Category: Trips

South Lake Tahoe CA/NV

Emerald Bay
Fannette Island in Emerald Bay
Pine tree
California-Nevada state line
Pony Express monument. The first Pony Express rider passed here April 4, 1860 on his way to Friday’s Station, a remount point 4/10 of a mile northeast at Edgewood, Nevada.
Lake Tahoe

Fredericksburg CA

Adding California to my list of “Fredericksburgs I have visited”. This is the 5th after Virginia, Texas, Ohio and Indiana.

Fredericksburg California started in 1864 when German settler Frederick Bruns began farming in the area. The farm became a stopover for travelers heading towards California and supplied milk and apples to mining towns. The community had a school and a post office in the late 1800s to the early 1900s. Most of the older buildings were destroyed by fire in 1986. It remains a small agricultural hamlet.

Fredericksburg Ditch (not a river)
Milk House
Gansberg Seperator House
Ranch in Fredericksburg
Bruns Home 1850s
Livery Stable 1850s
Ramp.
View of Fredericksburg Canyon looking westward
Fredericksburg Cemetery
Mountains to the west of Fredericksburg.
(L-R): Freel Peak (10,886 ft), Jobs Sister (10,823 ft), Jobs Peak (10,638 ft)

Nevada State Museum

Carson City NV

The Nevada State Museum is located on the site of the original Carson City Mint. It is a pretty substantial museum. There is a ghost town and mining exhibit below the first floor, a fairly large exhibit on the Carson City Mint including many coins, silver items made from Nevada silver, minerals and wildlife.

This museum has a substantial ghost town/mine exhibit underground.
Oxygen-breathing rescue apparatus
Cap and fuse magazine.
Square set stope, developed in the early days of the Comstock. These are now used the world over to hold heavy ground while extracting ore.
Incline winze, which hoists ore up to the main haulage area.
Cribbed shaft with crosshead and bailer, used to bail water and hoist rock.
Stamp mill. Ore is ground fine and washed over the mercury coated plate. The mercury gathers the gold to form an amalgam.
Copper stope. The ore is mined up from the level below, then lowered from this level on a timber slide.
Lead-zinc vein.
Abandoned drift, showing the crushing effect of loose ground.
Gold quartz vein. When streaks or pockets of high grade gold are encountered the specimen boss removes as much “high grade” as possible before the heading is again drilled and blasted.
Cinnabar in kaolin. The miner is loading a round of holes for blasting. This method of timbering is spiling, used to advance the heading through loose ground.
Scheelite ore (tungsten). The miner is drilling with a stoper. The fluorescent colors of blue, blue-white and white are crystals of scheelite. The red is calcite (no commercial value).
Powder magazine.
Coin Press Number 1, which produced its first coins at the Mint in Carson City in 1870. Coins with the CC mint mark are highly prized by collectors.
Bullion wagon used in the Carson City mint to move ingots from one room to another.
Bullion scales from the 1870s.
Coins minted at Carson City mint.
fgf
Imperial mammoth
Bobcat
Bighorn sheep
Northern raccoon
Mojave green rattlesnake
Sage grouse
Sage grouse hen and chicks
Summer tanager

Nevada State Capitol

Carson City NV

Front of the Nevada State Capitol, built 1871.
Nevada Senate Chamber
Nevada House Chamber
Nevada Supreme Court, 1871-1935
Nevada Governor’s Office
Nevada state motto, part of the current state flag
36 star flag, representing Nevada as the 36th state in 1864.
Early prospectors used tools like these: crucible used to melt ore, handmade assaying kit, gold/silver poke for carrying ore samples, gold pan, and rock hammer.

Some of the more famous people from Nevada’s history:

The Comstock Lode

Virginia City NV

High grade ore deposits were discovered near here in 1859, ultimately producing about $400,000 in silver and gold. The deposits became know as the Comstock Lode, after Henry T. P. Comstock, who claimed ownership of the ground where the discovery was made. For the next 20 years Virginia City became a boom town, which helped bring Nevada into the Union.

The mountains surrounding Virginia City
The Comstock Keystone Head Frame. This mine produced 15,074 tons between 1933 and 1939, equating to more than $68,000,000 in gold and $7,000,000 in silver, in today’s value.
Mine car
Ore was put in a Battery Box, where the ore was crushed into powder, which went through amalgamation plates which captured the gold and silver.
Head frame cam shaft.
Flat hoisting cable, steel wire flat cable, with a breaking strain of 1400 pounds, used to hoist from depths of up to 2000 feet.
Downtown Virginia City
Mark Twain started his career as a writer in this building in 1862 on the editorial staff of the Territorial Enterprise.