SHM #129 - Gardnerville Traditional Cache
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Size: 
(small)
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Quick & Easy drive up cache with a history lesson. Watch out for mugglers in all directions.
GARDNERVILLE
Early Gardnerville served the farming community and teamsters hauling local produce to booming Bodie. The first buildings were a blacksmith shop, a saloon and the Gardnerville Hotel. The latter was moved by Lawrence Gilman in 1879 from the emigrant trail between Genoa and Walley's Hot Springs, where it was known as Kent House, to this site, the homestead of John M. Gardner.
Just as Genoa was the center for British settlers (largely Mormon) after 1851, so Gardnerville, after 1879, became the center for 1870 Danish immigrants. They founded the Valhalla Society in 1885 and met in Valhalla Hall--now gone.
Starting in 1898, Spanish and French Basque shepherds tended some 13,000 sheep in Carson Valley, increasing to 25,000 by 1925, when the Basques began acquiring their own sheep and land. After 1918, several Basques in Gardnerville opened inns which flourished during the Prohibition years.
The Historic Marker Program was initiated by the Nevada State Legislature in 1967 to bring the State's heritage to the public's attention with on-site markers. There are now 267 historical markers in Nevada commemorating sites and buildings such as Nevada’s Birthplace, Stokes Castle in Austin, the Pony Express Station in Elko, and the first airplane flight in Nevada at Carson City. The Historic Marker Program is a cooperative effort involving the Department of Cultural Affairs, State Historic Preservation Office, which administers the Program, the State Historical Society which reviews proposed marker texts, and the Nevada Department of Transportation which assists in installing and funding the markers.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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