Reno - a Book of Short Stories and Information Part 2

Truckee is only about thirty-three miles from Reno by automobile, and the distance by train is thirty-six miles, so there should be no excuse for not visiting this American Switzerland.

Another point of information which I discovered and think will interest you quite as much as it did me, was that most all the great moving picture companies go to Truckee to take their Alaskan scenes.

And now whenever you see a beautiful arctic picture on the screen, you will realize that you are not looking at the frigid regions of Alaska, but at the glories of California.

The Snow Queen knows, however, that when she tires of her realm of snow, a really, truly fairy land awaits her only a few hours distant, where she may play Fairy Queen and wander through fields of golden poppies, filling her arms with spring blooms, in beautiful Southern California.

In Reno itself moonlight skating parties on the river and the University pond are popular also. Dull in Reno? Absurd!

Nevada is necessarily a mining state. Apart from the $700,000,000 in gold and silver taken from the Comstock Lode, Nevada's mines have supplied the world with thousands of tons of other materials, such as lead, zinc, etc., and thus when one thinks of the industries in Nevada, it is quite natural to think of mining first. There it is in the air. Everywhere you are confronted with specimens of ore: in the offices of mining companies, in your lawyer's office, on the doctor's desk, on your friend's dressing table, next to the Bible in the minister's home. A chubby baby will gurgle and coo over a piece of this polished rock, and hold it in a little pink fist; old, white haired men will feebly finger a rough specimen streaked with green and amber. The spell of Nevada.....

Walk out over the desert or ride over the hills, and as far as you can see, the sides of the mountains are perforated with holes made by prospectors; thousands and thousands of them, every one representing a hope. A promoter will take a piece of this beautifully colored rock and explain to you about the percentage of gold or copper it contains, the cost of extracting it and the enormous profits to be made; a friend will show you a marvelous specimen and explain that he or she owns a half interest in the claim which is sure to turn out at least half a million..... Then you will perhaps think of Robert Service's "Spell of the Yukon" and you will understand the enthusiasm and spirit of optimism.

After all, why should they not be enthusiastic and optimistic? The whole state is piled high with mountains which look just like the ones in which so much gold and other valuable minerals have been discovered; if they are the same on top, why are they not the same below the surface?

Tell us, you opal colored mountains of Nevada, what stores of precious treasures are you guarding from the greedy hand of man and how soon will you throw open another door of your treasure house?

After having lived in the West and visited the mines and talked with the old-timers, I can easily understand the fascination of prospecting and mining, and why, in spite of all the hards.h.i.+ps it entails, so many have become enslaved by the spell of it.

The Crystal Saloon, at Virginia City, was built during the days of the first great boom, and on its register are many names of famous people.

Under the year 1863, I saw written the following: "Clemens, Samuel L., Local Editor of Territorial Enterprise..." Mark Twain!

The old-timers will tell you stories about Mark Twain's adventures in Nevada's mining camps almost as funny as those he himself wrote about in his book "Roughing It."

In the register of the Washoe Club, organized in 1875, are the name of Thomas A. Edison, Fred. Grant (son of General Grant), and many other famous names.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Donner Lake]

I have been informed of a new discovery in connection with the native plant, the sage-brush. I am told there are splendid prospects for the development of potash and denatured alcohol from the huge sagebrush fields of the state.

The princ.i.p.al business of Reno consists of banks, hotels, shops and restaurants. The shops do the city credit; they are up-to-date and well kept, and you will find almost every kind of shop. The electrical stores display every new electrical device on the market. The stationery shops are equally well equipped; the candy stores most tempting and excellent in every way, and the music store, hardware, drug, corsetiere, gents furnis.h.i.+ng, shoe, fancy goods and department stores, the hair dressing parlors and florist shops are all up-to-date and as fine as you could find in any city twice Reno's size. The grocery stores and butcher shops and markets are of the finest. These places employ hundreds of people and the department stores send their buyers to New York and Paris.

Reno has two daily papers, namely, the "Evening Gazette" and the "Nevada Journal." The "Nevada Journal" belongs to the a.s.sociated Press and has its private telegraph wires by which it receives the news direct.

The hotels and apartment houses are always well filled. They are up- to-date, well kept and flouris.h.i.+ng; the cafes are constantly being enlarged. The real estate business is also progressive; one may rent splendidly furnished houses, or modest cottages, or apartments at very fair prices. There I first saw the automatic elevator, the kind that you ring for and that runs down by itself and opens its own door; then you get in, press a b.u.t.ton at the number you wish to get off at, and the elevator runs itself up to the floor indicated, stops and opens its door. The same apartments have beds that fold up automatically into the wall, leaving nothing in evidence except a beautifully paneled mirror.

