1858 is the pivotal year that started the state of Nevada on its present course. That is the year that Abraham Curry arrived in the Eagle Valley. Soon thereafter he surveyed and platted a townsite. When Curry arrived, there was already talk about this area being separated from Utah Territory and becoming its own territory. Curry was so sure that his new town would become the capital that, when he drew up the town plat, he left a large, vacant space in the heart of town so the future territory would have a place to build a capitol building.
Curry's new town was indirectly named after the famed western explorer Kit Carson. The town was named for the Carson River and the river was named for Kit Carson.
Shortly after Carson City was settled, Abraham Curry built the Warm Springs Hotel and immediately began renting out rooms.
At first, Carson City was a sleepy little village. However, one year later, the Comstock Lode Mining Boom began and brought people from all over the country to this corner of Nevada Territory. This time, it was not gold that attracted people to pull up stakes and leave, it was silver. There was silver everywhere! The biggest lodes of silver ever discovered! Silver is still the principal mineral that is mined in Nevada. The silver rush of 1859 brought economic prosperity to Curry's new town, which was only a year old. Not only did Carson City become a "mining camp," but so did most of the other towns in the immediate area. Most of the mining was done in and around Dayton, Virginia City and Silver City. There was also gold found just to the south of Virginia City and this led to the creation of the town of Gold Hill.
This boom of 1859 brought about 20 years of economic prosperity to this area.
On March 2, 1861, the United States Congress did the inevitable and separated Nevada from Utah and declared it a new territory. The booming town of Carson City was declared the temporary capital by the newly created Territorial Legislature, much to the delight of Abraham Curry. Curry began leasing space in his hotel as meeting rooms for the fledgling government, since his open plaza in the middle of town was being used to graze cows.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Carson City, a refresher
I talked about Carson City, Nevada at length on my other travel blog, "In My Travels," but since I have not talked about it since June, I will start with a refresher.
In September, 2008, I visited Nevada's capital city for the first time. I spent two nights there and fell in love with the city! It is one of the oldest cities in Nevada. In fact, all of Nevada's oldest settlements are in this western part of the state near Lake Tahoe and the California border. Until the early 1900s, this area contained over 95% of Nevada's population. Las Vegas didn't exist until 1905!
Carson City is located in the beautiful Eagle Valley, in the eastern foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Ranchers began moving into the Eagle Valley in 1849, the year of the famous California gold rush. Many of them spent the winter here instead of trying to cross the formidable mountain range in the coldest part of the year. Alot of them stayed. However, no town was established at first. Instead, the lush, grassy valley was occupied by widely scattered farms and ranches. In the spring of 1851, the Eagle Station Trading Post opened for business. It served as a local grocery store and also as a stage station. This was the nebulous beginning of Carson City, which later grew on the same spot. For seven years, this trading post served as the focal point of life in the valley, serving farmers and ranchers as well as the occasional traveler that ventured through this area, usually on their way to the California gold fields.
The Eagle Valley was, and still is, a lush grassy area that is well-watered by the Sierra Nevadas. This mountain range lies mostly in California and is home to some of the coldest and snowiest winters in the United States. It is an area that was ripe for settlement and is the primary reason that was the first part of Nevada to be settled. Today, this area is still home to about 30% of Nevada's population, with roughly 65% living in the Las Vegas area at the south end of the state. That leaves only 5% of the population scattered over the rest of the state!
The trading post served as the focal point of the immediate area of what is now Carson City, but there were two towns in the vicinity that got the start even before the trading post opened. I have already talked about one of them on "In My Travels," but I will talk about it again, plus the place at the south end of the Eagle Valley, later in this blog because there is a dispute as to which town is the oldest town in Nevada. One town has the "official" title, but I think it should be bestowed on the other town based on research I have done.
In September, 2008, I visited Nevada's capital city for the first time. I spent two nights there and fell in love with the city! It is one of the oldest cities in Nevada. In fact, all of Nevada's oldest settlements are in this western part of the state near Lake Tahoe and the California border. Until the early 1900s, this area contained over 95% of Nevada's population. Las Vegas didn't exist until 1905!
