Franktown
Washoe County, Washoe County, Nevada
Marker Inscription
Franktown. Orson Hyde, probate judge of Carson County, Utah Territory, founded Franktown in the Wassau (Washoe) Valley in 1855.A sawmill became an important enterprise in furnishing timber to the Comstock mines after 1859. The Dall Mill, a quartz mill of sixty stamps, employed hundreds of workers. Fertile farms surrounded the town.With the completion of the railroad from Carson City to Virginia City in 1869, the milling business rapidly lost its importance and the once prosperous town declined.
Erected by Nevada State Historic Preservation Office
The Story
Orson Hyde, a probate judge in Utah Territory, founded Franktown in the Washoe Valley in 1855, and after the Comstock silver strike of 1859 its sawmill and a sixty-stamp quartz mill became vital suppliers of timber and ore processing for the booming mines. Hundreds of workers labored at the mill amid a district of fertile farms. When a railroad linked Carson City directly to Virginia City in 1869, Franktown's milling business quickly lost its purpose and the once-prosperous town declined.
Why it matters
Franktown shows how the Comstock Lode reshaped the whole region around it, spinning up milling and timber towns whose fortunes could vanish the moment a new rail line rerouted the ore.
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Related people
- · Orson Hyde
Related events
- · Comstock Lode
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Lakeview
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By 1863 two hotels and their stables stood here, and in 1872 one became a station on the newly finished Virginia & Truckee Railroad between Carson City and Reno. Beneath the highway run three inverted-siphon pipelines of the Virginia and Gold Hill Water Company, whose 76-mile box-flume and pipeline system — begun in 1873 to carry Sierra water to the Comstock — became world-famous engineering. From 1881 Lakeview also served as a lumber storage yard, fed after 1887 by a V-flume and shipped by rail to the mines until activity ceased in 1896.
The Great Incline Of The Sierra Nevada
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On the mountain above stood the "Great Incline of the Sierra Nevada," a 4,000-foot steam-powered cable railway completed in 1880 by the Sierra Nevada Wood and Lumber Company. Using 8,000 feet of wire cable wound over massive bull wheels, it hauled cordwood and lumber 1,800 feet up the slope to a V-flume that carried it down to Washoe Valley. From there wagons delivered the timber to the insatiable mines of the Comstock, moving as much as 300 cords a day.
Sand Harbor
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From 1881 to 1896, Sand Harbor on Lake Tahoe was a key link in the Sierra Nevada Wood and Lumber Company's operation, one of three great firms feeding timber to the Comstock mines. Logs rafted across the lake by the steamer Niagara were milled here, then hauled up the mountainside on "The Great Incline of the Sierra Nevada" — a tramway 4,000 feet long that climbed 1,400 feet before flumes carried the wood toward Virginia City. Walter Scott Hobart organized the company, with John Bear Overton as its general manager.
Bliss Mansion
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