History of Washoe County

HISTORY OF WASHOE COUNTY

Introduction

Lying in the northwest portion of the State of Nevada, named for a tribe of

American Indians and containing a land area in excess of 6,000 square miles,

Washoe County today consists of two of the nine original counties -- Washoe and

Lake (later renamed Roop) Counties -- into which the Territory of Nevada was

divided by the first territorial legislature in 1861. The country, "a land of

contrasts, extremes, and apparent contradictions, of mingled barrenness and

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fertility, beauty and desolation, aridity and storm,"

was claimed by the

Spanish Empire until 1822 when it became a part of Mexican territory resulting

from Mexico's successful war of independence from Spain. Mexico ceded the area

to the United States in 1848 following the Mexican War, and the ceded lands

remained part of the "unorganized territory" of the United States until 1850.

Spanish and Mexican constructive possession probably had little effect on the

life styles of the Northern Paiutes and the Washos -- the two American Indian

tribes which inhabited the area. The Northern Paiutes ranged over most of

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Washoe County

save the series of valleys lying along the eastern foothills of

the Sierra Nevada. These valleys were the domain of the Washos, a small,

nomadic tribe whose members spoke an alien tongue and from which the name of

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the county is derived .

The 1840's

During the 1840's Washoe County was traversed by a number of trappers and

explorers, as well as several well-defined emigrant trails leading to

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California and Oregon. In 1843 mountain man "Old Bill" Williams

trappers from the Klamath Lake

led his

region of California to Pyramid Lake and the Truckee River. On January 10, 1844,

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Lieutenant John C. Fremont

with his second exploring expedition, having come

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down from Oregon, discovered and named Pyramid Lake , and five days later the

expedition came to the mouth of the Truckee River, which Fremont named the Salmon

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Trout River . The Stevens-Donner route, sometimes called the Truckee route, was

opened in 1844 by the Stevens-Murphy party of about 100 persons led by Elisha

Stevens and guided by the Paiute Chief Truckee. The route crossed the desert from

the Humboldt Sink to the Truckee River, which the Stevens-Murphy party followed

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to Truckee Pass on their way to crossing the Sierra Nevada . The Stevens-Murphy

party is the first known to have taken the Truckee River route to California

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and to have taken wagons across the Sierra Nevada .

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Named for Jesse Applegate,

the Applegate Trail in north western Nevada was

opened in 1846 Applegate and his party traveled from the Rogue River in Oregon,

passed Lower Klamath Lake south of Goose Lake, and entered Nevada, where they

crossed the Black Rock Desert and connected with the Humboldt Route near

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present-day Mill City in Pershing County . This route was to become part of the

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future Lassen and Nobles' trail . In 1848 the Lassen Cutoff, named for Peter

Lassen,

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was in use. From Mill City it followed the Applegate Trail through High

Rock Canyon

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to the south end of Goose Lake. From there to the Sacramento Valley

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the trail became known as Lassen's.

On March 18, 1849, the Mormons created the provisional State of Deseret, which

included within its jurisdiction most of Nevada. Meeting at Monterey later in

1849, the California Constitutional Convention on September 22 debated the

boundary question for the new state to be called California. Lawyer members of

the convention expressed their views concerning the inclusion of the Great Basin

in the proposed new state. One

attorney from Coloma argued that "a great portion of it [the Great Basin] can be

of no advantage to us. A vast deal of it is an immense unexplored region -- a

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barren waste."

Myron Norton, a San Francisco lawyer, must have had a hunch when

he argued "Whatever the region may be, a barren waste or a land of promise, we

have no right to relinquish it * * *. It may be rich in agricultural and mineral

wealth, we know nothing to the contrary * * *. No man knows whether it is

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worthless or not."

The convention settled (for the time being) the boundary

question, the majority feeling that nothing would be gained by extending the

limits of California on the east further than the Sierra Nevada.

The 1850's

In the early '50's, the continued migration to California attracted some settlers

to the Truckee Meadows. Three miles south of the Truckee River, near Moana

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Springs, William H Anderson established the Junction House

about 1850; and on

September 9, 1850, the Congress created the Territory of Utah, which included

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present-day Washoe County.

