The Wadsworth & Columbus Freight Road
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(regular)
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Everybody knows about the Pony Express, even though it was only in operation for 18 months and lost money in the process. This freight road was in operation for a decade, and I'm willing to bet you've never even heard of it.
This cache might be hidden on the old Wadsworth & Columbus Freight Road. I say “might be”, because historians & researchers are unsure of the road’s exact route between Wadsworth and Ragtown. Some archaeological evidence has been uncovered in the vicinity, but whether this evidence is connected to the freight road or to a railroad work camp (circa 1902) is unclear.
The Wadsworth and Columbus Freight Road was a 130-mile wagon road connecting Wadsworth on the Central Pacific Railroad to the Columbus Mining District in southwestern Nevada. From 1871 (some sources say 1873) to 1882, freight wagons hauled supplies and mining machinery south to the Columbus District’s towns and silver mines, and returned loaded with borax from the surrounding salt marshes. The road’s brief but busy life illustrated the constantly changing nature of the wagon road network which tied together Nevada’s far-flung mining camps, and linked them to the outside world.
In 1864, silver was discovered in what was to become the Columbus Mining District. By 1871, it included three producing mines in the Candelaria Hills and several mills in the town of Columbus. It was a matter of time until the transportation network expanded to include Columbus, but exactly how was actually determined in 1868, when construction of the transcontinental railroad finally cleared the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Previously, most freight crossed the Sierras by wagon road from Placerville, California, to Carson City and the Comstock, where it was then distributed to the Nevada interior. This same freight could now be delivered by rail to the east side of the mountains, and transferred anywhere along the line to freight wagons, which would haul it to its ultimate destination. Wadsworth was 130 miles from the Columbus District, but it was the closest station on the Central Pacific. In addition, there were long, north-south valleys between the two points, forming the “thoroughfare” which became the Wadsworth And Columbus Freight Road.
Silver mining in the Columbus District expanded through the 1870's. New towns & mills were built at Belleville, Candelaria, and Metallic City. The Wadsworth & Columbus Freight Road carried the machinery, equipment and supplies that kept the busy district operating. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs such as Francis M. “Borax” Smith were transforming borax from an obscure mineral to the popular detergent and disinfectant found today in many households. The Columbus District marshes supplied the tons of borax needed to meet this newly created, worldwide demand. For a 10-year period beginning in 1873, Nevada was the world’s leading borax producer. This was a boon to the freighters, who would make their deliveries to the mines and towns of the Columbus District, then stop at the nearby borax processing plants and fill their wagons for a profitable return trip to the railroad at Wadsworth.
Huge wagons - two and three chained together - were hauled by 16 to 20 animals (some six years before similar “20-mule teams” were introduced into Death Valley, California). These were the largest wagons of their day. Their enormous, canvas topped boxes were 16 to 18 feet long and 4-1/2 feet wide. The removable sideboards could form a box up to 6 feet deep. They carried 3 tons or more, including everything from basic supplies to heavy machinery. With multiple wagons, the total tonnage could reach double digits. The whole aggregation - the oxen or mule team, plus double or triple wagons - easily stretched out more than one hundred feet.
Freight teams averaged anywhere from 10 to 15 miles per day, meaning the 130 mile trip from Wadsworth to Columbus would take about eight days to two weeks. Two to five teams typically came and went each week. Some newspaper articles described heavier traffic, with teams “lined up” on the Wadsworth Road, although these may have been exaggerations, or written during exceptionally busy times. An August, 1876 article in the "Nevada State Journal" on Wadsworth mentioned twenty-five three or four wagon teams, each carrying from 25,000 to 30,000 pounds, hauling a total of over three hundred tons a month.
The Wadsworth and Columbus Freight Road lasted more than a decade, but just as one railroad brought it into existence, another - the Carson and Colorado - ended it. The Carson and Colorado was built to link the mining districts of southwestern Nevada and eastern California to the Virginia & Truckee Railroad at Moundhouse, which then connected to the Central Pacific at Reno. Construction reached Candelaria just after New Year’s Day in 1882, and with that, the 130-mile wagon trip to Wadsworth was history. The freight Road's days as a long-haul route ended, but the road was not entirely abandoned. During the 1906-07 Rawhide boom, auto-stages traveled it between Fallon and Luning, and throughout the twentieth century the smaller mining & milling operations dotting the mountains of west-central Nevada used segments of the old wagon road as supply lines.
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