Yerington Monday: People’s Packing Plant

People’s Packing Plant

The mining camps around Nevada demanded a large amount of meat.  In Virginia City during the boom period, there were no slaughterhouses in Carson Valley or nearby towns.  Practically all livestock was driven or hauled to the vicinity of Virginia City, where it was slaughtered cooled overnight. And delivered to butcher shops the following day.

It was not until 1902 that two modern slaughterhouses were built in Reno.  The Humphrey Supply Company and the Nevada Packing Company built large modern plants that could slaughter large number of livestock, properly handle carcasses, manufacture meat products, and deliver meat and meat products to butcher shops in western Nevada and eastern California.  Both packing plants closed in 1948.

A third large packing plan was built in Yerington by Louis J Isola and Ralph Mariconi in 1928.  The partnership of Louis Isola and Ralph Mariconi  lasted until 1962, when the People's Market was sold to Richard Fulstone.  Richard Fulstone resold the plant to a group of local businessmen.  The plant could not continue to operate as a financial success, because large regional packing plant began to furnish meat to local butcher plants.  The plant  was closed.  All buildings and facilities have deteriorated to a point where the plant would now be unusable.

There are no other federally inspected slaughter plants in Nevada.  With rapid transportation and cooling facilities available, fresh USDA-inspected meats can be delivered quickly to butcher shops or large restaurants from out-of-state slaughterhouses.  The chances of s large slaughterhouse being opened in Nevada are minimal now or in the foreseeable future.

Louis J Isola

Louis J Isola was born in 1902 in the town of Cosono Visco near the city of Lucca in the province of Lucca.  Louis left Italy because he did not like the restrictions society imposed on the individual.  He was also sure that he could advance his ambitions better in the United Stat than in Italy.  

Louis’ trip from Lucca to Yerington was a harrowing experience.  H was unable to speak English but , fortunately, he was helped by strangers.  His first job was in a butcher shop.  The owner worked him very had and he quit.  He took ranch and other jobs to earn money.  When Louis first arrived in Nevada, he did not like the climate or the desert.  He kept thinking of the mild climate and green fields back in his home in Italy.  He gradually lerned to love Nevada’s climate and the desert.  He spent most of the remainder of his life in Yerington.

Eventually Louis opened a butcher shop where he was in a familiar occupation.  An opportunity to purchase a struggling slaughterhouse in Yerington came to his attention.  Since he did not have enough money to complete the transaction, he took a partner, Ralph Mariconi.  This partnership lasted many years and ended when the slaughterhouse was sold.

Louis Isola was a staunch backer of youngsters in 4-H livestock clubs.  His interest in youth programs attracted the attention of the people in the College of Agriculture of the University of Nevada,  Louis judged many livestock lasses in Nevada and the west.  He was considered an outstanding livestock judge.

Louis helped plan the slaughterhouse on the Main Station Farm of the University which is used to train students in meat studies.  His reputation as a cattle feeder & slaughterhouse operator, plus his willingness to help in promoting worthy causes resulted in his being voted into the Cowboy Hal of Fame.

The Italian government honored Louis as an outstanding Italian citizen who made good in a foreign country.  The Chamber of Commerce of Lucca also honored him for his success in his adopted country.  The Sons of Italy in Sparks had a special dinner to show their appreciation of a successful countryman.

Even after he sold the People’s Packing Plant, he continued his interest in cattle  He purchased and fed cattle in a feed yard owned by Eddie Snyder of Yerington.

The impact of Louis’ activities in Nevada was tremendous.  He purchased and slaughtered thousands of head of cattle, sheep, and hogs.  He purchased thousands of tons of hay and grain.  He employed a substantial number of men.  All of his activities were beneficial to the economics of Western Nevada.  

He married Helen Dardis in 1930.  No children blessed their marriage.  He died in 1982.  

Without a doubt, Louis Isola was a talented and gifted individual.  Nevada benefited from his having lived and worked here.

How Peoples Packing Company looks today:

 

 

 

Yerington Monday: Commotion at Como

Commotion at Como

Como was a lusty mining camp in the closing days of the Civil War and despite the fact that it was reached by a twisting mountain road it was the county seat and center of activity of Lyon County.

