Old Stone Garage
10070 Bridge Street
Truckee
Built 1909

A marker mounted on the front of the building reads:

Truckee's Old Stone Garage
And Site of Town's First Dwelling

In 1863, Joseph Gray built Truckee's first structure on this site for use as the Dutch Flat-Donner Lake Wagon Road's Toll Station. The old log structure was moved in 1907 to the Englehart property on Church Street, one block east of this site, where it still stands and the brethren of ECV dedicated a plaque in 1965. In 1909, D. J. Smith, with the help of European-trained stone masons, constructed the present building for use as a livery and garage.

Dedicated August 12, 1972
Rededicated July 4, 1981
Chief Truckee Chapter 3691
E Clampus Vitus

Gold Rush Stonemasons

Mining camps started as clusters of tents and other makeshift shelters. If the mine was productive, wooden buildings were erected and a town was born.

Conflagrations were a recurring curse. Often entire town were repeatedly destroyed by fire. Stonemasons, especially Italian immigrants from Liguria, began building "fire proof" banks and stores of stone or brick with iron doors and iron window shutters to protect the contents from fire.

Many of these stone buildings survive. Some of them, such as the Butte Store, are the sole reminders of a lost mining town.

Some of these buildings are: