Tag: carsoncity

Flickr user fallacy has some photos from the Carson City Rendezvous this weekend.

Guy Rocha: Is the capitol dome really silver?

Trent Dolan: How to live on nothing a year, and other information from the papers of July 1878.

Also happening this weekend is the Carson City Rendezvous (or Kit Carson Rendezvous, as it used to be called). The main festivities are happening down at Mills Park, with arts, crafts, and a mountain man encampment. This is the 25th year for the Rendezvous. Here's a list of what will be at Mills Park this weekend:

Mountain Man Encampment - life in the early 1800's, including contests of skill, music of the era, and trade goods
Civil War Encampment - re-enactment of the earliest period of Nevada statehood, both Union and Southern camps
Pony Express - re-rides of the most famous cross-country mail route from the 1860's
Gunfighter Town & Stage - live action shows by teams of gunfighters representing the end of the 19th century
Main Stage - a full weekend of country and western music, dance, and comedy. Great Saturday line-up and FREE concerts. Main Stage Schedule in WORD or Adobe PDF. Note: Schedule is subject to change.
Don't take chances! Attend Cowboy Church on Sunday at 10 AM at the Main Stage. Preacher Paul Hirdler presiding.
Mountain Man Stage - traditional banjo, fiddle, and accordion music, so tap your feet and dance along Click HERE for details.
Native American Village - traditional dances and drumming, beadwork demonstration and instruction, arts and crafts Click HERE for details.
Pueblo de Nevada - traditional Hispanic dance and music
Camel Rides - travel the way John Huston did when filming “The Misfits” in nearby Virginia City
Stagecoach Rides - an Abbott-Downing replica pulled by a 4-up team of horses
Children’s Area - Back-In-Time Kids perform for you, old time games and fun
Dutch Oven Cook-off - mouth watering food, cooked pioneer style
Kid's Stick Horse Rodeo Games - FREE to kids age 2 to 13 Click HERE for details.
Horseshoe Tournament - Rendezvous' First of this event. Click HERE for details.
Arts & Crafts - astonishing variety
Food Court - feast on a variety of foods, including Indian Tacos, barbeque, kettle korn, and more...

Nevada Appeal has a story in the Rendezvous too.

I never went out to the Champion Speedway to watch any races, but for anyone who did, the latest news coming out of there has to be pretty sad. The Speedway was open for 42 years at the south end of town, past Stewart Street along Bigelow Drive. The racetrack was home to many car races over the years, but dwindling attendance and noise complaints from new neighbors led to the owners being more and more frustrated with operating it. When developers approached them, wanting to buy the land for a housing development, they eagerly accepted.

That was three years ago. The housing development has been delayed many times since then, and the racetrack has become a hotbed of graffiti and vandalism. The Grandstands and announcer booths have been demolished, splinter by splinter, by local vandals. And the trash and debris has been scattered all over the track. Now Carson City wants the developer to at least clean up the land so that it's not a public hazard, and the developer is still dragging their feet.

Until then, the old racetrack is a post-apocalyptic mess of graffiti, bashed-up buildings, and trash. NewsCarsonCity had the story last week, and the Carson Times followed it up today. Head over there for pictures and video.

The Nevada Appeal yesterday had a look back at the Morning Appeal from 1878, with stories therein about the 4th of July party and the Sutro Tunnel. They also had a look forward to August 16, when downtown Carson will be celebrating the Sesquicentennial with a variety of events. They linked to Fred Nietz' eventsnevada.com, where there is a schedule of events posted for that day. Apparently Abraham Lincoln will be making an appearance, so we should all show up for that.

Dave Frank at the Nevada Appeal has a story today about the history of the Ormsby House logo, the rose-in-gun symbol that's hung off the building from the day it opened. The logo was meant to represent the "mild Wild West" theme of the hotel back in 1972, when it was opened by former governor Paul Laxalt. The logo was then put on everything, the hotel itself, matchbooks, ashtrays, Keno tickets, brochures and postcards. And now it's being put back on the property, both on the long-suffering Ormsby-Winchester Club and on the main sign. I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of it as time goes on.

If you've driven southbound on Carson Street at all, you've probably caught a glimpse of a mural painted on the back of one of the buildings in the north part of downtown, between Winnie and Long Streets. But if you're like most, you've never stopped to take a look at it or wonder why it's there.

The mural was done by artist Erik Burke, who works mostly on large canvases like this. This particular one was done in an alleyway between the Sierra Podiatry Center and the shopping center next door. Sierra Podiatry Center is the office of Dr. H. Kim Bean, and back in the 60s and 70s this building held a restaurant called Enrico's.

The mural is kind of a general ode to bicycling, but in particular it's an homage to local icon Glenn Lucky. If you live in Carson City, odds are good that you're familiar with Glenn. He's the guy you see riding a three-wheeled bicycle around town, sometimes carrying a trailer full of advertising, sometimes just out for a stroll. He has cerebral palsy, and bike riding is his way of exercising and keeping in shape. He's become somewhat of a good will ambassador for Carson City, always out there riding his bike and waving at traffic. He was picked as the perfect subject for the mural.

Aside from Glenn, there are other images of bikes, telephone pole, kites, the Golden Gate Bridge, and lots of abstract colors thrown up on the wall. There's a half pipe with a skater painted on the back of the building.

And these two fellows here.

In all it's a funky way to liven up an alley that otherwise nobody would look at twice. I applaud the property owners for allowing this to go up. Murals like this can bring color and life to a city, and even though it's not very close to downtown and there's no earthly reason for anybody to ever stop at this alley, except to see the mural, it's still a welcome addition to Carson City. I'd say we need more of these around town.

Burke has also done murals in Reno and Sparks. This mural was sponsored by the Capital City Arts Initiative. Here's their press release of the unveiling of the mural. Facility Bike Club noticed the mural a couple of months after it went up, but didn't know the story. And I have more pictures of the mural here.

(Speaking of Glenn Lucky, I started today a page on Carsonpedia for Glenn. If any of you have any information to add about Glenn's life, don't hesitate to click that EDIT button!)

Until now, construction of the new part of the freeway between Hwy 50 and Fairview has only led to a few delays here and there along Hwy 50, Fifth Streets, and Fairview. But things are about to get seriously messy, as work begins on repaving and widening the street between Roop and Saliman. Basically the advice is to avoid that road completely, unless you have to drive it. And if you have to, realize that the road will be one-way for the whole month of June. You'll only be able to drive eastbound, from Roop to Saliman, and not the other way. You'll have to detour onto Colorado to go westbound.

A few new additions to the WNHPC tonight. I really need to add photos more often. I have a backlog of hundreds of pictures waiting to go in.

Bliss Mansion

Robinson Street

State Capitol

White House Hotel

Brian Switek brings us the story of the Carson City Giant. In 1882 large footprints were discovered fossilized in the stone at the State Prison quarry. The discovery was publicized by H. W. Harkness of San Francisco, who said that the footprints were unidentifiable and undoubtedly came from a giant prehistoric man wearing a size 19 sandal. This of course drew much national attention, and scrutiny from other scientists revealed the prints to be very similar to those found elsewhere, that had been identified as a giant sloth. Doubtless a sloth had wandered through the springs that sprout up by the prison, and left his soft footprints in the mud, that later fossilized. The Californians were mostly satisfied with this explanation, and went home. But there are still some who believe that a bigfoot walked among us, many thousands of years ago.