The Western Nevada Historic Photo Collection is up to more than 7,000 photos now, and I also recently finished a rebuild of the site. I’m feeling pretty proud of what I’ve accomplished there, and I’m still going in and adding more photos. But all those 7,000 photos are just sitting there buried in the collection, and probably not getting the eyeballs that they deserve. So I’ve started posting some of them to the Around Carson Facebook page so they can be seen by more people. But even there they fall off the bottom of your feed, and it’s hard to go back and see stuff that was posted in the past. So I want to start also highlighting them here. I did one of these roundup posts before, and I intended to do more. But it’s taken me 4 years to do another one. I hope the next one can be sooner than that!

So here are some of the photos I’ve shared on Facebook over the last couple of months.

Here is one of the oldest photos in the collection. This is downtown Carson City, around 1863 or so. This is a look south down Carson Street. The photographer is set up at King Street in front of the Carson City Plaza, before the Capitol Building was even built. The wooden fence at left surrounded the Plaza, and later the Capitol, until Hannah Clapp erected a new iron fence in 1875. In the background, behind the buggy and the fellow posing for a portrait, you can see several businesses along Second Street. There is a dentist and the Silver Saloon in the T. Boyd Building, next door there is the Storage, Forwarding and Commission offices, and on the corner of Second and Carson is the low stone building that housed the Daily Appeal, Carson City’s newspaper. All those buildings were torn down in the 1960s for the expanded Plaza that is there now.

In the background, past Second, the street gets more crowded with horses and buggies. On the far right you can see the original Ormsby House, which had already been expanded since its 1860 beginnings. The Ormsby House was moved and rebuilt in the 1970s to where it is now. And in the distance you can see the three-story St. Charles Hotel. The St. Charles is the only bit of this whole picture that still survives today.

The Ormsby House goes back longer than you may think. The Ormsby House we have now has been closed for 24 years and only dates back to the 1970s, when it was built at the corner of Fifth and Carson.

But there was an older Ormsby House before that, opened in 1860 at the corner of Second and Carson. That one is seen here just a few years later. This Ormsby House was built by Major William Ormsby, an early settler of Carson, but he didn’t live to see its success. He was killed in the Pyramid Lake War of 1860. The hotel kept his name, though, even as new owners expanded it and made it into one of the best hotels in town. Eventually fortunes waned and the hotel was demolished in 1931. The current Ormsby House was an attempt to revive the name and the luxury of the historic hotel. It was built by former Nevada Governor Paul Laxalt in 1972.

Photography was rare in the 1860s, as you can tell by the crowd that turned out to be captured on film on this day. Carson City was only 4-5 years old at this point.

The Nevada State Prison was originally a hotel. The Warm Springs Hotel was built in 1860 by Abe Curry on the site of a natural hot spring. The hotel was used as a meeting place by the Nevada Territorial Legislature, and the land next door was leased by the Legislature and turned into a prison. Within a couple of years the government bought the whole property outright. The hotel and prison were built out of sandstone mined from a quarry on site. That same sandstone was used to build many other buildings around town, such as the Capitol and the Mint.

The land on Fifth Street where the old children’s cottages are (between Stewart and Roop) used to be home to this impressive stone orphanage. Built in 1903, it replaced an older wooden orphanage on the site. It was torn down in the 1960s and the current cottages built.

https://aroundcarson.com/2017/11/06/ghosts_of_carson_childrens_home_cottages/

The St. Charles Hotel is one of the oldest buildings in Carson City, dating back to 1862. It has been known by many names in its 160 years, including the Briggs House, Travelers Hotel, Hotel Page, and Pony Express Hotel.

The Nevada Appeal newspaper started its life in 1865 as the Carson Daily Appeal. Its first office was here at the corner of 2nd and Carson Streets, right across from the Capitol Building (out of frame to the left). The paper stayed here until 1948. This building was demolished in the 1960s to build the expanded Capitol Plaza. If it had lasted just a few years longer, maybe preservationists could have saved it. It would be great to still have these old stone buildings downtown.

This is now the site of the Tribute to Nevada Miners statue.

A major point of pride for Carson City was once the large stone enginehouse of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad. It was built in 1873 by town founder Abraham Curry, using stone from his quarry at the State Prison. The railroad had been built in 1869 to bring silver ore down from Virginia City, and in 1872 had been extended to Reno, connecting Carson City to the Transcontinental Railroad there. This enginehouse was in use for the entire life of the railroad, up until 1950 when operations ceased and the tracks were removed. The building was then used for various industrial purposes until it was torn down in 1991.

The loss of the building is still mourned today, with many saying that it should have been preserved. The site of the enginehouse was the empty lot just south of the Jack in the Box on Stewart Street. Nothing has ever been built there since the enginehouse was torn down. Maybe the land is cursed now.

This is the Ormsby County Courthouse, right across from the Capitol at the corner of Carson and Musser streets. This building was constructed by town founder Abe Curry as the Great Basin Hotel, and at first he rented out space to the county to use for courtrooms. Eventually the county just bought it from him outright.

