this isolated locale for a day of barbecue, horse racing, music and other events and the day ended with a big dance that night where people danced under the stars. This event became more and more popular over the years as people would drive in from Animas, Lordsburg, Deming, Silver City and even Douglas, Arizona to attend the festivities that got bigger and better every year. In the years when automobiles were in widespread use, this became a big problem for this little town not accustomed to crowds. Sometime after World War II,
I am not sure of the exact year, the dance was discontinued because it had become too popular and also because the town itself was nearly a ghost town, still clinging to a tenuous existence.   
 

A Rather Mysterious Town

Not much is known about Cloverdale's establishment as a town. Not much is known about the town during its lifespan either. This is probably due to the extreme isolation of the town.
  It seems to have gotten its start around 1895, fifteen years after Michael Gray and his two sons started their ranch in the area. That is the year a small store was established to serve a small number of ranchhands, homesteaders and miners over a wide area. Cloverdale did not have a post office until 1913, and it was discontinued in 1943. For a while, the tiny town even had its own school that served students up to eighth grade. The school was most likely started in 1913, the year the post office opened, but that is not a certainty. At any rate, the school burned in 1926 and was never rebuilt.
  As near as anyone can determine, either Bob Anderson or John Weames filed on a section of land (640 acres) in the area where the store was eventually built. If this is the case, the establishment of the ranch by Michael Gray was not the beginning of the town as many people had previously thought.
  The town served as a supply center for a very wide  area that also includes southeastern Arizona. The town was evidently very spread out for several miles east and west along the principal dirt road that leads from this area to Animas and, eventually, Interstate 10. The store was located at the junction of this road and another dirt road that leads over the mountains into Arizona. Today these mountains, the Guadalupe mountains, are part of Coronado National Forest. These are not the same Guadalupe Mountains that exist farther east near Carlsbad, it is another mountain range with the same name.
  During its existence, Cloverdale claimed a population as high as 250, however no Census records have ever been found for the town, as far as I can tell. Was it too isolated for Census takers to reach?  After visiting this ghost town on two occasions, I wish I could have seen it when it was still an active town. It was evidently very far removed from the rest of society. It did, however, have one big event that is was known for. An event that was a held weekly during the summer months and, less frequently, other times of the year as well.

Cloverdale, On The Edge Of Forever

 The dirt road that leads to Cloverdale is, for the most part, well-maintained. However, there are some  stretches of washboarded road, which makes for slow going. Washboarded roads can be rough on a vehicle's suspension and axles, so anyone that ever wants to visit Cloverdale should be aware of this. I seriously doubt the road has been improved since I last went there in February of 2009. I had the advantage of going there in the winter. The dirt road was harder than usual after a succession of winter freezes, so that made driving somewhat easier than it was the one other time I visited this remote ghost town, which was in late summer several years earlier.
  As one drives south on Cloverdale Road, he or she will discover a gradual greening of the land. The landscape changes from harsh, unforgiving desert to a luxurious grassland. Such is the location of Cloverdale. A grassland may not sound very impressive, but in the New Mexico Bootheel, it is a soothing respite to the harshness of the nearby desert. This is also a very ecologically diverse grassland. The 'entrance' to the grassland is first marked by a grove of cottonwood trees. The grass cover is very short and thin at first, but becomes taller, thicker and more luxurious farther south, reminiscent of the African savannas.
  In 1880, a ranch was started in the area that would later become Cloverdale by Michael Gray and his two sons. One of his sons described the area as "a big, green meadow of about a thousand acres which was at the time covered with red top clover and watered by numerous springs."
Michael Gray had paid a cattle rustler $300 for his squatter's claim to the ranch. A year later, one of Gray's sons was killed in the Guadalupe Canyon Massacre. As a result, Gray moved his family to Arizona, but in the meantime he continued to occupy the ranch on his own to "prove up" his claim. On November 20, 1883, shortly after receiving legal title to the ranch, he sold the ranch to George Hearst and his partners for $12,000. George Hearst was the father of William Randolph Hearst who made a fortune in the newspaper business. William Randolph Hearst is the grandfather of Patty Hearst, who became famous in the 1970s with the staged kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army. 
  After George Hearst purchased the ranch, him and his business partners established the  Victorio Land and Cattle company, which is still in operation today. The Victorio Land and Cattle Company along with the Pacific Western Land Company and the Gray Ranch occupy a huge portion of the New Mexico Bootheel today. The Gray Ranch later split off from Victorio and became an empire of its own.

Life On The Frontier

In the far southern part of Hidalgo County, New Mexico is the most isolated ghost town I have ever visited. It is (was?) called Cloverdale. To get there, go 11 miles west of Lordsburg on Interstate 10 and then exit off onto Exit 11 (State Highway 338) and head south. It is 25 miles to Animas, a town of 148 people. This is where the state maintained highway ends. However, the road continues past Animas as County Road C-1. About 10 years ago there was a big squabble between the state and private interests over the ownership of the road south of Animas, which resulted in the state giving up the road and turning it over to the county. Until that time, The state highway ended 18 miles south of Animas, at the end of the pavement and it was a county road beyond that. Even earlier, the state highway continued even farther, as a graded, dirt road all the way to Cloverdale and beyond. It once connected with another dirt road that went  east over San Luis Pass, in the
San Luis Mountains just 4 miles from the Mexican border. This east-west road, once called State Highway 79, connected with State Highway 146 (now called State Highway 81) which leads to the most remote border crossing between the United States and Mexico. The former State Highway 79 was a graded dirt road. This road still exists, but it is a private road that is mostly on the property of the Gray Ranch, one of the most biologically diverse places in North America.
  Cloverdale was located a few miles west of this former highway intersection. Cloverdale's isolation proved to be its undoing. As one is driving south of Animas to visit the forlorn remains of this town, one has to negotiate 20 miles of dirt road that is usually in good condition, but sometimes the county does not grade it on a regular basis and, even when it is graded, it contains sharp rocks that have been known to shred the tires of many unwary travelers.
  A visit to Cloverdale requires some preparation. Heck a visit to most areas in New Mexico's Bootheel require advance preparation, but Cloverdale even more so because of the unpaved road, sharp rocks, no water or cell phone signal and  lack of amenities. It is best to stock up on water in Lordsburg or Animas and also take some other drinks, a lunch or snack and make sure your tires are in good condition before visiting Cloverdale. It is also advisable to let someone know, such as Sheriff's Department or the State Highway Patrol, of your whereabouts and your approximate time of return in case something goes wrong in this remote area.

A Desolate Land

The vast majority of Hidalgo County, New Mexico is remote and uninhabited. That can be said about many places in the western part of the United States, but the remoteness of  Hidalgo County has to be seen to be believed. It varies from desert to grassland to pinon/juniper scrub to ponderosa pine forest, depending on elevation. though the vast majority of the county is part of the Chihuahuan Desert, which spreads from western Texas to southeast Arizona and south into Mexico.. The most remote areas visible from a highway are along State Highway 81 south of Hachita (which is in Grant county) and county road 1 south of Animas. These roads are the most extreme, but the principal east-west route south of Interstate 10, State Highway 9, is also extremely remote.
Most of the mountains in Hidalgo County are unnamed and have never been measured. In most of the mountain ranges, only the highest peak has been measured and named. In others, there may be 2 or 3 named and measured peaks in the entire range while all of the other eminences in the mountain range remain a complete mystery. All of the mountain ranges have been named, but most of the individual mountains have not. The flora, fauna and geology in large portions of the county are little known and have not been studied. But is is likely similar to other areas of the Chihuahuan Desert.
  Hidalgo is a county where most of the population is concentrated in or near the county seat, Lordsburg. In fact, the second biggest population center in the county is a subdivision instead of a town. The Windmill subdivision is the second largest populated area in Hidalgo County. It has approximately 300 people.
  Hidalgo County is bisected by the Continental Divide, which divides waters flowing into the Pacific Ocean with waters flowing into the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico. In many places in this part of New Mexico, the Continental Divide is almost imperceptible. It follows mountain ranges in some places, but, in other places is merely a slight rise in the land that is barely distinguishable from the desert around it.
  This remoteness, isolation and desolation is a big part of the attraction of Hidalgo County, in my mind. It reminds me of a simpler time, a time before modern civilization destroyed or severely altered the landscape. A time when society was more primitive. There are portions of Hidalgo county that are still untouched by modern society. Other areas have felt the hand of man, but in a very subtle way. When my mind harkens back to a more primitive time, Hidalgo County, plus neighboring parts of Luna, Grant and Dona Ana Counties come to the forefront. This is the area that is collectively known as the "Bootheel" of New Mexico.

