After Mexico ceded lands to the U.S. in 1848 and the Spanish Trail abandoned, Mormons in Salt Lake City began utilizing the western portion of the route to southern California beginning in December 1847, when Porter Rockwell led a party and their wagons from Salt Lake to Southern California for supplies.

Most of the traffic during the 1848-1857 period was of the Mormon faith, giving the popular route its later name, the Mormon Road. The Mormon Road was one component of church plans for expansion in the Great Basin and southern California.

Brigham Young developed plans for the “State of Deseret” in 1849, a vision of massive Mormon holdings in the Great Basin, the Colorado River drainage, and southern California. However, California was awarded statehood in 1850. In the same year, lands in the east split along the 37th Parallel, with one section becoming New Mexico Territory and the other Utah Territory.

The planned “Deseret” was never even considered by the federal government. Nevertheless, Young was appointed territorial governor by President Fillmore.

The early and mid-1850s saw the expansion of Mormon settlements to southern California, where in 1851, they built the San Bernardino Mission, to the Lower Colorado River region, the eastern front of the Sierra in Carson Valley in 1851, and the Las Vegas area with the Las Vegas Mission established in 1855.

Regardless of the intention of the Mormon Church to strategically settle unoccupied lands west of Salt Lake City, the earliest founding of settlements in Nevada was because of a need to supply emigrants passing through the area on their way to California. It happened to be mostly Mormons who settled first in attempts to capitalize on the traffic moving across these vast desert regions.

Genoa, one of the first settlements in Nevada with a permanent structure, was established in 1851 by John Reese, a Mormon businessman from Salt Lake City. The original trading station consisted of a log cabin and stockade and fell within the newly-created Utah Territory at its western boundary.

In 1850, Joseph DeMont and Hampton S. Beatie built a temporary cabin at the site, near the Carson River and at the base of the Sierra Nevada, believing it would be a lucrative one to sell supplies to emigrants rushing to California. By the end of the summer that year, the trading outfit quickly became known as “Mormon Station,” and reportedly had two trading posts and five log cabins, making the small settlement swiftly known as “the principal trading-post east of the Sierra.”

Just before winter that year, Beatie and DeMont returned to Salt Lake City after selling the cabin to Mr. Moore, who sold it in the summer of 1851 to John Reese. Reese built a second, more permanent cabin near the Beatie cabin. The successful trading business attracted other settlers to the area by the end of his first summer of business.

“Mormon Station,” as reported in the Sacramento Union in a letter dated July 20, 1851, consisted of “3-4 buildings, tent, a spring house, and 2-3 corrals.” The trading station also served as one of Woodward and Chorpening’s Overland Mail stations.

In November 1851, over 100 settlers met at the Mormon Station, meetings three times formulated a local government through a sort of “squatter consensus.: Salt Lake City was too remote from Carson Valley to effectively govern the settlers, who were Mormon and non-Mormon alike.

In 1853, Carson Valley residents petitioned the California legislature to annex the land to California as a stop-gap until the U.S. Congress could act on the legislation. The annexation effort forced the Utah government to take notice of its most distant settlement, creating Carson County from the westernmost parts of four other counties in the territory.

However, this was a measure taken by the Utah government noted in documents only. Eventually, the Salt Lake City-based leaders had to give up what little control they previously had over their westernmost and most distant colony.

In May 1851, eight men brought the U.S. Mail east from Sacramento to Salt Lake City for the first time. In the summer of 1852, traveler John Farrar noted thousands of wagons at Humboldt Sink.

At Ragtown, he observed a corral made entirely of wagon tires. Gardens in Carson Valley, with vegetables such as onions, potatoes, watermelons, pumpkins, musk melons, and beets, were described by travelers in the summer of 1852, as well as hay fields and a blacksmith shop at Mormon Station was established by July 1852.

Another traveler wrote of passing gardens and houses on his way to Mormon Station along the road from Gold Canyon, which were about a mile apart, irrigated with ditches. He also noted a bakery and “good farms” at Mormon Station. The settlement began taking characteristics of a Mormon farming community, “with distinctive large lots providing for widely spaced houses to be surrounded by gardens, lawns, groves or orchards.”

