1
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PDF Text
Text
Stephen Price, DDS
M&M Tile and Granite/Design
Concepts
Janet Carter, OD
Mane Salon
Solace Tattoo
Elko Fly Shop
Lostra Brothers Towing
Western Folklife Center
Relax in Style - John Sherwood
T he Arts and Letters
Department/GBC
On f1V8r'/ afflcs
Top 10 list, this
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chronicles the
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struggles to find
his place In the
wot1dwhlle
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Scrapbooks of GBC, NNCC, and ECC history.
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Scans of the scrapbooks maintained by the library since the late 1960s detailing the history of and events at Elko Community College, Northeastern Nevada Community College, and Great Basin College.
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GBC Library
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Great Basin College
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Christina Park, Eric Walsh, and Geneva Blackmer / GBC Library
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Scrapbooks of GBC, NNCC, and ECC history.
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An account of the resource
Scans of the scrapbooks maintained by the library since the late 1960s detailing the history of and events at Elko Community College, Northeastern Nevada Community College, and Great Basin College.
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GBC Library
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Scrapbooks of GBC, NNCC, and ECC history.
Description
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Scans of the scrapbooks maintained by the library since the late 1960s detailing the history of and events at Elko Community College, Northeastern Nevada Community College, and Great Basin College.
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GBC Library
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Scrapbooks of GBC, NNCC, and ECC history.
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Scans of the scrapbooks maintained by the library since the late 1960s detailing the history of and events at Elko Community College, Northeastern Nevada Community College, and Great Basin College.
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GBC Library
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Great Basin College
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Lloyd
Hanks
Great
Basin
Indian
Archive
GBIA
033
Oral
History
Interview
by
Norm
Cavanaugh
April
16,
2014
Owyhee,
NV
Great
Basin
College
•
Great
Basin
Indian
Archives
1500
College
Parkway
Elko,
Nevada
89801
hCp://www.gbcnv.edu/gbia/
775.738.8493
Produced
in
partnership
with
Barrick
Gold
of
North
America
�GBIA 033
Interviewee: Lloyd Hanks
Interviewer: Norm Cavanaugh
Date: April 16, 2014
H:
My name is Lloyd Hanks. And I’m a member of the Shoshone-Paiute Tribe here on the
Duck Valley Reservation that’s located on the Nevada-Idaho border, about a hundred
fifty miles south of Boise, Idaho. And I understand this project is for the SYLAP
program, and my feeling is that all our youth need to know where they come from, who
their ancestors are, and where our languages are from. Your language, the Uto-Aztecan
Shoshonean language is a very big language group. Our group—our languages are related
all the way from Central America to the California coast, to the Great Basin, into
Wyoming, and into Oklahoma. So, it’s important that you know what your language
bases are. And if you don’t know it, you can study it. Look it up on the internet, and
you’ll find all kinds of information on the languages. So, what I’m going to be talking
about is, our Indian veterans here on the Duck Valley Reservation. And also, when I get
done with that, I’ll be talking about Native American veterans, and those in the military
from the time our country was founded to the present time. So, I’ll start by saying that my
mother came from the Paradise Valley area, which is about fifty miles west of here. And
my father, some of his people came from the Bruneau area, and my grandmother on my
dad’s side, I believe she came from around the Reese River area. But because my dad
passed away when I was very young, that—I don’t know a lot of the history on my
father’s side. But, being here—when I came back from the military— [Laughter] Oh,
well, I better back up a little bit, tell you that I’m retired from the Air Force. I served
about 34 years on active duty in the Air Guard and the Retired Reserve. And I was in for
34 years, and I retired as a master sergeant. And my military family side is my father,
Clarence Hanks, who our American Legion Post is named after. Our Legion Post is
�
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033;
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named Jack Hanks, and it’s named after two individuals from our community who were
killed in action in World War II in Europe. And one was my father, Clarence Hanks,
Private First Class serving with the 29th Infantry Division, and he was killed somewhere
around the Sigfried Line, in Germany. The other individual was Sidney Jack. He was
with the first infantry division, and he participated in the Normandy landing. And that’s
where he was wounded, and died from his wounds. And he was also awarded the Bronze
Star for his valor. So, that’s where our name, Jack Hanks, comes from for our post. And
we’ve had other military people from here who were killed in action. There was Gerald
Whiterock, who was killed in action in Korea. David Pursley, also killed in action in
Korea. In Vietnam, we lost two people from our community. Larry Parker, with the 173rd