A Recent Ghost Town

  Nine miles west of Lordsburg is the abandoned town of Road Forks. This once thriving tourist stop has  abandoned very recently. I know the town was still active in the fall of 2005, but when I went though there in September of 2008, I noticed that is was completely and utterly abandoned. After looking at the buildings, I guessed that they had all been abandoned at least a year. At any rate, the desertion of this dimunitive little town is pretty recent.
  Road Forks was never a large town. It never had more than 30 people and, most of the time, the population was around 20, with most of the employees driving out from Lordsburg everyday. Road Forks may have been tiny, but it was a thriving place. It had the Shady Grove Truck Stop, which had restaurant, gift store and convenience store.  There was another small cafe, a campground and a motel. The motel had approximately 100 rooms, but now is completely abandoned like the rest of Road Forks. The motel's parking lot has weeds growing up through cracks on the pavement. I did not get a look inside any of the rooms, but the motel appears to still be in good condition. The former truck stop has taken on a forlorn look to it with some windows already broken even though it was only abandoned recently. the handful of houses in this little town are all abandoned.
  Road Forks was first settled by the G.H. Porter family in 1925 was a succession of rough trails and roads was starting to be upgraded into the system of paved highways that we are all familiar with today.
  The town was further developed by John Graham in the 1930s and the Graham family continued to own all of the businesses in town until its abandonment.
  Road Forks was located on U.S. Highway 80 in southwestern New Mexico just 11 miles from the Arizona border. It was situated where Highway 80, once called the "Broadway of America," made a sharp turn southward to wend its way to Douglas, Arizona on the Mexican border. When highway 80 made this sharp, southward turn, State Highway 14 continued straight ahead and actually provided the most direct route to Tucson and points west. New Mexico State Highway 14 became State Highway 86 in Arizona and this highway reconnected with U.S. Highway 80 at Benson, Arizona, 45 miles east of Tucson. This state highway has been supplanted by Interstate 10. So Road Forks was located at a strategic crossroads and was a very active, albeit small, travel stop.   

A Tourist Town, Of Sorts

  Today, the economic mainstays for Lordsburg are the county government, the railroad, ranching, some mining and traffic on Interstate 10, which nourished travelers with a handful of motels, restaurants and gas stations. In spite of this, the population has taken a nosedive over the past half century and does not show any signs of recovery.
  However, Lordsburg should definitely be seen by everyone. Why? Because it is the anti-Santa Fe. it is a New Mexico town that is the complete opposite of Santa Fe. Lordsburg is about as far away from Santa Fe culturally, geographically and in terms of appearance among New Mexico cities and towns as you can get. Lordsburg is not beautiful, it is not prosperous, it is not wealthy, it is not thriving, it is not a center of power, it is not a tourist destination, it does not have a rosy outlook for the future, it does not ooze ancient Spanish culture. In fact the only adobe building to be found in Lordsburg is the library, located next to the Hidalgo County Courthouse and was deliberately built in the 'Territorial style' to make a statement that this is New Mexico, a state that looks different from any other state. It is most likely fake adobe plaster, but it still has the "New Mexico look" to it, which is an anomaly in this dying ranching and railroad town.
  The Hidalgo County Courthouse on South Shakespeare Street is an attractive, 2-story, red brick building. It, the library and the post office are pretty much surrounded by abandoned buildings.
  Lordsburg has two claims to fame. First, it has the oldest airport in New Mexico. Lordsburg Municipal Airport began operations in December, 1938 and the state song of New Mexico was written by a Lordsburg resident.
" O Fair New Mexico" was written by Elizabeth Garrett, daughter of famed Lincoln County Sheriff  Pat Garrett. Pat Garrett is one of the more famous people from the "Wild West" days. " O Fair New Mexico" was adopted as the state song by the New Mexico state legislature in March of 1917. New Mexico does have another state song, a Spanish language one. It is called " Asi Es Nuevo Mexico."

A Lakeside Town

Lordsburg is known for its sandstorms. Yep, that is their 'claim to fame.' A few miles west of town are four dry lake beds--very large dry lake beds. They are called North Tobosa Lake, South Tobosa Lake, Antelope Lake and Playa de los Pinos. Interstate 10 bisects South Tobosa Lake, the largest one.  These dry lakes are oriented northwest to southeast. Playa de los Pinos straddles the Arizona border.  Frequently, the motels in Lordsburg fill up when dust storms rage for hours on end. At the same time, motels in Willcox, Arizona, 67 miles west of Lordsburg, also fill up when the sandstorms are out of control.
  A few years ago, The Weather Channel, on the series "Storm Stories," did a story about a multi-car pileup that resulted from one of these epic sandstorms. The epicenter of this particular sandstorm was in Arizona, between the moribund towns of Bowie and San Simon. These towns are between Willcox, Arizona and the dry lake beds. The effects of these sandstorms reach far and wide across the area.
  I experienced one of these epic storms myself one time when I was on vacation in the late 1990s. I had already been hearing radio reports about the raging sandstorm west of Lordsburg, but when I got my first glimpse of it after cresting the Continental Divide 24 miles northeast of Lordsburg, I was stunned! I have driven this highway several other times and I have always admired the view from the crest of the Continental Divide on State Highway 90 between Lordsburg and Silver City. Usually, this lookout affords a fantastic view of the Animas Mountains, south of Lordsburg; the Peloncillo Mountains, west of Lordsburg (near the Arizona border) and even the famous Chiricahua Mountains, which are about 40 miles away in southeast Arizona. I could not see any of these mountain ranges on that day. I could not even see the Pyramid Hills, which are only one mile south of Lordsburg! The interstate crosses South Tobosa Lake between exits 5 and 9 ( 5 miles and 9 miles from the Arizona border) and eastbound traffic was backed up from roughly milepost 6 (according to the radio reports) and San Simon, Arizona; 18 miles away! This lake is about 10 miles west of Lordsburg.
  I was forced to get a motel room in Lordsburg even though I arrived in town at 2:30 in the afternoon! Fortunately I was able to get a room, one of few left in town. I got a room on the beleagured stretch of Motel Drive (Old U.S. Highway 80) at a motel that is surrounded by abandoned buildings and across the street from a busy railroad. It was not the best of accommodations, but at least I was out of the dust. Traffic on the interstate was backed up all the way through Lordsburg! The sandstorm had started at approximately 10:00 that morning and raged out of control until about 1:30 the next morning. When I went out and drove around town or went to eat dinner or go to a convenience store, I had to put a shirt in front of my face to keep dust out of me mouth, nose and eyes. I got an idea of what it was like during the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s. The next morning, when I went to eat breakfast before checking out of my room, I had a very thick coating of dust on my truck and I had to thoroughly clean the windows before I could drive away. There was even a fine coating of dust was all over the inside of my truck also!

A Beleaguered County Seat, part 2

 In the days before Interstate highways, Lordsburg was a humming place because it lay at the junction of two major highways, which enticed travelers to stop and spend their money because of the distance to the next sizable town. In its heyday, Lordsburg had  21 motels, 20 cafes or formal restaurants 31 gas stations. Nearly all of these business establishments were located along U.S. Highway 80, which parallels the railroad tracks on the south side. In town, Highway 80 was once known as First Street, but, in later years, the name was changed to Motel Drive, the name it goes by today. I think First Street is a much better name.  A few of these businesses were located along U.S. Highway 70, but Highway 80 was the place to be in Lordsburg. In addition to all of the motels, restaurants and gas stations, First Street, a.k.a. Motel Drive, was lined with gift shops, car garages, automobile dealerships and anything else you can think of. Today, Motel Drive has been called a "motel ghost town" by some people, a vision of a post-apocalyptic world by others.
  In September of 2009, my most recent trip to Lordsburg, I spent the night on the far west end of Lordsburg at a national chain motel near its junction with Interstate 10.While I was there, I drove up and down Motel Drive several times and counted 12 abandoned motels, 22 abandoned gas stations and 14 deserted restaurants or cafes. Other businesses of this type used to exist also, but have long since been demolished, as testified by the numerous concrete slabs or foundations that line the street. Motel Drive was recently listed as one of "America's Most Endangered Places." There are only three operating motels on the street today and I don't remember how many gas stations, but no more than 3 or 4. The only operating restaurants on the street today are at truck stops on the east side of town.
  Motel Drive is no longer the busiest street in Lordsburg. In fact, it is very under utilized in the present day. It is a very wide street with very little traffic. The busiest street in Lordsburg today is South Main Street, which is part of a short state highway (494) that dead ends at the entrance to a ghost town 3 miles south of Lordsburg. South Main Street's exit with Interstate 10 is the hub of Lordsburg today. This is where most of the motels and other travel related business are clustered today. In total, Lordsburg today has 11 motels, 7 gas stations and 14 cafes or restaurants. Most of the eating establishments are either fast food places or are affiliated with motels or truck stops.
  When it was announced that Interstate 10 would be built through the south side of Lordsburg, the state offered to elevate the freeway through town so travelers could look down and see the town and be more willing to stop there and patronize the businesses. This tactic did not work, however, because Lordsburg has fallen on very hard times since the freeway opened up.
  At the same time, the businesses that are clustered next to the freeway are the town's major economic engine and have, in a way, prevented the town from dying off even more than it has. In fact, when I was there late last summer, I saw a Hampton Inn & Suites under construction. Seeing that surprised me and it might be a good sign for the struggling town. 
 

