Tag: carsoncity

The opening date for the new Carson City Toyota dealership is here. Construction is all done on the building and the parking lot, and signs went up a couple of weeks ago that March 15th was the day. This weekend staff moved all the cars from the old dealership a mile down the road to the new one. Everything looks like it is ready for the first day of business.

The cyclists couldn't care less.

Now the old dealership looks very desolate. I'm sure they won't abandon it, though, and that Dick Campagni has plans for it in the future.

Of all the things for me to miss...Peter Barton of the Nevada State Railroad Museum posted this message to Facebook today (Thursday):

A little before 9am today the railroad restoration shop crew at the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City eased McKeen Motor Car, V&T No. 22 out of the shop and gingerly, ever so slowly, onto the turntable. Amazingly the wheel sets just fit on the table. So, the next obvious question to answer was whether the car could be turned. She could and we did. So now, lined up to the A” Line should we tempt fate and make the ultimate test of our confidence and move the car onto the railroad? We did. She moved smoothly through the first set of switches, over the diamond and down into the “hole.” More switches, moving southbound now, headed to Wabuska Depot. Crossing the first grade crossing and easing up along the platform at Wabuska. Would she clear the platform? She did. We observed carefully to insure she fit under the water tower. She did. More switches, more power and we started up the hill. Around the loop the car moved almost effortlessly. Brakes worked fine, power was ample, back to the Depot. We climbed off and stood silently in the sun observing the car and the depot – a scene of a century ago yet frozen still in time. Filled with emotion, we couldn’t speak but we knew the importance of this moment. Back aboard, retracing our route and back onto the turntable. On the ground admiring this awesome living artifact sitting astride the turntable, we shook hands and noted those who made this day possible: DeWitt, Stiver, Hobold, Tatum, Harding, Huffman, Ackerman, O’Cain, Smith, Wyatt, Drew, and Bernhard to name but a few. Chris DeWitt backed the car off of the turntable and back into the shop.

Now that I would have liked to see.

An article on Sutie101.com has proclaimed Carson City to be a foodie's paradise, and highlights some of the many restaurants that led them to think so.

For many years, Carson City’s fame came from being the country’s smallest capital.Though it’s outgrown that title, the city has found new fame as Northern Nevada’s Top Culinary Spot.And since a sizeable number of its new residents were originally from other countries, many of the restaurants have a decidedly foreign flavor.

Adele's, Red's and the San Marcos Grill are some of the restaurants mentioned in the article.

The deer were out again today, bringing traffic to a stop all over the west side of Carson. A good sized herd of about 8 to 10 deer made their way through backyards and across streets, scrounging around in the late winter grass for some good bits of food. They ventured down as far as Division Street, but they attracted all together too much attention there, with everyone stopping to take pictures. So they retreated back to the quiet yards around Elizabeth St. They're probably still hanging around somewhere in the neighborhood. You usually see them on the weekends when the town is quiet.

There's fairly big news in the internet space today: it's been announced that News Carson City is merging into Carson Now, combining two sites that have already had a pretty close relationship. News Carson City has been around for five years, starting as an internet version of the TV news Dave Morgan was already doing. I spotted in and wrote about it in August of 2005.

And I'm not sure if I've written about Carson Now here yet, and if I haven't it's because I'm still trying to get a handle on it. It's a new community and news site set up by Kirk Caraway, who used to be Internet Editor and columnist for the Nevada Appeal. I know he was always frustrated with all the ways the Appeal refused to use the internet, so a few months ago he decided to leave and start his own thing. Carson Now is his stab at covering Carson City news. It started up a few months ago and I've been watching it since; it's mostly an aggregation of other news sources, like the Nevada Appeal and News Carson City, and even Around Carson. They do have some original content, but it can be tough to weed through all the reposts sometimes to find the new stuff.

But it sounds like this merging of the two sites will lead to a lot more original content being posted to Carson Now, making it a more compelling destination. Dave Morgan himself is moving to Oregon, but he promises that he'll still be on the phone to everybody in Carson City, filing stories remotely even though he's out of state. Plus Jeff Munson, reporter for the Tahoe Daily Tribune and Nevada Appeal, will be writing stories for the site. So I can only see Carson Now growing in the future.

