Tag: virginiacity

I know I should be going through all my vacation pictures (4,000 pictures in 10 days. w00t!), but instead I've been going through pictures from 13 years ago. These photos from May of 1995 show the V&T Railroad in Virginia City running in the snow. Yes, it was one of those freak May snowstorms, and as you can see by the photos, it had almost all melted by late morning. But the pictures are still cool.

You know you want to see all 38 pictures at Flickr.

If you're looking for fireworks this 4th of July, you have plenty of options this year. The closest one to us, of course, will be in Carson City at Mills Park. After the debacle last year they're going to try again, and hopefully we'll get a full show this time around instead of the shortened mess that was last year's show. The fireworks start around 9:15. There's also a carnival going on at the park all weekend.

If you're not up for Carson City, here are the other options:

• Reno: Rancho San Rafael
• Sparks: Victorian Square
• Virginia City: Mark Twain Park (stay for the brushfires!)
• Truckee: at Donner Lake
• Lake Tahoe has several shows:
  • King’s Beach
  • Tahoe City
  • Incline Village
  • Squaw Valley (laser show)
  • and the big daddy of them all, Star Spangled Fourth at South Lake Tahoe

If you're going to Lake Tahoe, remember that alcohol is banned on most beaches. And they'll be gouging you big time on parking. If you can even find any.

Other Links:
www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20080703/NEWS/221783369/
www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20080703/NEWS/135392171/0/OPINION
blog.travelnevada.com/articles/fourth-of-july-in-reno-tahoe

Some good news coming out of Virginia City. After spending 7 years in the shop, Locomotive #29 of the V&T is all fixed and up and running again. That's an extraordinarily long time for an overhaul, but apparently it wasn't just a matter of doing some simple repairs, they had to make some upgrades to comply with stricter FRA regulations. That plus budget problems that they probably had, added up to a long hiatus.

And even now, the engine isn't out pulling trains daily. They ran it last weekend to shake it out and see how it performed, but they haven't put it into regular service yet. This is a big step forward for the railroad, though. We need steam in Virginia City. We're getting a little tired of that diesel engine.

Missing from the story, though, is news on the other steam engine they have up on the hill, #8. All these stories focus on #29, as well they should because it's the more elegant engine and it's been on the Comstock the longest. But #8 is also up there, sitting in the shop, inoperable, and nobody ever talks about it. Maybe they wanted to focus all their energy on #29 first, get it done, and now that they've done it they can shift their attention to #8. Because you have to admit, it's always better to have two locomotives running than it is one. Back in the late 90s, when I was riding the train all the time, both were operational, so they could put one in the shop for some minor repairs for a week or two and it wasn't a big deal. The other one would take over responsibilities for that time. That's what they'll need to get back to, and they'll get to get #8 running again to do it. But these new stories never even talk about #8, so I really don't know what's going on with it.

Sometimes there's nothing you can do with an old house except tear it down. Carson City has had its share of tear-downs. This house, for example, which was just too old and too decrepit to survive, was torn down to build a two-story duplex on the site.

Other cities have varying degrees of tolerance for old buildings. In Las Vegas, for example, anything over ten years old is fair game for the wrecking ball. Other cities have historic districts where old houses are maintained and kept up. And in a place like Virginia City, the whole town is a historic district, and nothing is torn down without careful consideration by the whole community.

That's why it's so rare for a demolition to be scheduled in Virginia City. But sometimes the house is just too old, and there's nothing you can do. When the frame is disintegrating and the roof is collapsing, it's the only choice. And that's the case with the Sargent House, at 284 South D Street, across from the Mackay mansion.

It's a very photogenic house. The way it leans, the way the porch droops, the weathered boards and overgrown brush. It's like it was specially built to have people take pictures of it. Others have noticed too, like here and here. But the structure is falling apart. The roof has collapsed, the walls are disintegrating, and the owner fears that someone's going to try to explore inside and have the whole thing cave in on them. So they went in front of the Comstock Historic District board to get it torn down, and the board yesterday gave its approval.

It's one of only four or five houses that have been demolished in the last decade. Usually up there they try to save the houses if at all possible, even if it takes decades to find someone to restore it. That's what happened with the B Street Bed & Breakfast, which was empty forever until Carolyn and Chris Eichin came along to fix it up. But there's no one to save the Sargent House, and even if there were it's not even possible anymore. It's too fragile now. So it's time for it to go.