A Beleaguered County Seat

The most recent population for Lordsburg is 2,582. The population peaked at 4,712. That is a significant drop-nearly 50%. However, at least from an economic standpoint, it looks like the population loss has been more than that. In some aspects, Interstate 10 killed Lordsburg. In other aspects, Interstate 10 in saving Lordsburg. Let me explain. Before Interstate 10 was built through the area, U.S. Highway 80 was the principal highway through the area. This highway, while not as famous as U.S. Highway 66, a.k.a. "The Main Street of America," was still famous in its own right. route 80 was frequently called "The Broadway of America" and once ran from Tybee Island, Georgia to San Diego, California. Unlike route 66, however, U.S. highway 80 is not completely dead or decertified. It still exists in its eastern portion. It still begins in Tybee Island, Georgia, but now it ends in Dallas, Texas. Everything west of Dallas has been decertified. In places it is still a federal highway, such as Interstate 10 Business Loop through a number of towns. In other places it is now a city street or a county road. In other places it is a state highway. An example of this is in the El Paso, Texas area where Route 80 is now State Highway 20 and west of Lordsburg, where the old highway splits off of Interstate 10 and runs southwest to Douglas, Arizona and then back northwest to Benson, Arizona. It is known as State Highway 80 in both states. In still other places, old highway 80 is completely and utterly abandoned, in varying states of disrepair. There are also some places where the former "Broadway of America" is completely buried underneath Interstate 10 or even Interstate 20 farther east.
  Lordsburg was situated at the junction on U.S. Highway and U.S. Highway 70. These 2 highways, along with the railroad  and the town's relative isolation made Lordsburg boom. In fact, the railroad gave birth to Lordsburg in 1881 when a second transcontinental route was being pushed westward across the southern United States. Lolrdsburg is even named for a railroad engineer, Delbert Lord. some sources say the town was named for a New Yorker named Charles Lord, but I believe that is very unlikely. The town and railroad have been intertwined since day one.

A Dwindling Population

From Virden, it is 27 miles southeast to Lordsburg, the county seat of Hidalgo County and, by far, the biggest town in the county.  Currently, Hidalgo County has 4,844 people,  according to the Census Bureau, which represents a significant drop from the 2000 Census count of 5,932. From information I have gathered, however, I believe the county's population is lower than that, about 4,000. Judging from what I have seen (or not seen), this figure makes more sense because, outside of Lordsburg, there are not that many people in the county. The county is, for the most part, unpopulated.  In the 1950 Census, for example, Hidalgo County had  5,095 people with 3,525 of those people living in Lordsburg. Lordsburg had about 75% of the county's population and that has been the trend in the decades hence. But according to most recent figures, Lordsburg only has about half of the county's population, which makes it look like the rest of the county has gained population or possibly shrunk at an insignificant rate compared to Lordsburg  and that is not the case.  
  Hidalgo County had 6,049 people in the 1980 Census, but unofficially reached its peak in 1966 with 6,547 people. That is also the year that Lordsburg reached its peak population of 4,712. Since 1966 was not a Census year, that figure is not official, but accurate nevertheless.
  Since the 2000 Census, the population of Hidalgo County and Lordsburg has spiraled downward. In 2000, Lordsburg had 3,379 people and the population had fluctuated at roughly 3,000 for several decades. In the last 10 years, however, the population has dropped to 2,582, but seems to be leveling off.
  In the past decade, a company owned mining town in Hidalgo County, Playas, has been shut down and was purchased by New Mexico Tech University (located in Socorro)  for $5 million. The majority of the Playas townsite is used by the university for a variety of purposes, most notably research and by the Department of Homeland Security as a counterterrorism training center. So the Playas Training Center has a highly variable, transient population that usually is less than 50, but can grow to several hundred depending on what type of training or research activities are taking place. It is a highly restricted area, much like a military base.
  Also, in the past decade, a tiny town called Road Forks, located 17 miles west of Lordsburg on Interstate 10, has become a ghost town. Road Forks never had more than 38 people, but it served as a significant travel stop for decades before "giving up the ghost" in the past few years. I will talk more about Road Forks later.
  As I stated above, the population loss that has taken place in the past few decades in Hidalgo County has accelerated in the past 10 years and it is evident everywhere in the county, not just in Lordsburg. Like I just stated, two of the county's towns have been completely abandoned just in the past decade while Lordsburg has experienced a steep drop in population, so I believe the county's population is approximately 4,000 or slightly less.

Venturing Into The Hinterlands

I guess I will start my writing about Hidalgo County, New Mexico in the northern part of the county. This is the only part of  this desolate county that has any farming, courtesy of the Gila River. This river is 636 miles long and rises in three different forks in western New Mexico.; East, West and Middle Forks. The East Fork begins its journey in Sierra County on the northern slope of Taylor Peak (elevation 8,288) in the Black Range, a few miles west of the Continental Divide. The West Fork begins in the Mogollon Mountains in the heart of the Gila Wilderness in southern Catron County. This was the first federally designated wilderness area in the world. The Middle Fork of the Gila River is considered to be the main channel and it is also the longest of the three forks.It rises on the west slope of the Continental Divide in the Mangas Mountains of central Catron County, five miles east of the tiny village of Aragon. The three forks converge near the Gila Cliff Dwellings near the boundary between Catron and Grant Counties and continue as a unified stream all the way across the width of Arizona before flowing into the Colorado River a few miles north of Yuma, Arizona, which is on the California border.
   The Gila River only goes through the northernmost reaches of Hidalgo County and waters a valley full of farms, an anomaly for Hidalgo County. The river flows past the town of Virden, population 141. At its peak in the 1930s, Virden had 375 people. It, along with the nearby towns of Duncan and Franklin, in Arizona, are the only towns in this long, narrow valley bisected by the Gila River. Virden is a veritable oasis in the desert. There are literally hundreds of trees in this tiny town. There is an elementary school in Virden, but the high school closed about half a century ago. The only operating business the last time I went through Virden, three years ago, was the post office.
  Virden is only 2 1/2 miles from the Arizona border, six miles from Duncan, Arizona and nine miles from Franklin, Arizona. Virden is connected to the rest of the world by State Highway 92, a lightly-traveled, sinuous route that follows the north side of the Gila River. This highway becomes a county-maintained road at the Arizona border, but it is the direct connection between Virden and Duncan. The principal highway through this area is U.S. Highway 70, about five miles south of Virden. In the 36 miles between Duncan, Arizona and Lordsburg, New Mexico, Highway 70 is wide, fast and almost completely straight. It has very few curves in this area and runs in a northwest to southeast direction and it runs through the desert overlooking  the valley of the Gila River.
  The residents of Virden and the surrounding area do most of their shopping in Safford and Thatcher, Arizona; twin towns an hour's drive to the west.

Into The Hinterlands

I am now going to "travel" from the extreme northwest corner of my favorite state, New Mexico, to the county that occupies the state's southwest corner--Hidalgo County. I will be writing about Hidalgo County for awhile, while at the same time, on my other travel blog called "In My Travels, " I will be writing about the county at the extreme opposite end of New Mexico--Union County, in the northeast corner.
  Hidalgo County is a large county, covering 3,446 square miles. It stretches 98 miles at its longest point( north to south) and 50 miles at its widest point (east to west). The county occupies the southernwesternmost reach of New Mexico and borders Mexico on the south and southeast, Arizona on the west, Grant County on the north and east and a small portion of Luna County in the southeast, just above Mexico.
  The vast majority of Hidalgo County is unpopulated and extremely isolated. This remote area has seen very little change over the centuries and still strongly evokes the 'frontier' feel to travelers that happen to venture through this area. It is a very harsh land that requires preparation for even a casual journey through the area. The southern part of the county is even more isolated than the central and northern parts. There are large areas where there is very little traffic on the highways and no cell phone or radio reception, so a broken down vehicle would very likely spell disaster.
  The majority of Hidalgo County is desert--part of the Chihuahuan Desert that occupies most of western Texas, southern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. However, there are also lush grasslands and forests in the county, depending on elevation. there is even a small portion of Coronado National Forest, which lies mostly in Arizona, that extends into Hidalgo County. It is a 'sky island' that lies in the southern part of the Peloncillo Mountains.

