History

Archive for the ‘History of Nevada’ Category

In a state known for detonating and steam-shoveling its history at the first sign of wrinkles, Carson City is the exception, a living, working museum of Nevada’s gold- and  silver-rush beginnings, where the past isn’t just for reading, but also for walking,  listening, seeing and, well, for sleeping in. At the city’s heart is the eight-by-10-block Historic District, a bucolic, stroll-friendly  neighborhood thick with Comstock-era buildings that paint a picture of Nevada as a  youngster. They also explain where half of San Francisco’s earliest millionaires made  their fortunes (honestly or not).  For action seekers, it’s a laid-back, less-crowded escape from the throngs at South Lake  Tahoe, Truckee and Reno, convenient to Tahoe (14 miles) in the summer and Sierra ski  runs in the winter.  To absorb some of that past, as well as a little comfort, I booked two nights at the Bliss Mansion, a sprawling, 15-room Victorian Italianate home that’s now a breathtaking bed and breakfast, and planned a walking tour that included, among other things, a dozen 19th century homes that speak for themselves.  The mansion was the Bellagio of its time: At 8,000 square feet and three stories, it was  the biggest, most elaborate home in Nevada when it was finished in 1879. The estate was  built for lumber magnate Duane Bliss, who supplied Tahoe timber to the lumber-hungry Comstock mines. Bliss also built mansions on Lake Tahoe (now D.L. Bliss State Park)  and in San Francisco. The generous, airy Victorian rooms have bathrooms almost as large  as the main rooms, equipped with both modern showers and vintage bathtubs, and  windows that look out on the property’s apple trees, maples and cottonwoods

Almost every block on the circuit has at least one noteworthy building. Among them: the Krebs-Peterson House (1914), used during the filming of John Wayne’s last movie; the Sears-Ferris House (1863), boyhood home to the inventor of the Ferris Wheel; and the towering, Gothic revival-style St. Peter’s Episcopal Church (1868).  Along the way, we listened to the “talking house” — buildings equipped with a continuous transmission that visitors can hear with a handheld radio. The message typically included building history and brief stories about the famous owners, most told from the perspective of a historic Carson City figure. (We heard the messages about 60 percent of the time, hindered by the low-tech analog radio I bought at Walgreen’s for $9.99.)The only disappointment of the morning: discovering that the 1864 Brewery Center formerly the Carson Brewing Co., maker of Tahoe Beer (“Famous as the Lake”) — is now an arts and performance center, not a brew pub.

We broke up the walking tour with lunch and a detour along Carson Street (also Business Highway 395). Within three blocks are the Nevada State Capitol (1871), the mansion-like old U.S. Post Office (1891) and the Nevada State Museum, a limestone fortress of a building that served as a U.S. Mint from 1870 to 1893.