Airborne Brigade, on his, probably second or third tour to Vietnam, he was killed in
action. Captain Eddie Molino. He was a green beret the first time he went to Vietnam. He
came back and went to helicopter school, and then he went back to Vietnam, and he was
lost in a crash, or he was shot down in Cambodia. But as a small community, we have a
very large number of veterans from all services, all eras of the service. We have probably
over 300 veterans on this reservation now. My own side of the family, my brother was in
the Navy, he served on the U.S.S. Cole, which was a Destroyer. My brother Roland, he
served in Fort Myer, Virginia, with a unit that’s called USASCAF. It’s a unit that
performs services to all the Congressional people and stuff. Big wheels in the
Washington, D.C. area. One of the high side of his tour over there in Fort Myer was he
got to drive in one of the inaugural parades. And my nephew, Garland Deppler, was in
the Navy, serving on the U.S.S. Ranger as an aircraft mechanic, the same as I was. So we
had a lot of good talks with him. My cousin, Bernard Rose, served in the Army. I have a
�
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grandson, Kendrick Owyhee. He’s been in the Army since 2000, May of 2000. And he
volunteered to be a cavalry scout. And what they do is, they operate Humvees and
Bradleys, and they go out and scout in front of the troops before they move in. And he
took his training at Fort Knox. Kentucky. And then after his training, he was assigned to
the Third Armored Cavalry in Fort Carson, Colorado. And then, after the 9/11, he went to
Iraq with the Third Armored Cavalry. And then he came back for a short break, and then
went back again. Back to Iraq with the same unit. And then he was selected to be an
instructor at the U.S. Army armor school at Ft. Knox, Kentucky. And after he finished
there, he went to the Thirteenth Armored Cavalry Regiment at Ft. Bliss, Texas. And he
went back to Iraq again. And then, after he got back from Iraq, he got assigned to the 4th
Infantry Division in Fort Carson, Colorado. And with the 61st Cavalry. And then he went
back to, went to Afghanistan. And then he came back, he was back about a year. And just
this past March, he went back to Afghanistan with the 61st Cavalry, 4th Infantry. So he’s
over there now in Afghanistan. So he had five tours, so that’s equivalent to five years in a
combat zone. But I’m proud of what he did, and also proud of all our young men and
women who are serving on active duty now. A lot of them are staying in and not coming
back because of the way our economy is presently. But we had a lot of people during
World War II. Almost all our male people were in the military. And this was a real
hardship to the families that were left behind. Because back then, everything was
rationed. And if your family member was in the military, you were issued ration cards.
And you used these cards to buy sugar, leather goods, tires if you owned a car, gasoline,
things like that. Because during the war years, everything was restricted. You couldn’t
just go out and buy them. And so, our people were all over in Europe, and the
�
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033;
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4
China/Burma area, in the Pacific, in all branches of service. And after they all came back,
some of them went on to school, and learned some trades. Others came back and started
ranching, and doing other things. And raising families. And a lot of them chose to be our
tribal leaders with our tribal government. And then Korea came about, and a lot of our
young men, some volunteered to go into the military. Others were drafted. And about,
probably 40-50 people from our little reservation here ended up in Korea. And Korea was
a bad place to be because of the real cold weathers they had there, where people couldn’t
fight good because everything was freezing. Their guns would freeze up. And plasma that
they tried to give to wounded troops would freeze. And things like that. But lot of them
came back, and like I said, we lost two people over there. And then, during Vietnam, a lot
of our young men also went to Vietnam. And some were wounded pretty bad. Two were
killed. And lot of them ran into each other at the different hospitals, like in Washington,
and in California. So, they all got together, and enjoyed their company. And then, after
that, Desert Storm, the first Gulf War came about, and some of our young men ended up
over there, also. And then, after 9/11, the war in Afghanistan and Iraq came about, and a
lot of our young men and women volunteered for the services, and ended up in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and other areas in the Middle East. And like I said, some of them are
choosing to remain in the military, and others came back, used their military training to
get jobs, like with the Border Patrol, working with the military, and teaching other
military personnel from the skills they learned in the military. So that’s pretty much what
our people have done with their service. And myself, I joined right out of high school,
because at that time, jobs were scarce if you didn’t have training. And back in them days,
there weren’t scholarships like there are now. So, the only option for me was to join the
�
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Air Force. So I joined the Air Force in 1957 when I was 18. I took my basic training at
Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, and then they give you all kinds of qualification tests
in the military. And I qualified to get into aircraft maintenance. So, they sent me to
Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas, and I didn’t know yet what I was going to get into.
