XIX

FIRST TERM OF GOVERNOR JOHN SPARKS, 1903-1906

With the great revival of mining and with the program of reclamation under the immediate championship of the President, Nevada in 1903 seemed destined to come in for a large share of the prosperity due to newly awakened national energies. As Governor Sparks said in his inaugural message : "I believe the time has arrived for this state to consider and prepare to assume a higher and more important attitude in commercial and industrial affairs." Progressiveness was a word heard on every hand in those years, and Nevada's history seems strongly imbued with the spirit of the term. The governor, the Legislature, all departments of the state, industry, agriculture, and the people as a whole were obedient to new impulses. Disappointment and disillusionment were to be expressed over the results of some of the reforms after they had been obtained, but at least it was the fortune of Americans generally during the early years of the present century to have a consciousness of direction in many of their aims and aspirations, and this of itself was no contemptible possession.

Election of 1902

The Legislature in 1901 had expressed itself three times in endorsing an amendment to the Federal constitution to provide for the direct election of United States senators. William M. Stewart had been returned to the Senate by the 1899 Legislature. Senator Jones after thirty years of consecutive service to the state announced his retirement with the close of his term in March, 1903. Francis G. Newlands had been an aspirant for the seat of Senator Stewart, and at once became the favored candidate to succeed Senator Jones. Nevada was one of the first states to take a popular referendum on the choice of a United States senator. In the election of November 4, 1902, an arrangement had been made whereby the name of T. P. Hawley was placed before the voters to receive their recommendation as the Republican candidate for the office. In all but two counties he received some votes, the total being 1,984. However, the Legislature elected in 1902 chose Newlands to succeed Senator Jones. His election being a foregone conclusion, his seat in Congress was open for competition. The Republicans nominated for congressman E. S. Farrington, while the Fusion party, "Democratic-Silver," nominated C. D. Van Duzer, who was elected by a majority of 775, the vote being: Van Duzer, 5,848; Farrington, 5,073.[1]

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The state ticket of the Fusion party was almost uniformly successful in the election of 1902. A Republican, W. G. Douglass, was chosen secretary of state by the narrow margin of 166 over Eugene Howell, while Orvis Ring, Republican candidate for superintendent of public instruction, won his office by the close margin of eleven votes. All others elected at that time were Silver-Democrats, John Sparks being elected governor over A. C. Cleveland by a vote of 6,540 to 4,778. The other state officials chosen were : Lem Allen, lieutenant-governor; G. F. Talbot, justice of the Supreme Court; S. P. Davis, state controller; D. M. Ryan, treasurer; E. D. Kelley, surveyor-general; J. G. Sweeney, attorney-general ; Andrew Maute, superintendent of state printing.

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THE OVERLAND HOTEL

One of Las Vegas earliest buildings

An amendment proposal was also submitted this time, to amend the taxation article so as to permit the taxation of patented mines. The official canvass showed that the measure received a majority of 3,331, but the total vote given for and against was only about 4,500, whereas the total vote cast for governor was 11,318. The failure of the board of canvassers to state specifically whether or not the amendment had been legally adopted was the subject of a resolution that passed the Senate with the concurrence of the Assembly in 1903, but Governor Sparks vetoed the resolution as implying a censure upon the three justices of the supreme court who comprised the board of canvassers. The governor expressed the opinion which had been expressed before that the board of canvassers were not vested by law with doing more than to set forth the vote cast for or against.

John Sparks, who was called to the office of governor in 1903, had been a Confederate soldier and was an old-time cattle man. He was born in Mississippi August 30, 1843, and when he was fourteen years of age his family moved to Lampasas in Western Texas.

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From that time except during the period of the Civil war, his work was identified with the range cattle industry. He came to Nevada in 1868 for the purpose of extending his live stock business. In a few years he was in possession of a herd of 70,000 head of cattle, and was a pioneer in the introduction of thoroughbred stock. He had always been a Democrat and it was at a sacrifice of no party principles that he consented to become the candidate of the Fusion party in 1902. He was the first governor since Governor Bradley to be elected for two consecutive terms. He had held office only a little over a year in his second term when he died May 22, 1908. He was referred to as "Honest John Sparks." A tribute paid him by President Stubbs of the university was as follows:

By race and breeding he was a man of the South. Though born in Mississippi and spending his later years in Nevada, nevertheless he was a devoted son of Texas, a state that he loved with a peculiar and passionate devotion. As a citizen he was public spirited, generous to a fault, high-minded and sensitive to the slightest criticism. His courage was beyond question ; his strength of will a predominant characteristic. Elected to the governor's office twice by large majorities in which votes from all parties were mingled, his public life and his public acts are beyond any just criticism. Mistakes he doubtless made, often deceived in men, for he was not a critical judge of men, but his administration of public affairs was free from every taint of scandal and graft. He had well-settled principles which enabled him to guide safely the state in times of need and in times of the warfare of different interests.

