Carson and Colorado Railroad Freight Depot
Mineral County, Mineral County, Nevada
Marker Inscription
Carson And Colorado R.R. Freight Depot. This is the first railroad building to be constructed in Hawthorne. It is the remnant of the narrow-gauge Carson and Colorado Railroad built south from Mound House, near Virginia City in 1881. Railroad officials laid out the town in the desert and the first lots were auctioned off on April 14, 1881. The line was subsequently extended into Owens Valley, California, with rail service to Hawthorne coming to an end when the town was bypassed in 1905. In later years, this building served as the general store of J. E. Adams and Senator John H. Miller, a bar and restaurant with a bingo parlor, and a banquet hall, until acquired by the Hawthorne Elks Lodge in 1946.
Erected by Hawthorne Lodge No. 1704 Benevolent And Protective Order Of The Elks
The Story
This freight depot was the first railroad building erected in Hawthorne, a surviving remnant of the narrow-gauge Carson and Colorado Railroad that pushed south from Mound House in 1881. Railroad officials laid out the town in the desert and auctioned its first lots that April. The line was later extended into California's Owens Valley, but Hawthorne's rail service ended when the town was bypassed in 1905, and the depot went on to serve as a store, a bar and restaurant, and finally an Elks Lodge hall.
Why it matters
The depot marks how narrow-gauge railroads conjured whole towns out of the Great Basin desert — and how quickly those towns could wither when the rails moved on.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hawthorne
Mineral County, NV
Hawthorne was laid out in 1880 by Carson and Colorado Railroad president H. M. Yerington as a division point, named for pioneer lumberman William A. Hawthorne rather than its planned name of Millbrae. The town seesawed through Nevada's county-seat rivalries—taking the Esmeralda seat from Aurora in 1883, losing it to Goldfield in 1907, and becoming Mineral County's seat in 1911. Its fortunes turned again in the late 1920s when the Navy, after a disastrous eastern munitions explosion, chose Hawthorne for a huge ammunition depot, commissioned in 1930.
Belleville
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Founded in 1874 by Alsop J. Holmes, Belleville sprang up to mill ore from his Northern Belle Mine at Candelaria, shipping its first bullion bar in 1875. When the Carson and Colorado Railroad reached town in 1881, Belleville's population peaked near five hundred, supporting hotels, restaurants, a schoolhouse, and seven saloons. But once pipelines carried water directly to Candelaria's own mills in the late 1880s, the town lost its purpose and stood deserted by 1892.
Wabuska
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Wabuska took shape in the early 1870s as a station on the freight road running from the Central Pacific to the roaring mining camps of the Nevada-California borderlands. In 1881 it became the main supply and distribution center for Mason Valley on the new narrow-gauge Carson and Colorado Railroad, later bought and re-gauged by Southern Pacific, and the Tonopah and Goldfield booms swelled its traffic. When copper was found in Mason Valley, Wabuska became the northern terminus of the Nevada Copper Belt Railroad, only to wane as mining activity faded in the 1920s.
Fish Lake Valley
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Fish Lake Valley drew its first settlers after the Palmetto mining district was discovered in 1866, and by the 1870s firms including the Pacific Borax Works were extracting borax from the lake. The Carson and Columbus stage line ran north toward Aurora and Carson City, and local ranches supplied food to the freight and mining trade, with a post office opening in 1881. The marker also honors W.O. Harrell, remembered as a colorful "citizen extraordinaire" of the valley.