Yerington Monday: Wabuska

Yerington Monday:  Wabuska

Wabuska is 12 miles from Yerington, Nevada.  This was a tiny town.  It was basically a railroad crossing.  My mother received many tickets from Sheriff Bails for speeding in it 25 mph speed zone.  Wabuska marked the end of Mason Valley’s agricultural landscape.  Despite its smallness it has a great history.  It has a bar to this day and at one time had a whore house. It is also know for the Great Yerington Sack Race. When my grandparents owned the Yerington Dairy here, my grandmother would take the train to Tonopah from here weekly to check on their other dairy. It is also the setting to my short story “The Day JFK Died” (see link below)

Wabuska is an unincorporated community in Lyon County, Nevada, United States. The zip code is 89447.

Wabuska (Washo language, White Grass) was established in the early 1870s. A post office was opened on September 18, 1974. In 1881, the town served as the principal Mason Valley supply center on the newly constructed Carson and Colorado Railroad of a line that went from Hazen to Mina. When copper was discovered in Mason Valley, the town became the northern terminus of the new Nevada Copper Belt Railroad, built 1909-1911. Wabuska waned with declining mining activity in the 1920s.

Spring 1908 Julia Smith, Robert Harlin and Hila Louise Patch at the Wabuska Nevada Train Station

The Wabuska Railroad Station was erected in 1906 by the Southern Pacific Railroad as a freight and passenger station serving the Mason Valley region of Lyon County, Nevada. Early rail service to Wabuska was operated by the Carson and Colorado Railroad Company, until 1900, when the Southern Pacific Railroad purchased the company.

During the early 1900s, the Wabuska region served as the principal supplier of agricultural products for the mining camps of Tonopah and Goldfield. Increased freight traffic between Wabuska and the neighboring mining camps coupled with the discovery of copper ore in the Mason Valley prompted the Southern Pacific to erect a new depot in Wabuska. By August 1906, a crew of eight Southern Pacific carpenters were working on the new station, which opened for business by October. From 1910 to 1947, Wabuska also served as the transfer point for the Nevada Copper Belt Railroad, a major carrier of copper ore.

The depot is a single story, wood-frame building, 24 feet wide by 80 feet long with a gable roof, the eaves of which project several feet from the exterior walls. This overhang is supported by brackets. A large bay window on one side of the building originally housed the ticket office, while the other three sides contained sliding freight doors. The interior of the depot was divided into three rooms; the south half of the building accommodated freight, the center contained the ticket office, and the northern end served as the passenger waiting room. The station is typical of early 20th-century Nevada depot architecture, one of the few examples in the state today, and one of the last two surviving stations of the Hazen to Mina branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Of the seven stations constructed to serve this branch, only the Wabuska and a freight station in Mina survive. The Wabuska remained in active service until declining freight and passenger service forced the station to close in 1979. Instead of demolishing the vacant depot, the Southern Pacific donated it to the Nevada State Railroad Museum. In 1983, the depot was moved to the museum complex in Carson City and restored.

The Wabuska Railroad Station is located at the Nevada State Railroad Museum, on Hwy. 395 (Carson St.) at Fairview Ave. in Carson City. The museum is open to the public 8:30am to 4:30pm daily; there is a fee for adult admission. For further information or for special events check the museum's website or call 775-687-6953.  

The Great Yerington Sack Race

Yerington intermittently hosts what must be the most grueling single competition staged anywhere in the west. It doesn't appear in the list of annual events because it isn't held every year -- contestants can't be found that often. It's the World Championship Sack Race, and it dates back more than 80 years when a young farm hand named Harry Warren made local history.

Harry was working as a ranch hand near Wabuska. He and some other men were loading a wagon with 120-lb. grain sacks, and in the process they got to talking about how far a man could carry one of the sacks without having to put it down and rest. Harry made the outrageous claim that he could carry one all the way to Yerington, about ten miles away.

When his fellow workers challenged his wild statement, Harry said, "Oh, I can do it all right. But you'll have to make it worth my while."

So some of the biggest and strongest men in the valley experimented with carrying the heavy sacks, and none of them made it more than a quarter mile. Harry's challenge spread around the valleys, and a fund of $1,500 was accumulated to call Harry's bluff.

On the day of the great event Harry heaved the sack up onto his shoulders and started off rapidly toward Yerington at a rapid walk. To the utter astonishment of every witness, Harry made the ten miles to Yerington in about two hours, stopping to rest only once, and never slowing his relentless pace. One of the amazed backers of the bet was a local beekeeper. "The bees never stung me," he said ruefully, "but Harry Warren sure did."

Yerington #21 Nevada Copper Belt Railroad Passenger Car named Yerington #21 that was used between Ludwig Mine and Wabuska. This car is now in the Sacramento, California Railroad Museum.

Like with the arid desert surrounding the small settlement, by the 1950's the town had begun to dry up and all that remained was a few houses and a bar with the two-story grocery store.

The town saw its heyday around the early 1900's with the discovery of copper in Mason Valley and became the northern terminus for the Nevada Copper Belt Railroad.

Wabuska’s namesake comes from Washoe Language meaning White Grass due to the white alkaline crust on the soil and thickets of sagebrush and greasewood.

Wabuska, Nevada was established near the Carson and Colorado Railroad in the early 1870's. Wabuska served as the principal supply center for the Mason Valley area, which was dependent on mineral resources for their economic activity.

Until recently bikers, truckers and even Avon were welcomed in for a cold one to the lingering bar.

Like with the arid desert surrounding the small settlement, by the 1950's the town had begun to dry up and all that remained was a few houses and a bar with the two-story grocery store.