In September 1852, Henry Van Sickle arrived in Carson Valley to set up a smithy at the base of Georgetown Trail. He later became a major landholder in the valley, Justice of the Peace, County Commissioner, County Treasurer, and State Assemblyman, eventually holding other positions. By this time, a post office was operating at Mormon Station.

Israel Mott settled four miles south of Mormon Station in the fall of 1852, building his home out of abandoned wagon beds salvaged at the base of Carson Canyon and Mormon Station. On December 1, 1852, Carson Valley residents recorded the first formal land claims, including Israel Mott and John Reese, who legitimized their claim on collecting tolls in Carson Canyon on this date.

After this, fencing and landowners controlled the movement of emigrants through the valley. Meanwhile, John Cary sawed the first plank at his new sawmill at the northern boundary of Carson Valley in July 1853. It was the first sawmill in the western Utah Territory.

In general, settlers enjoyed amicable relations with Native Americans based in Nevada except for minor conflicts among the large volumes of travelers on the emigrant trails in northern Nevada. In Life among the Piutes, Sarah Winnemucca gives a detailed account of a situation in 1857 in Carson Valley involving Washoes accused of murder, Northern Paiute negotiators, and Major Ormsby serving justice.

In 1854, Young developed a government for the western Utah Territory. A prominent Mormon church official, Orson Hyde, was appointed the probate judge to organize Carson County as part of the Utah territorial government. Hyde arrived in Carson Valley in 1855 with 38 Mormon settlers and changed the name to Genoa.

The arrival of a large group of Mormons to Carson Valley alarmed non-Mormon settlers, and they took up the annexation again in 1855 with the California legislature, who warmly received the proposed addition of lands to their state.

However, many in the U.S. Congress, believing California was already too large, opposed it and refused to take action. Meanwhile, Hyde had placed Mormons in all but one elected position to facilitate Mormon control, surveyed the town of Genoa, established the Franktown community in Washoe Valley, and built a much-needed sawmill.

Hyde left Carson Valley in November 1856, and in the summer of 1857, 64 Mormons left Carson Valley to return to Salt Lake City, followed by another 450 Mormons called back by Young. Mormon control of Carson Valley was again ineffectual, although it still officially fell under the governance of the Utah Territory.

By the fall of 1857, Genoa had roughly 25 buildings, including a store, billiard saloon, hotel, and blacksmith shop. Two hundred residents remained after the recall, some of them Mormons. Again, the “squatter movement” rose to the occasion in Carson Valley, petitioning this time for separate territorial status. They were unsuccessful at gaining that status until 1861, following the discovery of gold and silver in Virginia City, although they formed their local government in the interim.

Despite promising myself not to write any more weird stories of the supernatural or paranormal in late November, I find myself putting this one to paper with the hope of ridding my brain of the ever-playing memory I witnessed on my way home.

It had grown dark when I started north on Geiger Grade last night. The rain, a slight drizzling nuisance much of the day, had become a near-blinding downpour.

Having driven down to where I could see the Virginia Foothills and the metros of Reno and Sparks further in the valley, I had been going slower than the posted speed. At the second to last curve before reaching the final turnout and just beyond my headlights, I thought I saw the beginning of a rock slide.

Slowing to a near stop, I watched as the large boulder tumbled, then spread out onto the roadway, before standing up. It was not a mineral deposit but an animal that my brain translated into a big dog or smallish bear.

In one stride, it leaped over the guardrail and disappeared down the steep grade, or so I thought. As I pulled alongside where the thing had gone, I saw a man walking outside the rail.

As I passed him, he turned his head and looked at me. Much of his bearded face was shrouded in darkness, yet the car’s headlights caught his eyes, which glowed a phosphoretic green.

Stepping on the gas pedal, I drove rapidly down the hill toward the end of 341. But not even speeding would prevent me from seeing him again as he was now standing slightly outside the glow of the light cast by the 7-11 store.

And though I had an anniversary party to return to Virginia City to attend, I withdrew to the safety of my home, desirous of not venturing into the dark and rain of the night again.

