Wandering Around
Out along the old 1840s Emigrant Trail along the Truckee River Route – just west of the Humboldt Sink – was the most difficult terrain of the journey. Hot, dry, and sandy, covered with vast alkali flats, there was no water between the Humboldt Sink and the Truckee River some 40 miles distant. A rough wagon road was constructed by the late 1840s but travel was so difficult that by 1850 most chose to tackle the equally dreaded but easier travel of the Carson River Route through the 40-Mile Desert between the Humboldt Sink and the Carson Sink to follow the Carson River to the Sierra. The route split near what is/was Toulon, Nevada along I-80, just east of the following maps.
In today’s terms, travellers chose to follow US 95 from just west of Lovelock south to Fallon and US50 over the Sierra south of Lake Tahoe to Placerville rather than follow I-80 west to Fernley and beyond over Donner Pass north of Lake Tahoe to Sacramento. Both routes pretty much follow the original wagon trails of the 1840s. That’s long ago out this way.
Mrs DT laughs about that.
But the Truckee Route was not totally abandoned. Just a few miles west of where US95 cuts off from I-80 were deposits of almost pure salt. By 1864, the area was a significant source of commercial salt, annually producing several hundred tons of salt used in silver ore reduction. When the Central Pacific built past here in 1868, the White Plains station was built here, greatly reducing transportation costs. Prospectors in the area found deposits of silver – the nearby Desert Queen Mine is considered the oldest lode mine in northern Nevada. By 1879, the White Plains settlement had a post office. Salt production started to decrease, the railroad was re-routed to the south, and by 1909, the town of White Plains essentially ceased to exist.
However, not far north of White Plains, a significant gold deposit was discovered in 1908, causing a new mining boom town of Jessup to be established. For a short while, Jessup was home to around 300 people with saloons and grocery stores serving those that worked the 8 mines in the area. The boom was short-lived and by 1909, the mines had played out and by 1912, Jessup had faded away.
Well, one of those days very long ago when I was too ignorant to know how unprepared I was for being out so far that even the boonies were a long way away, I was wandering around some of the back corners of the Trinity Range west of the Jessup site. What’s missing from the picture is my wreck of a 1964 Chevy ¾ ton pickup that I was driving at random through the sage. At some point, I came across some old mine workings … and nearby was this old cabin. This cabin was so remote, blue-enameled pans were still hanging on pegs on the walls, an old stove nearby, and remnants of furniture were laying around inside the cabin.
I may have cut a trail others would follow. Didn’t think of that at the time. I left the pans hanging there but even though that was almost 50 years ago; who knows, maybe the cabin and pans are still there.
I put together a little video sequence overlaying the 1890, 1908, and “now” maps to show changes … and no changes. This region shows the region of the split in the California Trail between the Truckee River Route and the Carson River Route; the Truckee Route heading SW (I-80), the Carson Route heading S (US95).
One can still follow the wagon ruts through 40-Mile a mile or so off US95; old busted oxen shoes and other such metallic trash still lies buried in the sand; any graves though being long ago obliterated.
ghostsniper’s comment reminded me – I should have added these two views:
Looking up road to Jessup – other side of those hills on the left
Looking south at the north end of 40-Mile desert. US95 along base of hills to left
From this view it seems firewood would be a concern.
And what would a horse eat?
If there’s no water then it’s a dead end before it starts.
So, you tear a few boards off that building, start a fire and cook some vittles, then pack up and move on.
Lots of animals and people died crossing this stretch. Lots of wagons were emptied through here as well. Some of that stuff can still be found – nothing worth anything even as antiques; scraps of wood, busted ceramics, old iron …
Makes you wonder what the driving force was to get people to make this trip. It wasn’t cheap in terms of money either.
“Makes you wonder what the driving force was….”
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Different time, different mind set.
We have a lot of mental baggage to slough off in order to start to imagine their mindset. What seems like would be a terrible way to live to us, not so much to them. Here, we fret if the dishwasher breaks down. (dam, now I gotta washem by hand til I get it fixed/replaced, and the cost of getting it fixed/replaced), whereas they back then had no such worries. We have a lot of baggage jailing our brains.
Inspiration, for them?
