This is just one of those little things that we take for granted. Susanville happens to be one of the oldest towns of the western Great Basin. The town which had been laid out in the 1850s, is unique from other western towns of the same vintage. The town’s Main Street is unusually wide and there is a reason for that. The wide street acted as a fire buffer, so to keep a fire contained to one side of the street, and it worked except for once in 1893, when the whole business district went up in flames.