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Road

The year 1851 saw the establishment of the Nobles

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in the northern section and the Beckwourth Route

leading from the Truckee

River at Truckee Meadows to Marysville by way of the Beckwourth Pass and the

Feather River. In 1852 Jamison, a Mormon trader, moved from Washoe Valley and

built a trading post near Steamboat Creek three miles southeast of the present

city of Sparks to intercept westbound emigrant trains and their businesses. This

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station was the only settlement on the Truckee River for several years.

Both the Utah territorial legislative assembly and the California legislature

in 1852 enacted statutes affecting the area of Washoe County On March 2, 1852,

the Utah body created the County of Tooele, which "embraced a tract so extensive

that

the settlers on its western border found the county organization of but little

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use."

Not to be outdone, the California solons created Pautah County on paper,

including an area from Lake Tahoe to Pyramid and Walker Lakes, naming

Carsonville as the seat of justice. The act was to take effect when the Congress

ceded the described territory to California. The Congress failed to act, and the

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California act was repealed in 1860.

Washoe Valley attracted some settlers in 1853. A man named Clark built a small

cabin near the present site of Franktown, J H. ("Old Man") Rose also settled in

Washoe Valley, C W. Dodge and John Campbell took up the Bowers Ranch, and

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Christopher West settled on the Winters Ranch.

One emigrant, impressed

with the verdant condition of the Truckee Meadows, wrote:

In the month of August, 1853, we camped on the banks

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of the Truckee a few miles below where Wadsworth

now

stands. Our train, consisting of nine wagons, two or three

hundred head of horses and mules, and seven hundred and

fifty head of cattle, were all driven and managed by

forty-five men. * * * We rested there for a few days,

and then moved up to the Truckee Meadows, about five miles

below the present town of Reno. Such a grand sight for

hungry cattle and horses! Thousands of acres of blue

joint grass laid around us; our herds reveled in it for

several days, and yet they could make no impression upon

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it.

On January 17, 1854, Carson County was created by the Utah territorial

legislative assembly. The Utah county, an area of 20,000 square miles, included

what is now Washoe, Douglas, Storey and Lyon Counties, Carson City (formerly

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Ormsby County) and portions of Esmeralda, Churchill and Humboldt Counties.

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the same year John Owens and Edward C. Ing

maintained a trading

In

post on the Truckee River near what was to be called Glendale; Bill Gregory

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started a post at Drytown

near the present site of Wadsworth, and James

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O'Neil had a station at Crystal Peak,

two miles from the present site of

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Verdi.

In 1855 the Utah territorial legislative assembly expanded the area of Carson

County by extending its boundary northward for its entire width to the Oregon

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line. Mormon Elder Orson Hyde

in the spring of 1856 commenced the erection of

a sawmill at Franktown, and from 20 to 30 Mormon families settled there. Coming

to Washoe Valley, Alexander Cowan and his wife (later Mrs. Lemuel S "Sandy"

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Bowers) purchased the Dodge and Campbell ranch, located three years previously.

In 1856 Carson County was combined with Great Salt Lake and other counties in a

single judicial district. George Smith, Sr., a Mormon, settled in Pleasant Valley

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with "his eight children and an estimable wife";

and at a meeting held April 26,

1856, in Honey Lake Valley, the Territory of Nataqua was created, with Isaac N

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Roop

being chosen recorder and Peter Lassen as surveyor. The Territory of

Nataqua was, as one writer described it, "a frontier land club or claim

association, designed to protect the property rights of the individual squatter

until regular government reached the area." The problem was that the organizers

overlooked the fact that the territorial boundaries of Nataqua included the

unsuspecting six hundred inhabitants of Carson, Eagle and Washoe Valleys, then

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situated within the confines of Carson County, Utah Territory.

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Franktown,

one of the earliest settled places in western Utah, was laid out on

the western border of Washoe Valley by Elder Hyde in 1856 after "the much to-becommended manner" of the Mormons. Each lot of one and a quarter acres was

irrigated by water conducted through all of the public streets, the houses being

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built of hewn timber. Though rude, they were substantial and comfortable.

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