Tag: carsoncity

After two-thirds of a year of "celebrating" the Sesquicentennial of Carson City, the time has come for the actual birthday party to be thrown. Tomorrow, Saturday Aug 16, has been designated the official "Sesquicentennial Day", and that is the day all the events are being held. For the complete list of events I'm going to defer to the Nevada Appeal, who have also put together an article on Fred and Maxine Nietz, who are organizing the event and have also been invaluable in sending in materials both to Around Carson and the WNHPC. Fred and Maxine run Arlington Group, which also puts on other events around town like the Rendezvous and the Christmas Tree lighting. They've done a lot of thankless work to pull off this celebration tomorrow, so I want to be one to say thanks.

Sesquicentennial Schedule of Events

9:30 a.m. - History of the Carson City Mint, Robert Nylen, Curator of History at Nevada State Museum
10 a.m.-Noon - Meet President Abe Lincoln at the Nevada State Capitol
10 a.m.-2 p.m. - 30 minute tours of the Capitol Building, on the half-hour
10 a.m.-3 p.m.: Special Minting of the 150th Anniversary Commemorative Medallion in the historic Carson City Mint
10 a.m.-3 p.m.: Gold Panning (outdoors), Nevada State Museum
10 a.m.-3 p.m.: Kid’s Treasure Chest and Rubbings, Nevada State Museum
10 a.m.-3 p.m.: Annual Children's Carnival, Children's Museum of Northern Nevada
11 a.m.: Mark Twain and Coins and Curiosities of the Comstock - Chautauqua by McAvoy Layne, Nevada State Museum
Noon-6 p.m.: Birthday Bash Celebration, Nugget Parking Lot
1 p.m.: Chili Cook-off Tasting and Judging, Nugget Parking Lot
1 p.m.-3 p.m.: Coins in Nevada History, plus Morgan Dollar Grading Seminar by Will Robins, Nevada State Museum
1-5 p.m.: Downtown Beer Crawl
2 p.m.: Chili Cook-off Awards, Nugget Parking Lot
2:45 p.m.: Procession from Children’s Museum to State Museum and then to Nugget Lot. Start at Children’s Museum, south on Plaza, west on Robinson, cross Carson Street to the State Museum, cross Robinson to Nugget Parking Lot
3 p.m.: Drawing for Man’s and Woman’s Coin Watches (value $259 each) at Nevada State Museum
4 p.m.: Abe Lincoln’s connection to Nevada Statehood, Chautauqua by Wally Earhart, Nevada State Museum
3 p.m.: Cutting the Birthday Cake, Nugget Parking Lot
3-9 p.m.: Cactus Jack's Carson City Birthday Party, Cactus Jacks Casino
3:30 p.m.: Paul Roth Quintet, Nugget Parking Lot
7 p.m.: Karson Kruzers Street Dance, Nugget Parking Lot.

News Carson City has the report that the Mervyn's in Carson City, down south by Raley's, will be closing in a couple of months because it wasn't performing strong enough. The whole company went bankrupt a little bit ago, and closing stores is part of their restructuring. So now Carson City is going to have another big gaping empty store, like we don't have enough of those.

More from the RGJ and Nevada Appeal.

More at Bike Carson.

Today, August 12, is supposedly the actual 150th birthday of Carson City. The deed transferring the land Carson sits on over to Abe Curry and his partners was signed on Aug. 12, 1858. Of course at the time there was nothing here but a small trading post and a lot of empty land. The "town" took several months to come together in any form, first by being surveyed and streets laid out in September, then by getting an official Post Office in November.

It's amazing to me that anyone came to live in the new town, especially during those first few months when there was literally nothing here. But Curry was determined to create a town, even if only through sheer determination of will, and the fact that we have streets and houses still here today stands as testament that he got the job done.

Now whether August 12 should even be named the "birthday" at all is in doubt, as this article in the Appeal details. That date comes from the deed, but the deed wasn't filed until four years later. People were living in the valley before Curry & Co came; couldn't they be considered the "founders"? What about the Eagle Ranch itself, which had been established six or seven years already when Curry came in to buy it? When was the first house built in Carson? When was the second house? At what point does three houses in the desert become a "town"?

We could debate this all day, but does it really matter? History is nothing but vapor anyway, tales told around the campfire. Whether that campfire is an actual campfire, or a library, or a computer, doesn't matter. We're still talking about things that are long past, people that are long dead. So I'm happy to point to August 12 as the birthday of Carson City, and to be content to say "Happy Birthday Carson City."

And even though today is the birthday, the party won't be until Saturday. The Appeal also has a rundown on everything that will be happening that day, as does Arlington Events. The main celebration will be at the Nugget's west parking lot (former home of the Arlington Hotel) from noon to 6, with satellite events scattered around at the Capitol, the Museum, and other places downtown.

Nevada Appeal: History is found on tombstones of Carson City's cemeteries.

Originally seven separate cemeteries, Lone Mountain formed into one cemetery in 1971.

Many of the oldest stones are made of sandstone from Abe Curry's quarries that were located on the site of what is now the Nevada State Prison on Fifth Street, according to the Carson City's official Web site.