Another Unusual Situation

The two highways in the far northwest corner of New Mexico cannot be reached from any other point in New Mexico. People have to go through parts of Colorado or Arizona to get there. No roads connect with these two highways. The nearest road in New Mexico is four miles away and it is a primitive dirt track on the Navajo Reservation. The nearest road, also unpaved, that can be driven by a passenger vehicle is six miles to the southeast. Between these two dirt roads and U.S. Highway 160 are the San Juan River, several miles of desert, Tohache Wash and then another strip of desert.
  This creates an unusual situation for the New Mexico Department of Transportation when it comes to maintaining the two highways in this corner of the state. The only way to get there is to go through either Arizona or Colorado. The nearest New Mexico Highway Department maintenance yard is in Farmington. To get to, say, the junction of U.S. Highway 160 and State Highway 597, the  highway maintenance crews have to drive 55 miles west and then turn northeast, in Arizona, and then drive 6 miles to the intersection, re-entering New Mexico 4/10 of a mile from the intersection. Nine miles of this route is in the northeast corner of Arizona. Another route they can take is to go twenty-nine miles west from Farmington and then turn north in Shiprock and head into Colorado on U.S. Highway 491. Six miles into Colorado, they would turn left, or southwest, onto Highway 160. Then they would have seventeen miles to travel to re-enter New Mexico and another half mile to arrive at the intersection. Twenty-three miles of this route are in Colorado.
  This interesting situation raises another question. What if there is a serious car accident on the short stretch of U.S. Highway 160 that is in New Mexico? I am assuming the New Mexico State Highway Patrol would respond, but they would have to drive through other states, where they have no jurisdiction, to get there. The Navajo Tribe has a police force, but they have very limited jurisdiction over non Navajos. Can a person speed like mad for 9/10 of a mile when they are driving on Highway 160 through New Mexico? What if there is some type of incident right on the Four Corners Monument itself? A person can easily step into another state and out of the jurisdiction of the arresting officer, even though the person is only a few feet away from the officer. I wonder if they have ever had any incidents like this?
 

An Unusual Situation

  The access road to the Four Corners Monument is in New Mexico. It is State Highway 597 and it is the second shortest state maintained highway in New Mexico. It is only half a mile long. At the end,  the highway circles around the Four Corners Monument, which creates an unusual situation. Since the highway circles around the monument, that means that little "pie slice" portions of the highway are in Colorado, Utah and Arizona. This means that, for a short distance, the New Mexico Department of Transportation maintains a road that is not in New Mexico! Driving towards the monument, a person arrives at the circle at the end of the highway. Then 1/4 of the way around the circle, the driver enters Colorado, then Utah, then Arizona and then re-enters New Mexico, but the whole time is on a New Mexico state highway. Weird, huh?
 The major highway that is in the area, U.S. Highway 160, is only in New Mexico for 9/10 of a mile. A driver coming out of Arizona, on Highway 160, heading in a northeast direction, will only be in New Mexico for slightly less the one mile before entering Colorado. This driver will just miss Utah if he or she continues through towards Cortez, Colorado. Halfway  across this brief trip through New Mexico is the  intersection with State Highway 597, leading to the Four Corners Monument.
  About halfway down highway 597 is a pay station at the entrance to Four Corners Navajo Tribal Park. I realize that the Navajo Tribe operates a tribal park that encompasses 3 sides of the Four Corners Monument, and they have the right to charge admission to their tribal parks so they will have the funds to maintain the parks, but having the pay booth in the middle of a state-maintained highway poses a bit of a problem with me. This pay station effectively renders State Highway 597 a toll road for half its length. Maybe they could relocate the pay booth to the entrance of the circle? Or they could put a coin-operated turnstile in the railing that runs around the monument. Also, since the Colorado side of the monument is part of the Ute Mountain Indian Reservation, I hope the Ute Tribe gets 1/4 of the proceeds from the entrance fees. I don't know if the Ute side is a tribally maintained park or not, but their portion of the monument is an integral part of the Four Corners because the monument marks the meeting point of 4 states and 1 of those states consists of a separate Indian Reservation occupied by a different tribe.

Four Corners, The Monument

Even though the north-south boundary line that separates Arizona from New Mexico was never intended to be on the 109th meridian, as is generally perceived, it is still a little bit off. The intended line was supposed to be 109 degrees, 2 minutes and 59.25 seconds west longitude. Due to a surveying error, however, the line is
109 degrees, 2 minutes and 42.62019 seconds. One second of latitude and longitude is equal to 90 feet. That means that the line is about 675 feet east of where it should be (I am using rounded off figures here, for simplicity's sake). That is equal to slightly more than 2 football fields. Charles Robbins did a commendable surveying job given the primitive equipment that he had to work with.
     The east-west boundary line that runs through the Four Corners Monument is also slightly off. This line was surveyed several times and none of the surveyors got it right! It moved north and south several times before the present line was accepted and agreed upon by the affected states. The line is currently at 36 degrees, 59 minutes and 56.31532 seconds north latitude, just south of 37 degrees north latitude where it was intended to be. The currently accepted boundary line is about 360 feet south of where it should be, slightly more than a football field.
     There has been some controversy about whether New Mexico and Utah really touch each other at a corner. My answer to that is "Yes They Do." Yes they do touch each other at the corner because, even though the Four Corners is a little off, all four states involved have accepted the current spot as the official meeting place of all of the states and that makes it official. It has also been approved by the United States Congress and since everyone involved has approved of it, that trumps any written description of the boundary.
    

Boundary Lines, Facts & Figures

So I have already established the fact that the north-south boundary line that intersects at the Four Corners Monument was never meant to be on the 109th meridian as everyone assumes. That being said, the monument is still not exactly where it should be located. However, that fact is irrelevant because since all of the states involved have accepted the Four Corners Monument as the official meeting point of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, it is the legal boundary. Since the states have accepted the boundary, that trumps any written description of the boundary.
  Yes the north-south boundary is slightly off, but so is the east-west boundary, which is supposed to run precisely on 36 degrees north latitude. This line was not surveyed by Robbins. In fact this line was surveyed by quite a few people and none of them nailed it exactly.  As I mentioned in a previous installment about the Four Corners, there is a place where New Mexico, Colorado and Oklahoma all come together and the east-west border is 2 millimeters south of where it should be. But this line, even though it is a little bit off, is the legally accepted boundary between New Mexico and Colorado.
  In fact, there is a place on the New Mexico/Colorado border that is even farther off than 2 millimeters. About 150 miles due east of the Four Corners where the state border angles to the southeast for about half a mile before resuming its east-west journey. Twelve miles east of that point, there is a very slight, almost imperceptible slant back to the northeast. The slant is about 3 miles long but it is so slight that it only goes northward only about 1/10 of a mile. On the east side of New Mexico, where the state borders Texas, there was a correction made to an erroneous survey. At this point, New Mexico laps above the top of the Texas Panhandle for 2 1/4 miles. The New Mexico/Oklahoma border is precisely on 103 degrees west longitude, but the New Mexico/Texas border is 2 1/4 miles west of that line because of a serious surveying error that was made.
  In Yellowstone National Park, the border between Wyoming and Montana angles northward and southward several times.
  The border between Vermont and Quebec, supposedly on the 45th parallel, deviates from that line several times. The line is very erratic. In fact, the town of Derby Line, Vermont, which is located on the Canadian border, is north of the 45th parallel. Technically, it should be in Canada, but the presently accepted boundary line is official, thereby making Derby Line part of the United States. .
  People make a big deal about the fact the Four Corners is not exactly in the right place, but there are many, many borders that are not in exactly the right place.  It doesn't matter that the Four Corners monument isn't in the exact spot that it should be in because, since all 4 states involved have accepted, it is a legal border and none of the states involved have ever tried to move it.

