|
Mound House
Mound House was located one-half mile north of this point. Originally constructed in 1871 as a station and siding
on the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, it served
for some time simply as a wood and water stop. In 1877, a post office
was established. Mound House came into its own in 1880, when the V & T began construction of a narrow gauge railroad
from here to the mining camps of western Nevada and the Owens Valley
region of California. Named the Carson & Colorado,
it turned Mound House into a booming shipping point.
The Southern Pacific Railroad purchased the C&C from the V & T in 1900, just prior to the Tonopah
silver strike. In 1905, the S.P. built a short line from its new station at Hazen,
on the main line, to intersect the C&C at Fort Churchill.
The Hazen cutoff took most of the booming Tonopah-Goldfield business away from the V & T.
During the period 1900-1920, extensive gypsum mining and milling operations, to produce plaster, were carried on
immediately northwest of Mound House.
The narrow gauge line was abandoned from Mound House to Churchill in 1934, and the V & T track
from Carson City to
Virginia City in 1939. Within a few years Mound House had disappeared.
State Historical Marker No. 61
Navada State Parkm System
Julia C. Butte Chapter
E. Clampus Vitus
|