Until I got there. And then after I got there, they found out what squadron I was going to,
and they said, “That’s where you go for jet engine training.” So I started my technical
training as a jet engine mechanic. After I completed there, I got assigned to Whiteman
Air Force Base in Missouri as a jet engine mechanic, working on jet engines on B-47
bombers. So I did that for about 2 years, and then I cross-trained over into jet aircraft
maintenance, where I worked on J-33 single engine jet trainers. And I was responsible for
everything on the plane, the engines, landing gears, and everything. And wherever that
plane went, I went. [Laughter] If it went into inspection docks where we had to tear it all
down and everything, and inspect everything, I had to be there and take care of all the
writeups, clear them. Some of the items we had to send to specialty shops like the jet
engine shops, electrical shops. And then when they all come back, we had to put them all
back together, and then get the plane back on the line, and the pilots would do a test hop
on it. And if everything worked, then I ended up back on the flight line with my plane. So
one of the highlights of my tour as an aircraft mechanic was, I was selected to be a crew
chief. Crew chief is the name of the person that’s responsible for the whole airplane. And
I was selected to be a crew chief for the general’s plane. So, the first general I worked for
was a one-star general, a brigadier general. And he left, and the other general that came
in was a two-star general. And then, while I was there, I was up at personnel one day—
well, let me back up just a little bit. No, that’s all right. I went up to personnel to do
�
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something, and I heard people talking that were saying that, “We need three volunteers
from the aircraft field to go into Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Program.” So, I went
back to the flight line and told two of my friends. So, we went back and we volunteered.
And my unit were saying, “We can’t afford to let you go, because we’re going to be short
of people, because people are getting out and they’re getting transferred to different
places in the Air Force.” And finally, we got orders that came down by name, rank, serial
number, and Air Force project. So then, we knew they couldn’t keep us from going. So
then I was reassigned to Forbes Air Force Base in Kansas. I didn’t know what kind of
missile I was going to be assigned to until I got there. After I got there, we found out that
we were going to be on the Atlas E [SM-65E] missiles, intercontinental ballistic missiles.
That’s all we knew, we didn’t know what our jobs were going to be. So then, after we
were there for a couple of months, they sent us back to Sheppard Air Force Base in
Texas. And then put us in school, and I found out that I was going to be a missile
maintenance technician. And my job was going to be all the ground support equipment
that supports that intercontinental ballistic missile to be launched. And also, I had to
know everything about the missile itself. So it was a tough school, and I had to struggle
in some areas to make it. But I made it. And then we went back to our base in Kansas. I
knew I was a missile maintenance technician, but yet I didn’t know exactly what I was
going to do. Well, after I got back, they started picking missile launch crews—or, they
called them, “Missile Combat Crews.” They had, there was going to be: two officers; a
missiles combat crew commander; a deputy missile combat crew commander, which is
probably a captain or a first lieutenant; a ballistic missile analyst technician, who is an
expert in electronics, and he was responsible for all the electronics, ground support
�
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equipment, and electronics aboard the missile; and the missile maintenance technician,
which was me, and I was responsible for all the mechanical portions of the site and the
missile; and an engine power production specialist. Our missile sites were self-contained.
We produced our own electric power. Our own heating and cooling, air conditioning.
Everything that was on the site was produced right there. And the site was built so that
we were 25 feet underground, and then our missile was located about a hundred feet
away from us through a long tunnel. And the missile laid horizontally, and then, when we
got ready to launch, it would raise up, and then we would fill it up with rocket propellant
and liquid oxygen, helium, liquid nitrogen, and everything, ‘til it got to the launch point.
