Nevada Historic Markers in Washoe County
Nevada Historical Marker 189
Southern Pacific Railroad Yards
Pyramid Way at I-80 Overpass
Sparks
 "Nevada Historical Marker 189: Southern Pacific Railroad Yards")
 "Nevada Historical Marker 189: Southern Pacific Railroad Yards")
14 March 2016
(Click Photos to Zoom)
Soon after 1900, laborers reworked some 373 miles of the original Central Pacific (now the Southern Pacific) line between Reno and Ogden, Utah. The effort involved shortening of the line in some places. One such change took Wadsworth (Nevada), a division terminal, off the main line. During the summer of 1904, the terminal was moved to this location, which became the town of Sparks.
The railroad dismantled a huge forty-stall locomotive roundhouse in 1959. The machine and erecting shops are still standing.
Had it not been for the railroad yards being moved here, the City of Sparks would not exist.
State Historic Marker No. 189
State Historic Preservation Office
Stan Aaronson,
 "Nevada Historical Marker 189: Southern Pacific Railroad Yards")
The large maintenance building to the right is still standing.
Photo Courtesy Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum
When the Southern Pacific Railroad relocated from Wadsworth to Sparks, they brought along the 21-stall Wadsworth roundhouse and expanded it to forty stalls. Southern Pacific claimed that it was the largest roundhouse in the world.