On this day of annual leave, I headed up the road to Virginia City, the boomtown that practically created the state of Nevada. The discovery of the Comstock Lode in the 1850s drew thousands of miners from around the world and, at one point, the town had over 10,000 people living there. The Lode died out and so did the town, which survives today as a tourist stop.

Folks in my generation remember Virginia City as the second home to the Cartwright family on the television show Bonanza. In real life, V.C. looks nothing like a Hollywood backlot and there’s not a flat piece of ground anywhere to be found.

Being a tourist town, it does its best to pull folks into the shops.

And being Nevada, it has its share of idiots and notoriety.

Nevada’s first Catholic church was St. Mary’s in the Mountains.

Here’s a candle for JT and Danielle.

The mandatory “V” above the city.

Oh yeah. Breakfast at the Delta Saloon. Nice atmosphere but I’m still feeling the grease.

V.C. is a nice little town and worth the drive. Y’all should stop by and spend some money there. And soon.

Today we hit the road to visit the family that lives about twenty miles north (as the crow flies) of the Reno/Sparks metropolitan area, and again I was reminded of The Real Nevada: Desert.

Much of the Battle Born State is like these pictures: open ground covered by sagebrush with clear air and blue skies interrupted by occasional clouds. There’s no humidity to speak of, and the days are hot and the nights can be frozen, all within the same 24 hours, but this dust is in my blood and it is my home.

As Doc Graham said in Field of Dreams: “This is my most special place in all the world, Ray. Once a place touches you like this, the wind never blows so cold again.”

Amen, Doc.

Northern Nevada is in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada Range and “water events” like floods rarely happen on this side of mountains, so it’s newsworthy when the streams and bigger streams rise up even a little. We’re seeing some of this right now due to a relatively wet winter and a fast melt.

Case in point is the Carson River that flows through Douglas County and Carson City. Here’s the Mexican Dam in an undated picture from the Nevada State Library and Archives (probably the 1950s):

Here it is in a picture I took in November 2009 from the other side of the river near the opening of the Mexican Ditch.

And this morning (June 6, 2010), coincidentally standing in the exact same place:

Check out the sound of the water going over the dam.

This is about as much water you’ll see under “normal” conditions. Be careful if you plan to do any hiking in the area or kayaking out on the river.

As long-time readers know (i.e.: both of you), The Bride witters away her days at the Nevada State Library and Archives. She has access to a host of Old Nevada photos but, sadly, many are provided by state agencies who don’t date or describe their pictures. Such is the case for these photographs from the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDoT). There’s a few dozen in their folder, mostly pictures of staff members, but here’s some gems.

The Mexican Dam on the Carson River from way back when. If you go out there today, you’ll see that almost nothing has changed aside from the volume of water. Compare it to a picture I took from last November from the other side of the dam.

Here is the Nevada/California state border at South Lake Tahoe. None of the buildings in the background survive to this day.

An aerial photo detailing the two possible routes of Interstate 80 around Elko, Nevada. They decided on the Red Line.

Finally, a University of Nevada campus devoid of trees and familiar landscaping. At this time of this picture, Clark Administration on the front left was the university library (I worked in the basement for a few weeks). To the north is Frandsen Humanities, home to the English Department where my grandfather taught for many decades. Lincoln Hall is in the background and Manzanita Lake is barely noticeable to the left of Clark.

Edit: Yeah, I’m wrong. That’s Frandsen dominating the center (Clark doesn’t have pillars like Frandsen has on the east face) and that Thompson to the north. Clark is to the south of Frandsen.

As always, please credit the Nevada State Library and Archives when using these pictures (and I wouldn’t mind a shout-out, either). And Around Carson does a far superior job of posting pictures like these and I recommend Scott’s site to anyone interested in delving into Nevada’s photographic past.

Sometimes lost in the discussion over Nevada’s open spaces is the fact that the federal government owns 80+ percent of the Silver State and much of the remainder is land for mining, transportation (highways and trains), and ranching/farming. The ranching part has a rich history in Carson City with homesteads owned by the Parkers, Lompas and others. The old range still exists in Carson but is shrinking from development and Californication. Here’s some pix from the old Lompa Ranch area and purists will note that the new freeway extension is to my back as I took this pictures. Even so, these shots show why this space should be preserved for as long as possible.