Nevada Historical Landmarks in Lyon County

Nevada Historical Landmark 61
Mound House
Highway 50 Between Highlands Drive and Newman Lane
Mound House

Nevada Historical Marker 61: Mound House in Lyon County
Nevada Historical Marker 61: Mound House in Lyon County

15 July 2008
(Click Photos to Zoom)

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

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