Governor Sparks' administration was contemporaneous with the "Roosevelt era," during which the rapidly expanding functions of the Federal government were impinging upon the several states, calling forth corresponding developments in state functions and at the same time arousing many antagonisms between the conservative and progressive elements.

Forest Reserves

A modern map of Nevada shows immense blocks of its area bounded and designated as "National Forests." The area of these national forests by 1930 aggregated nearly five million acres. However, that is only a small proportion of the state's total area of nearly 72,000,000 acres. By 1906 less than 9,000,000 acres in Nevada had been transferred from Federal ownership. Nearly 6,000,000 acres had been granted by Congress to the Central Pacific Railroad. About 2,700,000 acres comprise the "state grants," while the individual entries in the United States land office totalled 400,000 acres. Thus the Federal Government still owned over 80 per cent of the total area.

The policy of reserving certain portions of the public domain as permanent forest areas had begun about 1891, and during that decade about 60,000,000 acres had been thus reserved. It was Roosevelt who gave the great impetus to the movement for the creation of national forests and during his administration there were withdrawn for this purpose nearly 150,000,000 acres. In 1898

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Gifford Pinchot, one of Roosevelt's close friends, had been made chief of the forest bureau. In 1905 the name of this bureau was changed to the forest service and the administration of the National Forest Reserve transferred to the Department of Agriculture. In July 1, 1906, Nevada had two areas of national forest reserves—Tahoe, less than 60,000 acres, and Ruby Mountain, approximately 424,000 acres. By proclamations of the President, five new areas were set aside during 1906-07--Charleston, Independence, Monitor, Toiyabe and Toquima. Thus by July, 1908, a total of over 2,590,000 acres had been reserved, the largest being the Toiyabe Reserve, containing 625,000 acres. From the revenues derived from the fees charged for grazing live stock in the national

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LAHONTAN DAM AND SPILLWAY, CHURCHILL COUNTY

forests, Congress directed that 10 per cent should be paid into the treasury of the county in which such fees were collected. The Nevada Legislature in 1907 directed that the proceeds of this 10 per centum from the Federal Government should be paid into the county school fund of said counties.

Projects Under Newlands Reclamation Act

But the phase of the general conservation program in which Nevada was particularly interested was the government enterprise proceeding from the Newlands act of 1902. One of the first acts of the Legislature of 1903 was one "providing for the cooperation of the State of Nevada with the Secretary of the Interior of the United States in the construction and administration of irrigation works for the reclamation of arid lands in the State of Nevada, et cetera." Among other things the act created the office of state engineer to have charge of the irrigation program and to cooperate with the Federal Government in carrying out its plans. Within eight months after the passage of this law the construction of the

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Truckee-Carson project was commenced, and thus Nevada was given the honor of being the state in which the actual building of irrigation works under the reclamation act of 1902 was initiated.

[2]The passage of the Irrigation Law of 1903, by which the office of State Engineer was created, was due to the existing conditions governing the appropriation and distribution of water rights in the State of Nevada. There had grown up in this state prior to 1903 a mass of water rights which were inchoate and undetermined, arising from what might be termed an extension of "squatter sovereignty," whereby appropriators simply avail themselves of the use of the public waters by appropriating them and constructing ditches for their diversion, often failing to record the required notices in the county in which the appropriation was made or to make public in any way their intentions, save by the actual fact of construction.

These appropriations being carried on in good faith, the Courts have always been disposed to protect, and to a certain extend these doubtful possessory rights relating to the five principal rivers of the State and the ditches tributary thereto have become fixed and vested, and the Courts have so decreed.

The advent of proposed United States reclamation projects in the State, the principal of which is now the Carson-Truckee Project, necessitated the passage of a law which would tend to cooperate with the Secretary of the Interior in the construction, operation, management and maintenance of irrigation works in the State of Nevada, and it was to the interest of this State that every inducement should be extended to the Secretary of the Interior by cooperative and helpful State legislation.

It was essential that the Secretary of the Interior, before proceeding in the, actual construction of any project on the rivers of Nevada, should be informed as to the extent of the present actual appropriation and beneficial use of water by existing communities, in order that he might be informed as to what quantity of water would be sufficient and necessary to fully supply existing uses, and what quantity of water would be available for the supply of lands proposed to be reclaimed. It was seen, however, that such free and easy methods upon the part of the appropriators under irrigation laws prior to 1903 were bringing about a chaotic state of affairs in the legal aspect of water rights, resulting in unending litigation and hardships upon the ranchers and settlers themselves, involving rights in such long drawn out legal battles as would leave the appropriators of small means at the mercy of those who had funds to appeal from one court to another, until their opponents should be exhausted in the struggle.