During December, I refused to blog, and it was good. It gave me time to think, to evaluate my two decades of work.

At one point, I was going to delete my site and make it disappear. But I changed my mind after waffling back and forth on the idea.

Finally, I waffled in the direction of keeping my blog, deleting all 1,255 followers and whatever number of email subscribers I had since I started. It was so I could start over in some respect.

So, here I am. And I don’t give a-good goddamned about anyone reading what I write anymore. I came to this conclusion after no one recognized that I was not posting anything.

Having 31 days off gave me a new perspective and a want to change directions. Tired of niceties, I plan to be more down and dirty, sharing real stories, and being more direct about how I feel and think.

So let’s do this fucking thing.

“Rudolph has COVID?” Santa asked with surprise.

“‘Fraid so,” answered the Large Animal Vet. “And he’s gonna need lots of rest and fluids, so he’s won’t be able to guide you this Christmas eve.”

Stunned, Santa walked from the barn to the house.

“Don’t know what I’m going to do with out him,” he complained to Mrs. Claus.

“You used to do the job when he wasn’t part of your sleigh team.”

“Yeah, I used to do this job without him, it jus’ seems so long ago.”

“I’m certain you can do it.”

“Thank you, dear.”

They were nearly nine hours into their trip when Santa realized he had led the team in the wrong direction, off course, over California instead of West Texas. It took him a few minutes to finally find an isolated place to set down.

“Well, now what?” he asked as he checked his GSP against the paper map he always carried.

“Okay, here we are,” he stated, a stubby finger pointing to the Alabama Hills between Independence and Lone Pine, off of US 395.

Then he heard sounds coming from an outcropping of rocks off to his right.

“Maybe they can help me by giving me directions or something?”

As he rounded the outcropping, he stumbled onto the set of a Star Trek episode. Kirk, Spock, Sulu, Scotty, Uhura, and Bones McCoy were battling seven eight-armed creatures, a blaster wrapped in each tentacle, and for some reason, the Enterprise could not lock onto their signals.

It is too bad Santa was the one wearing red.

Dominating Tonopah’s golden era is the Mizpah Mine. Renowned as the most prosperous among Tonopah’s many mines, its metal headframe was an early marvel of steel hoisting technology, setting a precedent for the industry nationwide. The mine’s historical significance was reaffirmed in 2015 with the completion of the collar restoration, inviting visitors to witness its grandeur firsthand.

Tourists are welcomed to stand atop a grate, peering down into the depths of the 600-foot shaft, illuminated for exploration. Inside the hoist house, a treasure trove of vintage machinery awaits, including intact hoisting works and venerable air compressors preserved in their original positions.

Today, the Mizpah Mine is a part of the Tonopah Historic Mining Park & Foundation.

Rhyolite is a testament to the fleeting nature of prosperity born from an accidental gold strike in 1904 and swiftly rising from the desert sands, Rhyolite transformed into a bustling town, its heart pulsating along Golden Street with mineral wealth in the nearby Bullfrog Mountains.

Rhyolite boasted a population exceeding 10,000 residents, a remarkable feat considering its remote location. The town flourished with modern amenities uncommon in frontier territories, such as electricity, telephones, and automobiles.

However, as quickly as Rhyolite rose to prominence, its fate turned. By 1910, the once-abundant veins of gold began to dwindle, signaling the beginning of the end, and with the decline, residents began to depart, seeking greener pastures elsewhere.

Today, Rhyolite stands silent, streets now deserted.

In the annals of Nevada history, the tale of Aurora unfolds as a poignant narrative of boom and bust, hope and despair, in the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains. Unlike its sister town across the border in Bodie, California, which retains some semblance of its former glory, Aurora met a tragic fate in the 1940s.

Aurora’s origins trace back to the silver rush of the 1860s, a time when fortunes were made and lost in the pursuit of precious metals. Initially known as Esmeralda, the town experienced a rapid influx of settlers following the discovery of rich silver deposits. By the 1870s, Aurora boasted a population exceeding 5,000 people and thrived as a bustling mining community.