So we all had to be at our assigned positions during launch. And do whatever we were
assigned to do. And a lot of those things, we had to know right off of the top of our
heads, because if something went wrong, we didn’t have the luxury of calling in people
from the base. If we were in a launch condition, we had to correct the problem and get the
missile off the ground and on its way. And this is one thing a lot of people didn’t know:
that in 1962, we came very close to a nuclear war with Russia. This was what was called
the “Cuban Missile Crisis,” where the Russians were building missiles on the island of
Cuba, and these missiles were capable of hitting every major city in the United States,
with the exception of a very small portion, probably, up on the northeast part of the state
of Washington. And these were all nuclear weapons, which would have just wiped out
everything they hit. And our missiles carried nuclear weapons also. We didn’t know
where our targets were. That’s one thing that they never told us, we had a selection of
Target A or B. We didn’t know where they were. We didn’t know if they were
groundburst or airburst. So we didn’t know if they were going to, the warheads were
�
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going to burst before they hit the ground, or burst when they hit the ground. You know,
you’ve all seen what atomic bombs did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombs, atomic
bombs, that were dropped there were seven kilotons. This means they were about seven
thousand tons of TNT, or equivalent to that. And the one that was dropped on Nagasaki
was about 12 kilotons, or 12,000 tons, of TNT. Our warheads were rated at about 8
megatons. This is 8 million tons of TNT. And when they exploded on the ground from
point zero, which is the center of where the bomb hit, probably 25 miles out from that
point is going to be nothing. And from there on out, the destruction will be less and less.
But once the bomb explodes, then all that air that the bomb pushes out is going to go out.
Then it’s going to cause a vacuum. And then, that vacuum, all that air that got pushed
out’s got to go somewhere. So all that air’s going to come back in, causing more
destruction, and go on up. So. So it’s, it was very destructive. But we didn’t know exactly
how close we came to a nuclear war. Normally, on the site, we have one crew per site, of
five people on the launch crew and four security guards. During the Cuban crisis, they
doubled that. We had two crews, which is ten people, and eight security people, and they
doubled our length of tours, so we were on the site for 48 hours at a time. Both the
missile crews and the security guards. So, it got pretty crowded down in the missile sites.
But, if our President Kennedy wasn’t as strong as he was, there is no telling where we
would have ended. So, be proud of your relatives who served in the military. Thank them.
Because they, all of them, we owe our gratitude, our freedom, our way of life. To be here,
to practice our native ways, to practice our languages. So. And that’s, I want you guys to
be sure that you respect your people. Have respect for your elders. Respect your
language. Respect your Tribe. Know who you are, know where you came from. Know
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your language. You may not know it fluently, but learn it from elders. Be curious. Always
be willing to learn. So that’s some of what I’ve encountered. And the main thing I want
to emphasize on you is, stay in school. Because if you do plan to go in the military, there
are a lot of very good careers now. But you need a lot of schooling to get into them. Like,
there’s a lot of computer fields that are open to you, that, if you go through it, finish it in
the military, there’s lot of jobs on the civilian side that’ll be open to you, that you can
qualify for. There’s a lot of jobs in the military that you can qualify for. Good jobs in the
civilian world. Or they’ll prepare you to be, be ahead when you do come back and decide
to go to, go on to college or whatever you want to do. But the main thing is, develop your
interests now, and look at what courses are going to help you through your high school
years. And take those courses. And if I didn’t take Physics—I think that helped me the
most—I wouldn’t have got in to all the technical skills that I was able to get into. So
think about it. Think about it, about what you want to do. Now, and while you’re in
school. And think ahead, five or ten years down the road. So, let’s kind of move on to
