The Nevada Traveler: Exploring Yerington’s all-American streets

 Courtesy of wikicommons images
The old Yerington Post Office, located in the community’s downtown, boasts a fine example of New Deal art, a mural titled, “Homestead on the Plain,” painted in 1941.

Yerington is perhaps Nevada’s most all-American town. Its main street is, of course, named Main Street. Its most prominent building is the Lyon County Courthouse, which is surrounded by a beautiful, shaded half-block park.

It has about a half-dozen churches, a several casinos, a quaint 1930s-era post office, a VFW hall and a National Guard Armory.

For many years, it had a colorful weekly newspaper, the Mason Valley News, that long claimed it was “the only newspaper in the world that gives a damn about Yerington.” Sadly, the paper was absorbed in 2000 by the Reno Gazette Journal.

Wandering the streets of Yerington, you get the feeling that people enjoy living here, tucked away in a valley not directly served by a major highway (Alternate U.S. 95 runs just outside the town) and far from the hub-bub of bigger communities.

As with most rural Nevada towns, Yerington’s history owes some of its development to mining. But, unlike those other places, the town also has been fortunate to have other industries develop, particularly ranching, farming, recreation and tourism.

The first settler in the area was a man named Hock Mason, who herded cattle through the valley in 1857 on his way to California. Impressed by the area’s fertile fields, he returned a year later and built a small ranch on the East Walker River.

The Mason Valley, as the area became known, soon attracted other ranchers and settlers. By the 1870s, a saloon and a handful of other businesses had sprung up in the valley.

Local legend credits the saloon for Yerington’s original name. According to the story, the bar was built of willow branches and was known as “The Switch.”

Supposedly, some cowboys were racing their horses on the main street and one of them remarked that they should go to the Switch for some more of the local whiskey, which they called “poison” or “pizen.” The others thought this was humorous and took to calling the small settlement “Pizen Switch,” a name that apparently stuck until 1879.

Later, the town was called Greenfield, a name that more appropriately reflected its agrarian nature. In 1894, the town changed its name again in honor of Henry Yerington, a prominent official with the Virginia & Truckee and Carson & Colorado railroads.

The town’s mining phase began after 1909 with the discovery of significant copper reserves in the Singatse Range, west of Yerington. For most of the next 69 years, Yerington benefited from the vast copper operations that worked the nearby mountains.

Suddenly, the town was able to get electrical and telephone service, a railroad, several newspapers, a high school and the county seat, which was moved to Yerington from Dayton in 1911.

The magnificent white-columned courthouse, designed by noted Nevada architect Frederick J. DeLongchamps, was erected in 1911-12.

The copper mines experienced ups and downs over the years before finally closing in 1978.

Since then, Yerington quietly has gone about its business. Agriculture remains important — the Mason Valley produces millions of pounds of onions each year as well as organic baby greens, broccoli, cauliflower and other vegetables.

Driving around Yerington, you can find plenty of interesting sights including the old Yerington Grammar School, a fine, two-story brick structure built in 1912 that has been restored as the Jeanne Dini Center, an arts and cultural facility.

Another worthwhile stop is the Lyon County Museum, which offers a good look at local history.

The old Yerington Post Office, still in use, is noteworthy because inside is a particularly striking mural, called “Homestead on the Plain,” which was painted in 1941 by Adolph Gottlieb.

Considered one of the finest examples of New Deal artwork, it was commissioned by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts, which was tasked at that time with boosting “the morale of people suffering the effects of the Great Depression with art.”

For information about the community or things to do in the area, go to https://travelnevada.com/cities/yerington/.

Rich Moreno writes about the places and people that make Nevada special.