Four Corners, The Controversy

The source of the rumors about the Four Corners Monument being located in the wrong place is the false assumption that the north and south line that intersects at the Four Corners was intended to be on 109th Meridian, also known as 109 degrees West longitude. That was not the case. Back in the 1800s, many people used lines of latitude(called parallels) and lines of longitude(called meridians) to mark artificial borders. The United States Congress did this when it came to east-west lines using latitude. However, before 1912, Congress predominantly used the "Washington Meridian" instead of the more popular "Greenwich Meridian" to make surveys and mark borders involving longitude. The Greenwich Meridian is the "0" point for lines of longitude and it runs through the Royal Observatory in London, England. The "Washington Meridian" now defunct, once ran through the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.
  Initially, New Mexico and Arizona were combined into a single territory and when the decision was made to split them into separate territories, it was originally decided to split them with an east-west line, running the border on 34 degrees North latitude, a short distance north of Phoenix. However, this idea never came to fruition and it was decided to split the territories on a north-south line. The act of Congress that called for splitting New Mexico Territory, and thus created Arizona Territory during the Civil War stipulated that line would be "32 degrees west of the Washington Meridian."
This worked out to 109 degrees, 2 minutes and 59.25 seconds West longitude. This placed the line 2 3/4 miles west of the 109th meridian.
  A reknowned surveyor of the day by the name of Charles Robbins was hired to survey the line. He diligently surveyed the line and marked the intersection of the line with the 37th parallel of latitude with a wooden post. Evidently he had encountered quite a bit of ridicule and skepticism while he was making his survey because, after he finished, he wrote a letter to the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper (which is still in business today) about his survey.  His letter is as follows:
     "  It seems to have been the general impression that the line was 109 degrees of   
        longitude west of Greenwich. Such is not the case, as was the law makes it 32 degrees 
        west from Washington, which corresponds to 109 degrees, 02 minutes, 59.25 seconds west
        from Greenwich, which places the line a small fraction less than 3 miles farther west than
       would have been the case if it had been run as the 109 degrees of longitude" 
  In the next installment of this blog, I will go into more specifics about the placing of the Four Corners Monument.     

A Unique Place

There is one a very unique geographic place in the United States. It is the only place in the United States where 4 different states meet. It is called "Four Corners" and is the meeting point of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. There are plenty of places where 3 states come together, such as Texas/New Mexico/Oklahoma; Oklahoma/New Mexico/Colorado; Colorado/Nebraska/Wyoming; Nevada/Idaho/Oregon; New York/Vermont/Massachusetts; Indiana/Michigan/Ohio; Arizona/Nevada/California; New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania and plenty of others, but the Four Corners is unique.
  The Four Corners Monument lies in Apache County, Arizona; San Juan County, Utah; San Juan County, New Mexico and Montezuma County, Colorado.
 The Colorado side of the meeting point is on the Ute Mountain Indian Reservation and the other three sides are on the Navajo Indian Reservation.
  This unusual area has become quite a tourist attraction, attracting about 300,000 visitors annually. The last time I visited this area was in June, 2009, I have visited this area on at least a dozen other occasions. It is amusing to watch people posing for pictures in wildly contorted positions so they can be in 4 states at one time!
The Navajo Tribe operates a tribal park on their three sides of the monument. The Ute side is evidently not a tribal-government maintained park, but it is a popular tourist destination nevertheless. When I was approaching the Four Corners on my most recent visit, it was an odd sight to see a big crowd of people gathered in what otherwise is a forbidding desert locale. I saw the crowd of people from about a mile away!
  Recently, some of the luster has been taken off of this unique location because of published stories about errors made in the original survey of the boundary line. The stories state that the Four Corners Monument is not in the right place. The fact is, the monument is a little bit off, but so is nearly every other border in the United States that follows lines of latitude and longitude. The tri-point that marks the corner of New Mexico, Colorado and Oklahoma, which is supposed to be exactly on 37 degrees North Latitude, is actually
2 millimeters south of where it should be. Two millimeters! That is 2/3 of an inch! Surveying is not an exact science, but given the primitive nineteenth century surveying equipment that was used in establishing
 the Four Corners, I think the surveyor did an impeccable job. Furthermore, since the monument has been accepted by all 4 states involved and approved by the United States Congress, that makes it the legal meeting point of all 4 states.  State and Congressional approval trumps written descriptions of the border and this has always been the case.
  In the next installment of this blog, I will go into specifics about where the Four Corners Monument was intended to be and where it actually is.

Indian Country

In my travels, I have visited quite a few Indian reservations. Most of the ones I have visited are in Arizona and New Mexico. Indian reservations come in all sizes. Many of the ones in California are "postage stamp" size. There is one reservation near Sacramento, California that is only slightly larger than a football field! The biggest reservation of them all is the Navajo Reservation, which is mostly in Arizona, but also extends into New Mexico and Utah. This reservation  is roughly 60% in Arizona, 35% in New  Mexico and 5% in Utah. The Navajo Reservation, or Dinetah in the Navajo language, covers about 30,000 square miles. That makes it about the size of West Virginia and Connecticut combined! This is the reservation I have visited most often because, since it is so big it is pretty hard to travel anywhere in northern Arizona without going through at least part of the reservation. It is a commanding presence in the northern part of the state. I lived in Arizona for 18 years, so I have seen quite a bit of the Navajo Reservation.
  Most of the reservation is desert and that is the landscape people associate with the Navajo Reservation. However, there are also grasslands, pinon/juniper scrublands and majestic forests of ponderosa pines. The most heavily forested part of the reservation is the Chuska Mountains. The highest point in this mountain range is Roof Butte at 9,835 feet above sea level. It is on the eastern edge of Arizona, only two miles from the New Mexico border.
  The most well known part of the reservation is the iconic and enigmatic Monument Valley, which straddles the Arizona/Utah border in the northern part of the reservation. Monument Valley attracts approximately 3 million visitors per year and is the second most popular tourist destination in Arizona after the Grand Canyon. This area is part of a Navajo Tribal Park that lies mostly in Arizona, but extends into Utah. Numerous movies have been filmed here, mostly of the Western genre. Alot of commercials have been filmed in Monument Valley also. The Mitten Buttes are world famous and are an iconic symbol of the American West.
Alot of the Navajo Reservation consists of red rock formations, such as buttes, mesas and cliffs. This is the scenery that is associated with southern Utah, but alot of northern Arizona and a small part of northwestern New Mexico looks like this also.

Dayton versus Genoa, part 2

In 1849, a man by the name of Abner Blackburn was on his way to the gold rush that gave sudden and dramatic wealth to California and led to its establishment as a state in 1850. Blackburn was only 23 years old, but he was already a very distinguished man. In his young life he had crossed the Great Basin seven times in four years, marched in the Mormon Battalion to Santa Fe, drove horse and oxen teams for Brigham Young, was chief cook for Brigham Young and Young's family and he personally knew many of the most famous people of the time, such as; Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith, famous explorer Jim Bridger and John Sutter, the man who founded Sacramento, California.
Blackburn was part of the expedition that included John Reese, the man who built Mormon Station, which gave rise to the town of Genoa in June, 1850. A few members of the expedition stayed behind in the area that would become Dayton, Nevada in the summer of 1849 while the rest of the team headed over the mountains to California. One of these members was Abner Blackburn.
In July of 1849, Blackburn found gold in the mouth of a canyon. That canyon is now called Gold Canyon. He quickly sent word to his compatriots that had already left. Apparently some of them got the message but not all of them, because only a few of them returned. Or maybe the first ones to get the word decided to keep it to themselves so they have a greater share of the wealth. At any rate, by October of 1849, several members of the expedition returned to the Gold Canyon area and found some cabins already under construction. When the team members rejoined their friends, that brought the population of the area to 15.
The evidence says that this new town, now known as Dayton, Nevada, was occupied by a small group of people beginning in the summer of 1849 and has been continuously occupied ever since.
In May of 1851, Mrs. Lucena Parsons noted in her journal that about 200 people were living and working in the Dayton area. The initial construction of cabins in Dayton precedes the establishment of the Mormon Station Trading Post at Genoa by 11 months. Mrs. Parsons journal entry that says about 200 people were already living in Dayton was made in the same month that Orson Hyde and his group of Mormon pioneers were arriving at the abandoned trading post at Genoa to establish a new town. The trading post was established in 1850, but was abandoned at the onset of winter. There is no evidence of previous occupation of the Genoa area in 1849, which is the year Blackburn made his gold discovery at Dayton and the commencement of residential construction soon thereafter.
The facts about the construction of cabins at Dayton taking place in the summer of 1849 is mentioned in Abner Blackburn's journal.