what our Native Americans contributed to our country. And our Native Americans have
always been active in our military. For over 200 years, when our country was first being
developed, they sided with our frontiersmen against the British, and the French. And the
frontiersmen learned a lot of skills from our native people. How to fight. And lot of those
skills were passed on to the non-Indians, like the Rogers’ Rangers from the wars, early
wars. They used those skills of the Rogers’ Rangers, they handed them down to what’s
now our Special Forces, our Green Berets, our Marine Recon, our SEALs. Those skills
they learned were skills that were taught to them by the Native Americans. So, our Native
Americans played a big part in what our military is now. And our Native Americans have
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the highest enlistment rate of any ethnic group in our country. We have more Indians per
capita in the military than all the other ethnic groups, like the Hispanics, the blacks, the
whites. And our leaders appreciate that. And that’s because of our, the warrior traditions,
from all of our elders, and our different tribes, that were passed down to us. And what
that tradition said was that the warriors are to protect our people, our homelands, our
property, our way of life, our religion, and our game, and everything that Native
Americans survived on before the Europeans came. So those were things that they
learned, and those were passed down by our ancestors, down to us. And out of those
warrior traditions, to qualify to be in the military, you had to be brave, you had to be
dedicated, you had to have strength. You had to have pride—pride in yourself, pride in
your country. And that’s what our native people bring to us. The other thing that, other
thing that’s different with the Native Americans in the military is that, before they go in,
they go through ceremonies to bless them. And a lot of times, they are given things to
take with them to go to war. Little medicine bags to carry with them that may have
different things in them, or eagle feathers that has been blessed and given to them. Like
my grandson, he carried an eagle feather all the way through his deployments, that was
blessed by two combat veterans. And one time, he was telling me that him and another
guy, that they were on this Bradley, which is like a small tank, and an enemy fired a
rocket-propelled grenade at them. And there was just a small opening, there was no way
that two of them could get through that small opening, so they just stood there and
watched that rocket-propelled grenade coming at them. And before it got there, the
grenade disintegrated. And another time, his Bradley ran over a mine, a big mine, and it
didn’t detonate. So, he said that was probably because of what he carried with him. The
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eagle feather. That was to protect him. So, that’s how we are different from the nonIndians. Some of the other things that you have probably seen, is like the flag raising on
Iwo Jima. The marines raising the flag. And this was, the picture that was taken shows
the marines raising the flag. And that picture was taken by Joseph Rosenthal. That picture
was the second flag-raising. There was a first flag-raising of a smaller flag. And there
was a Native American marine that took part in that. And his name was Louis Charlo. He
was from the Salish tribe, of the Flathead Reservation in Montana. The second flagraising also had a Native American. And this was Corporal Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from
the Gila River Indian Reservation in Arizona. Of the five people that raised the second
flag, only three of them survived. Ira Hayes survived, John Bradley, a pharmacist from
the Navy—he was a corpsman—and René Gagnon, a Marine private. And after that flagraising, they were ordered to return to the United States, and they were put on a tour to
help sell war bonds. And that’s what they did. And Ira Hayes told the people wherever he
went, he said, “I’m not a hero. My heroes didn’t come home.” And that was his thought,
and that was the way he thought about his military. And that’s the way a lot of our people
who come back are. They don’t claim to be anything, they keep it within themselves. So,
I thought that was interesting that there was two Native Americans with the flag-raising.
The other contribution that came about was our code-talkers. In World War II, the
Choctaw were code-talkers, and they served in Europe. There was 12,000 American
Indians that served in World War I, although they were not citizens yet. Yet they served.
