Tag: carsonvalley

Photo from cvartscouncil.com

The Carson Valley Arts Council has been focused lately on an effort to convert the old Copeland Lumber warehouse in Minden into a performing arts theater. The building, with its huge open spaces, would be perfect for a theater and seating, and they'd be able to convert it without much demolition or major renovations.

To raise awareness of the project the council is throwing a free concert tomorrow night, December 7th, at 7pm in the CVIC Hall. Boston folk-pop artist Edie Carey will be the main attraction.

The hall will open at 6pm for a reception, the music will begin at 7, and it will be followed by dessert at 8:15. And I'm sure that there will be plenty more information available about the Arts Center there, as well as a donation box if you're so inclined as to help out.

If you're going to be in the Minden/Gardnerville area tonight, try to catch the Carson Valley Parade of Lights. This parade travels down Hwy 395 from Lampe Park to Minden Park, and is made up of dozens of floats and vehicles decorated with Christmas lights. Rumor has it that Santa Claus might even show up. It's going to be damn cold tonight, so put on a few extra layers and get some egg nog in you before you go down there. If you do you'll be rewarded with one of the few nighttime parades in the area. It starts around 5:00.

One of the other nighttime parades in the area is also happening tonight, the Virginia City Parade of Lights. That's taking place on C Street in downtown V.C. I don't know why they have to both be on the same night, but that's the way it is.

Tomorrow night in Genoa they're lighting their town Christmas tree at 5:30 pm. Santa Claus is supposed to be there, too. Busy fellow.

Carson City is avoiding all the scheduling mess by having their Christmas tree lighting next weekend, December 9th. So that gives you a little room to breathe.

After the Carson Valley Parade in Minden tonight, there are a few things going on in downtown Minden. There's a German Christmas Market inside the C.O.D. Garage, and a miniature Minden village inside the CVIC Hall. Those same miniatures were on display there in July, too.

You can see everything that's happening in the valley this weekend here. And if any of you attend any of these events, I expect a full report!

Back in April I wrote about rumors that a sandwich shop would be sharing space with the new Starbuck's in Minden, in the back half of the old Wendy's building. A couple of weeks ago the signs finally went up for Port of Subs, and it looks like the place will be open soon. (Update: It's open now!)

I've got plenty of memories from that old Wendy's. The front door to Port of Subs is right where the mop closet used to be. Just think of that when you're getting a 6 inch turkey sub.

This isn't going to be the first Port of Subs in the area, not by a long shot. There's already one in Gardnerville, and another in North Douglas by Target. But I don't doubt that the valley has grown enough to support all three of them. We'll just have to see if it can do better business than Wendy's did.

And, not related but in the same shopping center, who in this day and age thinks it's a good idea to open a new video store?

Blockbuster and Hollywood video are already in trouble from Netflix, so what chance does a little local store like "Video Library" have? Hoping to cash in on the tiny niche that doesn't want to get movies online, maybe?

It's good to see someone trying to make a go of a new venture, but I don't expect it to be around long.

There was hail in Reno, and there was hail here in the Carson Valley.

A lot of it, too, more than we usually get.

Along with a pretty fierce downpour, like a summer thunderstorm. Kind of unusual to see this in October, but I ceased being surprised by the weather a long time ago. Even if I'm still perplexed enough to write about it.

Halloween is becoming a bigger deal every year in Carson City. The Ghost Walk itself has become a huge event over the last few years, and now the Visitor's Bureau is taking steps to make it even bigger by teaming up with their neighbor to the south, Douglas County. This year seems to be the inaugural year of the "Haunted Weekend", taking place October 20, 21 and 22.

For one price ($30), you can take part in four different ghostly events around the Carson and Eagle Valleys:

• October 20: Meet the ghosts of Gardnerville on the guided Haunted Ghost Walk. Meet at the Carson Valley Museum & Cultural Center. Tours depart hourly between 6:30-8:30 p.m.
• October 21 Day: The popular Carson City Kit Carson Trail Ghost Walk begins at 9 a.m. and departs every half-hour until 3 p.m. from Third & Carson Streets. This year's theme is Grave Concerns. Guided walking tours offer ghostly glimpses into the residents who made history here. There are two tours:
  • The Resurrection Tour features spirits appearing in: Brewery Arts Center, Esser Home, United Methodist Church, Brougher Bath House and Rinckel Mansion.
  • The Remembrance Tour features spirits appearing in: Stewart Nye Home, Edwards House, The Bliss Bungalow, and Bliss Mansion.
• October 21 Evening: Cemeteries hold special fascinations for many and make one wonder about those buried beneath. Wonder no more about these "past lives" as the ghosts of the historic Genoa Cemetery come to life between 6:30-8 p.m. Meet at the cemetery.
• October 22: Learn even more about Genoa's haunted sites on the Genoa Ghost Walk between 10:30-11:30 a.m. Meet at Genoa Courthouse Museum.

This seems to be a pretty excellent promotion, and a good demonstration of the two counties coming together to attract visitors. Of course you can buy tickets to each of these events separately as well. The Carson City Ghost Walk is $15, and each of the others is $5 apiece.

You can make reservations by calling (775)987-7410, or download the PDF form (80kb) and fax it in.

The Summer Concert Series is coming back to Minden Park this year, after a pretty successful run last year. This summer there are five concerts planned, all of them happening at the gazebo in Minden Park.