Maybe not much at all. They were already living in what we would call rough times but to them seemed normal. So to pack up the wagon and head out to what might be better days ahead?
Corollary.
What inspires you to visit these places that most other people would find boring? THAT is the mindset I mentioned. Something inside you is the inspiration to do what you do, and so it was with them back then too. I can’t understand but I can relate. We all have something.
“What inspires you to visit these places that most other people would find boring?”
I used to ask myself that but it’s not something I can put into words – I don’t find it boring. Most people think travelling 50 across Nevada is something to get over with. I have to keep myself from stopping and poking around every so often.
As far as I can tell, I was born with it. I wasn’t really aware of how deep it was until I got out to the desert country in my 20s. Putting it into irrational terms, I think I feel the ghosts as “my people” – for lack of a better way to express it right off hand. Maybe distant memories of a past life?
So that forms the basis of much of what I write of.
I’m not the only one … I know one or two others that are best suited for the wastelands … but it’s rare indeed.
Sometimes, I get the idea you may be one of us.
I didn’t mean to mean the boring part as an insult, just so you know. In hindsight I could have written that differently.
Yesterday my wife and I went for a flower drive around the county. No more than 25 mph (anyone behind us can KMA) and we just looked, pointed, and took some pix and vids. No hurry, just slow and enjoyable.
Ghost, may I interject here?
When I lived in Florida, husband and I would travel the state and other parts of the South frequently. Small towns, old towns, flea markets, historic places art shows. After husband died, and after I was able to recoup from the financial disaster he left me with, I traveled on my own without worry or hesitation. I loved it. No real agenda just some aimless cruising. I was free to go wherever and whenever I pleased. I even started my own business (did not work out well but I loved it.)
After my sister got sick and I moved back to Ohio to help her, traveling became almost non-existant. I think I’ve been out of this county once, maybe twice in fourteen years. Even outside the city has become a rarity. Priorities changed. Since she passed this month, we’re locked in here until we can get her estate settled (no will, no P of A).
I envy anyone who can wander at will for any reason and hope I live long enough to resume road trips.
Didn’t even cross my mind as an insult. It is a boring wasteland to most people. I’m just wired strangely; I’ve know that a long time. I was lucky in that my first “wife” was of similar mindset (but we had other issues – she’s long gone from my life now – whew! … but may be post-worthy).
25mph is pretty fast on some of the roads(?) I take.
Winter never came and spring’s passing fast – the flowering trees (fruit) are almost finished. Set a high temp record – mid-80s – here the other day back from 1875. Should be 30s/40s.
Unbelievably, yesterday it got up to 93 in the afternoon.
Way too hot by at least 20 degrees. Miserable. Saps the energy.
But I ate some ice cream! And it wasn’t vanilla.
For more than 11 years I, and my mutt Shannon (RIP) ate nothing but vanilla ice cream. I got used to it.
But she’s gone now (last Sept) and I bought some Peanut butter chocolate ice cream and had a big ol bowls worth on the front porch.
Along the front porch, over the past 20 years, my wife has planted many hundreds of bulbs and we delight in watching them appear. Right now they are daffodils but the irises are peaking out. I was watching the daffys yesterday and a thought stream happened.
Most of the daffys were facing the southern sun but some were not. That implies they can sense where the sun is, right? That implies they have some sort of sensory mechanism. If they can turn toward the sun that implies that they have some sort of motion ability.
So, if daffodils can sense the sun and move their flowers toward the sun doesn’t that mean they have some sort of nervous and muscular structure and perhaps some degree of sentientness?
Which then induced the thought stream, can flowers be coerced through artificial means to do work?
If you had a building with 100,000 daffodils growing in it, and you had a moveable light source, could the daffodils be harnessed in such a way that their movement toward the light source could be used to move something else that could be beneficial?
If daffodils can follow the sun why can’t they be used to make solar panels follow the sun?
Sitting on the front porch causes this.
Try it, you’ll see!
Nice systemic reasoning!
Two jobs ago, Daughter#2 worked for Green Circle Growers, which has 150 acres under greenhouse…..one of the largest in North America.
Our visit there was incredible. I could barely get Mrs. azlib out of the building. I’m including a picture of their poinsettia room.
