Tonopah, Nevada

“ Goldfield, but recently a desert, is a city of ten thousand people with good hotels, banks, daily papers, water, electric and gas plants, railroad, telegraph and telephone service, and indeed all the utilities of a modern city. Tonopah is of like history with somewhat smaller population. Here are all the cosmopolitan and adventurous spirits that are lured by gold, making these camps on the human side picturesque beyond measure. Marvelous are the stories, the true ones perhaps most so of all. ”

“ Nevada plunged like a wind-driven storm-petrel on her way. She looked up at the ragged sierras of cloud-capped buildings that rose above the streets, shaded by the night lights and the congealed vapors to gray, drab, ashen, lavender, dun, and cerulean tints. ”

“ The Vernal, about a mile below the Nevada, is 400 feet high, a staid, orderly, graceful, easy-going fall, proper and exact in every movement and gesture, with scarce a hint of the passionate enthusiasm of the Yosemite or of the impetuous Nevada, whose chafed and twisted waters hurrying over the cliff seem glad to escape into the open air, while its deep, booming, thunder-tones reverberate over the listening landscape. ”

“ And he, cosily content, knows her as his loving slave, no more rebellious, happy to serve.
But in Nevada, nature is still unconquered, savage and supreme. It is the primordial world, with man a shivering stranger amid its grim aloofness. ”

“ Allegiance to Brigham Young and Utah was renounced, and a temporary territorial government for “Washoe” was instituted by the citizens. Governor Roop was the first and only chief magistrate of it. In due course of time Congress passed a bill to organize “Nevada Territory,” and President Lincoln sent out Governor Nye to supplant Roop.
At this time the population of the Territory was about twelve or fifteen thousand, and rapidly increasing. Silver mines were being vigorously developed and silver mills erected. Business of all kinds was active and prosperous and growing more so day by day. ”

“ Though tempted to pass the night in Grass Valley, impelled by curiosity, we pushed on four miles farther, to Nevada City. It is useless to attempt to convey in words the fascination of Nevada City. My friend, who is familiar with the country, said it reminded him of Italy. Houses rise one above the other on the hillside; while down below, the winding streets with their quaint old-time stores and balconied windows, are equally attractive. The horrors of the previous night at Colfax made the quiet peacefulness of Nevada City the more refreshing. ”

“ We learned that this route was impossible for a car, and so dry that even pack-animals could hardly enter the valley that way. However, we could make a detour of nearly two hundred miles, striking the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad again at Zabrisky or Death Valley Junction, and possibly get in that way. During the debate the sheriff of Silver Lake, a silent person decorated with pistols, volunteered to go with us beyond the Avawatz as far as Saratoga Springs, and as much further as we could drive the car. ”

“ Nevada is one of the very youngest and wildest of the States; nevertheless it is already strewn with ruins that seem as gray and silent and time-worn as if the civilization to which they belonged had perished centuries ago. ”

“ The men of Nevada deserve the thanks of the people of the Territory for their activity, brave conduct and indomitable resolution. Without their aid, the Virginians could never have faced the roughs, or conquered them in their headquarters—their own town. ”

“ No State nor Territory will derive such inestimable advantage from the road as the Territory of Nevada. Situated, as we are, in what, during a great portion of the year, is an almost inaccessible isolation of wealth; with mountains covered with perpetual snow frowning down directly upon us at the west, and with a series of ranges, difficult to cross, at the east of us, with a wilderness fit only for the original inhabitants of the waste, stretching away a thousand miles, and intervening between us and the frontier of agricultural enterprise ”

“ The wealth Nevada has already given to the world is indeed wonderful, but the only grand marvel is the energy expended in its development. The amount of prospecting done in the face of so many dangers and sacrifices, the innumerable tunnels and shafts bored into the mountains, the mills that have been built—these would seem to require a race of giants. ”

