In June 1891, E.W. Hayden, editor and publisher of Susanville’s Lassen Advocate made a trip to Amedee, the Nevada-California-Oregon Railway’s (NCO) new terminus. In his mind, he was prepared to see another wide spot in the road like its predecessor, Liegan, located some ten miles to the south. Liegan was the terminus of the NCO from September 1888 to November1890. It was a remote, desolate location. There is scant documentation about this station. Hayden, before writing about the bustling activity at Amedee, provided this rare glimpse about Liegan.
“Then one is surprised, for most of us expected to see Liegan repeated, that is, a small freight house, a bale of hay, a sack of grain, a post, perhaps several posts to hitch horses to, three of four barrels of water hauled out from Doyle for drinking and domestic uses and a place in which to take meals, and which in the matter construction and value was not up to the average Honey Lake henhouse.
”This about what was comprised in Liegan, the first. Later it was much improved, but Amedee at first sight would cause ‘Old Josh Whitcomb’ to say ‘Well I be goll durned.’”
Then there a published story in which four men from Surprise Valley took the stage to Liegan bound for Reno. After nearly a week being stranded there , the men started out on foot to follow the railroad tracks to Reno. As the story goes “A week at Liegan is enough to drive almost anyone wild.”
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