Carson City is located in the beautiful Eagle Valley, in the eastern foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Ranchers began moving into the Eagle Valley in 1849, the year of the famous California gold rush. Many of them spent the winter here instead of trying to cross the formidable mountain range in the coldest part of the year. Alot of them stayed. However, no town was established at first. Instead, the lush, grassy valley was occupied by widely scattered farms and ranches. In the spring of 1851, the Eagle Station Trading Post opened for business. It served as a local grocery store and also as a stage station. This was the nebulous beginning of Carson City, which later grew on the same spot. For seven years, this trading post served as the focal point of life in the valley, serving farmers and ranchers as well as the occasional traveler that ventured through this area, usually on their way to the California gold fields.
The Eagle Valley was, and still is, a lush grassy area that is well-watered by the Sierra Nevadas. This mountain range lies mostly in California and is home to some of the coldest and snowiest winters in the United States. It is an area that was ripe for settlement and is the primary reason that was the first part of Nevada to be settled. Today, this area is still home to about 30% of Nevada's population, with roughly 65% living in the Las Vegas area at the south end of the state. That leaves only 5% of the population scattered over the rest of the state!
The trading post served as the focal point of the immediate area of what is now Carson City, but there were two towns in the vicinity that got the start even before the trading post opened. I have already talked about one of them on "In My Travels," but I will talk about it again, plus the place at the south end of the Eagle Valley, later in this blog because there is a dispute as to which town is the oldest town in Nevada. One town has the "official" title, but I think it should be bestowed on the other town based on research I have done.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Carson City, Nevada, September, 2008
Beginning on August 30, 2008, I embarked on a memorable, two-and-a-half week vacation that ranks among my best vacations ever. It ranks as the vacation where I put the most mileage on my car, about 6,400 miles! While nearly the entire vacation stands out in my mind, some places in particular stand out, such as Golden Spike National Historic Site in northern Utah; the rugged water and lava-carved desert of southwestern Idaho; the Virgin River Gorge of northwestern Arizona; the secretive Area 51 military base in Nevada, which is actually the world's worst kept secret because everyone knows of its existence despite all the government denials; the abandoned Wendover Air Force Base in western Utah; Virginia City, Nevada, which is one of the most famous mining boom towns from the "Wild West" era; and particularly Carson City, Nevada's capital.
On my other travel blog, "In My Travels," I talked in depth about this vacation for 9 months and I could have talked alot more, but I was trying to limit my writings so it didn't get too long and my readers lost interest as a result. Finally, in early June of 2009, I decided to stop writing about this vacation so I could pursue other projects, but this epic vacation is still fresh in my mind, like it just happened yesterday, so I am going to resume talking about it on this blog because there is so much more that I want to say. I will start with my favorite part of the vacation, Carson City. I spent 2 days and nights in this beautiful and historic city and there is so much more that I can say about Nevada's capital city and its immediate area.
Until this vacation, all I had seen of Nevada was Clark County, where Las Vegas is. My travels in Nevada had been mostly confined to Las Vegas and points south, such as the towns of Boulder City, Searchlight and Laughlin, with 2 recent visits to Mesquite, Overton and Logandale, in the eastern part of Clark County. I have now seen a sizable chunk of Nevada and the memories will stay wit5h me for the rest of my life. I will attempt to capture some of that magic in this blog.
On my other travel blog, "In My Travels," I talked in depth about this vacation for 9 months and I could have talked alot more, but I was trying to limit my writings so it didn't get too long and my readers lost interest as a result. Finally, in early June of 2009, I decided to stop writing about this vacation so I could pursue other projects, but this epic vacation is still fresh in my mind, like it just happened yesterday, so I am going to resume talking about it on this blog because there is so much more that I want to say. I will start with my favorite part of the vacation, Carson City. I spent 2 days and nights in this beautiful and historic city and there is so much more that I can say about Nevada's capital city and its immediate area.