It was evident that some less expensive and cumbersome way of determining the priorities of water rights must be devised in order to give adequate protection to the appropriator of limited means. In 1903, therefore, the State Legislature passed a general law, approved February 16, 1903, covering all future appropriations of public water, whether for irrigation or other purposes, and providing that all water

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rights initiated in future should be secured by compliance with its terms. After careful, painstaking and conscientious research, Hon. Albert E. Chandler, State Engineer 1903-1905, cooperating with Hon. Francis G. Newlands, United States Senator, compiled the essential features of the present irrigation law, which embodied the most modern legal principles and methods obtaining in the Western States, and which are particularly applicable to arid conditions of the greater portion of this State.

The administration of this law was placed in the hands of the State Engineer, who established and determined, within a period of two years, the priorities of vested rights to the waters of the East Fork and branches, the West Fork and branches, and the main Carson River, comprising a total cultivated area of 27,922 acres on which water has been applied to a beneficial use. The priorities of three hundred and fifty-nine water users along these streams have thus been determined and established of record, and their rights thereto as securely fixed as their titles to the land.

It is gratifying to those interested in the welfare and development of the State, and particularly to water consumers, to know that not one dollar has been expended in litigation since such adjudication of water rights has been determined and established.

When State Engineer Chandler resigned in May, 1905, Governor Sparks appointed as his successor Henry Thurtell, who resigned May 1, 1907, to become railroad commissioner of Nevada, and was succeeded by Frank R. Nicholas.

            During the administration of Mr. Thurtell priorities to vested rights were established and determined in Muddy Valley, Lincoln County; and to the waters of Muddy River, one hundred and twenty-one certificates were issued to consumers, the titles of water rights being satisfactorily settled and adjusted. In 1906 the area of cultivated lands in this locality comprised 4,000 acres of bottom lands, and it is without doubt the most valuable agricultural land in the entire State, producing semi-tropical fruits such as figs, almonds, peanuts, apricots, cotton, melons, corn, sweet potatoes, five to seven crops of alfalfa per year, and all kinds of vegetables and grains. It was indeed fortunate for the water users of this community that their rights had been determined and established, as the construction of the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad through this vicinity brought this fertile section prominently before the public, causing an appreciation in both water and land values.

Truckee-Carson Project

The following description of the pioneer Truckee-Carson project is found in the report of the director of the Nevada Experiment Station for 1906:

The Secretary of the Interior has apportioned $27,000,000 of the reclamation fund for the construction of fourteen irrigation projects. Actual construction has been initiated in but two—the Salt River project in Arizona and the Truckee-

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Carson project in Nevada. It seems very appropriate that Nevada, the most arid of all the States, should have the honor of being the first to profit by the provisions of the Reclamation Act.

The immediate aim of the work in Nevada is the regulation of the Carson and Truckee rivers. Both of these rivers rise in beautiful mountain lakes in the high Sierra in California, flow through fertile Nevada valleys, and are lost in inland drainage lakes—the Carson in Carson Lake and the Truckee in Pyramid Lake. As most of the water runs to waste in May and June, the rivers must be regulated to per-form their highest duty in irrigation.

The project is extremely novel in that the waters of one river are turned to supplement the flow of the other. A canal now under construction will carry flood waters of the Truckee River into a large reservoir, commonly designated as the Lower Carson Reservoir, to be constructed on the Carson River between Fort Churchill and Leetville.

The canal heads on the south bank of the Truckee River about ten miles above the town of Wadsworth on the Central Pacific Railroad. It is 31 miles in length, and for the first 6 miles will have a capacity of 1,400 cubic feet of water a second. At the end of this section a branch will cross the Truckee River by means of an inverted syphon and deliver 250 cubic feet a second to lands between Wadsworth and Pyramid Lake. From the point of diversion of this branch to the Carson River the main canal will have a capacity of 1,200 cubic feet a second. Besides very deep excavations, three concrete-lined tunnels, the longest 1,400 feet in length, add to the cost and difficulty of the work. In round numbers the contract price was $950,000, and the work was completed June, 1905—twenty-one months from the signing of the contract.

During July, 1904, contracts were let for the construction of about 37 miles of main distributing canals for the diversion of 1,800 cubic feet of water a second from Carson River at a point about 4 miles west of Leetville, Nevada. This work involves about 1,500,000 cubic yards of earth-work besides the concrete diverting dam, regulating gates, spillways, falls, and wiers. The system will distribute water to lands in Carson Sink Valley and will be supplied by the Lower Carson Reservoir, referred to above.

At the close of 1908 the project was practically completed, resulting in the reclamation of an area of 100,000 acres in the Carson Basin. At that time the government had expended nearly $4,000,000 in the construction of the project, and the State Engineer reported : "At the present time water rights have been sold for approximately 40,000 acres of land, and the demand for new land is increasing to an encouraging extent. There are approximately 400 families residing on farms under cultivation, where there were but seventy-two farms in this valley three years ago.