In this photo the Magnolia Saloon is located at the south corner of the building, on the left, and Jos. Platt’s establishment is on the north corner. “County Buildings” is etched over the main entrance.

Everything on this block was demolished in 1922 in favor of a Neoclassic courthouse designed by Frederick DeLongchamps.

This view looks south down Carson Street, roughly from King Street towards Second Street. The biggest highlight of this picture is the original Ormsby House, looming large at Second Street. A couple of lonely wagons are traveling the muddy road out front. Also notable are the storefronts at the immediate right of the photo, which were torn down early in the 20th century to build the Supreme Court and the Heroes Memorial Building. A sliver of the St. Charles Hotel is peeking through the trees in the distance.

The banner stretching over the street endorsing Samuel J. Tilden for President places this photo during the summer of 1876. Tilden won the popular vote that year, but lost to Rutherford B. Hayes in the Electoral College.

The Carson Opera House used to sit right where the Nugget is today. Built in the 1880s, it burned in 1931. See my Then and Now article for more about its history.

A view of Carson City, looking northwest from the Capitol Dome. The year is between 1871 and 1875, because those are the years the wooden fence you can see in the lower right surrounded the Capitol Building.

This photo’s largest subject is the Great Basin Hotel that dominates the lower right. The hotel was built by Abraham Curry, and rented out as offices for the government of Carson City. Today that’s the site of the Ormsby County Courthouse.

Above the hotel you can see the white steeple of the Methodist Church, and further to the right the darker steeple of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. Both of those churches still stand on Division Street. Just below St. Peter’s you can see the bell tower for the Curry Engine Company’s firehouse at Ormsby and Musser Streets. And in the right half of the picture, Abraham Curry’s house is evident with its wide columned porch.

The distant view of Slide Mountain is still recognizable to residents today.

Looking north over Carson City, from the dome of the Capitol Building. The Capitol here would have been brand new, and the whole town is only in its second decade. The U.S. Mint can be seen in the distance, but the town kind of tapers off beyond it. In the foreground on Musser Street are the Raycraft Silver State Stable and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows hall.

This 1890s view from the dome of the Nevada State Capitol looks west on King Street, towards the Sierra Nevada. At this time King was continuous all the way to Carson Street; in the 1930s the Supreme Court Building was built, closing off that first block between Carson and Curry. On the right corner of King and Curry is the Rinckel Mansion, and on the left corner is the Sweeney Building.

This 1880s view from the Capitol dome looks southwest, across the Capitol Plaza and beyond to the buildings along Carson Street. Most prominent is the Ormsby House on the right. To the left are the buildings along Second Street, which were all torn down in the 1960s. And hidden in the dark patch of trees at the back is the St. Charles Hotel.

This panorama photo looks west from the Capitol Dome, up a muddy King Street. This was taken after 1875, because in the lower right corner you can see the iron fence around the Capitol that Hannah Clapp had built that year.

A few landmarks can be seen in this view. On the right side of King Street, at the corner of Ormsby (now Curry) Street, the bulk of the Rinckel Mansion can be seen. The steeple behind that belongs to the First Presbyterian Church, and further to the right the steeple of the Methodist Church stands out white against the distant farmlands.

In the right foreground, along Carson Street, is the Great Basin Hotel. The hotel was built by Abraham Curry, and rented out as offices for the government of Carson City. Today that’s the site of the Ormsby County Courthouse.

At the far left, the original Ormsby House stands at the corner of Carson and Second streets.

The United States Mint building in Carson City was built between 1866 and 1869. The building was built out of stone from Abraham Curry’s Warm Springs quarry at the State Prison, and Curry was the first superintendent of the mint as well. Fewer than 10 branch mints have ever been operated in the United States, so it was a rare honor for Carson City to be chosen as the site for a mint. Carson City was chosen because of its proximity to the silver mines of Virginia City, and this mint produced mostly silver coins.

Coins were produced from 1870 to 1893. By that time the mines on the Comstock had mostly dried up. The building was later turned over to the State, and opened as the Nevada State Museum in 1941. It is still the museum today, more than 80 years later.

The Paul Laxalt Building was built between 1888 and 1891. Orginially it housed the post office and a US District Court. The post office moved out in 1970 and it became the State Library until 1992. In 1999 it was officially named after former Nevada governor and U.S. Senator Paul Laxalt.

Here in 1903 it is decorated to welcome President Teddy Roosevelt to town.

A look at the west side of Carson Street, where it intersects with King. This is right across from the State Capitol. At the right is the Great Basin Hotel, one of Abraham Curry’s original stone buildings. A few other storefronts line the street along the heart of downtown. Both of these blocks were demolished around 1920 to make way for the twin Heroes Memorial Building and Ormsby County Courthouse.

Just right of center you can see the National Humane Alliance Fountain on the street corner. The fountain was installed in 1909 to provide water to passers-by and the animals of town. When the buildings were demolished the fountain was saved, and it still remains in nearly the same spot today. When King Street was closed in 1936, the fountain was moved to what was the center of the street.