Red Rock is a common name for landmarks in the American West. Today’s featured Red Rock is located in Washoe County, Nevada, north of Reno and south of Doyle. In 1867, Thomas Pearson and John Sutherland left Red Rock to relocate to Lower (Amedee) Hot Springs on the east side of Honey Lake. The following year, they planned to return to Red Rock, but were victims of what is known as the Pearson Massacre.

Sophus Petersen who had been in the Long Valley area, located on the abandoned Pearson & Sutherland property. Petersen, it should be noted was first married to Barbara Ross, whose father William and his brother Albert Ross ranch would eventually become Constantia.

On October 18, 2025 a historic plaque dedication was held at Rancho Haven Community Center to commemorate the history of the Petersen family and Red Rock. The pace reads as follows:

“Rancho Haven was originally part of the Red Rock Ranch, a family owned cattle grazing operation that covered tens of thousands acres or private and public lands marked by abundant springs.

“Danish emigrant Sophus Petersen was in the US by 1860 and by 1868 in the Red Rock area. He acquired land and built corrals, reservoirs and other features to convey water and manage livestock for his ranch. Sophus had four children: Ross, Sophie, Clara and Hedvig (Hattie). In 1899, Sophus died after being crushed by an overturned hay wagon.

“In 1900, Hattie Petersen married Owen Chapman Dickinson of neighboring Winnemucca Ranch. The Dickinson family added to the Petersen land holdings, built other structures, developed an airstrip an ran Red Rock Ranch for several decades. The family, ranch headquarters, and two reservoirs were located in the vicinity of today’s RHPOA Community Center.

“In 1966, Hattie and Owen’s son, Lawrence and his wife Judie sold all the ranch property almost 23,000 deeded acres with water rights, plus grazing and water rights for nearby public lands to a group of California/Nevada investors.

“In 1971, Occidental Petroleum Land Development Corporation about 4,000 acres from the group of CA/NV investors. Almost all this acreage became known as Rancho Haven. The Washoe County Board of Commissioners approved the final Record of Survey for the Rancho Haven residential development in July of 1971. Lot sales began soon afterward.

“Dedicated October 18, 2025 By Friends of Rancho Haven History and Julia C. Bulette #1864 of the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus”

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Gerlach which straddles the Black Rock and Smoke Creek Deserts is a unique community. Its latest notoriety is that it is the closet community of the annual Burning Man event. I thought some might be interested in this September 2, 1910 article about Gerlach that appeared in the Lassen Advocate.

 “Gerlach is Becoming a Metropolis. The town of Gerlach on the end of the Western Pacific is already the metropolis of northern Washoe County and is growing so rapidly that it will have a voting precinct of its own this fall.

“It will be the old Salt Marsh precinct, but a change will be made of the polling place to that point. The Buffalo Meadows farmers are kicking about the additional twenty mile drive to the polls, but as they previously had to go thirty-five miles, it is thought that the extra distance will not hurt them.

“There is a strong attraction possessed by Gerlach, which now boasts four saloons and more coming.

“Long Valley, some forty miles to the north, is also settlig up rapidly. There is a reclamation scheme in progress there and it is forecasted that the valley will be thickly settled and prosperous before many years pass.

“Gerlach is now the freight division point for the Western Pacific and is the shipping place for the southern end of Surprise Valley, California, to which place a county road was recently constructed.”

Tim

This three-acre natural island on the Truckee River in the heart of downtown. Reno has an interesting history. In 1911, Reno attorney Lewis Hinckley began to develop it for an amusement park. He dubbed the location as Belle Island. In time, the island boasted a dance hall, a 700-seat open air theater among other things. The enterprise went bankrupt in 1916. In 1920, influential miner and Nevada banker George Wingfield purchased the property and donated it to the City of Reno. In turn the City of Reno’s named the property  George Wingfield Park.

Contrary to local folklore, when Wingfield sold his Honey Lake Valley summer home in 1924, he transported four buffalo that he had there to Wingfield Park. Wingfield did relocate the buffalo, but not to the park.

Tim

I only visited the Buffalo Salt Works once that is located in the Smoke Creek Desert. That was in 1980. One of vats used to drying salt was  fascinating. The salt had disfigured the wooden foundations creating an unusual landscape. My question is has any one gone to the  site in the last twenty years and if so, what remnants still exist?

