Caliente (Culverwell’s Ranch)
Caliente, Lincoln County, Nevada
Marker Inscription
Caliente (Culverwell’s Ranch). Caliente was first settled as a ranch, furnishing hay for the mining camps of Pioche and Delmar. In 1901, the famous Harriman-Clark right-of-way battle was ended when rancher Charles Culverwell, with the aid of a broad-gauge shotgun, allowed one railroad grade to be built through his lush meadows. Harriman and Clark had been baffling eleven years, building side-by-side grades ignoring court orders and federal marshals.The population boom began with an influx of railroad workers, most of them immigrants from Austria, Japan, and the Ottoman Empire. A tent city was settled in August 1903.With the completion of the Las Angeles, San Pedro, and Salt Lake Railroad in 1905, Caliente became a division point. Beginning in 1906, the Caliente and Pioche Railroad (now the Union Pacific) was built between Pioche and the main line at Caliente. The large Mission Revival-style depot was built in 1923, serving as a civic center, as well as a hotel.
Erected by Lincoln County Area Development Committee
The Story
Caliente began humbly as Culverwell's Ranch, cutting hay for the mining camps of Pioche and Delmar, until the railroad transformed it. In 1901 rancher Charles Culverwell reportedly ended the eleven-year Harriman–Clark right-of-way feud with a shotgun, letting one grade cross his meadows; a tent city followed in 1903 and a railroad division point by 1905. Waves of Austrian, Japanese, and Ottoman immigrant workers built the town, crowned in 1923 by its grand Mission Revival depot that doubled as civic center and hotel.
Why it matters
Caliente shows how the transcontinental railroad wars and immigrant labor conjured whole communities out of desert ranchland across the American West.
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Related people
- · Charles Culverwell
- · E. H. Harriman
- · William A. Clark
Themes & tags
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