However, the fortunes of Aurora, like those of many boomtowns, were short. The depletion of silver veins, compounded by economic downturns, heralded a gradual decline in the town’s prosperity.

Despite efforts to breathe new life into Aurora, including the reopening of mines and the construction of new structures, its decline persisted unabated. The final blow came in the 1940s when salvagers descended upon Aurora, stripping the town of its buildings and structures for salvageable materials.

Today, only the silent echoes of its abandoned mining structures and the solemn markers of its cemetery remain as poignant reminders of a once-thriving community lost to time.

During the early 20th century in the rugged eastern Nevada, Fay offered opportunity to the hard rock miner. Established in 1900 to serve the thriving Horseshoe mine, Fay burgeoned rapidly, fueled by gold fever that swept through the region.

By 1910, Fay boasted a bustling Main Street adorned with four saloons and a post office. The Horseshoe mine, with its 90-ton mill, expanded to 120 tons, served as the lifeblood of Fay, driving the town’s growth and prosperity during the early 1900s.

The years that followed witnessed a boom in production as gold flowed from the veins of the Horseshoe mine, fueling the dreams and aspirations of its residents. However, as is often the case with mining towns, the euphoria proved short-lived. By 1915, as the gold veins dwindled, Fay’s fortunes began fading, casting a shadow over the once-thriving community.

Despite efforts to sustain its livelihood, Fay faced an inevitable decline. By 1924, the closure of its post office marked the end of an era, signaling the final chapter for the town. Nothing much stands where people once lived and worked, other than a few stones showing where a building had once stood.

On Friday, August 24, 1990, Reno Judge Jerry Whitehead ruled that heavy-metal Judas Priest was not liable for the deaths of two young men who cited the band’s subliminal ‘Satanic’ music as the reason they killed themselves.

The men — Raymond Belknap, then 18, and James Vance, 20 — had spent six hours drinking, smoking marijuana, and listening to the band’s Stained Class album, after which each man took a shotgun and shot himself. Belknap died instantly, but Vance lived, sustaining injuries that left him disfigured; he died three years later.

Before his death, Vance and his parents sued the band and their label at the time, CBS Records, for $6.2 million in damages. They claimed that Judas Priest had hidden subliminal messages like “try suicide,” “do it,” and “let’s be dead” in their cover of Spooky Tooth’s “Better by You, Better Than Me,” influencing Vance and Belknap to form a suicide pact.

The suit went to trial in July 1990, and the prosecution played the song forward, backward, and sped up in an attempt to prove the group had brainwashed these two young men into killing themselves.

Whitehead passed away on Monday, October 12, 2020, at 86 years old.

In the annals of Nevada’s mining history, the town of Columbus shines brightly as a bustling center of borax extraction and silver mining during the late 19th century. Established in 1865, Columbus became synonymous with industrial activity, attracting enterprises like the Pacific Borax Company, which operated in the area in 1880.

The Pacific Borax Company was just one of several enterprises drawn to the rich borax deposits of the Columbus Salt Marsh, a resource first uncovered in 1872 by Francis M. ‘Borax’ Smith. Smith’s discovery sparked a flurry of activity, with multiple companies vying for a share of the lucrative borax market.

However, Columbus’s significance extended beyond borax extraction. The town boasted four stamp mills, which played a pivotal role in processing silver ore from the Columbus Mining District, notably the Candelaria mines. This dual economic engine propelled Columbus to prosperity, particularly between 1873 and 1878, when its population soared to over 600 residents.

During the golden age, Columbus thrived, fueled by the promise of wealth and opportunity. The streets buzzed with activity as miners and laborers toiled while merchants and entrepreneurs catered to their needs.

Yet, like many boomtowns of the era, Columbus’s fortunes eventually waned. Shifts in market demand and the depletion of resources led to a gradual decline in mining activity, prompting many residents to seek their fortunes elsewhere. By the turn of the century, Columbus had faded from prominence, leaving behind echoes of its former glory.

Today, Columbus is a reminder of Nevada’s mining heritage. Though the town’s streets are far quieter now, its legacy lives on. As we look back on Columbus’s past, we remember the pioneers who carved a living from the unforgiving landscape of the Silver State.