Wabuska, 12 miles from Yerington, Nevada The Cracker Lady's House: History As Lived By The Cracker Lady: The Day JFK Died

The Cracker Lady's House: History As Lived By The Cracker Lady: The Day JFK Died

Town House Guest Ranch Brothel , Wabuska

Road to Wabuska.  I use to call this cottonwood lined road “The Wabuska Nation Forest”.

The Southern Pacific's former Wabuska depot now sits on the grounds of the Nevada State Railroad Museum

Yerington Monday: What's In A Name?

Yerington Monday:  What's In A Name?

Yerington has gone by three different names in its history: Pizen Switch, Greenfield and Yerington.  Yerington is located in Mason Valley in Lyon County, Nevada  Yerington’s history dates way back to the 1850’s. 

(Information taken from The Lyon County brochure "What's In A Name")

PIZEN SWITCH

Agricultural communities have a way of becoming established before the town historians are ready to record the event for posterity. By 1881 the story was being retold that N.H.A. "Hock" Mason was driving cattle to California and happened to pass through this valley in 1854. He returned five years later and settled along the Walker River north of the present town. The valley that was named for him was known for its pasturage along the river and ability to produce crops of barley, potatoes and grain.

The area came to be called Mason Valley and a post office by that name was established on August 6, 1871. At about the same time the emerging community on the old trail was more casually referred to as "The Switch" or Greenfield. The two names seem to be used interchangeably as late as 1894. The folklore states there were at least two saloons and one was serving distinctly inferior liquor. The local patrons called it POISON but their accents made it sound like "pizen". One generally accepted version is that the saloon was a small willow thatch hut, PIZEN SWITCH continued appropriately referred to as the "Switch", and the liquor consisted of one barrel of whiskey. Instead of securing fresh supplies, this entrepreneur added a few plugs of chewing tobacco and water when the barrel ran low. The cowboys, during one of their weekly excursions to town, were racing their horses up and down the only street. One of the group must have soon tried of the sport because he is said to have said, "Oh, let's go to the Switch and get us some pizen." All within hearing distance thought the remark was hilarious. It was repeated again and again until "Pizen Switch" became a byword for the entire valley.

GREENFIELD

Aero view of Yerington

As early as 1873, it was thought the town was coming into its own with a livery stable, store, saloons, blacksmith shop and hotel, and the place needed a different name from that of the valley. It was agreed that the new name would not be Pizen Switch. There were green fields on either side of the street, so what better name than "Greenfield". The mailing address remained Mason Valley. In 1879 this item appeared in the Lyon County Times "Pizen Switch Re-Christened November 26, 1879".

About 20 Virginia and Gold Hill people including several ladies went out to Pizen Switch in Mason Valley last week to assist in dedicating the new dance hall put up lately by the Brant Brothers. Whiskey and hard cider flowed freely but there were no fights. The music was furnished by a fiddle and two banjos. The place was re-christened "GREENFIELD" and an organization was formed, to be known as the Committee of Vengeance, whose duty it shall be to murder and scalp any and every person who shall hereafter call it "Pizen Switch".

In a contemporary history of the state published in 1881, History of Nevada by Thompson and West, we read "the post office address is Mason Valley, but an effort is being made to change it to Greenfield." It is interesting that there is no reference to Pizen Switch, while Greenfield is described as "a thriving little town in the center of the rich agricultural country in Mason Valley."

YERINGTON

The name of this community honored a prominent man in Nevada and is distinctive. There is no other town named Yerington in the world.

Mason Valley Tidings and the Lyon County Times, contemporary local newspapers, record the change of the name of the post office from Mason Valley to Yerington on April 1, 1894 even though post office records show the name change officially as of February 6, 1894. Within one week the dateline of the Mason Valley Tidings was changed from Greenfield to Yerington and all references to the Switch, Pizen Switch and Greenfield quickly ceased to appear. Newly organized clubs adopted the name as did business establishments such as The Greenfield Hotel that became the Yerington Hotel overnight.

The popular legend holds that the citizens of Greenfield saw the economic value of being on the route of the Carson and Colorado Railway. The closest station to town was Wabuska, about 12 miles north. The portion of the "Slim Princess" line traversed the northern portion of Mason Valley towards Schurz and beyond. They hoped that a rail line along the west side of the Walker River would be approved, and the way to achieve this was to flatter the man with the power to decide the route - Henry Marvin Yerington. Hence, the story goes, the name of the town was changed, but the railroad did not come to town.

H.M. Yerington was an important man in Nevada as was his son, James A. Yerington. This native son was active in mining and politics at the state level. He was the Nevada Executive Commissioner at the World's Fair and gave the community a souvenir book showing "... a haying scene in Mason Valley, the only agricultural picture. Mason Valley, we presume, was considered the garden spot of the Nevada." We would go on to national politics being present at Theodore Roosevelt's inauguration.

These men were celebrities of the late 19th century and their movements were tracked by- local newspapers. As ear1y as April 8, 1893 the editor of the Mason Valley Tidings, D. L. Sayre, wrote "D.O. Mills and H.M. Yerington passed Wabuska southward bound Wednesday on a tour of inspection of the railroad. Tidings wishes they might visit this valley." On August 19, 1893 he wrote "H.M. Yerington is at present making a tour of inspection of the C Railroad. We hope Mr. Yerington will visit this valley, that he may meet our solid citizen and discuss the feasibility of extending the railroad into the valley..." January 4, 1894, "If, as many people believe, the C & C Railroad is built into Mason Valley this year - it only skirts the eastern border now - '94 will see our population and taxable property double."