Until this vacation, all I had seen of Nevada was Clark County, where Las Vegas is. My travels in Nevada had been mostly confined to Las Vegas and points south, such as the towns of Boulder City, Searchlight and Laughlin, with 2 recent visits to Mesquite, Overton and Logandale, in the eastern part of Clark County. I have now seen a sizable chunk of Nevada and the memories will stay wit5h me for the rest of my life. I will attempt to capture some of that magic in this blog.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
A Sad Legacy, finale
Chicosa Lake State Park, on the high plains of northeastern New Mexico, is the only abandoned state park I have ever seen. In every other case that I know of, when a state gave up one of its parks for whatever reason, the park simply changes ownership. It becomes a privately-owned park, a county park, a city park or, in some cases, becomes a unit of the national park system or the Bureau of Land Management. It was really sad to see this abandoned park and what makes it even sadder is the fact that it is located in a county that has seen a massive population loss since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
Yet, I can still see some potential for this abandoned recreation area if the state ever wants to take it back, which is unlikely, or if anyone else wanted to take over operations of this park and reopen it. The fact that the lake dried up does not seem like a very good reason to close the park because there are other state parks in New Mexico and in other states that do not have a body of water to attact people, and those parks are doing quite well. Even though Chicosa Lake is now a dry mudflat, I think this place still has the potential to attract visitors and outdoor enthusiasts. First of all, since it is located in a very lightly populated area, it has extremely dark skies at night. This would be great for skywatchers and stargazers(like me). I can also envision a park that is dedicatd to the beauty that the Great Plains has to offer, with nature trails that interpret the different types of vegetation in the area. The western history of the area can also be exploited, such as the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail that once went through the park. Charles Loving and Oliver Goodnight are two of the most famous cattle drovers from the pioneer era. When the park was open, its museum dealt with the cattle drive history of the park, but I think that can be started up again, even if it is on a smaller scale. If I had the money to buy the park, fix it up and reopen it, I would. In the future, I would like to camp at the abandoned campground so I can sit under the big prairie sky and watch the stars. There is very little light pollution in this area because there are very few residences or businesses. Most of the lights visible are in the diminutive town of Roy, eight miles away and Roy only has 211 people. There are no big industries such as feedlots, mines or quarries that would give off light pollution, just the occasional, forlorn farmhouse or ranchhouse and these are widely separated
In summation, I still see potential for this abandoned state park and I think that either the state of New Mexico should look into reopening it.
Yet, I can still see some potential for this abandoned recreation area if the state ever wants to take it back, which is unlikely, or if anyone else wanted to take over operations of this park and reopen it. The fact that the lake dried up does not seem like a very good reason to close the park because there are other state parks in New Mexico and in other states that do not have a body of water to attact people, and those parks are doing quite well. Even though Chicosa Lake is now a dry mudflat, I think this place still has the potential to attract visitors and outdoor enthusiasts. First of all, since it is located in a very lightly populated area, it has extremely dark skies at night. This would be great for skywatchers and stargazers(like me). I can also envision a park that is dedicatd to the beauty that the Great Plains has to offer, with nature trails that interpret the different types of vegetation in the area. The western history of the area can also be exploited, such as the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail that once went through the park. Charles Loving and Oliver Goodnight are two of the most famous cattle drovers from the pioneer era. When the park was open, its museum dealt with the cattle drive history of the park, but I think that can be started up again, even if it is on a smaller scale. If I had the money to buy the park, fix it up and reopen it, I would. In the future, I would like to camp at the abandoned campground so I can sit under the big prairie sky and watch the stars. There is very little light pollution in this area because there are very few residences or businesses. Most of the lights visible are in the diminutive town of Roy, eight miles away and Roy only has 211 people. There are no big industries such as feedlots, mines or quarries that would give off light pollution, just the occasional, forlorn farmhouse or ranchhouse and these are widely separated
In summation, I still see potential for this abandoned state park and I think that either the state of New Mexico should look into reopening it.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
A Sad Legacy, part 3
This is what Chicosa Lake looks like today. It dried up due to excessive drawdown of the water table. The drying of the lake caused the closure of the state park
While I was walking around the abandoned campground, I noticed alot of dried up cowpies all over the place. I even saw them on the front porch of the bathroom/shower building! Which means cows have grazed this former state park, at least periodically, since the park's closure. One of the most famous cattle trails, the Goodnight-Loving Trail (this name has drawn alot of snickers and innuendos for over a 100 years, but it was named after Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving, two of the most famous cattlemen of the 19th century), came right through this area. When the park was open, there was a museum dedicated to the history of cattle ranching and cattle drives that made the American West famous. It had displays of different cattle brands, barbed-wire fencing displays, displays of various items, such as cooking utensils, that were used on cattle drives and alot of historical photographs. It also had historical displays that pertained to the nearby Santa Fe Trail.
