The Beginning Of a Legend Traditional Cache

• Don Mello Sports Complex was built in two phases. The first was completed in 1978 and the second in 1984. The facility accommodated league softball play for the area as well as Pop Warner football games and practices. It was here for so long, and so many kids learned to play here so it was sort of a legend in itself.
• Once called "East Reno," Sparks was known primarily as a blue-collar working-class town, nicknamed the "Rail City" as it grew along the "wrong" side of the Southern Pacific Railway tracks across from its more well-heeled neighbor. "Reno was the city; Sparks was the country. Reno was a big town; Sparks was a small town," said a Sparks native who claims he's still mad about being born in Reno because Sparks didn't have its own hospital then.
• Just 50 years ago, the land where the Legends is being built was a cattle ranch and feedlot well east of the city limits. Later, the 120-foot deep Helms gravel pit occupied the area. Sparks' population has grown 54 percent from 54,310 in 1990 to 83,351 in 2006, compared to Reno's growth of 58 percent from 133,850 to 211,697 during the same period.
• It's a far cry from the 10,000 to 15,000 people who lived in Sparks when Jim Gibbons grew up in a small house several blocks from the railroad in the 1950s and his mother ran for Sparks mayor and lost. In those days, Reno and Sparks residents engaged in an intense rivalry that locals say started to ease only in about the past decade as new development came to the area.
• A new chapter in Sparks history began, thanks to the New Year's Day Flood of 1997. The Truckee River flowing down from the Sierra Nevada poured out of its banks, flooding downtown Reno and Sparks and eventually filling up the pit. After making plans to pump the pit dry, the city changed course with the vision of the 80-acre, man-made lake.
• Today, it is stocked with trout and home to two public beaches, boat rentals, picnic areas, sand volleyball courts, bicycle and hiking trails. Over the past eight years, restaurants and bars have started popping up along with condominiums. The area extends from Howard Drive on the west to Sparks Boulevard on the east.

The rating is mostly for the muggle factor, 'cause the cache should be a pretty easy find. There is plenty of parking nearby. It is a bit harder to find at dinner time when there are lots of people standing around nearby.

Congratulations to Nvsrvyr for the FTF!