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.
