In 1864, the Crystal Peak Company founded a town in Washoe County near the mountain of that name, a couple of miles north of where the Truckee River exits Truckee Canyon. Part of the town was in Nevada, but part of it was in California.
Fortunately, Sierra County, California did not squabble over taxation and local authority, which is what Plumas County, California did to cause the Roop County War of 1863.
Crystal Peak was a mining and lumber town and reached a population of 1500 residents. However, it was not long-lived. The Crystal Peak Company found gold, but not any veins of profitable concentration. It also found coal, but none of commercial utility.
When the Central Pacific Railroad built-in 1867 the nearby labor camp that became Verdi, it offered competitive wages for lumbermen and perhaps more attractive living conditions. By 1872, when ice and lumber merchant Oliver Lonkey built the first mansion in Verdi, the town of Crystal Peak was dying.
The Old Blog in the Desert 
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