And one of those, you’ve probably seen the movie about—oh, what’s his name, he’s—
anyway, a guy from World War I who was a conscientious objector. He was from the
Southern states, a white guy. They made a movie about him, and he won the
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Congressional Medal of Honor, for capturing Germans. But one thing that was never
brought about or made known was, one of the Choctaw code-talkers, by the name of Joe
Oklahombi, also captured 171 German prisoners, and killed 79 Germans. But he wasn’t
awarded the Medal of Honor, he was given the Silver Star. And that was a fallacy of a lot
of not only Indians, but the Japanese, the blacks, and the Hispanics that did great deeds of
bravery, lot of them weren’t recognized like the non-Indians. ‘Til recently. But the codetalkers, the best-known was the Navajos. They—let me back up to the code-talkers in
World War I. There were code-talkers from the Cherokee tribes, the Cheyenne tribes, the
Choctaw, the Comanche, Osage, and the Yankton Sioux. Then I mentioned about one of
them who did a great deed. In World War II, there were Assiniboines, Cherokee,
Chippewa, Oneida, Choctaw, Comanche, Hopi, Kiowa, Menominee, Muskogee Creek
and Seminole, Navajo, Pawnee, Sac and Fox, Meskwaki, Sioux—Lakota and Dakota
dialect. And the most well-known was the Navajo code-talkers who served in the Marine
Corps. They originally recruited twenty-nine Navajos to develop a code to be used,
because the other codes that the U.S. used were being broken by the Japanese. So, these
29 original code-talkers developed codes, and they taught these to the other code-talkers
that came after them, in their own language. And they used their own language, alphabet,
different things that they talked to. Like for an ant, letter for ant was A, or for the Navajo
was wol-la-chee, and different things like that. And they had to develop words for things
that weren’t common to the Navajo language, like fighter planes. So they had to develop
something for them, so they called a fighter planes “hummingbirds.” And different things
like that, that they didn’t have words for. And they were assigned to every unit that went
to war in the Pacific. And not only that, they assigned Marines to watch out for them, to
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protect them. And not mainly to protect them from being captured; to protect them so that
there was no way that they could, to give out the code that they had developed. So if they
ever got captured, these people that were there to protect them, they had orders to shoot
and kill these Navajo code-talkers. My son went to a conference when he was going to
SIPI in Socorro, New Mexico. And a code-talker came in and talked to them. And he told
them, “We weren’t code-talkers by choice.” The marines told them that, “If you don’t
volunteer to be a code-talker, we know where your families live.” So a lot of them who
didn’t volunteer were made to be code-talkers. The other code-talkers that served in
Europe was the Comanches. They served with the 4th Infantry Division in Europe. And
they did the same thing. They used their own language, Comanche language, which is
related to the language that you guys are going to be studying while you guys are over
there. And they used the same languages to talk to each other. And they also developed
words that they could use in their own language. Like, for Hitler, they called him a “crazy
white man” in the Comanche language. It was, “Posa Taibo.” That’s what they called
him. Crazy White Man. But they had to develop words for things that weren’t common to
the Comanche language. And other tribes served in different places all over the world.
The Hopi people served in Europe with the Army Air Force, and they also did that, used
their language to talk about the missions and things like that. So, it’s been said that the
war would have lasted longer had it not been for the code-talkers. So, by shortening the
war, many lives were lost. Because if the Japanese didn’t surrender, the U.S. was going to
attack Japan itself, with great losses. So… So our people saved a lot of lives. And other
things that happened is that many Indians were decorated for their bravery during the
war. And the United States has a medal that’s called a Congressional Medal of Honor.
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This medal was established by George Washington, when he was the first president. And
awarded for bravery in all conflicts since then. And the criteria for winning this award is
very strict. Only 36,000 medals have been awarded, from all the conflicts from when
George Washington fought to our present conflicts. Prior to World War I, like during the
Indian campaigns, nine Indian scouts were awarded the Medal of Honor. In World War
II, seven American Indians were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. In Korea,
three were awarded the Medal of Honor. And three were awarded Medal of Honor in
Vietnam. And there again, some of these were late in coming. Like the award to a Sioux
warrior from the community of Sisseton, South Dakota. He fought in Korea and World
War II. And he was awarded, his actions for his valor in Korea. But there was no followthrough on the recommendations, or the recommendations were lost, and different things
like that, until some Congressional people and tribal people pushed it. And so, just
recently, they awarded him his Medal of Honor, but he had already died, so he didn’t live
to see that. In our little community here, we have veterans from all branches of service,
all eras. And when I came back from the service, I thought about, how can we honor our
people? They deserve some kind of recognition. So, I started working on a database, to
try to list all our people from here that served in the military in all branches of service.