While I was standing at one of the dilapidated picnic ramadas, I saw a small grove of trees to the south and a barely discernible building behind them. Behind this building is an abandoned house, undoubtedly a ranger residence from the days when this was a state park. The larger building was once the museum, now sitting forlornly on the windswept prairie. I am assuming the artifacts that were once contained in this museum have been sent to either the state history museum in Santa Fe, or have been distributed among various museums around the state.
I don't know if there was another campground in the park, I didn't see any evidence of one. I am under the impression that this was the only campground. If so, that means there were only 20 campsites in the park, which isn't very many. However, this is not a heavily visited area by tourists, so 20 campsites may have been adequate.
What is left of Chicosa Lake is an analogy for streams and lakes all over the country. It used to be a reliable source of water on the Goodnight-Loving Trail, but now has been reduced to nothing more than a dried up, cracked mud, depression in the ground. This has been brought about by excessive drawdown of the water table over the decades. Lakes, creeks and rivers have been rendered dry, or at the very least, intermittent, because of human manipulation of the natural process. This is not confined to the United States, but it is happening all over the world.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
A Sad Legacy, part 2
This is the former bathroom/shower building at the abandoned state park
I counted 20 picnic shelters. Most of them are still in good shape, but I noticed that that roof, or canopy, on 3 of them are beginning to cave in. All of these picnic shelters are lined up in a straight line next to the fence that once marked the east boundary of the state park. All road access to these former campsites is overgrown with tall prairie grasses and other types of plants, even a few thorny shrubs and prickly pear cactuses. In front of these picnic shelters is the bathroom/shower building, which looks like it is still in good condition, at least on the outside. I could not check out the inside because the bathrooms were locked. There is a big front patio on this building and towards the front center of that area I saw alot of debris piled up, such as old, rotted wood, nails and other assorted debris. The front edge of this patio is lined with wooden railing, which must have been rather attractive looking when it was maintained regularly. The parking lot next to this building is also overgrown with vegetation. I saw the entrance and exit to this parking lot. There is a wood-rail fence that runs alongside the main park road and there are 2 gaps in it, one on each end of the parking lot, where vehicles were once able to enter the parking lot. When I walked through the tall grass growing in the former parking lot, I kicked up alot of grasshoppers at every step. There was no place to park my car except in the road, although I pulled over as far to the edge of the road as I could.
Directly across the dirt road from the former bathroom building is the dried up bed of Chicosa Lake. Now it is just a dried up, cracked-mud depression in the ground, baked hard by the relentless prairie sun. The lake was de-watered by excessive pumping of the underlying water table, the western edge of the Ogallala Aquifer. This underground reservoir serves the water needs of a large area of the Midwest. The aquifer lies underneath parts of 7 states--New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota. These other parts of the aquifer have also been severely depleted by groundwater pumping to irrigate the innumerable farms in this part of the United States, resulting in the drying up of many streams and lakes.