The Reno Commercial Club, which was founded in 1907, is made up of a body of the representative men of the state, who are organized to encourage educational and social intercourse, and to aid in social and material up-building of the city and state.

Its executive board is as follows: Charles S. Knight, H. H. Kennedy, Tasker L. Oddie, B. Adams, Fred Stadtmuller, R. L. Kimmel, E. H.

Walker.

The Club's efforts are continually directed toward the encouragement of new enterprises, the securing of capital for new industries and investments; the dissemination of literature regarding the resources of Nevada; the building of good roads and cooperation with other states for a national highway; the immigration of settlers upon the agricultural lands of the state, more intensive farming, expansion of dairy interests, fruit growing and other agricultural industries.

The Commercial Club is always obliging in extending the courtesy of its information bureaus in matters pertaining to the affairs of the city or state. Write to it!

Nevada has made very broad strides in the direction of agriculture owing to its irrigation development. The Easterners somehow have an idea that Nevada has made very little progress since pre-historic days; that the West is still wild and wooly and consists of cow-boys, cattle ranches and rattle-snakes; but this impression is very erroneous. The picturesque cow-boy is practically a thing of the past, and so is the highwayman; the picturesque stage-coach with its four to six teams is almost forgotten; and I did not see one rattle-snake during all my exploits in the mountains and over the deserts. What has become of all those historic things which we so closely linked with the wild and woolly West of the past? They have retreated into oblivion before the great wheel of progress.....

It is a mistaken idea to imagine that because Nevada is such a mountainous country it is unsuitable for agriculture. There are many broad green valleys, flouris.h.i.+ng and producing splendid farm products.

This of course is the astonis.h.i.+ng result of artificial methods of irrigation. Alfalfa and potatoes are Nevada's greatest crop; wheat, rye, oats and other cereals are also grown. Some of the ranches have splendid orchards consisting of pears, apples, plums, cherries, etc., and the production will undoubtedly increase as greater irrigation developments are introduced.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Trucker River Dam]

What irrigation will do for the parched deserts of the West remains as yet to be seen, but when I stop to consider that all the famous spots of California owe their beauty almost entirely to irrigation, then I dare predict great things for the desert states.

In a 1918 issue of the United States Geographical Survey Press Bulletin is an article which is particularly interesting for the possibilities it suggests at once to the reader for the utilization of waters. It reads as follows: "'Underground Water in Nevada Deserts.'

"In Nevada the bedrock forms a corrugated surface consisting of more or less parallel mountain ranges and broad intervening troughs that are filled to great depths with rock waste washed from the mountains.

These great deposits of rock waste were in large part laid down by torrential streams and are relatively coa.r.s.e and porous. Because these deposits are porous the rain that falls upon them and the run-off that reaches them from the mountains sinks into them, and the valleys in which they lie are exceptionally arid. These deposits, however, form huge reservoirs in which the water is stored and in which, to the limit of the capacity of the reservoirs, it is protected from evaporation. So well is this water hidden that its existence was not suspected by many of the early travelers, and even today long desert roads on which there are no watering places, lead over areas where ground-water could easily be obtained.

"In a desert valley, even where no wells have been sunk, it is generally possible to ascertain and outline the areas where ground water lies near the surface and to make an intelligent forecast of the depths to water in other parts of the valley. If a sufficient number of observations are made, it is also generally possible to form a rough estimate of the quant.i.ty of water that is annually available in such a valley and to predict to some extent the capacity of wells, the quality of the water, and the cost of recovery."

To anyone familiar with Nevada, there are dozens of such desert reaches which must instantly suggest themselves to the mind, and it is interesting to speculate, not altogether idly, on how advantage might be taken of such conditions. The Bulletin particularly speaks of one of these areas:

"In an investigation recently made by O. E. Meinzer, of the United States Geological Survey of the Department of the Interior, in Big Smokey Valley and adjacent area near Tonopah, Nev., the character of the vegetation and other surface criteria show that the ground-water stands within ten feet of the surface over an area of 130,000 acres.