The real loss here is Dave Morgan and his video camera, which used to be seen all over town chasing after every story he could find. Dave's been doing TV news in Carson City for over 15 years, and for as much as I love text there is an immediacy and an extra layer of depth that video can bring to a story. By losing News Carson City we'll be losing an added dimension to the news. Although if you use hindsight to look back over the past couple of months, you could see this development coming. News Carson City for a while has been leaning away from the video and more heavily towards text, and even when there was a big video story there would often be a large editorial to go along with it. This was articulated in early January as Dave announced that News Carson City would be shifting more towards text, less emphasis on video. Then one month ago they canceled the TV news part of it entirely, making News Carson City a 100% online venture. You could draw a straight line from there to Dave leaving town and the site being merged with Carson Now. But at the same time, a lot of work was done on the NewsCarsonCity.com website over the past few months, changing the theme, opening up comments, and trying to build a community around that site. So it seems like maybe abandoning all that wasn't their plan until just recently.

So I'll be looking forward to Carson Now improving as it grows, and they'll be continuing the "Our Town" video interview series that Dave has been doing, kind of an internet talk show. You'll be able to find those on their YouTube channel.

The old Long John Silver's building has been through a lot of ups and downs lately. After over 20 years of selling fast food fish, the franchise owners decided in 2007 to close the doors and leave town, supposedly over a dispute about grease traps.

The building sat empty for two years, until finally a new tenant started moving in, the Sugarplum Bakery, which was relocating from Genoa to Carson. It opened last June, but only lasted about three weeks before closing their doors too. The bakery later relocated to Minden, but the Long John Silver building still sat empty.

Over the last few weeks I've seen activity around the building, so I thought there might be a new tenant in the works. And indeed, early this morning I drove by to find a sign had gone up for Lily's China Bistro. I've never heard of it before, but that could be good news, a new business owner trying to make a go of it.

This is right next door to the old Burger King, which is still in the process of being converted to Super Burrito, another local business that already has three stores in Reno. So if the national franchises are leaving and locals moving in, that could be a good trend towards bringing Carson City's economy back to life.

Nevada Appeal: State Railroad Museum seeks original riders of the historic McKeen Motor Car

The Nevada State Railroad Museum will mark the 100th year anniversary of the arrival in Carson City of the historic McKeen Motor Car on May 9 with a celebration scheduled for May 10.

The museum is seeking individuals who remember riding the McKeen Car during its original service on the famed Virginia & Truckee Railway between 1910 and 1945.

“We know of some existing residents who rode the McKeen car as children or young adults,” said Peter Barton, acting administrator of Museums & History. “We suspect there may be others out there, considering the McKeen Car was in service for over 35 years.”

Individuals who remember riding the car are urged to contact Teresa Moiola at 775-687-8323 or tmoiola@nevada culture.org to share their story and participate in the upcoming commemorative festivities.

I'm back from a week in Las Vegas, and now here comes the snow to welcome us home. We were almost starting to believe spring might have been coming. I was even wearing short sleeve shirts. But you know February and March are always like this, flip-flopping between every kind of weather imaginable. So it's not surprising at all.

Although Carson City missed the worst of the storm. We got a slight dusting of snow, with more light flakes falling as I write this. Reno, though, got dumped on with nearly a foot of powder. Another indication of how wild these storms can be.

Photo by NVKathi

Crews are on site right now at the old Burger King in Carson City, installing signs for the new Super Burrito that is moving into the building.

The McKeen Motor Car, which has been under renovation at the Nevada State Railroad Museum for the last 14 years, is finally finished and ready to be publicly unveiled. This isn't the first time it's been out in the sunlight; they've taken it out a few times before, and I even had the perfect timing last year to be able to see it when it was out. But last year only the exterior was finished; the engine or power train hadn't been installed yet. Now it's all done, save a few finishing touches, and a date has been set for it to make its first public appearance.

May 9th, 2010, is the 100th anniversary of when the McKeen car first arrived in Carson City to run on the V&T Railroad. And that is the date the ceremony will be held to celebrate the completion of the renovation. A big gala will be held at Wabuska Station at the Railroad Museum, and a limited number of tickets will be sold to ride the car at $10 per adult.

For anyone who's been watching this renovation project, this is an exciting day. I'll be sure to be there on May 9th, which is also Mother's Day, to see the McKeen Car finally come out of its hiding hole.

More info is at the NSRM Friends site.