The parking lot next to the former bathroom/shower building, plus the access roads to all of the adjacent campsites, were dirt, just like the park's main road is dirt. This is typical of many New Mexico state parks that I have seen. I don't know why they keeps the roads unpaved, maybe they want it to look more natural.
When I got back to my car after checking out the bathroom/shower building and several of the picnic shelters and campsites, my shoes and socks were full of stickerburs, so I had to pick them all out.
Chicosa Lake State Park was closed in April of 1996, shortly after the lake dried up. The first time I was ever in Roy, in 1994, I remember seeing brown and white highway signs pointing the way to Chicosa Lake State Park.
A Sad Legacy
On a recent vacation in New Mexico, I went into Harding County, which I spoke of on my other blog "Ramblings From The Rim." This is the county in the northeastern part of that state that was severely depopulated by the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and to this day has never recovered from that traumatic period of American History. I will have more to say on Harding County in the near future, but for now, I want to concentrate on a specific part of that beautiful, but mostly deserted county. I have about 10 pictures that I took of this place and I will post them on this blog as soon as someone shows me how(The photo on this blog was put there originally by the person who set up two of my three blogs. This specific blog I set up on my own, and the photo transferred from the other two blogs when I set it up).
For about the past dozen years, I had noticed that a state park on the high plains of northeastern New Mexico had suddenly disappeared from the map. I know of several other former state parks in other states that are no longer state parks for variuos reasons, usually budget cuts. Because of budget cuts the state either gave the state park to a county and it now serves as a county park, sold the park to a private individual or company and it is now a privately owned campground or, in some cases, the state park is now part of a national park or national forest. Examples of a state park that is now a county park are Tips Park near Three Rivers, Texas; Wolf Creek Lake Park near Perryton, Texas and Painted Rocks County Park near Gila Bend, Arizona. An example of a former state park that is now a privately owned campground is Harry McAdams Park in Hobbs, New Mexico. A former state park that is now a city-owned park is Red Rock Park in Gallup, New Mexico. Examples of 2 state parks that are now Bureau of Land Management Campgrounds are Valley of Fires Park near Carrizozo, New Mexico and Newspaper Rock Campground near Monticello, Utah. An example of another former state park that is now federally-owned is Optima National Wildlife Refuge near Hardesty, Oklahoma. This wildlife refuge was once Optima Lake State Park. One last example is the Kaibab Lake Campground in Kaibab National Forest near Williams, Arizona. This was once a state park.
Well, on my recent trip to Harding County, New Mexico, I found another former state park and was shocked by what I saw! I still have a vivid picture of this place in my mind because it had such a profound effect on me.
For about the past dozen years, I had noticed that a state park on the high plains of northeastern New Mexico had suddenly disappeared from the map. I know of several other former state parks in other states that are no longer state parks for variuos reasons, usually budget cuts. Because of budget cuts the state either gave the state park to a county and it now serves as a county park, sold the park to a private individual or company and it is now a privately owned campground or, in some cases, the state park is now part of a national park or national forest. Examples of a state park that is now a county park are Tips Park near Three Rivers, Texas; Wolf Creek Lake Park near Perryton, Texas and Painted Rocks County Park near Gila Bend, Arizona. An example of a former state park that is now a privately owned campground is Harry McAdams Park in Hobbs, New Mexico. A former state park that is now a city-owned park is Red Rock Park in Gallup, New Mexico. Examples of 2 state parks that are now Bureau of Land Management Campgrounds are Valley of Fires Park near Carrizozo, New Mexico and Newspaper Rock Campground near Monticello, Utah. An example of another former state park that is now federally-owned is Optima National Wildlife Refuge near Hardesty, Oklahoma. This wildlife refuge was once Optima Lake State Park. One last example is the Kaibab Lake Campground in Kaibab National Forest near Williams, Arizona. This was once a state park.
Well, on my recent trip to Harding County, New Mexico, I found another former state park and was shocked by what I saw! I still have a vivid picture of this place in my mind because it had such a profound effect on me.
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