“ But it was a desert outpost then, a catch-all for the human drift which every whirlwind of discovery sweeps along. Gold and silver hunting and mine speculations were the industries—gambling, drinking, and murder were the diversions—of the Nevada capital. Politics developed in due course, though whether as a business or a diversion is not clear at this time.
The Clemens brothers took lodging with a genial Irishwoman, Mrs. Murphy, a New York retainer of Governor Nye, who boarded the camp-followers.— [The Mrs. O'Flannigan of 'Roughing It'.] ”

“ The spirit of rivalry between Grass Valley and Nevada City has been accentuated, of late, by the efforts of the former town to secure the honor of being the county seat, on the claim that it possesses nearly double the population of Nevada City. Politics serve to intensify the feeling; Grass Valley, which contains many people of Southern birth, being largely Democratic in its affiliations, whilst Nevada City is as strongly, and, one may add, as conservatively, Republican. ”

“ Arrived at Nevada City, with its steep streets, compactly built up at the centre of the town, church and county court-house on the hillside, the traveler finds himself fairly out of the mountains, the luring fatal mountains, whose very soil has now the color of gold and now the color of blood. ”

“ It has an extreme length from north to south of 483 miles, and an extreme breadth of 320 miles. Its area is 110,700 square miles, of which 960 square miles consist of water.
Topography. The greater part of Nevada lies in the Great American Basin included between the Sierra Nevada on the west and the Wahsatch Mountains on the east, and bounded by cross ranges on the southwest and, less definitely, on the north. Neither of the main boundary ranges comes within this State, the crest of the Sierra lying wholly in California, and the Wahsatch running through the centre of Utah. ”

“ They would have believed his story to be but the wild speech of his wandering mind, had they not found in his tangled hair, mingled with dirt and blood, flakes of gold.
Vermont. Poor old chap.
Silas. With a gold-mine in his hair. Rich old beggar.
Tom. Nevada is no beggar; though no cabin is shut against him, no miner's friendly hand withheld. He will neither eat nor sleep until he has earned both food and shelter. For a willing mate in an ugly tunnel, with a steady grip and a strong arm, give me Nevada.
Nevada (outside) . Who calls Nevada? (Dashes down run, and stands C.; music pianissimo.) ”

“ At one's feet, apparently, lies the placid surface of Donner Lake, its pure blue giving one a premonitory foretaste of the richer blues that await him at Tahoe, while beyond are the mountains that overlook the Great Basin of Nevada.
Summit to Truckee, 11 Miles. Rapidly the road descends, well engineered and easy to negotiate to any responsible driver, and before one is aware he is bowling along on the level Donner Boulevard, which is as perfect a piece of country road as can be found anywhere on earth. ”

“ Now—let us remark in parenthesis—as all the peoples of the earth had representative adventurers in the Silverland, and as each adventurer had brought the slang of his nation or his locality with him, the combination made the slang of Nevada the richest and the most infinitely varied and copious that had ever existed anywhere in the world, perhaps, except in the mines of California in the "early days." ”

“ In Reese River Valley, six thousand feet, it begins near the end of August. Winter grain ripens somewhat earlier, while occasionally one meets a patch of barley in some cool, high-lying canyon that will not mature before the middle of September.
Unlike California, Nevada will probably be always richer in gold and silver than in grain. Utah farmers hope to change the climate of the east side of the basin by prayer, and point to the recent rise in the waters of the Great Salt Lake as a beginning of moister times. ”

“ The Nevada is white from its first appearance as it leaps out into the freedom of the air. At the head it presents a twisted appearance, by an overfolding of the current from striking on the side of its channel just before the first free out-bounding leap is made. About two thirds of the way down, the hurrying throng of comet-shaped masses glance on an inclined part of the face of the precipice and are beaten into yet whiter foam, greatly expanded, and sent bounding outward, making an indescribably glorious show, especially when the afternoon sunshine is pouring into it. ”

“ Left to themselves, the families in Mattaweditita increased rapidly, until soon there were too many to live in comfort. So Tochopa took most of them to Milkweed Canyon, and then he divided the separate families and allotted to each his own territory. To the Mohaves he gave the western region by the great river; the Paiutis he sent to the water springs and pockets of southern Nevada and Utah; the Navahoes went east and found the great desert region, where game was plentiful ”

