Past Pages May 1

130 YEARS AGO

(Continued from Friday) Train Plunges into Carson River: The Washoe engine is a total wreck and lies bottom side up in the Carson River. Ten ore dumps filled with Union ore and two flat cars lie in a heap beside it. All are badly broken up and the damage may be many thousand dollars. The repairs of the track occupied nearly all night and there was no down train from Virginia City last evening.

100 YEARS AGO

Would Wreck a Car: An attempt to wreck the Copper Belt motor car yesterday morning as it was running from Yerington to Wabuska. Two ties and a steel rail were placed on the track, but the car threw them off without leaving the rails.

70 YEARS AGO

With the approach of the warm, thirst-producing season, preparations have been made for capitol officers and employees to get cold drinks in the corridor of the state house. A nickel vending machine, electrically refrigerated, was installed beside the water fountain this afternoon.

50 YEARS AGO

Hallie O. Walters, Stewart school principal, was installed as president of the Kit Carson Toastmasters club by area secretary Joe Cowperthwaite. Speakers for the evening were Cowperthwaite on "Castro and Cuba," Dick Lane on "3 years, 6 months and 14 days," and L.C. Schank on, "My Trip to Iran."

20 YEARS AGO

Discovery blasts off into orbit today with the Hubble Space Telescope.

10 YEARS AGO

Clever Virginia City barflies were treated to several months of cheap drinks in the 1870s because of confusion surrounding the "Trade Dollar," an unusual coin that was intended to replace the Spanish piece-of-eight used by merchants in China. The coin was meant to be an outlet for Comstock Silver until the silver markets crashed. A one-time coin valued at $1 was traded at Virginia City saloons and only worth as little as 81 cents.

• Trent Dolan is the son of Bill Dolan, who wrote this column for the Nevada Appeal from 1947 until his death in 2006.