• May 26th: The Rip Tides
• June 30th: Mumbo Gumbo
• July 14th: Deja Blues
• July 28th: Stork Raving Mad
• August 25th: Jeff Jones Band

I'm especially excited about the Mumbo Gumbo concert. When I was younger I used to follow Mumbo Gumbo like some people follow the Dead. Well, I didn't have a van, but you get the idea. All the concerts start at 6:30pm, except on August 25 when it starts at 6:00. Bring a blanket, some lawn chairs, and a picnic basket, and settle in on the lawn for an evening of music.

The heavy equipment has been brought in and sagebrush has been cleared away. I don't know what they're going to build, but I know that work has started, and it's covering several acres.

This piece of land is located at the corner of Hwy 395 and 88 in Minden, across the street from Douglas High. The photo is looking east from Hwy 88, and you can see the new Arby's being built in the background. For years and years there was a sign on this lot saying that a Safeway surpermarket was coming; the Safeway was obviously never built. But now work has finally started, and I don't see any signs saying what it's going to be. So we'll have to keep an eye on this one.

Today I schlepped on down to the Carson City library with a couple of books I had to return. And after I dropped them in the bin, I wandered over to the Nevada section, as I usually do, to see if there was anything there that caught my eye. And indeed, when I was rifling through the shelves, I came across the book Remembrances of Centerville by Frieda Cordes Godecke from 1973. It’s a memoir of her time spent in the tiny little town of Centerville, a hundred years ago when it was actually a town and not just a bump in the middle of Hwy 88. And since the destruction of the Valley Bar was still fresh on my mind, I picked up the book to flip through the pages and see if the bar was mentioned at all. And indeed, right on the third page is a map of town, and the corner where the Valley Bar sat is marked “Saloon, later Cheese Factory”. I never knew there was such a thing as Centerville Cheese. I wonder if it was any good?

I went further into the book, reading Frieda’s stories of growing up in Centerville, vacationing at Lake Tahoe (it used to take all day to get there), walking to Waterloo to see her first moving picture show, and watching the first automobile drive through town. But it was page 25 that stopped me dead. For at the top of page 25, inside a decorative border, was this picture:

The caption says, “William Scheele in buggy in front of saloon. Cordes farm home in background.” The farm house where Frieda grew up is barely visible through the trees to the right, so that means that the building to the left was the town’s saloon (and later cheese shop, where Frieda says the cheese was quite good until the day they saw the cheesemaker letting his perspiration drip into the vat, after which they called it “Sweat Cheese”.) But there was something very familiar about the shape of that front porch; I realized I had just seen it yesterday. That saloon is the very same building that later, with a couple of additions, became the Valley Bar. That’s the same building that burned down on Sunday.

I’m trying to figure out when that photo might have been taken, but there’s no date on the photo. In fact there are very few dates throughout the entire book (Frieda was born in 1900, and married in 1921, so presumably all the stories take place in those two decades.) There is a Herman Scheele mentioned as the driver of the valley milk wagon, but I haven’t found anything about William Scheele (other than a 1916 patent) or what year he might have been driving his buggy through town. The Record Courier, in this article, mentions that the Valley Bar was “brought over from Virginia City in the early 1930s.” But the Valley Bar that we knew in the 21st century was much larger than the one in this picture. It looks like there had been two additions; one to the right, and one in the back. Was it one of those buildings that was brought down from VC and used to make the saloon bigger? Or is this a 30s-era photo?

What’s left of the Centerville Saloon, the “Pride of the West”. The addition to the right was completely destroyed, leaving only this original facade.

I guess it’s a moot point now. The bar has burned, and what’s left standing will probably be leveled soon. And so the story of yet another one of Nevada’s old buildings comes to an end. All I can do is put up these pictures, and try to keep it alive on the Web.

Later: I found a couple more newspaper articles on the fire, this one from the Record Courier that gives a little more info about the fire’s cause (electrical) and the history of the bar, and a blurb in the Las Vegas Review Journal that says the original saloon building was “built in Virginia City sometime in the 1850s or 1860s” (which would make it survivor of the 1875 fire?) “and moved to Centerville by 1900.” That timeline makes a little more sense than saying it was moved in the 1930s. But it also says the cheese shop closed in 1902, which means Frieda would have been eating her “Sweat Cheese” at age 2. Her memory was pretty sharp, but I doubt it was that good.

I did make it down to Centerville today to take some pictures of the Valley Bar. The damage is almost total; a couple of walls are standing, and the Men’s room is almost intact, but the rest of the bar is gone.

A small crew was out clearing away debris, sifting through the rubble for anything that could be saved. There wasn’t much. Slot machines were destroyed, TVs were melted, and the roof caved in on the pool table. But apparently the fridge was still intact, and there was still cold beer inside. So the work crew, which I believe was mostly made up of regular customers and friends of the owners, were able to have one last drink around the bar.

Looking from some angles, you could almost believe that the damage was minor. The fire department did a good job of saving as much of the building as they could. But the fire had a head start on them, and the building was just too old and flammable for them to have a chance. The northwest corner, shown below, was really the only part that wasn’t completely destroyed. But inside those solid walls, most everything is charred, and the parts that aren’t burnt have massive water damage.

But the front door still stands, and an American flag flies proudly over the porch. This is a rough day for a lot of people, but there’s always promise for the future. It seems like the Valley Bar was more about the people than the building; the number of folks hanging around offering support today proved that. So if the bar is rebuilt, it may not have the same charm, but it will still have the same heart.

For a bunch more pictures of the aftermath, check out the Flickr photo set I put together.