North E Street near the railroad depot in Virginia City, probably in the late 19th century.
Saturday
150 Years Ago
New depot: The lumber for the erection of this new building is fast delivered on the ground and many men are at work framing the heavy timbers. The iron is all laid on the new road through town and the connection complete and ready for the rolling stock.
140 Years Ago
The footprints: John Mackay is thinking of working the prehistoric mine by paying the expenses of running a drift into the side of the state prison quarry that the line of footprints may be stripped and the ground so rich in archeological treasures may be more fully explored. He has sent a man to make an estimate of the cost.
130 Years Ago
Burglar: Charles Slingerland exchanged shots at the Hot Springs. But never touched the burglar. The only way to prevent burglaries is to keep a shotgun handy and blaze away at anyone seen in the yard at night.
100 Years Ago
Dat-So-La-Lee, famous Indian basket weaver and her husband have returned to Carson from Lake Tahoe.
70 Years Ago
New music teacher: A.A. Saliman, a summer graduate of Northwestern University has taken the position of music instructor in Carson City schools according to superintendent Donald Robertson.
30 Years Ago
Photo caption: Brenda Baxter, children’s librarian at the Carson City Public Library sings to preschool children during “story time” at the library. Story hour is held Tuesday through Friday for children 3-5 years old.
Sunday
150 Years Ago
Moral town: In the evening we are greeted with music from full bands in saloons and dance houses. This expense can only be afforded in the flush times of mining. Thirty or forty saloons, several tigers and their kindred beasts of prey, two dance houses and four or five bands of music all in full blast. Carson must be lively, if not strictly, religiously moral. Carson is universally known to be the most moral town this side of the Sierras.
140 Years Ago
A message from the past (in part):
(Dedicated to those whose manual labor has accomplished as much in the interest of science by the recent archaeological discoveries at the state prison)
In that abode of crime, where night and day,
Men brood o’er secret sins and lives misspent…
But le, at last a wonder was revealed,
A rock-bound volume from an unknown age
Was by a crime-ensanguined hand unsealed,
And science bent to scan the open page
Which had been hidden in that secret way,
While worlds were born, and planets had grown gray.
Before the mastodon or tracked the bear
To give him battle in his caverned lair.
130 Years Ago
Married: In Sacramento, California, September 1892, Fred F. Knobloch and Miss Emma N. Kinney, both of Empire. Miss Kinney is the daughter of William Kinney, a leading silver man and butcher of Empire. She married Mr. Knoblock, who runs a rival meat market.
100 Years Ago
The dance of the Carson Social Club in celebration of the opening of the new road from Carson to Reno will occur at Armory Hall. The hall has been cleaned thoroughly, and the broken glass replaced. The celebrated Tony’s orchestra from Reno has been engaged and several instruments have been added to the usual number of players. Music by Tony’s Orchestra – Admission: Gents, $1.10; ladies, free.
70 Years Ago
Austin Editor: Jock Taylor, editor and publisher of the Reese River Reveille at Austin, oldest newspaper in the state, was a visitor. Taylor worked on the Appeal and Chronicle from 1945-49 and enjoyed seeing old friends.
30 Years Ago
Advertising: “Meadowdale Theatres, Meadowdale Center Shopping Center, Hwy. 395. Now playing Clint Eastwood in ‘Unforgiven’ and Robert Redford in ‘Sneakers.’”
Monday
150 Years Ago
Exchequer Mill: The railroad platform holds two battery mortars for L. Chalmers, superintendent of the Exchequer Mill in Monitor. This mine is owned by an English company, and they have spent much money in its development.
140 Years Ago
In brief: The Indians are coming in with their pine nuts.
130 Years Ago
All sorts: Frank Bishop, who sold liquor to an Indian in Reno has been sentenced
to 16 months in jail.
100 Years Ago
Squirrel wrecks Dodge: While on a hunting trip near Highland Lakes, Henry Cordes of Gardnerville reports that a squirrel stole a piece of the electrical apparatus from his Dodge car, and he was forced to walk 40 miles for help. Fearing that someone would steal his automobile, Mr. Cordes removed a small part from the commutator and hid it under a pile of rocks. While Mr. Cordes was hunting, a squirrel burrowed underneath the rocks and carried the thingamajig to his underground abode. For several hours he was trying to reach the bottom of the squirrel’s abode, without success, Cordes started on foot to a home in Carson Valley, a distance of 45 miles (Gardnerville Record-Courier).
70 Years Ago
Advertisement: “Carson Theater— ‘Tembo’ with Howard Hill and another movie, “Wild Animals. See this for sure.”
30 Years Ago
Buzzing: Lots of complaints came from local residents about souped up airplanes at the Reno Air Races. Airport manager Bob Thomas said,” We are doing everything we can, but we can’t go up there and get them,” Thomas plans to forward complaints from local residents to the Federal Aviation Administration office in Reno.
Sue Ballew is the daughter of Bill Dolan, who wrote this column for the Nevada Appeal from 1947 until his death in 2006.
