Yerington Monday: Lake Anaconda

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.

Yerington Monday: Francis Goettsch and His Electric Steer

Yerington Monday:  Francis Goettsch and His Electric Steer

              

In 1978 Nevada Magazine reported:  A Mason Valley Man has invented an electric steer, complete with kicking legs operated by a motor and a dry cell battery, that can be used to practice roping.

Francis Goettsch, a former rancher and presently Yerington’s dogcatcher, has a patent pending on his mechanical cow and hopes it will catch on with schools and rodeo ropers looking for practice.

“I’ve always been a roper,” Goettsch said.  “I just needed something to practice on for my timing.”  The beast also can be pulled by a horse for roping on the fly.  If Goettsch’s dream comes, all his customers will need is a dry cell and a rope.