Dayton versus Genoa

In 1849, a man by the name of John Reese went to California to try his luck in the famous California Gold Rush. He went back over the mountains to Utah Territory(now Nevada), for the winter. In the spring of 1850, he headed back to California. When he discovered that the mountains were still blocked with snow, he decided to build a trading post in a lush, grassy valley near the foothills of the daunting mountain range on the trail that led over the mountains. This trading post was basically just a "lean-to" type of structure that Reese used to sell supplies to California-bound gold seekers. This trading post opened in June of 1850 and closed in October of the same year.
The next spring, in 1851, a Mormon Elder by the name of Orson Hyde, arrived at the Mormon Station trading post. He, along with a group of about 100 people, had been dispatched by church leader Brigham Young to establish a town and set up a government in the western part of Utah Territory. His new town sprang up on the site of the crude trading post that had been established the previous summer. In the next few years, others moved in, both Mormon and non-Mormon and Mormon Station was soon a thriving town. In 1855, Orson Hyde renamed the town Genoa, because he admired Christopher Columbus and Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy. However, he changed the pronunciation from "JENN-0-a" to " jenn-OH-a" with accent on the second syllable. In 1857, many of the original settlers left when they were recalled by Brigham Young to participate in the "Utah War" that was raging back home. This left just a handful of people in Genoa, but the town did not become a ghost town, it still served as a supply center for the area. Before it became the county seat of Douglas County, Nevada, Mormon Station/Genoa was the county seat of Carson County, Utah.
While Genoa can trace its beginnings to June of 1850, it was not a permanent settlement until one year later, in 1851. The trading post that opened in June of 1850 closed the following November before winter conditions became too harsh. The locale was completely abandoned until the following spring.

Genoa

As I wandered around Douglas County, I eventually came to the charming little town of Genoa. Genoa was the county seat of Douglas County until 1916. That is the year the county government moved eight miles east to Minden, where it remains today. Douglas County was created in 1861, shortly after Nevada was granted territorial status by Abraham Lincoln. Until then, this area had been part of Utah, which was still a territory. Even though Nevada was carved from Utah, Nevada became a state 32 years before Utah did.
Genoa grew to a population of about 1,000 people. The peak year for the town was 1910. That is the year a devastating fire swept through the downtown business district and leveled two entire blocks, several homes, the county courthouse and Mormon Station, which was a trading post that got the town started. Even though the county government authorized for repairs to made to the courthouse, the county seat moved to Minden six years later. Today, the old courthouse is a historical museum. I visited this museum, plus Mormon Station across the street, while I was in Genoa.
For 4 years, the Douglas County government met in the trading post and court was held in the loft of the building. This situation lasted until the Douglas County Courthouse opened for business in 1865.
Genoa is 12 miles south of Carson City. It is located in a lush, grassy meadow at the foot of the heavily forested Sierra Nevada mountain range. This lush, grassy valley is why the town got started in the first place, because it was prime grazing land. The town that was established in this location became a major supply center for prospectors before they headed over the mountains to California to participate in the gold rush that began in 1849.
Genoa is considered to be the oldest town in Nevada and this title has been officially bestowed upon it by the state historical commission. The Genoa Chamber of Commerce also says Genoa is the oldest town in Nevada. However, this fact has been debated for years. There is ample evidence that says Dayton, which is about 30 miles to the northeast, is older than Genoa. I have done research into the matter and I believe Dayton is older than Genoa. In the next installment of this blog, i will compare Genoa and Dayton and tell you why I think Dayton is older.

Venturing South

Bordering Carson City on the south is Douglas County. It is the wealthiest county in Nevada. Douglas County has about 60,000 people, but most of the county is suburban sprawl. It is a "bedroom" community for Carson City. The biggest town in the county is Gardnerville Ranchos, which is an unincorporated town of 14,278 people. It is a new town. Development began in the 1970s. It marks the southern edge of the suburban sprawl that spreads southward from Carson City. Four miles north of Gardnerville Ranchos is Minden, population 4,479. Minden is the county seat of Douglas County and has a beautiful, historic downtown business district that consists of many architectural styles.
Between Minden and Gardnerville Ranchos is Gardnerville, with 6,067 people. The old Douglas High School is located here. The original building of the school, which faces Main Street, contains a great historical museum. It is the managed by the county.
Douglas County is small, only 710 square miles. most of the population lives in the Eagle Valley, which runs north and south down the length of the county. There are also several thousand people in the west edge of the county, on the shore of Lake Tahoe. The eastern half of the county is nearly uninhabited, containing only handful of residents. The south part of the county is very rural.
The western part of Douglas County contains Lake Tahoe, one of the most famous lakes in the world. It is also one of the deepest lakes in the world, plunging to a maximum depth of 1,630 feet. it is also one of the bluest lakes in the world. The water is so clear that, in many places, a person can see over 100 feet down. Lake Tahoe is a fabulous resort area year round. In summer all area campgrounds are usually booked weeks or months in advance and many people also camp in undesignated areas because all the campgrounds are full. Such "primitive" camping is usually allowed in national forests. Lake Tahoe is bisected by the Nevada/California state border. About 1/3 of the lake is in Nevada and 2/3 of it is in California.
One of Nevada's most popular gambling destinations, the town of Stateline, is on the south shore of Lake Tahoe in Douglas County.
One of my favorite places in Douglas County is the tiny town of Genoa. Officially, it boasts the title of "oldest town in Nevada." This title was bestowed upon it by the state historical society. However, there has been a long running debate between Genoa and Dayton about which town is the oldest. Dayton is located a few miles east of Carson City in Lyon County and I went through that town on my way to Carson City. There is some evidence that says Genoa is older and other evidence that says Dayton is older. I have done alot of research into this matter and my research seems to indicate that Dayton is actually older than Genoa even though Genoa is "officially" older. I will delve into the facts of these towns in the next edition of this blog.

The Corridor to The West

Many famous people from the late 19th and early 20th centuries traveled on Kings Canyon Road. These people included Mark Twain, Ulysses Grant, Theodore Roosevelt and lumber barons D.L. Bliss and Henry Yerington.
This dimunitive, 12 mile long, winding road through the mountains was an important route to California and the Pacific Ocean from the Eagle Valley and its burgeoning population. It was the first road to be built through the rugged Sierra Nevadas.
Today, the majority of the road is owned by the U.S. Forest Service, particularly Humboldt National Forest. The road is still open to the public, but it cannot be negotiated in a modern day, two-wheel drive vehicle because it is extremely steep and rough. it is not maintained by the Forest Service, so driving along this road is purely a "drive at your own risk" venture. Travel on the road today is by four-wheel drive vehicle, by mountain bike, or by foot.
The Kings Canyon toll Road used to begin directly across the street from the Nevada State Capitol. In its early reaches, it was known as West King street. It was the principal east-west street in Nevada's capitol city and today still serves as the "0"point for street addresses in Carson City. It divides the north and south addresses.The front doors of the capitol were once lined up with the middle of the street. When it used to begin opposite the capitol, it also ran alongside the former Ormsby County Courthouse, which is now a part of the state Judicial Complex. Eventually, I don't know exactly when, the first block of the street was closed off to create space for the state Judicial Complex. The Nevada State Supreme Court was once located in this complex, but it is now located behind the capitol on South Stewart Street. The beginning of West King Street today is at the intersection with Curry Street, one block west of the capitol. Thirteen blocks west of the street's beginning is the intersection with North Ormsby Boulevard, one of the busiest streets on the west side of Carson city. This is the point where the name changes from West King Street to Kings Canyon Road. About one mile farther west, the pavement ends and it becomes a dirt road on the west end of a small bridge over Kings Canyon Creek. For 1 1/2 miles, the dirt road is in very good condition and is maintained by the city road department. Then, at a cattle guard, the road enters Humboldt National Forest and is not maintained at all, although it is still open to the public. it is little more than a primitive dirt track, of the sort that is typically seen in national forests. On my vacation in September, 2008, I drove about 200 yards onto the unmaintained portion of the road in my Malibu, but then turned around when I saw big rocks protruding from the road's surface. The road continues like this, in a primitive and unmaintained condition for another 10 miles to its intersection with U.S. Highway 50 at the top of Spooner Summit just outside of Carson City. Over the decades, the Forest Service has discussed closing the road to all vehicular traffic and turning it into a hiking trail, but those efforts have been thwarted by local residents because of the historic significance of the road. After all, it was once a major transportation corridor and briefly serves as a federal highway, the Lincoln Highway, was was the nation's first transcontinental highway. For that reason, it should be kept open.
Considering the fact that the road is not maintained, it gets a surprising amount of use by jeeps and other four-wheel drive vehicles and by mountain bikes. The Forest Service also uses it on occasion to access that part of the forest.