And later on, after I developed it and other people saw it, I got more help, and we
developed more, and we even included people who have relatives that live here but
served in the military from different reservations. And we added them to our database,
and we keep track of all our people who are currently on active duty, where they’re on
active duty. And if new people join, the families let us know, and we add them. And we
also include employees from our organizations that serve our tribe, like the Bureau of
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Indian Affairs, Law Department, our schools, and all our different people that come here
to work with our tribe. So we add them to our database also. So, right now it’s pretty
complete. So we have a total of about 312 veterans living here in Duck Valley, and I
think I already covered how we got to name the Legion Post, and our casualties from
here. Every November, we have a Veteran’s Day Powwow. And the Veterans lead the
Grand Entry. And we have a eagle staff that we carry. And on that eagle staff, we have,
on the medicine wheel, two eagle feathers for the two people killed in World War II, and
two eagle feathers on the medicine wheel for the two that were killed in Korea. On the
staff itself are seven eagle feathers for the seven Native Americans from the state of
Nevada who were killed in action in Vietnam. And those are, those names on the staff are
read off as the Grand Entry comes in. So that is one thing that we make sure that we do,
every year. And another thing that we make sure that we do is that, we honor our veterans
who are deceased, while they are being buried. We always have a veterans’ group there
with firing squad, play the taps, and present the flag to the next of kin. We also plant
flags on all our graves on our five cemeteries. And that is an ongoing things that we
always want to carry on. So, that’s pretty much my presentation on how we honor our
veterans, both from here and all over America and other tribes. And I appreciate the
opportunity to talk to you people. And should you ever be in our area, or have questions,
don’t be afraid to ask me. And if you see a veteran or somebody in uniform, go shake
their hands and thank them. And they’ll appreciate it. In closing, I would like to say I
appreciate Norman Cavanaugh’s interest in working with the SYLAP program in
developing things to be presented to all the participants there at SYLAP, and I want to
thank him for his efforts in promoting culture here with our tribe. And while he was
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working for the Great Basin College. And I had the pleasure of working with Norman
Cavanaugh when I was working with the Indian Health Service, so I have known Norman
for quite a while, and I always appreciate talking to him. And I learn a lot of things by
talking to him. So he’s always pleasant to be around. And if you see him, you know what
I mean. So if you see him, if he happens to be there, just tell him thank you, and tell him
you appreciate his efforts. Thanks.
[End of recording]
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Western Shoshone Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories of Western Shoshone elders collected by the Great Basin Indian Archive.
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories compiled
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Basin Indian Archive, in partnership with Barrick Gold of North America
Source
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GBIA Oral History Collections
Publisher
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Great Basin Indian Archive
Contributor
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2006-2015
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
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Norm Cavanaugh
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Loyd Hanks
Location
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Duck Valley reservation (Owyhee, NV-ID)
Original Format
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AVI and MP4 format
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00:58:27
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http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/files/show/624
Dublin Core
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Loyd Hanks - Oral history (04/16/2014)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history interview with Loyd Hanks, Western Shoshone from Duck Valley reservation, NV-ID, on 04/16/2017
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Loyd Hanks is a Western Shoshone from the Duck Valley reservation his family came from both Paradise Valley, NV and Reese River, NV. Loyd talks about how he became a crew chief in the U.S. Air Force as part of a jet engine mechanic crew, and how he also worked on a missile crew during the Cuban missile crisis involving Russia. He also speaks and honors previous Native American military men, and also pays tribute towards the different Native American code-talkers during the various wars involving the U.S. He also speaks about how the culture helped these individuals survive the turmoil of the wars, and moreover gives advice to the younger audience relaying that learning and preserving the culture is vital and worthwhile.</p>
<p>Video pending</p>
<p><a title="Read Loyd Hanks oral history transcript" href="/omeka/admin/files/show/624" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read Loyd Hanks oral history transcript</a> [pdf file]</p>
Creator
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Great Basin Indian Archives
Source
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Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 033
Publisher
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Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
04/16/2014 [16 April 2014]; 2014 April 16
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Norm Cavanaugh [interviewer]; James Hedrick [GBIA/VHC]; University of Utah SYLAP [streaming video]; Great Basin College; BARRICK Gold of North America
Rights
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Non-commercial scholarly and educational use only. Not to be reproduced or published without express permission. All rights reserved. Great Basin Indian Archives © 2017.
