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Reno Was One Year Old When Road Was FinishedStaking Out of Townsite by River Is Recalled in Engineer's AccountReno already was established as a town for a year when the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railswere joined into the first transcontinental railroad seventy-five years ago today.The townsite was laid out on Aprii 1, 1868, by Joseph M. Graham, engineer of com truction of the Central Pacific through Nevada. Graham saw the town grow from a sagebrush tract of thirty-five acres to its present size. For many years he lived in California, making occasional trips across Nevada. He died in May, 1939, at Palo Alto, Calif., a few days short of his ninety-seventh birthday.Following is his account of the founding of Reno, written by him in 1931:“As I was moving my outfit forward to Wadsworth after having been placed in charge as engineer of construction on the building of th? road eastward from the Cali-fomia-Nevada state line, I measured and staked out what was later to be the city of Reno. On the first day of April, 1868, I set the first stake of the survey ofthis boundary for Reno on the bank of the English ditch. A map I saw in Rer.o a few years ago showed a dotted line within the present-day boundary of the city which lead up to the English ditch marking the spot where I drove the first stake. The ditch was used to divert, water from the Truckee river for the use of an English mining company near the site of the town.“The original townsite, as X remember, comprised about thirty-five acres extending for about a quarter of a mile between the! Truckee river as the south boun-i dary and English ditch as the! north boundary The site was donated to the Contract Finance company, contractors for the Central Pacific, by 2VI. C. Lake who owned a bridge across the river and a short toll road. With the establishing of a station at that point, Mr. Lake planned to profit from the tolls collected from travelers over his bridge and road leading to the Virginia City, Washoe and Carson country. I understand he collected more than §60,000 m tolls during the year and a half before the Virginia Truckee railroad was built and opened for traffic in December, 1869.“There was a wayside hotel on j the south side of the Truckee nver ’ known as the Lake house at the time I surveyed the townsite. There were no buildings on the north side of the river and where the town was located it was a barren waste of sage brush, homed toads and jack rabbits.“The first map of the townsite was drawn by J. R. Scupham who was an office-man for the Contract Finance company. Names for the first streets were probably chosen by Mr. Scupham or by Charles Cadv.-alader who was chief engineer for the Contract Finance company. The townsite it-[ self was named for Jesse Lee Reno,\ a civil war general. Lots in the \townsite were sold at auction. As1Reno was to be the trade centei for the Virginia, Washoe and Carson country, there was a rush foi town property and some of the choice 25-foot lots sold for §1200.'At the time the Central Pacific was being built across Nevada ir 1868, Graham recalled, there were no settlements of any consequence‘Winnemucca was a very small town. There was a wayside hotel at Humboldt, and a little store at Mill City. There was a dairy ranch ten miles east of Winnemucca, called Fairbanks ranch, and then a little store and saloon at Gol-conda. Beyor.d that there was nothing. We used to call the Fairbanks ranch the 'jumping off place.’ I don’t remember any habitation between there and Corinne, Utah.”After the Central Pacific was completed, Graham was appointed resident engineer with headquarters at Truckee and had charge of all maintenance work between Sacramento and Winnemucca. In 1881 he joined the engineering staff of the Atlantic Pacific (now the Santa Fe) and later was assistant chief engineer of the Carson and Colorado. The C. C., a narrow gauge road, now is included in the Mina branch of the Southern Pacific from Hazen. Nev., to Keeler, Calif.Officer AttendsGungery SchoolCharles Schopper, son of Mr. and Mrs. J. P. Schopper of 45 Park street, received his second lieutenant’s commission at graduation exercises of the army air forces' training command school at Yale university recently, according to word received here today.Lt. Schopper has been trained as a technical officer in armament and may soon join a technical unit of the army air forces for duty at an advanced air base where he will be in charge of a crew of enlisted men specialists in aircraftarmament.As a technical officer in armament. Lt. Schopper will be responsible for the functioning of guns, the synchronization of gun sights and gun cameras and the loading of explosives and ammunition on board a plane before it leaves on a mission over enemy territory.Schopper attended the local schols. graduating from Reno high school and entered the army April 21, 1942. He has been stationed at? Santa Ana, Thundertwrd, Min-ter and Kirtland fields, Fresno, Lowry field, Boca Raton, Fla., and Seymour Johnson field, N. C.While in high school, he served as president of the Reno Sage chapter of Future Farmers of America for a year and previous to entering the service was engaged in business with his father and brother in Rena
Newspaper Details
Reno Evening Gazette
Reno, Nevada, US
Wed, May 10, 1944
Page 15
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 16 Mar 2019
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