“ On a late map of the section that was lost by Arizona to Nevada, today are noted only the settlements of Bunkerville, Moapa, Logan, St. Joseph, Mesquite, Overton and St. Thomas. There is a ferry at Rioville, at the mouth of the Virgin, and another is at Grand Wash. The name of Las Vegas is borne by a railroad station on the Salt Lake and Los Angeles line, a few miles from the Springs. There are the mining camps of Pahrump, Manse, Keystone, El Dorado and Newberry. ”

“ A number of brief, pithy speeches were made and all dispersed with a hearty Godspeed to the talented lady in whose behalf they had assembled.
Laura de Force Gordon had arranged a number of lectures for Miss Anthony on the route eastward. At Nevada City she was the guest of A. A. Sargent, the newly elected United States senator, and his wife, both earnest friends of woman suffrage. [62] The 406 rainy season had set in and the diary says: "These storms which bring new life and hope to farmers and miners, mean empty benches for me." The mud, snow and wind in Nevada were terrible. ”

“ The Government of the new Territory of Nevada was an interesting menagerie. Governor Nye was an old and seasoned politician from New York—politician, not statesman. He had white hair; he was in fine physical condition ”

“ By this time we were out of grub, and some one must go for a new supply, and as we knew the trail to Downieville was terribly rough, I was chosen as the one to try to find Nevada City, which we thought would be nearer and more easily reached. So I started south with the donkeys, up the mountain toward the ridge which lies between the middle and south Yuba Rivers, and when I got well on the ridge I found a trail used some by wagons, which I followed till I came to a place where the ridge was only wide enough for a wagon, and at the west end a faint trail turned off south into the rolling hills. ”

“ Originally, Nevada was a part of Utah and was called Carson county; and a pretty large county it was, too. Certain of its valleys produced no end of hay, and this attracted small colonies of Mormon stock-raisers and farmers to them. A few orthodox Americans straggled in from California, but no love was lost between the two classes of colonists. There was little or no friendly intercourse; each party staid to itself. The Mormons were largely in the majority, and had the additional advantage of being peculiarly under the protection of the Mormon government of the Territory. ”

“ At Reno is the Nevada State University, and as this is a silver region there are extensive smelting mills. Thirty-one miles southward is Carson, the capital of Nevada, and twenty-one miles farther the famous silver-mining town of Virginia City, with ten thousand people, built half-way up a steep mountain slope and completely surrounded by mountains. ”

“ When we add that Nevada, like all parts of the arid plateau, is distinguished for pure dry air, an extraordinary amount of sunshine, and consequently a very high degree of healthfulness, it can be scarcely maintained that the state is destitute of attractions. ”

“ About the earliest American occupation of the southern Nevada point available in the records upon which this office has worked, appears to have been the detail by Brigham Young in 1854 of a party of thirty young men "to go to Las Vegas, build a fort there to protect immigrants and the United States mail from the Indians, and to teach the latter how to raise corn, wheat, potatoes, squash and melons." ”

“ The Truckee River rises on the borders of El Dorado and Placer Counties, and is the outlet of Lake Tahoe, discharging its waters into Pyramid Lake in Nevada. This mountain stream is justly celebrated for the wild charm of its scenery. There is a village bearing the same name, in Nevada County, well-known to travelers through being on the regular route to Tahoe. At this place winter sports, tobogganing, skiing, skating, etc., are provided for San Franciscans, who need to travel but a few hours to exchange their clime of eternal spring for the deep snows of the Sierras. ”

“ Three days after the triumphal entry of the Nevada Short Line into Little Ophir, and, incidentally, at a moment when the defeated Overland Central was still wrestling with the rocky barrier two miles below the town, Larry Donovan found himself sitting on the edge of a chair in the private office of the general manager in the Brewster headquarters, waiting while the stocky, gray-mustached “Big Boss” at the desk went thoughtfully over the pages of a typewritten report. ”