Mining operations necessitated the cutting of numerous pines which covered the hillsides, and the logging operations reached such proportions that Paiute Chief Numaga approached the mine owners and asked them to stop cutting down the trees since they were depriving the Indians of essential foodstuff.  He explained that the Paiutes gathered pine nuts each fall as one of their staple crops,

Disregarding Numaga’s request the tree cutting proceeded at an even more rapid rate, but there was tension in the air since the woodcutters were well aware of the Paiutes’ feelings.  One day as a number of loggers were returning to Como they saw a group of Indians observing them.  Perhaps it was their guilty consciences that prompted them to flee to their house.   Word spread in Como that the Paiutes were on the warpath and a message was sent to Fort Churchill requesting troops.  Meanwhile a camp password was devised and residents prepared to stand off an attack.  

Quite unaware of all the commotion two miners, coming up the road from Dayton after dark, were fired upon when they failed to give the password.  Hearing the shots an over-anxious Como resident piled out of his cabin to help defend the town and in his rush tripped and discharged his gun.  Moments later the entire male population poured volley after volley down the canyon where the two cowering miners took shelter behind a huge boulder.

By dawn the soldiers and miners had nearly exhausted their ammunition, and since there was no sign of life, they prepared to venture from the town to count the dead Indians.  Much to their chagrin Chief Numaga sauntered into the camp to inquire about all the shooting during the night.  He said his village had been disturbed and his warriors had been caused a great deal of unnecessary worry.

This was in a series of reprints of ads run by Harold's Club decades ago featuring tales of early Nevada, and printed in Nevada No.3, 1976

Como History

 

Discovery of gold in the Pine Nut Mountains of western Nevada lead to a mild rush after June, 1860, which lead to the establishment of a district that was called Palmyra. By autumn of 1860, a few merchants set up to provide services to about 100 miners living and working in the district. In 1861, Palmyra gained a post office and improved merchant services. New discoveries a short distance away lead to the platting of Como townsite and Palmyra waned. Tunnels were opened and a small mill was built by J.D. Winters. It proved to be unsuccessful and Winters later drifted to Virginia City and became an employee of the Yellow Jacket Mine. Another Como citizen was Alf Doten, who eventually went on to fame on the Comstock. Other ventures in Como ensued and soon stock of the district was peddled on the streets of Virginia City. The business sector of the camp had all the usual amenities of frontier life. A highlight of town was the Cross Hotel, a first class establishment with a parlor, bar, carpeted rooms, and a meeting hall. Como had a newspaper, the Como SENTINEL, which was published for all of 13 issues between April 16, 1864 to July 9, 1864 by T.W. Abraham and H.L. Weston (the latter formerly of the Petaluma [CA] JOURNAL. After the last issue of the Como SENTINEL, Abraham and Weston went on to publish the Lyon County SENTINEL at nearby Dayton. Como's post office operated during two periods, opening originally December 30, 1879 and closing January 3, 1881. During a subsequent revival of the old camp, another post office operated between May 29, 1903 to February 28, 1905. Como remained quiet afterwards. The town's last inhabitant, 63-year-old Judge G. W. Walton, died in a fire that destroyed his cabin on the night of November 22, 1874. Perhaps the most famous resident of the Como region was Chief Truckee, father of chief Winnemucca, befriended of white men, purported savior of emigrant wagon trains and scout for Kit Carson and John C. Fremont A notable event came during the 1930's when a large mill was built, only to shut down immediately thereafter when it was found there was no ore to work. Today Como is totally abandoned and rests only some foundations of the old buildings. In addition to abandoned mines and ghost ruins of the old town, the region also contains Indian caves and petroglyphs. Sources: NEVADA GHOST TOWNS & MINING CAMPS - Paher, Stanley W. NEVADA POST OFFICES: AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY - Gamett, James and Paher, Stanley W. THE NEWSPAPERS OF NEVADA: A HISTORY & BIBLIOGRAPHY 1854 - 1979 - Lingenfelter, Richard E. and Gash, Karen Rix David A. Wright Great Basin Research - Ridgecrest, CA

Yerington Monday: The Story of the Wabuska Mangler

The Story of the Wabuska Mangler

The Phantom Newspaper, a dastardly newspaper that never was.

