Yerington Monday: Lake Anaconda
In the Fall 1978 edition of Nevada. The Magazine of the Real West, they reported:
New Resort At Copper Pit
A generation of Mason Valley residents knew the great Anaconda pit as a place of toil, but the next generation will go there for recreation.
Pulling out 1.6 billion pounds of copper over the years let a hole 740 feet deep at Weed Heights, near Yerington. With the end of Anaconda’s mining operations this year,, seepage is slowly creating a lake.
At 35 feet and rising, the lake is more hope than reality, but “Lake Anaconda” may some day provide fishing and boating where blasting and hauling on reigned ---Harvey Usher
In 2016, thirty-eight years later, “Lake Anaconda” is still far from being a recreational area. Yet it could happen or it could be drained and copper mining continued. At this point both seem like unlikely possibilities.
