The Great Incline Of The Sierra Nevada
Washoe County, Washoe County, Nevada
Marker Inscription
The Great Incline Of The Sierra Nevada. Located on the mountain above are the remnants of the “Great Incline of the Sierra Nevada”. Completed in 1880, this 4,000 foot long lift was constructed by the Sierra Nevada Wood and Lumber Company. A unique steam-powered cable railway carried cordwood and lumber up 1,800 feet to a v flume which carried the lumber down to Washoe Valley where it was loaded on wagons for use in the mines of the Comstock.Driven by an engine on the summit, 8,000 continuous feet of wire cable, wrapped around massive bull wheels pulled canted cars up a double tract tramline. This engineering feat would transport up to 300 cords a day from the mill located in what is now Mill Creek.
Erected by Division Of Historic Preservation & Archeologyincline Village Rotary Club
The Story
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.
Why it matters
It stands as a monument to the audacious engineering that fed the Comstock Lode, showing how much timber and ingenuity the great silver mines devoured to keep running.
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Related events
- · Comstock Lode mining
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sand Harbor
Washoe County, NV
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.
Franktown
Washoe County, NV
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.
Lakeview
Carson City, NV
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.
First Air Flight Over Nevada Nevada June 23, 1910
Carson City, NV
On June 23, 1910, aviation pioneer Ivy Baldwin—already famous as a balloonist and parachutist—lifted a 48-horsepower Curtiss biplane off the old Raycraft Ranch west of Carson City, making the first airplane flight in Nevada. The trial run, staged for the Sagebrush Carnival, drew national notice partly because it happened at an unusually high 4,675-foot altitude. Baldwin climbed to 50 feet and covered half a mile before circling back, a modest hop that heralded a new age.