By Stephanie Shulsinger

Nevada Magazine, No 2. 1977

Things were quiet in Carson City, which was not so good for newspaper circulation.  There wasn’t even a fight worth mentioning to stir up a little reader interest. And thereby hangs the tale of the newspaper that never was.

Pioneer publishers dreaded peace and quiet, which yielded nothing worth reading about and thus hastened bankruptcy and oblivion.  Without world-hopping wire services to draw color from, their writers were often compelled (and encouraged) to manufacture news, or at least something with entertainment value.

Such a lull was becoming a great worry around the office of the Carson Appeal.  A new gimmick would  have to be dreamed up fast to persuade people to part with their money, preferably something everybody enjoyed reading about, like a nice juicy feud.  Accordingly Carson residents were soon attracted to blazing headlines attacking the scurrilous editorial policies of a rival newspaper, the Wabuska Mangler, whose editor was billed as the meanest, vilest low-down skunk in the business,

Strong words weren’t strong enough to describe the doings of the dastard, the Appeal assured its reinterested readers.  Accuse him of any crime in the book, call him the most forbidden name, and justice would merely cry out at the understatement.  But the Appeal was unafraid of this monster, the flaming sword of the free press would take on the villain, however ruinous the consequences; responsibility and all that.  

This volley was just the start of a beautiful, artful, lovable campaign which stirred the hearts of spirited citizens who were once more plunking down coin of the realm for papers  It almost seems a shame that this wretched rag, the infamous scandal sheet, the wicked Wabuska Mangler (as the colorful and rather outrageous name implies) never existed outside of the office of the Appeal.

Now the town of Wabuska was real enough, of course, and it was sufficiently remote from Carson for safety’s sake, being way over in Lyon County.  So for several years the “feud” continued, the Appeal bravely doing battle for the truth and righteousness against the forces of darkness as represented by the mythical Mangler.  When the thing grew tiresome, the blackguard editor was reported as having skipped the country, although a tales persists that Carson residents were putting together a necktie party to lynch the mangy cuss.  But then, this could just be a hoax on top of a hoax, a thing now unheard of in western humor.

In any case, even today if you ask around Washoe about pioneer newspapers you’ll probably find somebody who will cite the Wabuska Mangler as the worst example in journalistic history, which is pretty good mileage for a homegrown hoax that was cooked up to stall off starvation for a couple of hungry newspapermen.

Yerington Monday: What’s With Those Big Hillside Initials?

What’s With Those Big Hillside Initials?

Giant capital letters adorn hillsides near many cities and towns in the American West. These letters, typically constructed of whitewashed or painted stones or of concrete, are cultural signatures. They serve as conspicuous symbols of community and institutional identity, and they represent an idea, perhaps traceable to a single point of origin, that diffused quickly and widely early in this century.  The letters are distinctive vernacular landmarks in the western states, rarely occurring elsewhere.  

Both environment and culture have affected the distribution of those hillside monograms. An accessible and fairly steep slope, undeveloped and preferably treeless, is the first requisite. If it is public land, such as Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, park, or school property that is protected from urban encroachment, so much the better. Many western communities can meet these requirements admirably.

Hillside symbols have a surprisingly respectable history dating back some eighty years. To a remarkable extent the letters can be traced to a single decade, 1905-1915. They have almost always been built and maintained by college or high-school student groups. The earliest letter-building projects were devices for defusing increasingly violent inter-class rivalries, which college administrators and faculty found difficult to control. It apparently worked. Making a letter was often a gala community event, an organized "men's workday" declared a formal school holiday, with picnic lunch and supper provided by campus women.

Once built, letters quickly became symbols of community and school, instant traditions shouting "Here we are!" Illuminating them before major sports contests or for homecomings began early. At such times, when tensions between rivals ran high, the letters were prime targets for raids so they were zealously defended through the night with bonfires and beer.

Their maintenance, including the annual whitewashing or painting, has often been an important ritual in campus life. In some areas the letters had a second function in earlier days as navigation aids to aircraft pilots, helping them identify look-alike desert towns.

“Big C” Granddaddy of Big Initials

The University of California's "Big C" on the Berkeley hills is the granddaddy of them all. Only seventy feet high, the Berkeley letter has been dwarfed by many others over time, but it has persisted. It was built by the freshman and sophomore classes over two rainy days in the spring of 1905 and finished in time for official recognition at the annual Charter Day celebration. The traditional brawl between the two classes had degenerated into something close to guerrilla warfare, a kind of primal savagery known as "the rush" that was likened by one contemporary to Anglo-Saxon raids on the British coast. The intramural battles were receiving increasingly lurid press coverage, discrediting the university throughout the state. Legislative appropriations and alumni giving were threatened. In a well-publicized truce, the classes of '07 and '08 agreed to end the rush and instead devote their energies to constructing a masonry C on the steep, grassy slope behind the campus. Maintaining the six-inch-thick slab of concrete, painted yellow, was a job assigned to succeeding freshman classes.

There is no apparent precedent for the Big C. Announcement of the plan to build it brought a storm of community and faculty protest. Opponents denounced it as unworthy of the university, claiming it would "for all time disfigure the sensuous beauty of the hills," and would "slide and become an eyesore." The color yellow "wouldn't harmonize." The mathematics professor A. W. Whitney protested that "living in contemplation of this kind of vulgarity students would soon be painting C's on Yosemite's El Capitan. And why not? Why is it worse? The Berkeley Hills in their way are just as fine as Yosemite.... One thousand times as many people look on them....They front on the Orient....Our wantonness would be in the eyes of the world. We cannot afford to stand for such vulgarity." Charles Mills Gayley, the distinguished professor of English literature, had an alternative: "A great C of acacia trees, with their burst of golden spring bloom. Or something else, anything." Both the influential Hillside and the Town and Gown clubs protested by petition. The C would offend many of their members, citizens who had long been loyal friends and benefactors of the university.

But others were supportive, especially the engineering and architecture faculties and the emerging athletic establishment. They saw the C as a symbol of conciliation that would also celebrate "the love and loyalty in the heart of every Californian." The renowned campus architect John Galen Howard gave encouragement, counseling how to line up the letter with the axis of the campus plan.

The first summer the C was damaged by dynamite, perhaps in one of the earliest instances of eco-radicalism. The letter was immediately seized as a target by rival schools. It was hallowed in the school song: "On our rugged eastern foothills stands our symbol clear and bold, Big C means to fight and strive and win for Blue and Gold." Today the letter stands below the big industrial complex of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, inconspicuous and shielded from all but direct view by groves of eucalyptus and Monterey pines.

College Craze

Yet the Big C had started something. Even then, Berkeley, for better or worse, was a model. By the next year, 1906, Brigham Young University had a Y two thousand feet above its Provo campus on the steepest part of Utah's Wasatch Front. This letter was 320 feet high, more than four times taller than the Berkeley C. Pack horses, and in later times helicopters, were used to reach it.  

In the spring of 1907, the slopes behind the University of Utah overlooking the Salt Lake Valley sprouted a block U, again a pacification gesture among rival student groups. Popular Mechanics called it "the largest college monogram" although it was only half the height of the Y at Provo.

Three more college letters appeared in 1908. One was a one-hundred-foot M on Mount Zion behind the Colorado School of Mines at Golden. Here, as elsewhere, engineering students and faculty played a prominent role in the planning, and the construction day was declared a school holiday. Laying out the emblem on a twenty-three-degree slope so that it would be seen from the town as a perfect block letter was described as an instructive lesson in descriptive geometry. In true miner fashion, burros were used to move tools and materials to the construction site.

In the same year, less than one hundred miles north, Colorado A & M, now Colorado State University, built a much larger A for Aggies. In this case the link with earlier letters is documented. Students from Fort Collins traveled to Salt Lake City to inspect the new U at the University of Utah before beginning their own project. The A has persisted as a prominent Front Range landmark, although the institution's name has changed and its athletic teams are now known as the Rams.

Also in 1908 the University of Oregon at Eugene built the first of its block O's, a wooden structure on Skinner Butte near the railway station. It was later converted to concrete, and finally, in 1958, to metal. For many years Corvallis raiders visited the O, but today it is almost completely obscured from ground view by trees.  Then came the flood tide. Between 1912 and 1915 at least eleven more western colleges and universities put letters on their mountains.

The University of Nevada students joined in with a geometrically perfect block N, 180 feet high, on Mt. Peavine overlooking the Truckee Meadows and Reno. "It isn't right," the student yearbook observed, "that Nevada spirit should show itself less plainly than California to the west or Utah to the east." As with the others, the project was a collective effort. Classes were canceled, a bucket brigade carried water and cement up the sagebrush-covered slope, and a women's auxiliary provided the picnic that always seemed to follow.

Between 1905 and 1915 at least twenty collegiate letters were built in the western states. Others came later.

Nevada Hillside Big Letters

Virtually every community along I-80 between Reno, Nevada, and Rock Springs, Wyoming, seems to have one. High schools and a few junior colleges and grade schools followed the collegiate example, and today their letters vastly outnumber college letters. Several early ones were in Nevada, including the E at Elko, built in 1916 to honor a physical-education instructor who had lost his life in a snowstorm while leading a student group in the nearby Ruby Mountains. The T at Tonopah is lighted by a spotlight on the roof of the Mizpah Hotel. It celebrated the Nevada State Championship won by the Tonopah girls' basketball team in 1917. At Winnemucca, where a handsome W was built to honor another girls' championship team in 1920, a trust fund was set up to pay for periodic whitewashing, but, according to a recent report, "no one knows where the money is." Other early Nevada high-school letters include the BM at Battle Mountain (1925), the V at Virginia City (1926), the L at Panaca, Lincoln County (1927), and the L at Lovelock (1931). The S at Sparks became a focus of controversy in the summer of 1985 when the ski manufacturer, Salomon-American, acquired the land on which it stood and redesigned the fifty-year-old symbol to resemble its corporate logo. In the face of community complaints, the company apologized and restored the letter to its original form. In some cases, the new spray-can graffiti artists find these letters irresistible targets, to the dismay of student groups responsible for their upkeep. In earlier years students sometimes placed class numerals alongside letters. In August 1966, the citizens of Reno, Nevada, awoke to find the university's seventy-five-year-old N prefixed by a Greek sigma, the work of a college fraternity. Raids by groups from rival institutions armed with aerosols or cans of paint still enliven campus life. The letter on the mountain is a subject without a literature. The map represents the author's personal observations over several years as well as the gleanings of students and associates who have joined the letter game. Additional examples will assuredly turn up. I predict that most will lie west of the hundredth meridian. These monograms, usually of respectable antiquity, are part of community and landscape history. To some extent they reflect the spirit of the time when most were constructed, before environmental preservation and esthetics became concerns in our culture. Virtually all have been produced by student groups and represent their institutions. The letters remain a conspicuous and durable part of the identity of many communities, fortifying institutional allegiances and the sense of place. Occasionally they arouse antipathies among those who are offended by the intrusion of the human hand on often dramatic scenery. However, for travelers in the arid West the letters are "anchors to the eye," adding diversity and interest to the natural beauty of the landscape. Hillside Letters in the Western Landscape  by James J. Parsons (Partial Reprint courtesy of Landscape, vol. 30, No. 1, 1988.)

Man starts writing hillside message to win back ex-girlfriend ‘TINA’ – but gets tired and gives up

A mysterious ‘A’ written into a Nevada hillside beside the permanent ‘N’ was discovered to be part of a love message (Picture: KOLO News)

If you’re trying to win back an ex you might send flowers, a heartfelt mix tape or even try the classic stand-outside-the-house-and-shout-to-the-window move – but this wasn’t enough for one Nevada man.

Brent Wilbur’s attempt to win back his ex-girlfriend by carving her name into a large hillside was great in theory – but then he got tired and gave up.

For 100 years, a hill near Peavine Mountain in Reno, Nevada, has had a large ‘N’ etched in white rocks as a symbol for the University of Nevada.

Innovative Brent thought he would add some more lettering to spell out Tina’s name across the hillside as a declaration of his love.

Unfortunately, after spending five hours writing the letter ‘A’ in chalk next to the ‘N’, he got tired and left.

Local residents were quizzical about the mysterious capital letter which had suddenly appeared and traced the lazy love attempt back to Brent through his LinkedIn profile, which showed an image of the hillside message.

Lazy lover: Brent Wilbur tried to win back his ex with the hillside message – but tiredness took over ‘I rented a truck and bought a palette full of marking chalk, actually I bought all they had left,’ he told local media.

‘I was trying to write a woman’s name, “Tina”. I started with the ‘A’ and just ran out of steam.’

Tina, who Brent only dated for nine months four years ago, clearly left a mark on him as he said he had no regrets over the message – even if there may be legal consequences.

‘I owe her a great many apologies for the way I treated her,’ he added.

Luckily for Brent, local authorities have since said the letter does not violate any state codes and the University of Nevada believe nature will wash away the ‘A’ in its own time.

Sarah Kerr for Metro.co.uk Saturday 23 Nov 2013 12:18 pm

Yerington Monday: Fernley’s Wigwam Restaurant

Fernley’s Wigwam Restaurant

Just fifty-plus miles down to road on Alt 95 is Fernley, another city in Lyon County. Every time we traveled to Reno for business or pleasure, we would pass this wonderful restaurant-museum. As I kid I loved it and consider it with fond childhood memories.

The homey and comfortable restaurant features an All-American menu and the decor incorporates Native American artifacts and western art throughout the dining room.  The mood is like home.

For many locals the restaurant is a Fernley icon and a place where city and county politicians congregate to discuss affair of state and families celebrate birthdays and reunions.

A laminated placard inside the restaurant illustrates how the Royels feel about their customers, friends and Fernley.  It reads:

“Life in Fernley has been good to us.  There is a lot to be said for a small town.  To the outsider, we may look like just a wide place in the road.  But don’t let that fool you. On the inside we always have a peace of mind, because we know we are never alone.”

Mary & Moe Royel

Mary moved to Nevada from Tennessee with her mother.  She recalled back in 1949 they were “having a hard time in Tennessee.” and a family friend encouraged them to move to Nevada where they might find “a better life.”

Moe was originally from Montana The family moved to Nevada when he was 3 months old. His family spent a short time in Goldfield moving to Wadsworth, where his father served as principal at that school.  He attended school in Wadsworth and Fernley, where he played football, basketball and track. He is noted in the Fernley High School Hall of Fame for his athletic abilities.

Beginnings

The restaurant began as a small drive-in called the Dainty Cone in 1961 and featured soft ice-cream cones.  Back then, Mary was the sole owner of the establishment.  She owned a similar shop in Reno that was maing $300 a day and then decided to expand to the rural are.

Once the restaurant was up and running, the Dainty Cone included a menu of hamburgers for 35 cents and coffee and ice-cream cones for 10 cents.

Additions

Two years later, Mary met Moe, and in 1964, they were married.  The pair decided to expand the drive-in to include an addition for dining,  Business was thriving until, during that same year, Interstate 80 was constructed and traffic bypassed Main Street, which resulted in a drop in customers to the ice-cream stand and disaster struck the Royels.  “You could have shot a cannon down Main Street,”  said Moe of the isolated street back in 1964. He noted that prior to the opening of the interstate they were making $52 a day, but afterwards they made an estimated $15 per day.

Still the couple set out to construct an addition to the Dainty Cone; and Moe recalled that in order to retain the eatery, they took jobs cleaning houses on the side.  

Wanting to add a room for indoor dining, they went to a bank n Reno to borrow the money to build the addition.  The bank said they didn’t loan money eat of Sparks, so the industrious couple decided to build the structure regardless.  Mary & Joe traded food and their prized artifacts for construction material.  They traded hamburgers for dirt. As well as their Centennial pistols, arrowheads and silver dollars for construction material.  “We traded anything we had to get the room built,” said Mary

Then on Dec 5 1965, the new addition on the Dainty Cone was opened.  With the opening of the extra space the establishment became a favorite hangout of teenagers and many locals.  

Mary and Moe dubbed the old-timers who sat at the round tables inside the dining area as “Knights of the Round Table.”  “The old-timers of Fernley and Wadsworth sat around the round table, and it continues today,”  Moe noted, “except that now, it's just a different group of old-timers.”  Once a week, Mary would cook stew or spaghetti for the “knights of the round table, and it was then they decide to further enlarge their restaurant.

In 1984, the couple decided to open a full service restaurant and renamed the Dainty Cone to Mary & Moe’s Wigwam.  It became symbolic of Fernley’s growth.

 

 

Museum

With more space and an expanded menu, the Wigwam also took on a new venture to include a museum collection that included a vast array of Native American artifacts from the northwest regions of Nevada.  People in Nixon (Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation) gave them a lot of tribal artifacts.  Many of the tribal elders nurtured their appreciation of native American heritage and donated to their museum collection.  The museum includes artifacts that are estimated to be as old as 10.000 years and it features arrowheads, pottery, woven baskets, cradle-boards and more.

Casino

By 1994, Fernley began a growth spurt and the Wigwam also expanded to include a casino, bar, and more dining room space.  To celebrate the expansion, the Royels invited Walker River Tribal member Allson McMasters to bless the restaurant.  The grand opening also included traditional Indian dancers from the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe.  The Tribe presented Mary and Joe with a plaque for “helping to save and preserve their heritage” through their private museum.  The plaque still hangs inside the restaurant.

The Wigwam displays the largest privately owned collection of Indian artifacts that Moe enjoyed collecting during his life. The business is the second oldest establishment in Fernley other than Hanneman’s Chevron station.

Mary and Moe retired in 2005 to enjoy their pride and joy, the "Five Springs Ranch", south of Gerlach, NV, where they spent much of their time.

Mary & Moe's Wigwam

255 West Main St

Fernley, NV 89408

(775) 575-2573

Morris "Moe" Royels
August 17, 1940 - April 15, 2014

Morris "Moe" Royels, a well respected Fernley resident and restaurateur, passed away at home on April 15, 2014, with his loving family by his side after a valiant battle with pancreatic cancer.

Moe was born to Clarence Thomas and Margaret Joy Royels on August 17, 1940 in Conrad, Montana. The family moved to Nevada when he was 3 months old. He attended school in Wadsworth and Fernley, where he played football, basketball and track. He is noted in the Fernley High School Hall of Fame for his athletic abilities.

He also participated in other school activities including playing the role of Teddy Roosevelt in "Arsenic and Old Lace". He was offered a scholarship to the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, CA., but upon receipt of scholarships to the University of Nevada, he decided to attend school, not to pursue an acting career.

Moe joined the army in 1959 where he served in the Korean War as a Sergeant. he was a 2nd class gunner earning expert status with the M1 rifle. He developed his cooking skills preparing meals for the commissioned officers. He was honorably discharged in 1961.

Moe married his first wife, Mary Prather Aratibel in 1964. They operated the Dainty Cone which they expanded twice and later renamed the Wigwam in 1984.

The Wigwam displays the largest privately owned collection of Indian artifacts that Moe enjoyed collecting during his life. Mary and Moe retired in 2005 to enjoy their pride and joy, the "Five Springs Ranch", south of Gerlach, NV, where they spent much of their time.

In 2011 he married the love of his life, Ellen, who also shared his love of the desert country. They enjoyed traveling and four wheeling and outings with the Black Rock Desert Rats.

Moe never met a stranger he didn't like. He was kind and generous to all, and a well known icon in the community. He prepared and served many meals for memorials and community events to show his appreciation for the Fernley, Wadsworth and Nixon Communities.

Moe is survived by his beloved wife, Ellen, step-son Gregory Voss (Carla) and grandson, Vincent, of Charlotte, North Carolina; A sister, Beth Mortensen, nephew Joe (Cindy) Mortensen, niece Marge (Rich) Rhyno of Fernley, NV; and nephew, George (Linda) Mortensen of Yerington, NV. His passing will leave a great void in the lives of many Northern Nevadans.

You are invited to join his family for a celebration of his life on Friday, April 25, 2014 at 11:00 am, at the Fernley High School Gym.

Moe's dream was to have a museum to display his extensive collection, so in lieu of flowers, the family would appreciate donations to the Moe Royels Museum Fund at Wells Fargo Bank.