Located in far northern Washoe County, in Long Valley was the lonely outpost of Vya. Like so many desert communities, it thrived briefly during the early 1900s during the dry farming experience. When the Vya post office opened on September 29, 1910, it was named for Vya Wimer—the only child of Roy and Artie. While folklore has it, she was the first Anglo child born there, in reality she was born on December 22, 1904 at Lake City, in neighboring Surprise Valley. A number of hardy souls struggled to eke out a living there, and in 1941 thirty people were still living there.
There is somewhat of a resurgence there, of a new kind of desert homesteader. These folks are determined to live off the grid, content with the remoteness of the country.
Tim
This last week there was a story and lots of photos in the Modoc Newspaper. It was all about the biggest D.C. power
lines in the U.S. which comes off the Columbia River in Washington State headed to L.A . It is about ten miles do East of the location of this photo. They were changing the insulators for the first time in fifty year. The reporter ask if anyone stopped to see what they were doing. In 90 days saw two people. But know one stopped. Dave Z Vya was like home went across that road to hunt chukars every weekend for years, except in a lot of snow which lead to deep drifts!