This building has been used for many commercial purposes dating back to the late 1800's and early 1900's.

The single story rear portion of the building is thought to be the original home of John and Mary Gardner, the Town's namesake. Ollie Haugner, who operated a shoe store here, is said to have moved it here from the Gardner Ranch. The lumber in some of the building is thought to have come from the Lake Tahoe area.

Frank Yparraguirre purchased the land and building and was the proprietor of Perry's (short for Yparraguirre) Dry Goods for over four decades.

Frank once quipped he used dry goods in the business name because wet goods were available next door at the bar.

Source: Adapted from an interpretative marker on the building.

Americans of Basque ancestry figure prominently in the history of Nevada. Sheepherding and innkeeping are the activities most commonly associated with the Basques, but that is a narrow interpretation of their roles, particularly in Carson Valley.

Frank Yparraguirre was born of Basque parents in San Francisco in 1903. His father was a Sweetwater rancher who had emigrated to America from Echelar, Spain, in 1877 and married a young immigrant from Cilveti in 1892.

When only a few weeks old, Frank was taken by rail and stagecoach to the Sweetwater home of the family, where he lived the first ten years of his life. The period 1913 to 1921 was spent in San Francisco during school terms and back on the ranch when school was out.

While still a young man, Mr. Yparraguirre lost his enthusiasm for the life of a rancher, and in 1924 he moved to the Minden-Gardnerville area of Carson Valley where he was in the general store and dry goods business for sixty years, first as a clerk in Minden and then as owner of his own establishment in Gardnerville.

Source: Frank Yparraguirre: An Oral History

Buildings that Moved

It's not just that the people of the American West are restless, the buildings themselves sometimes pack up and move when - for one reason or another - the neighborhood no longer suits them or the neighbors no longer want them or opportunity waits down the road.

And when buildings remain in place, they are often searching for their identities.

Of the buildings and structures we have visited, the original Reno Arch holds the record for number of moves. It has been moved five times since it was built in 1926.

Jax Truckee Diner holds the distance title. The building moved from New Jersry to Pennsylvanis in 1948, then from Pennsylvania to Califonia in 1992.

Probably the most ambitious relocation occurred on July 4th 1904, when the Southern Pacific Railroad loaded most of the town of Wadsworth, Nevada, onto rail cars and transported the town thirty miles west to create a new town which became known as Sparks.