Railroad Construction Revived

For twenty years new railroad construction in Nevada had practically ceased. In 1901 the mileage of the different lines was:

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Central Pacific, 448; Virginia & Truckee, 51.75, located in the four counties of Lyon, Ormsby, Storey and Washoe; the Carson and Colorado, which had been completed for a hundred miles in 1881 from Mound House to Hawthorne and in 1901 had a total mileage of 192, located in Lyon and Esmeralda counties; the Nevada, California & Oregon, twenty-eight miles in Washoe County; the Eureka & Palisade, eighty-four miles, in Eureka County; Nevada Central, ninety-three miles, in Lander County. In addition the assessors placed a nominal valuation on fifteen miles of road in Lincoln County, and also assessed property, but no track or rolling stock, belonging to the Oregon Short Line and Utah Central and the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake companies in Lincoln County.

Nevada received great addition to its railway mileage during the first decade of the century. This was due in part to internal developments in the state, making railroad construction profitable. It was also due to the fact that Nevada lay within the scope of the vast extensions to the western transportation system as conceived and carried out by some master minds controlling immense aggregations of capital. The results led Governor Sparks in his message of January, 1905, to declare that for the first time in many years "prospective railroad building begins to meet general favor with the great magnates engaged in transportation, and it is not beyond reasonable expectation to predict the construction of railroads not only as trans-continental extensions, but that will radiate in all directions, thus connecting hitherto remote districts and completing a system of transportation long hoped for by our people. This is an age of enterprise and progress, but it requires facilities for intercourse to accommodate business. Our natural and undeveloped wealth will bring railroads, and business will follow."

Central Pacific

At that time Edward H. Harriman was engaged in his gigantic task of consolidating scores of transportation lines in the middle West and far West, including the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific systems, into a vast network which would practically dominate transportation throughout the Southwest. Immense sums of money were being expended in cutting down grades, shortening and straightening lines that had been built under pioneer conditions, in double tracking and the laying of heavier steel for high powered locomotion. This reconstruction work was in full progress in Nevada during 1902-04. After some of the heavy grades had been cut down and sharp curves eliminated, the Southern Pacific, as it now came to be known instead of the Central Pacific, began installing automatic block system.

The reconstruction work affected in particular the destiny of two Nevada cities, Reno and Wadsworth. Wadsworth had long been an important point on the old Central Pacific. Railroad shops were located there, and in other respects it was a typical railroad town. It was determined to place the division headquarters closer to the foot of the Sierras, where the mountain climbing engines began their long pull over the Sierras. The railroad company bought a ranch property east of Reno and in the spring of 1903 began the grading and filling and other work to prepare the land for the site of the shops, the network of rails and other facilities

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of a division headquarters. A new community quickly sprang up, and on September 11, 1903, a post office was established bearing the name of Harriman, in honor of the executive head and controlling official of the Southern Pacific system. The shops were moved to the new town in 1904, and thus a made-to-order town was created, shortly afterward christened with the name of the governor of Nevada. By act of March 15, 1905, the Legislature incorporated the "town of Sparks," giving it a complete city charter. In the meantime a company had been organized to construct an electric street railway from Reno to the new town, and while they were separate municipalities they have been essentially twin cities with a strong community of interests between them.

Salt Lake Route

About the close of the century William A. Clark, the wealthy Montana copper king, extended the scope of his ambitions to become an important figure in the transportation affairs of the West. His attention was attracted to the long dormant project of a railroad from Salt Lake to Southern California, along one of the oldest traveled transportation routes across the Great Basin. Reference has been made in earlier chapters to the building of the Utah Southern Railroad, which was completed from Salt Lake City to Juab in 1879, and a year or so later extended to Milford, which for many years remained the nearest railroad terminal to the inhabitants of the Lower Colorado River in Southeastern Nevada. On August 21, 1898, the Utah & Pacific Railroad Company was incorporated for the purpose of building a railroad from the terminus of the Utah Southern to Los Angeles, and under this organization some construction was done in Lincoln County. In formulating his plans for the "Salt Lake Route," Senator Clark acquired a controlling interest in the old Utah Southern, also in the Utah & Nevada, which many years before had projected a line from Salt Lake to the Pioche mining district in Nevada, in the Utah & Pacific, and he also acquired a line which had been built about 1891 from San Pedro through Los Angeles to Pasadena. These were the small links to be pieced together into a new trunk line, known as the San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad. At the meeting of the State Board of Assessors in January, 1904, it was decided to place a valuation of $4,500 per mile on the main track of this new road, arguments being submitted by a representative of the company that the construction work involved a heavy expense, without benefit of subsidies from Lincoln County, and at the same time the construction work and the prospects of the opening of the new line was adding rapidly to the settlements and increased valuation of property all along the route. At that time the company had in operation in Lincoln County about forty miles of railroad, completed as far as Caliente, with the prospect that 240 miles would be completed within the county during the year. Construction work was also being pushed from the California terminal and on January 30, 1905, the last spike was driven near the town of Jean, Nevada, about twenty miles from the California line. On June 2, 1905, the first regular passenger trains left Salt Lake City and Los Angeles at the same hour, and thus inaugurated the service over what has since been known as the "Salt Lake Route."

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Western Pacific

Construction work on Nevada's third trunk line railroad was under way before the close of the Sparks administration. For a number of years the Gould interests, then in control of the Denver & Rio Grande system, had been seeking an independent outlet to the Pacific. The consolidation of the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific had proved unfavorable to the traffic arrangements previously enjoyed by the Goulds in their share of traffic to and from California. Out of this competitive situation between the Gould and Harriman interests was projected the Western Pacific Railroad Company. From Ogden, then the western terminus of the Denver & Rio Grande Western, construction work was started and was continued in the face of abnormal difficulties due to floods and storms in the great Salt Lake basin and Humboldt valley. On November 9, 1908, the road was completed between Ogden and Shafter, Nevada, a distance of 151 miles, and in the following February regular train service was established between those points. Construction work was continued during the following two years, and on August 22, 1910, one passenger train daily was put in operation between Salt Lake City and San Francisco, and the road was on a full operating basis between those points in July, 1911. A representative of the road who appeared before the state board of assessors in January, 1911, contended that the Western Pacific was still in a "constructive stage." "Our line in Nevada, as a few of you who are familiar with it know, was built for the purpose of getting a 1 per cent line across the state, irrespective of other conditions, and that has resulted in making it necessary for us to miss many of the towns which would net us a revenue and miss much of the already developed territory of the state. That in itself is a good thing in that other towns and other sections must come to life now due to the influence of this road. . . . We have been over five years in construction. We have spent millions of dollars, all of which has been lying idle and bearing no interest. We have been paying taxes, nominal ones at first, and then gradually increasing for several years past, and as yet everything is a deficit so far as income is concerned." From Wells to Winnemucca, the Western Pacific parallels the old Central Pacific, but thence to the California line it traverses a section of Northwestern Nevada that had previously been entirely under the dominion of the desert and wandering bands of live stock. After passing around the northern edge of the Pyramid Lake country and crossing into California it made connection with the Nevada-California-Oregon Road, built many years earlier from Reno northwestward, and this became the Reno outlet for the Western Pacific.

Thus by the end of the decade new portions of Northern Nevada and the southeastern corner of the state had been given railroad outlets to the commerce of the world. During the decade strenuous efforts were put forth to integrate the internal transportation of the state with these larger trunk lines. For many years it had been something more than a hope that north and south lines would be projected from the Central Pacific to tap the internal resources of the state. The old Central Nevada and the Eureka line had been a partial fulfillment of those early plans. It will be recalled that the name of the Carson & Colorado Railroad suggested as its purpose a line that would connect the capital

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of the state with the Lower Colorado River. But this road after reaching Sodaville had diverged in a southwesterly course to the California line.

Thus, in the closing days of 1900, when the news got abroad that J. L. Butler, T. L. Oddie and W. Brougher had made their ore discoveries in the Tonopah district, the railroad station nearest the new camp was fully sixty miles away, and the first group of men to arrive on the scene were some miners from the Silver Peak district. In a few months the facilities of the narrow gauge Car-son & Colorado were taxed to the utmost in transporting the passengers and the trainloads of machinery, tools, lumber and other building material and all the miscellaneous equipment and supplies required for a new town that sprang up almost as suddenly as flowers blossom in the desert after a rain. From Sodaville began the overland haul to Tonopah. The freighting business grew to enormous proportions and some men who date their successful careers from the Tonopah excitement had their early contact with the district in the transportation of goods and supplies rather than in the actual phases of mining. The operation of stage coaches and freight wagons across the hills and over the marshes exacted a toll from the profits of the producers, even with ore averaging $150 per ton. An engineer, S. A. Knapp, writing of the Tonopah development in January, 1904, said : "Realizing that it would not be policy to continue this loss, the Tonopah Company has been looking about for means of reducing the ore on the ground or in the vicinity, and by this means reducing this extraordinary expense. In order to obtain fuel, water, salt and chemicals necessary, and to transport supplies at a lower rate, they are now engaged in building a railroad from Rhodes Marsh, a station on the Carson & Colorado Railroad, to Tonopah, a distance of sixty miles. It is expected this road will be completed in May, 1904, and that reduction works will be immediately commenced for the reduction of the great mass of ores which this company has exposed." The Tonopah Road was built as a narrow gauge to connect with the Carson & Colorado, but it had scarcely been put in operation when the interests controlling both the Tonopah and the Carson & Colorado, because of the heavy increase of traffic, began changing them over into broad gauge lines.

In the first years of the present century the automobile passed out of its experimental mechanical stages and became a fairly reliable vehicle on good roads. "Endurance tests" were a familiar topic of the day, and the motor enthusiasts of that period were staging "path finding tours" and an occasional "transcontinental run." By 1904 one or two states west of the Mississippi had laws on their statute books regulating the operation of automobiles on streets and highways. At the same time the Roosevelt administration was reinvigorating the Interstate Commerce Commission and with the cooperation of states was subjecting the railroads to a new policy of control as to their rates and service. It is a curious fact that just as the "automobile age" was dawning, and the autocratic position of railroads as the dominant factor in transportation was being subjected to administrative control, ambitious promotors and wealthy capitalists were spreading a network of railroad lines throughout Nevada.

The first decade of the century gave to Nevada hundreds of miles of new railroads. No inconsiderable part of this mileage has

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subsequently disappeared, in part due to the decline of once prosperous mining camps, which it was their primary purpose to serve, and in part due to the stress of modern conditions where highways and motor trucks have displaced the steel rails and the iron horse.

During 1905 a company built thirty miles of standard railroad in Esmeralda County, connecting the new mining camp of Gold-field with the Tonopah Road. In the next year the interests of these lines were consolidated as the Tonopah and Goldfield, with a total mileage of about ninety-six. "All roads led to Tonopah" at that time. In 1906 forty-four miles of railway was built in Lincoln County, known as the Las Vegas & Tonopah. The following year it was extended on to Rhyolite to the then prosperous "Bull-frog" mining district. In the meantime the Goldfield & Bullfrog Railroad had pushed a line south from Goldfield. A little later

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JESSUP, CHURCHILL COUNTY

Bustling Mining Camp of 25 years ago

came the Tonopah and Tidewater, which built or acquired about twenty-eight miles of railroad in the southern part of Nye County and extended on south in California to the borax deposits in Death Valley.

The valuation set by the state board of assessors indicates that all these properties were on a revenue producing basis by 1907, and the testimony brought before the board showed in particular that the Tonopah and Goldfield was returning an immense revenue upon the original investment. The state railroad commission in its report of January, 1915, takes the view that there never was sufficient business to justify the construction of two parallel lines by the Bullfrog-Goldfield and the Las Vegas and Tonopah from Goldfield to Beatty. "With the depression which settled upon Goldfield in 1907, the business of the two roads steadily decreased,

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while it was impossible to make any corresponding reduction in the operating expenses." On July 1, 1914, with the consent of the railroad commission, these two lines between Beatty and Goldfield were consolidated, as a result of which the town of Rhyolite was practically deprived of railroad service.

After 1905 the old Carson & Colorado Railroad passed out of existence. The successor to the property was the Nevada & California Railroad Company, which in addition to standardizing the gauge from the connection with the Tonopah Road northward, also extended the line through Churchill County by what was known as the Hazen cut-off to a connection with the Central Pacific. By the close of 1906 this company had over 200 miles of main track in Nevada, all but about forty miles of standard gauge. Later the "Fallon branch" was constructed from Hazen to the newly established county seat of Churchill County, Fallon. The Hazen and Fallon Road was reported as "in a crude state" at the state assessors' meeting in January, 1907, and somewhat the same was true of what was known as the Gardnerville Road, an extension south of the Virginia & Truckee toward Minden and Gardnerville. Still another road under construction at that time was the Nevada Northern Railroad, which in 1906 had sixty-seven miles of main track in Elko County, and during the following year was extended on through White Pine County to Ely, its final terminus. This was important in giving for the first time the mineral and stock raising interests of White Pine County access to the outside world by railroad.

Two of the older narrow gauge lines, the Nevada Central to Austin and the Eureka & Palisade Road were operating during these years a limited service with steadily declining revenues. Storms and floods also took a heavy toll from Nevada railroads during this decade. The worst sufferer in this respect was the Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad. For a number of miles in Lincoln County it runs through a canyon known as "Meadow Valley Wash." Heavy damage was done there by recurring floods in nearly every year after the road was opened. In 1907 the operation of the railroad over that section was completely suspended for about forty days. The company then spent over a million dollars in the construction of work to control the direction of the flood waters, also raised the track and put in a number of steel bridges. In January, 1910, all of this new construction fell a prey to an unprecedented storm and flood, which washed out seventy or eighty miles of the road, including many of the bridges.

Gold, Silver and Copper

In 1905 for the first time since 1889 the net proceeds of mines in Nevada goes to a total above the million dollar mark. Nevada in the meantime had truly become a gold state. In 1893 the production of gold was valued less than silver, but by 1897 the gold production was valued at three million dollars and the silver production at less than $900,000, and the ratio in favor of gold was even more disproportionate during the remaining years of the decade. Silver production in 1901 rose to more than a million dollars, but gold production in the same year was only a little less than three million dollars. In 1905, after the Tonopah and Gold-field districts were fully opened, the bullion production of the state was valued at $4,700,000 for gold and $3,660,000 for silver. By

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1906 the gold production reached a figure in excess of $10,000,000, and in 1907 increased to over $14,000,000. At the same time the silver yield increased from about $4,500,000 in 1906 to over $5,000,000 in 1907. Over 77 per cent of the entire bullion output of the state in 1906 came from Goldfield and Tonopah.

The state controller's report for the year ending in September, 1906, shows that Nye County, in which Tonopah was located, ranked first in the gross yield or value of mining products, having a value in excess of $3,500,000; Lincoln County with $1,105,000 stood second : and Esmeralda. containing the Goldfield and Bullfrog

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MAIN STREET, FALLON

district, stood third with about $1,050,000. The mining revival even extended to Storey County with its historic Comstock Lode, producing in this year in excess of $630,000 in value and ranking fourth among the counties.[3]

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With the construction of the Nevada Northern Railway the town of Ely, county seat of White Pine County, sprang into new life, largely as a result of the development carried on by the Nevada Consolidated Copper Company. In 1905 Nevada's production of copper was about 413,000 pounds. This output was increased to 1,090,000 pounds in 1906, and by 1910 had risen to 64,000,000, at which time Nevada ranked fifth among the copper producing states of the Union, a ranking maintained steadily since that time. It was the production and smelting of copper in the Ely district that gave Nevada its first prominence as a copper state. Somewhat later the copper resources around Yerington and Mason in Lyon County were also developed.

Labor Laws and Goldfield Strike

As has been noted, Nevada was putting itself into line with other progressive states in the matter of recognizing the rights and privileges of the "common man." The Legislature in 1903 prescribed an eight hour day for underground workers in the mines, thus extending a principle that had been previously applied to public works. The same Legislature passed an act "to prevent the compelling of employees of persons, companies, corporations or associations to trade at any particular store or board at any particular boarding house, by means of coercion, intimidation or otherwise." Throughout the West union labor was able to exert a strong influence in politics and on legislation.

A few years before the Spanish-American war, as has been noted, the state militia had been put on an efficient footing. Subsequently the Federal Government had endeavored to integrate the state military forces with the national army, imposing somewhat rigid requirements as to drills, camps of instruction and practice marches. It imposed a severe routine upon the civilian soldier. Due to lack of interest, falling off of enlistments and failure of the Legislature to appropriate money, Governor Sparks on May 12, 1906, ordered the disbandment of the State National Guard. He said : "This condition is to be regretted, as Nevada is probably the only state in the Union without a national guard. This might be construed by some to be unpatriotic, and granting that such organization is not actually necessary in this state, a turnout of a fine military company in procession on state and other occasions, especially on the Fourth of July, certainly revives emotional reverence for those who stood for liberty from the days of '76 to the close of the Revolutionary war, and builded a republic grander than any other on earth."

Strikes were of widespread occurrence throughout the nation in 1907, particularly in states where the Western Federation of Miners were strongly entrenched. The Goldfield strike of that year attracted unusual attention because of the direct intervention

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of President Roosevelt and the Federal troops. The strike had been called at Goldfield by a local branch of the Federation to enforce recognition of the Union, also to secure a readjustment of the wage scale, and as a protest against the practice of the mining companies paying their wages half in coin and half in cashier's checks, a device necessitated by the money panic in the fall of that year. On December 5 the governor telegraphed President Roosevelt a description of the disorder prevailing in Goldfield, and requested the sending of Federal troops. By order of the President, General Funston from San Francisco dispatched 275 regulars, with field equipment and machine guns to the scene. Shortly afterward there arrived a Federal commission to investigate. It was claimed that the Federal troops were used only to protect property and so far

[picture]

THE HOME OF LAS VEGAS' FIRST FINANCIAL INSTITUTION, THE FIRST STATE BANK

This picture was taken in 1905

as possible not to intimidate either side. A number of strike breakers were imported and work at the mines resumed. Another message went from the governor December 26, stating that the miners' union at Goldfield numbered 3,000, that they kept arms and munitions, and also that the mine owners had in their service a number of armed guards. These forces, said the governor, had kept the camp in turmoil for more than a year, and in the absence of organized militia in the state there was no guarantee of authority to compel peace if the Federal troops were called away. While the President permitted the troops to remain a few days longer than the time set for their withdrawal, he relied upon the report of the Federal commission that the situation did not demand the presence of Federal authority, and intimated that the state was evading its own responsibility in preserving order. On December 30, Governor Sparks issued a call for a special session of the Legislature for the purpose of providing for the effective exercise of the state's authority to maintain civil order in its own borders.

Nevada State Police

The result of the special session was the act of January 29, 1908, creating the "Nevada State Police" to consist of a superin-

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tendent and thirty subordinate officers, and 250 reserves. The state police were empowered, "when executing the orders of the governor, or when called into active service for the preservation of order, the protection of life or property, or the maintenance of peace," to make arrests, to suppress riots and disturbances, and perform all the duties required of any peace officer except in the service of civil processes.

The state police were immediately organized after the passage of the law and a detail was sent to Goldfield to take the place of the Federal troops, withdrawn on March 7. That camp was comparatively quiet, and the larger part of the detail was soon shifted to the new mining camp of Rawhide, where a bitter feeling was entertained against the police, and several conflicts occurred. But for the most part the duties of the police consisted in raiding unlicensed gambling dens and in the performance of the routine duties of a state constabulary, pursuing and apprehending murderers, cattle thieves and other outlaws. By 1910 the report of the superintendent showed that the active force had been reduced to ten men, which was a very small "standing army" for such a large state as Nevada.

Expanding State Functions

Compared to the lean years of the '90s, Nevada enjoyed a riot of prosperity throughout the first decade of the century. Naturally this prosperity was reflected in the improvement of the state's financial position. As a result of the revenue laws of 1903 and following years a policy was put into effect of bringing about a graduated reduction in the abnormally high tax rate, both state and county. In 1900 the state tax rate had been one dollar on the hundred dollars. The rate was then reduced to eighty cents, stood at seventy-five cents during 1903-06, at seventy cents in 1907-08, and in 1909 was scaled down to sixty cents. In the meantime the assessment roll of all taxable property in the state rose from less than thirty million dollars in 1902 to seventy-seven million dollars in 1908. In spite of lower tax rates, the net receipts into the state treasury increased from approximately $500,000 annually during 1900-03 to a million dollars in 1908. With greater revenues there were larger expenditures. The increases were relatively small for the legislative and judicial departments, and at the end of the decade the state was paying less interest on territorial and state bonds than it had paid during the '70s. The state by 1908 was expending twice as much for the support of schools and university as it had done at the beginning of the century. Another large part of the public revenue was going to expanding functions represented in the executive department and "miscellaneous powers." One illustrative item would be the $150,000 appropriated by the Legislature to set up the state police department. In 1905 the Legislature made an initial appropriation of $40,000 to erect a state library and supreme court building, which was built during the following year and which when completed relieved the capitol of its enormous load of books and other material in the state library, and also provided suitable quarters for the Supreme Court. In 1907, $40,000 was appropriated for the construction of a governor's mansion at Carson City. Being relieved after years of enforced economy, Nevada was making haste to broaden its functions and establish new institutions in keeping with the spirit of progress throughout the nation.

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Reference has been made to the incongruous situation of having the state board of health perform the duties of livestock inspection and quarantine. In 1905 provision was made for the appointment of a state veterinarian "to aid and assist in developing and protecting the livestock industry" and to enforce quarantine regulations.

Legislation of 1907

In the character of legislation and in commitments of the state to enlarged duties and functions of a progressive nature, the session of 1907 is perhaps the most noteworthy of many preceding legislatures. Among its creations were the state railroad commission, to consist of the governor, three members to be appointed by the "Railroad Board" consisting of lieutenant governor and attorney general. The commission was vested with power to "regulate railroads, telegraph and telephone companies and other common carriers in this state. . . . and prevent the imposition of unreasonable rates, prevent unjust discrimination, insure an adequate railway service, and fixing maximum rate charges."

A Board of Bank Commissioners was created composed of governor, secretary of state and state treasurer, to appoint a bank examiner, to conduct examinations and obtain periodical reports on all banks in the state except national banks.

            At the same session it was enacted "that the Nevada Historical Society, an organization now in existence (E. D. Kelley, president; G. F. Talbot, vice-president; Jeanne Elizabeth Wier, secretary, and A. E. Hershiser, treasurer, their associates and successors), be and the same is hereby, recognized as a state institution," and $2,000 was appropriated as the state's contribution toward the expenses of the society in selecting and preserving and keeping and exhibiting historical data and relics.

At the same time there was created a state industrial and publicity commission, to perform in part functions of the earlier state board of immigration and whose duty it also was to select and maintain exhibits of the mineral, agricultural, horticultural and other material products and resources of the state either within Nevada or in other states, and otherwise advertise and give publicity to the state's resources and advantages.

This Legislature also declared the essential principles of the "employers' liability," in the passage of a "fellow servant" act. The law was made applicable to the transportation companies and the mining and milling companies and laid down the rule that contributory negligence on the part of an employee should not bar a recovery for damages where it could be shown that the greater negligence was that of the employer.

This Legislature also reorganized the system of school supervision and maintenance. It abolished the office of county superintendent of public schools and concentrated authority in the hands of the state superintendent of public instruction and a deputy superintendent for each of the five supervision districts into which the area of the state was divided. Another act created a state text-book commission and authorized it to adopt a uniform series of textbooks for the public schools.

This legislation and these new undertakings indicate that the citizenship of Nevada at that time was fully responsive to a remarkable era of upward striving and aspiration which dominated the entire country. It was a time when new agencies of popular

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education and entertainment were being organized. It was the height of the "Chautauqua age." The crude form of the motion picture was making a bid for popular favor in "nickel shows" in every town of the country. People were demanding more of state and local government than the purely administrative functions of the past. They were asking for better schools, public libraries, good roads, were demanding the intervention of government in preventing abuses of corporate management in railroads and other public service utilities. As a consequence the government took on a new meaning, something more than a distinct organization for the making and administration of laws.