Jarbidge
Elko County, Elko County, Nevada
Marker Inscription
Jarbidge. As early as 10000 years ago, Native American hunting parties camped near horn to hunt game. About a thousand years ago, Shoshone-speaking people entered the region, where they continue to live today. The name Jarbidge comes from a Shoshone word meaning “a bad or evil spirit”.Dave Bourne discovered gold in this isolated area in 1909 and production eventually totaled 59 million. Population size varied, but in the early l920s, the Jarbidge district replaced fading Goldfield as the premier gold-producing area in Nevada. The Jarbidge mines railed beginning in the tale 1920s.On a stormy December 5, 1916, the last stagecoach robbery and murder in the history of the West took place in Jarbidge Canyon, ¼ mile south of the town.
Erected by Northeastern Nevada Historical Society
The Story
The Jarbidge country has drawn people for a very long time—Native hunting parties camped here as early as 10,000 years ago, and Shoshone-speaking peoples who arrived about a thousand years ago still live in the region; the very name comes from a Shoshone word for an evil spirit. Dave Bourne's 1909 gold strike in this remote canyon sparked a rush that by the early 1920s made Jarbidge Nevada's leading gold producer, eclipsing fading Goldfield. It also holds a colorful footnote: the last stagecoach robbery and murder in the West, on a stormy December day in 1916.
Why it matters
Jarbidge bridges deep Indigenous history and the final chapter of the frontier, where a twentieth-century gold rush and the West's last stagecoach holdup overlapped.
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Related people
- · Dave Bourne
Related events
- · Jarbidge gold rush, 1909
- · Last Western stagecoach robbery, 1916
Themes & tags
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