National Register of Historic Places in Lyon County
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13 July 2010
(Click Photo to Zoom)
Fernley and Lassen Railway Depot
675 East Main Street
Fernley
Built 1914
As one of many subsidiaries of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, the Fernley and Lassen Railway serviced the Red River Lumber Company in Westwood (Lassen County).
F&LRR helped SP to unify its system in Oregon, Nevada and California by limiting competition from rival railroads such as the Western Pacific Railway.
F&LRR provided rail transportation to farming and ranching communities in northeastern California and northwestern Nevada. Fernley, strategically located on SP's transcontinental route, was a vital connection between Westwood and SP's mainline.
Adapted from the NRHP nomination submitted in 2005.
When we visited in July 2010, the depot was being restored. A plaque near the base of the flag pole read:
Rush to the River
Emigrants headed for Stephens Pass and the California gold fields --- dry and dirty from long, punishing water-short days on the 40-Mile Desert to the northeast --- rushed train by train to the "Big Bend" of the sparkling, pure Truckee River at the nearby Wadsworth Townsite, then known as the Lower Emigrant Crossing, the "Bend" was once a Paiute seasonal village site. Later Drytown and now Wadsworth. John Fremont camped near the "Bend" January 16, 1844 and passed by here on his 1845 expedition. The Central Pacific Railroad reached the Wadsworth-Fernley area in 1868 building eastward. The nation's first reclamation project, the Newlands Project of the early 1900's, turned Fernley Valley, to the south, into a verdant agricultural area.
Dedicated by Snowshoe Thom(p)son Chapter No. 1827 E Clampus Vitus, August 28, 1982, Ross Barengo NGH