The history of the house is not really known. They think it predates the Great Fire of 1875, but they're not really sure. Their guess is that it was built in the 1860s or 1870, but there's no way to tell. The last residents of the house were the Sargent family, hence the name. They moved out in the 1950s and the house has been empty ever since. There's a story in the article about how the father, Jake Sargent, tore down the house next door for firewood and found money hidden in all the walls. And the boy who grew up in the house, Ross Sargent, is not only still alive, he's already read the article and added a comment to it.

Demolition isn't going to be for another four or five weeks. First they're going to go through and salvage any boards or decorative trim that's still good. And then there will be one more empty lot on the Comstock, one more house from the old days gone.

The website Great Streets has singled out Virginia City as one of their Great Main Streets. They're written up a fairly in-depth multi-page article about how well C Street works for pedestrians, and how most of that is because it was designed back in the 1800s, when there were no cars. In this case the lack of modernization has been a good thing, as it's kept the sidewalks wide, and covered with awnings to protect against the weather. The biggest downside they mention is that the only parking available in town is on-street, so that creates more traffic through the downtown core than there should be, as people search for a good spot. They also note how the overhead wiring is ugly as sin.

Go read the article, and be sure to click the little pictures at the bottom to get to the other pages.

How disappointing to live in Virginia City and never see any ghosts. From Karen Woodmansee in the Appeal:

Not that I haven't given them the chance to show themselves. I lived in the Silver Queen Hotel for about four months. It's supposed to be haunted, but I never saw or heard anything. I lived across from the cemetery and never saw anything. I frequent the Washoe Club, also supposed to be haunted, but never saw the cowboy that supposedly drinks whisky at the end of the bar and then disappears, and never saw an orb on the spiral staircase.

Maybe I should drink more.

Indeed.

A couple of stories of note in the Nevada Appeal today. First is the story about the fire that started at the Fourth Ward Schoolhouse in Virginia City Friday morning, which by all rights should have burned the place down. It was only because they had installed a sprinkler system during a previous remodel (using money from Jack Daniels, of all places) the the fire was put out and the historic building saved. The Nevada Appeal of course had to make a "firewater" joke here.

Second is the story about how the V&T is running out of money, and might not have enough to finish the rail line all the way down the Carson City.

Rich Moreno of the Backyard Traveler is at it again. This time he has a blog post detailing the history of Virginia City's churches.

Nevada Appeal: V&T agreement allows Grays to use new track:

The trains of the Virginia & Truckee Railroad will be able to travel on the new track for another year.

Tom Gray, owner of the Virginia & Truckee, reached an agreement with the Nevada Commission for the Reconstruction of the V&T Railway, which is building the track from Gold Hill to Carson City. The agreement allows the Virginia & Truckee to take its 4 p.m. train on the 1.4-mile stretch of track from Gold Hill to American Flat that was completed in 2006.

Hopefully the Grays really will get their steam trains running again this year, because I'm getting a little tired of seeing that diesel engine up there.

The painting above was coincidentally submitted to the site today. It shows V&T #13, the Empire, crossing the proposed railroad bridge over Hwy 50 in Mound House. It would be quite a feat if this could come true; currently the Empire is being held captive at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, one of three of our native engines that are being held against their will in a foreign land. We'd love to get the Empire, and her sisters, back to Carson City to ride the rails, but the outlook for that happening is grim.

Instead, the engine we'll really see pulling cars over the new bridge is this burly beast, #18 that was purchased from McCloud few years ago:

I was rooting around my other website's archives when I came across this story from a few years ago about the old International Hotel in Virginia City. There was also a link to a Nevada Appeal article about the hotel. The article pre-dated Around Carson, so I thought I'd dig it out and bring it to light again.

This International was actually the third International Hotel in Virginia City. it was built in 1876 after the previous International had burned to the ground during the Great Fire the year before. This third hotel was bigger and more opulent than any that came before, boasting six stories, 160 rooms, and the first elevator in Nevada. It couldn't escape the Curse of the International forever, though. This hotel also burned to the ground on December 12, 1914.

I've also created an article on Carsonpedia about the International Hotel. Hopefully I'll one day be able to write articles like this about every historic building in the area. I also found a bunch of old pictures of the hotel and added them to the Western Nevada Historic Photo Collection. You can see them all here. I especially like this picture taken in 1866, the only one that I'm aware exists of the second International Hotel, that burned in 1875.