The Two Battles of Pyramid Lake
Washoe County, Washoe County, Nevada
Marker Inscription
The Two Battles Of Pyramid Lake. On May 12, 1860, Northern Paiute warriors, fighting to retain their way of life, decisively defeated a volunteer army from Virginia City and nearby settlements. The battle began with a skillful Numu (Paiute) Native American ambush north of Nixon and with the engagement continuing along the plateau on the opposite side of the Truckee River almost to the present site of Wadsworth.On June 2, 1860, a larger force of volunteers and regular U.S. Army troops engaged Numu warriors in battle along the tableland and mountainside. Several hundred warriors, attempting a delaying action to allow their women, children, and elders to escape, fought with such courage and strategy that the attacking forces were held back during the day until the Numu could withdraw.Numu war leader, Numaga (young Winnemucca) desired only peace, but he fought back to defend his people.
Erected by Daughters Of The American Colonists
The Story
In the spring of 1860, Northern Paiute warriors defending their homeland fought two pitched battles near Pyramid Lake. On May 12 they routed a hastily raised volunteer army from Virginia City in a skillful ambush along the Truckee River. Three weeks later, a larger force of volunteers and regular U.S. troops met the Numu again; several hundred warriors fought a fierce delaying action, buying time for their families to escape before withdrawing. Their war leader Numaga sought peace, yet took up arms to protect his people.
Why it matters
The Pyramid Lake War was one of the largest Native military victories in the Great Basin, a stark reminder of the armed resistance that met the rush of settlers onto Indigenous land.
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Related people
- · Numaga
Related events
- · Pyramid Lake War
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Pyramid Lake
Washoe County, NV
Pyramid Lake is a surviving remnant of ancient Lake Lahontan, which once flooded much of western Nevada during the ice age, and its shoreline caves hold evidence of Numu (Paiute) people living here for thousands of years. John C. Frémont reached the lake in January 1844 and named it for the pyramid-shaped island the Numu call Wono. As settlers encroached, conflict followed: the reservation was created in 1859, and in the first Battle of Pyramid Lake in May 1860 the Numu won a victory that cost more settler lives than any prior clash west of the Mississippi.
Reno
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Long before Europeans arrived, the Washoe and Paiute lived in the Truckee Meadows; the Stevens-Murphy party passed through in 1844 and settlement began in the early 1850s. Charles Fuller launched a river ferry in 1859 and built a bridge and hotel, holdings soon acquired by Myron Lake, whose "Lake's Crossing" became the town's nucleus when the Central Pacific laid out a depot in 1868. Named for Civil War General Jesse Lee Reno, the town grew on railroads, lumber, and ranching — and later on its reputations for quick divorces, beginning in 1906, and legalized gambling in 1931.
Buckland's Station
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Samuel S. Buckland settled here in 1859, starting a ranch, a station for the Overland Stage Company, and a tent hotel, and building the first bridge across the Carson River below Genoa. In 1860 his station became the assembly point for volunteers in the Pyramid Lake War and a remount stop on the Pony Express. He later ran a store supplying soldiers at nearby Fort Churchill, and built his two-story house from timbers salvaged when the fort was dismantled.
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This broad valley sits in the Great Basin, where rivers vanish into terminal sinks rather than reaching the sea, and where the vast Ice Age Lake Lahontan once spread its waters. For some 12,000 years Native peoples lived here, thriving when wetlands filled the basins; from wave-cut caves like Leonard Rock Shelter and Lovelock Cave, archaeologists have recovered nets, fishhooks, duck decoys, and basketry. By the time American explorers arrived in the 1830s, the wetlands still sustained villages of the Numa, the Northern Paiute.