The measurements made indicate that tens of thousands of acre feet of water are annually contributed by mountain streams and by rainfall to the underground reservoir, and that about the same quant.i.ty of ground- water is annually discharged into the atmosphere through the soil and the plants in the shallow water areas. It was estimated that in an area of 240,000 acres the ground-water lies within 50 feet of the surface and that in an area of 335,000 acres it lies within 100 feet of the surface. Detailed maps were made showing the location and extent of these areas."

Nevada, because of its peculiar geographical and climatological situation, will always need to irrigate its land to produce crops.

Where irrigation waters are available, the soil has proved abundantly fertile, but Nevada has been handicapped by a lack of water for these very soils which would be capable of producing the best crops.

If, perhaps, underlying those fertile though now arid areas there is such a reservoir of untapped waters as the Bulletin describes, there must instantly occur to the mind the question: "Cannot these waters be made available?"

Elsewhere in Nevada great arid areas have been reclaimed by tapping such underground reservoirs and raising the waters to the surface for irrigation purposes with gasoline motors, where they have not flowed of their own accord, in artesian wells. Nevada has not ventured far into this field because it has not felt the necessity. But why wait on necessity? Why should not Nevada attempt to reach this water? It could easily do so and so add much valuable fertility to the state's already important resources.

Of course, if these new irrigation resources of the state were to become sufficiently utilized, then there would seem no reason why Nevada should not be one of our best agricultural states.

The Truckee River is a splendid a.s.set to Reno. Fed by the eternal snows of the Sierra Nevadas, with a fall of 2,442 feet between Lake Tahoe and Pyramid Lake, it affords a water power equalled by few rivers in the U. S. A. Its power plants now supply light and power for all near-by mines; Mason Valley, Youngton, Virginia City and the Comstock Lode; yet these power stations do not generate one-tenth of the power that could be obtained. It is said that it would easily be possible to develop 40,000 horse-power within five miles of Reno.

This means that Reno has great advantages as an industrial center, and as water power is known to be low in cost and as there is an immense quant.i.ty of iron ore in the state, it might eventually be considered a fine place to manufacture war supplies, especially for use on the Pacific Coast.

The Southern Pacific Shops are at Sparkes near Reno and are of great advantage to Reno merchants. These shops do the general repair work of the Salt Lake Division of the Southern Pacific; they employ between five and six hundred men at an approximate payroll of $125,000 per month.

The Verdi Lumber Company near Reno employs from 350 to 400 men in its mills, box factories and logging camps, at a monthly payroll of approximately $25,000.

In addition to these industries there are the Reno and Riverside mills, and large stock yards and packing houses. Nevada is a noted stock growing state for great droves of sheep, hogs and cattle; Nevada's beef is famous throughout the United States.

Reno, as well as all Nevada, is proud of the world-famous Wingfield racing stables, and not without reason. Mr. George Wingfield is a great connoisseur of horseflesh and has spared neither pains nor expense in order to add the best thoroughbreds to his stock. Even as I write, the news reaches me that an expert has left for England to purchase for Mr. Wingfield four mares and a stud, Atheling, a great English favorite.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Honeywood of the Wingfield Stables]

At present Mr. Wingfield has in his stables about 75 horses. I had the privilege of visiting them some time ago, and made the acquaintance of some of his prize yearlings. They were wonderful animals, just as fine as any I have ever seen, and I think I know and understand horses pretty well. There is one, Honeywood, a beautiful stallion, who was the winner of the Cambridges.h.i.+re stakes at Newmarket, England, in 1911. I don't think I have ever seen a more beautiful animal.

The fact to be deplored is that the Federal and State Legislatures are not taking sufficient interest in the reforestation of Nevada; they should enforce the planting of two or three trees for every one that is felled. I believe some such law is now in force in the state of Was.h.i.+ngton and elsewhere. Near the big mining camps in Nevada around Reno, the mountains have been literally stripped of all their trees in the development of the mining industries. It has been a case of: "All Take and No Give."

And now we come to "Divorce" which, if not actually an industry, can all the same easily pa.s.s for one, for there is no doubt but that the influx of prospective divorcees, of both s.e.xes, contributes a goodly portion toward the financial welfare of Reno. Not only do hotels, restaurants, cafes and shops reap an abundant harvest from the luxury- loving wealthy colony, but even real estate prospers, as many "aspirants" rent cottages for the "season."

Lawyers are kept busy all the time; the banks are opening new accounts for every patient who comes to town, and therefore on more mature consideration, why should we not call it the "Divorce Industry"?

After all, what's in a name?