Leap Year Day, 1924

Amedee Hotel, 1946. Courtesy of Hank Martinez

The railroad giveth, and the railroad taketh away. That in one sense is a perfect epitaph for Amedee. After all, it was the NCO Railroad that created the town, and was pivotal in its demise. The first spike in the coffin, so to speak, came in 1917, when the NCO sold 64 miles of its line from Rayl (Herlong) to Reno to the Western Pacific Railroad. In 1922, the NCO abandoned sixteen miles of its track between Wendel and Rayl. On October 31, 1922 the last NCO train passed through Amedee. The town was slowly fading into existence, the only thing keeping it partially going were the hot springs. So it was on Leap Year Day, 1924 that the Amedee Post Office closed.

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