A Historic Transportation Route

As I mentioned in the last installment of this blog, there was a very early transportation corridor the lead west out of the Eagle Valley, where Carson City is located, and connected the area with California. It was originally a Washo Indian trail over the mountains. Beginning in the mid 1850s, prospectors began using the trai in ever increasing numbers in their quest for a new gold or silver find. When the Comstock Lode mining frenzy began in 1859, people came over the trail in droves to try their hand at the newfound gold and silver deposits in western Nevada.
Shortly after Nevada became a territory in 1861, the legislature authorized Alfred Helms and Butler Ives to make improvements to the well-worn footpath to handle the increasing transportation demands. They responded by building a road, called Kings Canyon Road and after the road was finished, in 1863, they began charging tolls for the use of the road. The tolls were removed in 1878 when another road farther south was constructed, but Kings Canyon Road remained the pathway of choice to most travelers in spite of the presence of another road nearby.
There was very little maintenance or improvements made to the road, despite its heavy use, until 1913, with the advent of the automobile. When one of America's first highways, the Lincoln Highway, was being planned, it was decided that Kings Canyon Road would be utilized as part of the highway's route. Immediately, improvements were made to make the rough road conducive to automobile traffic. When it was officially declared a federal highway, the Carson good Roads Association began placing markers on the road to guide travelers.
Traffic nearly stopped completely on this road in 1928 when U.S. Highway 50 was built through Clear Creek Canyon a few miles south. Highway 50 and Kings Canyon Road diverged at the apex of Spooner Summit, elevation 7,146 feet. This is about 2,500 feet above the floor of the Eagle Valley. Since then, U.S. Highway 50 has been re-routed and is now a modern, 4-lane, divided highway that carries alot of traffic.

Carson City Facts and Figures, 2

The east side of Carson City is sliced up by numerous canyons. These canyons include Eldorado, Brunswick, Sand, Hackett and Sullivan. Eldorado Canyon is on the eastern border of the city, lying half in Carson city and half in Lyon County. There are other canyons in this area also.
The west side of the city is heavily forested and climbs up into the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The highest point in the city is Snow Valley Peak, which rises to 9,214 feet above sea level. The west side of the city is mostly part of Humboldt National Forest, which covers 2 1/2 million acres and Lake Tahoe-Nevada State Park, which covers over 14,000 acres on the Nevada side of that famous alpine lake. The east side, undeveloped area of Carson City has some dirt roads that leads to still active mines, abandoned mining roads that are being reclaimed by nature, primitive dirt tracks that penetrate the desert leading to nowhere in particular, dirt roads leading to private ranches and huge areas of roadless wilderness. The west side undeveloped area of the city is much the same in terms of roadless areas and primitive dirt tracks, but these are mountain roads instead of desert roads. The west side also has 2 busy highways, U.S. Highway 50, which runs along the southern edge of the city and State Highway 28, which runs along the shore of Lake Tahoe. Highway 50 is a very busy, 4-lane highway that provides the most direct access to Sacramento and the California Coast. however, it is also a steep and twisting mountain road that crosses and recrosses the boundary between Carson city and Douglas County several times in its torturous path through the mountains.
State Highway 28, on the far west side of Carson City, runs along the shore of Lake Tahoe for part of its run and then a few miles away from the lake farther south. Along this busy highway, there are a few tourist related businesses, but the development is small.
The far western edge of Carson City is in Lake Tahoe, all the way out to the California border in the middle of the lake. This makes Carson City one of only three state capital cities in the United States that border another state or country. Trenton, New Jersey borders Pennsylvania and Juneau, Alaska borders British Columbia, Canada.
The only road access from the handful of businesses along the lakeshore are along Highway 28 to its junction with Highway 50 four miles south of the city in Douglas County, then along Highway 50 as it winds its way through unpopulated mountain and forest. There is also a primitive dirt road, called Kings Canyon Road, that provides access to the main part of the city, but it is only negotiable by 4-wheel drive vehicles. I will have more to say on this historic road in an upcoming edition of this blog.

Carson City Facts and Figures

Until 1968, Carson City was the county seat of Ormsby County, the smallest county in Nevada. In that year, the state legislature merged the city and the county, creating special district status similar to Washington, D.C.'s status as the national capital. Washington, D.C. is in a federal district and is not part of any state. This means that Carson City is no longer part of any county, instead it is by itself. After this merger took place, the city government was given some unusual responsibilities that most municipal governments do not have. For example, there is no longer a city police force. The consolidated city is patrolled by the Carson City Sheriff;s Department. A sheriff's department is a county function. The city government has more authority than most city governments do because they also perform county functions.
Today, the city boundaries are the same as the extinct county's boundaries. Ormsby County, which was one of the first counties to created in Nevada, no longer exists. Carson City covers 146 square miles. This area is slightly larger than the area that Philadelphia, Pennsylvania covers, the nation's sixth largest city and almost exactly the same as the area of Portland, Oregon, a city with over half a million people. Most of the land within the boundaries of Carson City is undeveloped. This area consists of desert in the east and a lush forest of spruce and pine in the west. Most of the area within the city is roadless and another good-sized portion of the city is serviced only by primitive dirt tracks that lead to canyons, old mines or private ranches.
Of the 146 square miles that the city covers, only about 1/4 of it is developed, about 35 to 49 square miles. This area is in the middle of the city and extends between the northern and southern borders. This developed area encompasses the site of two other towns that once existed in the county--Empire City and Lakeview. There is little evidence of either town today since both areas have been overrun with housing developments.

A Fascinating Museum, part 3

This museum also has a slot machine collection, after all, it is in Nevada's capital city. This collection shows the evolution of slot machines through the years.
There is also a "Creatures of Nevada" exhibit. It shows life size replicas of such denizens of the desert as Desert Tortoise, Desert Bighorn Sheep, Lahontan Cutthroat Trout, Great Basin Rattlesnake and many others.
There is an exhibit about the history of the Stewart Indian School, which was once located on the south side of Carson city until its closure in 1981.
A particularly fascinating exhibit is a collection of photos from the early 20th century boom town of Goldfield, which reached its maximum size in 1906 in what has been dubbed as "Nevada's second mining boom." This mining boom was concentrated in the central part of the state and gold was the mineral that drew people from far and wide to that part of the state. I will have more to say on Goldfield later in this blog because I went through this town a few days after my visit to Carson City.
About 1 1/2 miles south of the state capitol building is the Nevada State Railroad Museum. This museum has 5 steam locomotives, several restored passenger coach cars and several freight cars on display from various time periods. Railroads played an important part of life in the late 1800s and were invaluable to mines and mining communities.
I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to both of these museums. They do an excellent job of interpreting the state's history.

A Fascinating Museum, part 2

My favorite part of the Nevada State Museum is the Ghost Town Exhibit. Nevada is known for casinos, mines and ghost towns, for the most part. It is also known for deserts and military bases. The Ghost Town Exhibit shows the progression from a tent city to a thriving town to a town that had been abandoned after the mines played out. Most of Nevada's towns were founded as a result of mining booms. Outside of the two major population centers--the Las Vegas area and the Reno/Carson City area, most of Nevada's towns are still in the boom-and-bust cycle of the mining industry. Nevada is the closest approximation we have today of the Wild West days and the repeated mining booms that led to the settlement of the West and this country's expansion from coast to coast.
There is also a Mining Exhibit with a re-created underground mine shaft complete with tunnel that leads from a museum room to the mine chamber. Inside the mine chamber, there a tools that were commonly used in mines, such as pick axe, shovel, hard hat, dynamite stick, lantern and many other things.
The "Changing Earth Exhibit" has a display of an authentic Columbian Mammoth that was found in the Black Rock Desert of northwestern Nevada. It is estimated to be 1,750,000 years old.
There is an exhibit called "Under One Sky" that details that American Indian habitation of Nevada over the past 10,000 years. There is a large collection of woven baskets and artifacts from the Indian culture. There is also a related exhibit called "Rock Art Gallery."

A Fascinating Museum

Four blocks north of the Nevada State Capitol Building is the Nevada State Museum. The museum occupies the old United States Mint building on the corner of North Carson Street and West Robinson Street. The mint was established in 1870 because the mint in San Francisco(that still operates to this day),was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of gold and silver coming out of the western Nevada mines that needed to be coined. Since Carson City was booming as a result of the mining frenzy, it was decided to build a mint in Carson City. Having a mint in western Nevada also helped to reduce the high cost of shipping to San Francisco.
This former U.S. Mint is a two-story, sandstone edifice with a central cupola. Sound familiar? This building also follows the architectural theme that was established by the Nevada State Capitol Building. This architectural theme gives Carson City a "brown look" in its central business district. It does not have the old Spanish village look that Santa Fe does, however. Santa Fe has adobe buildings with wooden vigas lining narrow, crooked streets and an old, Spanish-style plaza. Carson City may have a "brown look" to it, but it also has a few downtown casinos that give it a "Nevada look."
The Carson City Mint was in operation from 1870 to 1893. It only minted coins. Dollar bills are minted in Washington, D.C. This mint was kept afloat by the high output of the nearby Comstock mines. The mint's "Coin Press #1" is on display in the state museum today and so are many of the coins that were once made there.

