The fall is a wonderful time to go exploring. For the most part the weather is ideal, the heat of summer is fading, but the chilly days are a few weeks away.

A favorite destination is Pyramid Lake, not that far for Lassenites, if you take the back way via Wendel Road. It should be noted that it is a dirt road from Nevada State line to near Sutcliffe on the north shore of the lake.

The lake was named by John  C. Fremont on January 13, 1844. Fremont wrote: “. . . we encamped on the shore, opposite a very remarkable rock in the lake, which had attracted our attention for many miles. It rose, according to our estimate, 600 feet above the water; presented a pretty exact outline of the great Pyramid of Cheops. . . . This striking feature suggested a name for the lake; and I called it Pyramid Lake; and though it may be deemed by some a fanciful resemblance, I can undertake to say that some future traveller will find a much more striking resemblance between this rock and the pyramids of Egypt, than there is between them and the object from which they take their name.”

Of course, I would be amiss not to mention the lake’s famed Lahontan Cutthroat Trout. Up until the 1920s, members of the Pyramid Lake Paiute tribe would bring wagon loads of the trout to sell in Susanville.

Definitely, worth a visit.

’Tim

During the frontier era a lot of procedures were a lot simpler then. Take for instance taking the bar examination to become an attorney-at law. For a brief time in the early 1860s the Honey Lake Valley had two Justice Courts—one for the Nevada Territory and the other for the State of California. That is a complicated story in itself. It did require practicing attorneys to have a license to in each jurisdiction, just as one has to due today.

Susanville’s founder, Isaac Roop (1822-1869) wore many hats, and one of those being an attorney. Since Roop was a high profile person back in the day, there is quite a bit of documentation about him. One item that shows a lot, was his interesting wit. A perfect example occurred when he took the Nevada Bar examination. At that hearing a lawyer attempted to provide Roop with some assistance. The bar examination was fairly simple and one of the more difficult questions was the definition of a corporation.  The Carson attorney informed Roop that: “A corporation is a creature of the law, having certain powers and duties of a natural person.” When Judge Gordon Mott asked Roop to define a corporation, Roop replied: “A corporation is a band of fellows without any soul, of whom the law is a creature, who have some powers and take a great many more, and entirely ignore the statutory duties imposed on them.”  Thus, with that remark, Roop was admitted to practice law in the Nevada Territory.

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Just across the California border lies this most interesting desert. It is a favorite of mine, so rich in history. It received its name back in 1844 when John C. Fremont explored the region. His party noted the dust storms created on the playa there cast a smokey hue.

Fremont was not the only explorer to the desert, as he was followed by William H. Nobles who created a new emigrant road that traversed Smoke Creek—it was a direct route to the Northern California mines. In 1865, the military established Fort Bidwell in Surprise Valley. The military plotted an unusual supply route that went along the west side of the Smoke Creek Desert and then followed Smoke Creek in a haphazard manner to Surprise Valley. This route was far from ideal, which was replaced by route through Buffalo Meadows. Traffic would diminish significantly when in 1890 Fort Bidwell was closed.

By the early 1900s, Smoke Creek was dotted with desert homesteaders during the dry farming experience that did not work so well to many.

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Patrick L. Flanigan was one of those rags to riches to rags stories. He was a member of the Nevada State Assembly and also Senate during the 1890s. Of course, many in this region were aware there was an a railroad town in eastern Honey Lake Valley named for him.

His story began In 1877, when at the age of 17, Flanigan 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 aka ‘tramp” 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 Who was Patrick Flanigan? →

This Tuesday tidbit has little substance. However, one can see the difference a century can make to downtown Reno. One of the last existing landmarks, that many may be familiar with is the Viriginia Street bridge, which was replaced several years ago.

Tim