Pioneer Memorial Park
Winnemucca, Humboldt County, Nevada
Marker Inscription
Pioneer Memorial Park. This part of the Pioneer Cemetery includes the last resting place of Frank Baud and other of the pioneers who founded Winnemucca, earlier known as French Ford. Baud arrived in 1863 and is one of the men credited with naming the town Winnemucca after the famous Northern Paiute chieftain. Baud came with Louis Lay from California to work on the Humboldt canal, a project headed by Dr. A. Gintz and Joseph Ginaca who devised the plan to link Golconda and Mill City by means of a 90-mile canal and provide water for the mills in the area. It was never completed. Baud later became a merchant, helped build the Winnemucca Hotel with Louis and Theophile Lay, was the first postmaster, and gave the town a schoolhouse before his death in 1868.
Erected by Nevada State Historic Preservation Office
The Story
This corner of the pioneer cemetery holds the founders of Winnemucca, a Humboldt River town first known as French Ford. Frank Baud, who arrived in 1863, helped name the settlement after the noted Northern Paiute chief Winnemucca. Baud came to work on Dr. Gintz's ambitious but never-finished 90-mile Humboldt canal, then became a merchant, the town's first postmaster, and the donor of its schoolhouse before his death in 1868.
Why it matters
The graves memorialize the small band of settlers who built a lasting community on the Humboldt and, in the town's name, preserve the memory of a prominent Paiute leader.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Frank Baud
- · Chief Winnemucca
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Paradise Valley
Humboldt County, NV
Hudson's Bay Company trapper Peter Skene Ogden passed through Paradise Valley in 1828, and settlers arrived in 1863 to farm land that would supply mines across Nevada and Idaho. Conflict with local Native Americans soon followed, prompting the U.S. Army to establish Camp Winfield Scott nearby from 1866 to 1870. The town changed names with its fortunes — Scottsdale, then Paradise City as a mining supply center, and finally Paradise Valley once livestock raising came to dominate.
High Rock Canyon
Washoe County, NV
High Rock Canyon holds a record of human presence stretching from around 3,000 B.C. to the gold rush, written on its towering volcanic walls in rockshelters, campsites, and petroglyphs. Northern Paiute people ranged this remote country when John C. Frémont passed through in 1843. Soon after, the Applegate brothers blazed an emigrant trail through the canyon in 1846, Peter Lassen followed part of the route in 1848, and by 1849 gold seekers crowded the narrow passage westward.
Edwards Creek Valley
Churchill County, NV
The springs and streams of Edwards Creek Valley made it a vital gathering ground for Native peoples, where Shoshone families moved seasonally for seeds and small game and wintered in camps later shared by Northern Paiutes. In 1854 Colonel John Reese found a route through the valley shorter than the Humboldt trail, and after surveyor James Simpson formalized it in 1859 it carried the Pony Express, the Overland Telegraph, and the overland stages. Serving too as a passageway to the 1862 Austin gold rush, it remained the region's principal commercial artery until 1880.
Fort Halleck Site 1867 1886
Elko County, NV
Established in July 1867 by Captain Samuel Smith, Fort Halleck stood guard over the California Emigrant Trail, the Overland mail route, and the advancing Central Pacific Railroad during conflicts with the Goshute and Western Shoshone. Named for Civil War general-in-chief Henry Wager Halleck, it grew into a 20-building post and headquarters for the Nevada Military District. Its troops ranged far afield—against the Modoc in 1873, the Nez Perce in 1877, the Bannock in 1878, and the Apache in 1885. As the frontier quieted, the Army closed the fort in December 1886.