The Nevada Town with Three Names

A life-long friend of mine lives on Yerington. She and I went to grade school together at Margaret Keating in Klamath. She moved to Nevada when we were in eighth grade and we reconnected in 1987 after she heard me on KIIQ (KICK,) a local country music station in Reno. We stay in touch with Christmas cards and such nowadays. Diana, we need to get together for breakfast one day very soon.

In the heart of Lyon County, in the Mason Valley and along the Walker River, Yerington, Nevada began its existence as a small trading post and whiskey store called Pizen Switch, a reflection on the poor quality of the whiskey sold there. Legend has it that Jim Downey’s whiskey was of so bad that some thought they were being poisoned.

Since “poison” was a difficult word for some people to say, the term “pizen” became the verbal label for Downey’s rot gut. History has it that cowboys would say, “let’s ride to the Switch and have a drink of Downey’s pizen.”

It didn’t take long before “Pizen Switch” became the town’s first name, and to some, it still is.

Lyon County was one of the nine original Nevada counties created on November 25, 1861. It was named after Nathaniel Lyon, the first Union general to be killed in the Civil War and it’s first county seat was established at Dayton on November 29, 1861. After the Dayton Courthouse burned down in 1909, the county seat was moved to Yerington in 1911.

In 1870, a millwright by the name of William Lee homesteaded 160 acres in the area. He built a two-story boarding house where the Lyon County Courthouse Annex now stands, in order to supplement his income by renting rooms to travelers.

That same year, Lee convinced Ed Bennett, James Downey and Isaac Sims to set up businesses near his boarding house. There were a series of roads that passed through that of section of businesses that may have been instrumental in the formation of what was later known as the “Switch.”

More businesses were established over the following two years at what is the intersection of today’s Main, Van Ness and Broadway streets. Bennett eventually built a mercantile where a barbershop is now located.

Downey settled across the street and opened a saloon known as Downey’s Exchange. The saloon was at the south end of where the Yerington Inn now stands, while a blacksmith shop stood at the north end.

In the 1878, after the settlement had grown, a gentler name was in order, so the citizens agreed on “Greenfield.” Old-timers claimed that the name came from the threat of hangings in which “Greenfielding,” was the slang of the day, and thus the abbreviated version of the town’s second name.

In the Yerington Indian Colony is a granite monument to Yerington’s most famous Native American, the Paiute prophet Wovoka. Also also known as Jack Wilson, his vision of the return of the buffalo, and of the Native American way of life, was an attractive prophecy to the native people whose culture was melting away, and it was fervently believed and spread through the Indian world.

His Ghost Dance movement led to the massacre at Wounded Knee 1890. The monument that sketches his life and carries his image, stands within sight of the fields near Yerington where his wickiup was a common sight before his death in 1932.

In 1894, the town wanted its own post office, but the post office refused, saying there were too many communities in the country named Greenfield. The town voted to change the name to Yerington, its third iteration, in honor of Henry M. Yerington, president of the Carson & Colorado Railroad.

They had hoped that it would be an enticement for Yerington to extend a spur of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad at Wabuska their way. But Henry did not extend the railroad to the town and it wasn’t until the 1920s that copper mining activity justified bringing a railroad to Yerington.

In fact, it is generally believed that Henry never did visit his namesake which was eventually incorporated in 1907.

Joe Dini’s Lucky Club is a Yerington tradition, that carries with it the historical footnote that boxer Jack Dempsey helped to lay the tile floor there during his Nevada roustabout years. Years later, he became the World Heavyweight Boxing Champion from 1919 to 1926.

In 1938, there was a movement initiated by the 20-30 Club, to change the name back to Pizen Switch, but the promoters were overruled.

During World War II one of many Japanese fire balloon launched at the U.S. with the hope of starting massive forest fires landed on the Wilson Ranch near Yerington. The ranchers, not knowing what it was, attempted to notify authorities by mail, but did not receive a response until long after they had cut it up and used it as a hay tarp.

Adjacent to Yerington is the former mining town of Weed Heights. Built in the 1952 and named for Clyde E Weed, vice president in charge of Anaconda operations, with a post office being established a year later, to accommodate the Anaconda Copper Mine, the town is mostly abandoned but makes for an interesting, short drive.

Owned by Anaconda until the company was taken over by Atlantic Richfield Company, the property was sold to former Lyon County Commissioner Don Tibbals. He subsequently sold all of the property, except for the town of Weed Heights to cathode copper production company Arimetco.

Then there is Fort Churchill State Park located 25 miles north of Yerington. Fort Churchill was the first established in 1860 when Nevada was still a territory and following the Pyramid Lake Indian War.

It was in use for only nine years and abandoned soon after the Civil War. It was useful for suppression of the Paiute and Bannock Indian hostilities and to assist emigrants bound for California.

The fort was made of Adobe blocks with wooden roofs. The adobe has deteriorated substantially and the wood has since rotted away or was carted-off by homesteaders and later souvenir collectors and only a few partial walls of the fort remain intact.

Buckland station was built in 1861 using materials from Fort Churchill. It was used as a Pony Express stop, boarding house and home for the Buckland family. It is located across the highway from Fort Churchill. The Fort Churchill park includes a picnic area and a trail along the Carson River across the bridge.

In town, there are many interesting and historic things to check out, like including the Lyon County Museum. With frontier relics on display, you can browse items from dolls to shooting irons, to Chinese antiques discovered in the area. There are also a few standing structures, like a one-room, eight-grade schoolhouse and a fully stocked 19th-century grocery store.

Yerington hosts a number of annual events, like the ‘Spring Fling Car Show,’ the ‘Portugese Cultural Celebration,’ the ‘Lyon County Fair & Rodeo,’ the ‘Spirit of Wovoka Days Powow.’ Of its annual events, perhaps the most notable is ‘A Night in the Country,’ a music festival that is popular with visitors and locals alike.