Tim

Patrick L. Flanigan was one of those rags to riches to rags stories. In 1877, at the age of 17, he came west to Reno where he found employment milking cows. Five years later he obtained a loan from the Washoe County Bank to purchase 1500 sheep. Thus, like many before and after him became an itinerant sheep man and moved his sheep from place to place where ever he could find feed and water. (When the Taylor Grazing Act came into effect in 1934, put an end to this practice.) Flanigan, like so many others, lost over 50% of sheep during the harsh winter of 1889-90. Continue reading Pyramid Land & Stock Company →

It was interesting question posed shortly after Peter Lassen and Edward Clapper’s death on the morning of April 29, 1859 in the Black Rock Desert. Their prospecting companion, Lemircus Wyatt escaped riding a horse without a saddle or reins some 120 miles back to Susanville to relay the news.

A little background. In late April 1859 a prospecting party from the Honey Lake Valley set off for the Black Rock Desert. The first group consisted of William Weatherlow, Joseph Kitts, George Lathrop and a man named Jameson. The second group consisted of Peter Lassen, Edward Clapper and Lemircus Wyatt. They agreed to rendezvous at Black Rock Springs, which did not happen according to plan, though the two parties were in close proximity of each other.

When Wyatt relayed the news in Susanville, a posse of twenty men was formed to bury Clapper and Lassen. The posse found the encampment and noticed something odd–it had not been disturbed. Among the items they found were two sacks of flour, some dried beef, blankets and part of a keg of whiskey.

During this same time period the U.S. Government appointed Major Frederick Dodge, the first U.S. Indian Agent for the West to oversee the welfare and future reservations for Paiute and Washo tribes. Dodge consulted with Paiute Chief Winnemucca. The Honey Lakers had a peace treaty with the Paiutes, and there had not been any problems. Winnemucca informed Dodge that the Paiutes had nothing to do with Lassen’s death.

In May 1859, Major Dodge had his findings of Lassen’s death published in the Sacramento Union newspaper. It was Dodge’s opinion, especially that the Lassen camp was not ransacked by Indians, concluded the dastardly deed was done by four white men, i.e. Weatherlow and Company.

In a strange turn of events, Weatherlow waited a year to deny Dodge’s allegations. In his statement Weatherlow asked Dodge to make public retraction, though it does not appear Dodge did. By the 1880s there was still some of a certain mindset that Lassen was not killed by the Indians. In 1917, when a second Lassen Monument was dedicated, the issue was still being debated. It should be noted that the two  Lassen Monuments have carved in stone “killed by Indians”.

Wyatt, who was the only eye-witness died two years later in Susanville at the age of sixty-two. Weatherlow died in 1864. Kitts, Lathrop and Jameson eventually left the region to parts unknown.

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This notable landmark in one of Nevada’s premiere mining towns has a connection to Honey Lake Valley. It should be duly noted Virginia City’s existence no longer has nothing has much ado about mining for gold and silver, but what is does best these days is mine the pocketbooks of tourists.

For those not familiar with Myron Lake, he is considered the founder of Reno. In 1859, C.William Fuller located along the Truckee River in the Truckee Meadows and built a toll bridge and small hotel there being nothing else. (Today, that location is known as the Virginia Street bridge). Business would soon be brisk with the discovery of the Comstock and the establishment of Virginia City. In June 1861, Fuller traded his enterprise for land in the Honey Lake Valley to Myron Lake. Lake continued acquiring more property in the Truckee Meadows and timing can mean so much. In 1868, the Central Pacific Railroad was approaching the Truckee Meadows as part of the nation’s first transcontinental line.Lake sold the railroad 160 acres for  depot and town and Reno was born.

In 1862, the widowed Jane Conkey Bryant with her three children—Florence, Seymour and Lillian—came to the Honey Lake Valley upon the urging of her parents—Sylvester & Betsy—along with various siblings.   (The Conkeys resided on present day Wingfield Road known as Nagel’s Happy Valley Ranch). It should be noted Lake, prior to  his move to theTruckee Meadows was a neighbor to the Conkeys. It is unclear how Lake courted Jane, but the two were married in Janesville in 1864. To make a long story short, Jane’s daughter, Florence married William Thompson. The Thompson’s daughter, Ethel married Ed Simmer owner of Piper’s Opera House in Virginia. City. The property remained in the family for years, though for a time in a neglected state. In the 1960s, Louise Zimmer Driggs restored the Opera House in the 1960s and eventually donated ti to the non-profit organization that operates it today.

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