Lone Mountain Cemetery today encompasses sections for the Masons, Oddfellows, Catholics, two Babyland areas, Hebrew, Grand Army of the Republic, veterans, and a city cemetery section that dates back to the territorial days.

Also see my previous article on the Pioneer Cemetery and the Poor Farm Cemetery. And the official Carson City pages on the cemetery.

Crossposted from the WNHPC Blog.

With the recent news that the Downtowner Motor Inn in Carson City may have new owners soon, Joe Childs was good enough to send in a scan of another old postcard of the motel. This one is dated 1969, and shows the motel when it was only seven years old.

This dusk shot almost makes the place seem inviting. The glow of the sign and the porch lights, as well as the Best Western crown, seem to have pulled in a lot of customers. Joe scanned the back of this one too, showing the message from “Poppy” to Miss Kristen Hendershot of Orange, Calif.

Today the Nevada Appeal has a pretty great front-page article tracking down the oldest building in Carson City. Everyone seems to agree that it is the Stewart-Nye House, at the corner of King and Minnesota streets. This house was built around 1860 for William Stewart, who later went on to become the first U.S. Senator from Nevada. He sold the house in 1862 to James Nye, who was the first governor of Nevada when it was still a territory, before it became a state. So that makes this house Nevada's first governor's mansion. Mark Twain was a close associate of Nye's (his brother Orion Clemens was Nye's secretary), and Twain would often come over to the house for cigars and brandy. The house is now home to the Taggart and Taggart law firm. It is usually a stop on the Carson City Ghost Walk, since the presence of an old woman has been seen upstairs after hours. See my 2005 Ghost Walk report for more details.

The article then goes on to chronicle some of the other old buildings in Carson, ones that aren't the oldest but are still pretty damn old. State Archivist Guy Rocha names the building at 314 S. Carson St., home to Caterpillar's Hookah Lounge, as the oldest commercial building in town. That one can be seen on the left here.

It's also in this photo from 1984, moonlighting as a pawn shop.

The other history article in the newspaper today is a look by Trent Dolan back at an 1876 issue of the Carson Daily Appeal, including a report on General Custer's defeat at Little Big Horn.

Hard on the heels of our soon-to-be-record-breaking heat wave, comes a plea from Carson City Public Works to cut back on water usage this weekend, especially outdoor watering. The travails of living in a desert, I suppose.

From the Nevada Appeal:

The Downtowner Motor Inn lost its business license Thursday at the city board of supervisors' meeting but will remain open as a new owner takes over the motel that was shut down in 2005 before reopening last year.

The potential new owners, the Shearer family, are working with the city to take over the motel now. No one will be asked to move out during the transition, city staff said.

Shearer said he is working with the city to find the best use for the hotel. He might keep it as the Downtowner, have a hotel chain take it over or give the land to the next door Children's Museum of Northern Nevada to use for expansion.

Dave Morgan also has coverage from a couple of days ago.

I'm sure Carson City will be considering the motel building to house the new library. But I've said before that this motel needs to be torn down. Figuring out what to do with the land is tougher. Leaving it as open space would be nice, because pictures I've seen from before the motel was built show a big open area with great views of the Civic Auditorium next door, and it would be nice to have that back. But "open space" is hardly a good use of premium land in a downtown area.

This land was originally part of the railroad depot, which still stands across the street. The train tracks and the passenger platform took up most of what is now Washington Street, but mail and delivery trucks would park where the Downtowner now stands so that goods could be offloaded directly off the backside of the train. This parking area can be seen in the photo below, from 1949.

The railroad tracks were torn up in 1950, and the lot stayed vacant until 1962 when the motel was built. Maybe that corner is going to enter a new era soon.

The news is floating around that the Citibank building at Telegraph Square, one of the big boxy eyesores in downtown Carson, is going to be sold off soon. Wells Fargo is taking over Citibank's operations in Northern Nevada, and this building is part of the deal. Since there's already a Well Fargo branch nearby, they'll be shuttering this one. And since they'll no longer need the building, that means they'll get rid of it by selling it.

So this is where the opportunities come in. Telegraph Square, and all of what is being called the "Curry Street Promenade", has been seeing a lot of redevelopment lately, and a large parcel like this coming up for sale is exciting because there are so many possible uses for it. The consensus in the article seems to be that it needs to be torn down just because it's so ugly, and I can't say I disagree with that. But then what do you build on the site? Housing and retail seem to be the top two choices, or more likely some mix of the two. I could also see a parking garage going on this site, with retail shops facing the street on the ground floor.

Or the building could be remodeled. There's a basic structure here that serve as a good base for transforming it into something architecturally exciting. The building as it is now could be reconfigured to have retail on the ground floor and housing or offices above, maybe with an addition in the back. The look of it could be updated to something that fits more with the character of the neighborhood, and it could be a real part of Telegraph Square instead of the big boxy obstacle that it is now.

The kicker, though, is that it's not up to us. As with all of these redevelopment projects, there would have to be a developer with vision that came in and bought the building, and was willing to take a risk on downtown. The most likely outcome is that whoever buys it will keep it mostly the same, and lease out the space as offices, most of which will sit vacant. If it sells at all.

It's easy to be pessimistic, but things like the Firkin and Fox give me hope. What do you think will happen with the Citibank building?