Nevada's elegant state capitol, part 4

The inside of the Legislative Building in modern, but stunning. It contains a central section that is only one story, but it is the height of all three stories of the building. That is, a person can stand on the bottom floor and look all the way up to the ceiling of the third floor with no obstructions. Both the Senate Chamber and the Assembly Chamber are in the design of a half circle and are at opposite ends of the building, with the Senate Chamber on the north end, nearest the capitol. Each legislator has an office in the building.
Today, the capitol building is home to the Executive Branch of the state government. The old Senate and Assembly chambers are now museum rooms, but I was told the both houses of the legislature meet one week per session in the capitol, for old time's sake. That means the museum displays have to temporarily stored somewhere.
The Supreme Court has also moved out of the capitol. Initially, it moved across the street, but now it is behind the Legislative Building on the capitol plaza. It is a short distance south of the State Library and Archives Building on South Stewart Street. This department of the state government is also in its third location. After moving out of the capitol, it moved two blocks north, on North Carson Street, into a building that now houses the Nevada Commission on Tourism and Nevada Magazine. Actually, it is in its fourth location because it has been located in two places inside the capitol, the second being that octagonal rear addition that was added in 1905 and now houses the state Controller's office.
The old Supreme Court Chamber inside the capitol has been restored to look the way it did in 1871, the year the capitol opened.
Carson City has one of the biggest concentrations of state office buildings of any capital city in the country. It is basically a government town, there is very little other industry there. State government is Carson City's industry.

Nevada's elegant state capitol, part 3

In 1971, exactly 100 years after the opening of the state capitol building, a new State Legislative Building opened next door. Due to the growth of the state and the growth of government in general, the capitol building had become severely overcrowded. Before the Legislative Building opened, three blocks of East Second Street and East Third Street were closed between the capitol and the Legislative Building so the buildings could be next door to each other on the same plaza. Also, to accommodate the new building itself, three blocks of East Fourth Street was closed permanently. Today, there is no vestige of these streets remaining. The new Legislative Building sits on top of the former alignment of East Fourth Street and the other two streets have been completely plowed up and landscaped. Now the Capitol Plaza covers 15 square blocks and contains 5 buildings--the capitol, the Legislative Building, the Supreme Court, the state library and archives building and the Blasdel State Office Building. There are many other state office buildings in the area, in addition to the ones on the plaza.
The Nevada State Legislative Building was built to mimic the State Capitol Building next door. Instead of sandstone, it covered with adobe plaster. As a result, it looks alot like a building in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The stucco exterior gives the building the same tan color that the capitol building has. The Legislative Building also has arched windows with white trim and a small, silver dome, just like the capitol. However, the Legislative Building's dome is mounted on top of the building differently. Instead of being mounted on top of an octagonal tower that rises above the building, the dome on the Legislative Building is mounted on top of a three-sided vestibule that protrudes from the front, center of the building. This vestibule has arched windows in it, like the capitol tower. It is supported by four, tan-colored columns that match the building's exterior. The Legislative Building's dome is circular, instead of six-sided like the one on the capitol is.

Nevada's elegant state capitol, part 2

The capitol grounds in Carson City are stunning! I have been on the grounds of nine state capitol plazas and the one in Carson City is my favorite. The capitol is nearly hidden behind all of the trees that are on the plaza. It is a veritable forest right in the middle of Carson City. The trees represent many different types and were donated by people, businesses or schools. Next to each tree is a small, concrete plaque that looks like a small headstone that indicates what type of tree it is, when it was planted and what county it came from. There are also a few trees that originally grew on the plaza when it was first set aside. There is also a double sidewalk that leads from Carson Street to the front porch of the building and the space between the two sidewalks is full of different types of flowers. There are so many trees on the plaza that it is hard to take a picture of the building! When I sat at a red light next to the capitol and I was facing the capitol, I could barely see the building! All I could see was about three feet of one of the Doric columns. There are a couple of places to stand on the capitol grounds where a person can take a decent picture of the building, but that picture would only be of the middle part of the front side of the building. The ends of the buildings would still be obscured by trees! I guess the best time to take a picture of the building would be in autumn and winter, when most of the trees have lost their leaves. The evergreen trees on the plaza would still have their leaves, though.
If a person goes a few blocks from the capitol in any direction, all he or she would see is the silver dome and the top of the white tower that supports it! That is all I could see from my motel room on the south side of town.
The capitol underwent an extensive rehabilitation from 1977 to 1981 to make it earthquake proof and fire proof. There is one result of that rehabilitation that I do not like and that is the fact that the original dome, which was made of pure silver, was replaced by a fiberglass dome that is painted silver. It is six-sided and looks like the original dome in all respects except that it is made out of fiberglass.

Nevada's elegant state capitol

The Nevada State Capitol was built in the form of a Grecian cross. The architectural style of the capitol is a mixture of Doric, Ionic and Corinthian,which are compounds of the Greek Order and yet the building is referred to as "Italianate" style. That octagonal tower above the capitol adds a really nice touch to the building. It duplicates the arched-window concept of the building while providing an elegant support for the silver dome that rises above it. The tower is 30 feet in diameter and the top of it is 120 feet above the ground.
In 1875, a fence was installed to completely enclose the capitol plaza to keep wandering cattle from entering the capitol grounds!
In 1905, an octagonal, addition was added to the back side of the capitol to serve as the state library.It was constructed out of the same material and in the same architectural style as the rest of the building. This addition now houses the state controller's office and his or her support staff.
In 1915, north and south wings were added to the capitol to provide larger chambers for the Senate and the Assembly. (Most states call the lower house of the legislature the House of Representatives, but some states call it the House of Delegates and 2 states, Nevada and California, call it the Assembly).
The front of the capitol building is accessed by seven concrete steps that lead to a small porch that is graced by the four Doric columns. The front entrance doors are wooden with large windows in the upper half. These wooden doors also add a nice touch to the building.
I love the interior of this building! The floors and wainscoting are made of Alaskan marble. On the walls there are decorative friezes that show the various industries and resources in Nevada. The ceilings have chandeliers and the arched windows have panes of twenty-six ounce French Crystal. The wooden stairs and bannisters also add a nice touch to the building and give it a historic ambience.
The silver dome is small and it is unusual because it is a six-sided dome sitting on top of an eight-sided tower. The silver dome represents the fact that the early mining boom that led to the creation of Nevada as a territory and, eventually, a state, was a silver boom. Silver is still the predominant mineral found in Nevada to this day.
The interior hallways are lined with paintings of past governors.

Carson City, a new capital city

In 1861, the three year old town of Carson City was named as the temporary capital of the newly created Nevada Territory, which had been split off from Utah. Nevada was not as big, area-wise, as it is now, the boundaries have been expanded several times since then to the east and to the south. One year later, in 1865, the eastern boundary was extended eastward into Utah one degree of longitude. Then, in 1867, the boundary was extended south, resulting in the southern tip that Nevada has today that includes Las Vegas. This land was taken out of Arizona Territory. Carson City, as was most of the population, was located on the far west edge of this area, next to the California border, in a well-watered area in the eastern foothills of the majestic Sierra Nevada mountain range. Three years later, upon the announcement of statehood for Nevada, the "temporary capital" status was made permanent.
During this momentous decade, the population of Carson City exploded from a mere 714 people to 3,042! The ongoing mining rush in the nearby mountains had alot to do with the growth, but the new capital city status further enhanced the town's growth.
When the decade of the 1870s dawned upon the land, the state government still did not have a state capitol building. They were still meeting in Abraham Curry's Warm Springs Hotel plus any other place they could find that offered sizable office space, such as banks. Some of the state government offices were even located in private homes! It was time to build a capitol building on the plaza in the middle of town that Abe Curry set aside for that purpose. The legislative act that provided for the construction of a state capitol building was signed by the governor on February 23, 1869.
The two-story, native sandstone, building was completed in 1871.
It is a light brown color due to its sandstone construction. The sandstone blocks represent the fact that most of Nevada is desert. The building has arched windows and fluted, Doric columns that are actually metal columns that are painted white to look like marble columns. In fact, all of the trim on this beautiful building is white, the window surrounds, the columns, the railing around the small porch that protrudes over the front entrance, the pediment and the eight-sided, octagonal tower above the building that supports the small silver dome. This octagonal tower also has arched windows in it.