Hazen
Churchill County, Churchill County, Nevada
Marker Inscription
Hazen. Hazen was named for William Babcock Hazen, who served under General Sherman in his “march to the sea.” The town, established in 1903 to house laborers working on the Newlands irrigation project south of here, included hotels, saloons, brothels, churches, and schools.In 1905, the first train came through on the new route to Tonopah. The following year, the Southern Pacific Railroad built a large roundhouse here as well as a fine depot. In 1908, Hazen was nearly destroyed by fire.As a tough town, it had no peer in the state. A lynching occurred in Hazen when “Red” Wood was taken from the wooden jail and hanged on February 28, 1905.
Erected by Jeffrey Reichman, Bsa
The Story
Hazen sprang up in 1903 as a rough-and-tumble camp housing laborers on the federal Newlands irrigation project, one of the first reclamation efforts to green the Nevada desert. When the railroad to Tonopah arrived in 1905 and the Southern Pacific built a roundhouse and depot the next year, the town of hotels, saloons, and brothels boomed—alongside a reputation for lawlessness that included the 1905 lynching of 'Red' Wood. Fire nearly wiped it out in 1908, and the town named for Civil War general William B. Hazen never fully recovered.
Why it matters
Hazen captures the collision of two forces that made the modern West—federal water reclamation and the railroad—and the frontier violence that often accompanied their boomtowns.
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Related people
- · William Babcock Hazen
Related events
- · Newlands irrigation project
- · 1905 lynching of 'Red' Wood
Themes & tags
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