Dood, you cost me 60 bux!
I looked that place up, from their site I went to a place that has Ice Cube Orchids and bought a watercolor blue orchid that will be delivered for my wife.
Anyway, that’s quite an establishment. HUGE!
Looks like a place a young person could have a long career with if they are interested in that sort of thing. They currently have 25 open positions, all the way up to asst manager.
They even have a huge set up for continuously adding on to it. And they say they have been active for more than 50 years though I had never heard of them before. Impressive.
PS: By the time the miners were at work, transportation had improved – better roads, railroad – so the concerns of the 1840s/50s were not an issue by the 1880s/90s
Couple years ago, I dropped out of Wyoming and Utah to Ely and then drove 50 west out to Fallon and made a big loop down around Hawthorne and Tonopah and Rachel (E.T. was on vacation that week) back to Ely. Then 50 east back to south central Kansas. I was gonna do it again last year, but slower and in reverse, but my alleged real life got complicated, and it couldn’t happen or anyway, didn’t. This year, though, I’m running it for sure. There is, in fact, as DT knows, something in the air out that direction that appeals to some people, certainly not the water because there isn’t any, and I wish I’d known about that “something” earlier in life. It may not be for everybody.
But on the other hand, all that time I was some other places doing some other things and you can’t go home again to those places, either, so I don’t begrudge the road not taken.
Next year I’m gonna get on US 2 and drive it west across Montana and then because I can, or anyway, hope to be able to, I’m gonna drive the Alcan and kick around those parts of Alaska where I played Army after Viet Nam and catch some grayling and get mosquito bit and then take the ferry back to the Lower 48. I want to buy a round at the VFW at Kodiak because that bunch there weren’t ashamed to be proud of my group, unlike the rest of the country seemed to be. All those old guys are surely dead now, but it would be to their memory. I remember being made to feel at home, last time for a long time, and I’m still grateful.
Anyway. All roads lead to Rome or maybe someplace else, and as Morrison said, the future’s uncertain and the end is always near. So, I’m gonna keep moving. Go and do thou likewise. Or not, your call.
I’d like to throw a sleeping bag and backpack in your truck bed. I won’t take up much room and I won’t talk unless talked to.
Gas, sass or 45 ACP brass, nobody rides for free!
Worst mosquitos I ever ran into were along US2 and the Milk River in Montana.
For anything you do, there’s something else you didn’t do. No regrets.
I’ll be out in Wyoming and central Nevada myself this summer …
Old enough to have gotten in at the tail end of combat in Vietnam but my draft orders were rescinded when Nixon got his nuts in a wringer. Got a close cuz who was a Marine forward artillery observer at Cua Viet River in ’68. Gonna see him this summer. Glad I didn’t go (would have – no dodging) but had no sympathy for my “peer” group that treated the soldiers like crap. Unfortunately, those are the people running the country now.
Yep, you got that right. I was waiting at the gate at the airport in Oakland (next to Berkeley). Boys in uniform started off loading and walking towards us. The “hippie sh&ts” started spitting at them and calling them “baby killers”. Our boys started stripping off their jackets and hats and trying to look “normal”. Pulling off their jackets they (who were at that time maybe 19 or 20) started talking to the crowd–“see, we are just like you!”
No, they were not “just like them”. They had seen war and the hippies had not, nor have they since, ever had to do anything “uncomfortable”. That is the difference. Still is–those who got to “go to college” and those who did not. It’s taken us sixty five years to figure out that college doesn’t necessarily make you a better human being. The generations since that day have continued to make that clearer with every graduating class.
A little luck is due every man, DT. It could have gone the other way easy enough, and I don’t begrudge your winning ticket, so to speak. Say hello and welcome home to your cuz for me, if you think about it, and take a care to remember that while the army tour in Viet Nam was 12 months, the Jarheads had to do 13.
I wasn’t on the tip of the spear … but I helped construct the spear.
Please tell your cousin “Welcome Home”.
I can’t open the video–hope you can make it work soon as I would really like to see it! Thank you again for your good work!
It doesn’t really “open”. Just click the arrow button and it should start. Starts slow – it a smooth slide between different era maps of the area laid on top of each other. Runs about 45 seconds.