Consent form on file (administrator access only): http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/items/show/410
Language
A language of the resource
English
code talkers
Community
Crossroads
Duck Valley Reservation
GBIA
history
military
Shoshone
Story
U.S Force
veteran
-
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/fde931ad916766a8a6280b406f0ea4b8.jpg
140bfc5a294e5d755c48768903665e4b
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Western Shoshone Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories of Western Shoshone elders collected by the Great Basin Indian Archive.
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories compiled
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Basin Indian Archive, in partnership with Barrick Gold of North America
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
GBIA Oral History Collections
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Great Basin Indian Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
2006-2015
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
James Hedrick
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Janey Bryan and Shasta Blackeye-Adair
Location
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Great Basin College (Elko, NV)
Transcription
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Transcription in progress
Original Format
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MP4
Duration
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01:01:56
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Janey Blackeye-Bryan and Shasta Blackeye-Adair - Oral history (07/31/2017)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history interview with Janey Blackeye-Bryan and Shasta Blackeye-Adair, Western Shoshones from Duckwater, NV, on 07/31/2017.
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Janey Blackeye-Bryan and Shasta Blackeye-Adair presented a lecture to the Shoshone Community Language Initiative (SCLI) program at Great Basin College over the heritage of the Western Shoshone. They begin their presentation by going over women and men’s right of passages in regards to Western Shoshones. They talk about the traditions that they had to practice growing up which included hunting, dating, and so on. They also give us a view into the language and how it refers to the culture. Moreover, they give us an insight into their personal histories growing up in Duckwater, NV.<br /> <br />Presented at the 2017 Shoshone Community Language Initiative summer youth program (SCLI 17).</p>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://cdnapi.kaltura.com/p/2096981/sp/209698100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/39808892/partner_id/2096981?autoembed=true&entry_id=0_nomfkgyt&playerId=kaltura_player_1502209988&cache_st=1502209988&width=560&height=395&flashvars[streamerType]=auto"></script>
<a href="http://www.kaltura.com/tiny/31d17" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Play oral history video in separate page if above player not working</a><br /> <br />Transcription pending
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Basin Indian Archives
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 065
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
07/31/2017 [31 July 2017]; 2017 July 31
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
James Hedrick [interviewer]; James Hedrick [GBIA/VHC]; University of Utah SYLAP [streaming video]; Great Basin College; BARRICK
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Non-commercial scholarly and educational use only. Not to be reproduced or published without express permission. All rights reserved. Great Basin Indian Archives © 2017.
Consent form on file (administrator access only): http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/items/show/405
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
MP4
Language
A language of the resource
English; Shoshoni
Community
Crossroads
Duckwater Reservation
GBIA
history
hunting
rights of passage
Shoshone
Story
traditions
-
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/1606a411779f49cf91dd7a3475f9b6da.jpg
432b9bc9515c97f6324d6a1c3cdad46b
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/1ca631b079c9ea0bcede0866c7e557ac.pdf
1d116f761172564bc3678b49f8afa3bb
PDF Text
Text
Raymond
Yowell
Great
Basin
Indian
Archive
GBIA
007A
Oral
History
Interview
by
Norm
Cavanaugh
May
8,
2006
Lee,
NV
IEN
(Indigenous
Environmental
Network)
Great
Basin
College
•
Great
Basin
Indian
Archives
1500
College
Parkway
Elko,
Nevada
89801
hCp://www.gbcnv.edu/gbia/
775.738.8493
Produced
in
partnership
with
Barrick
Gold
of
North
America
�GBIA 007A
Interviewee: Raymond Yowell
Interviewer: Norm Cavanaugh
Date: May 8, 2006
Y:
Welcome. I’ve been told to, or asked to, give a history of the struggle that the Shoshone
have been through for quite a number of years. And a little bit of background, the
Shoshone Nation per se—the Shoshone Nation, per se, is made up, or covered the
territory, of what is now six states: Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, Nevada, and
California. That is the makeup of the Shoshone Nation territory as a whole. Also, there’s
a splinter group called the Comanche that splintered off from the main Shoshone Nation
about 1701. And they occupied the country of part of Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma,
and Texas. So when you talk about the Shoshone Nation writ large, you’re talking
practically about the whole West. Lot of people back before the Europeans arrived.
Disease took a heavy toll on the Shoshones, as well as, you know, among other Indian
nations. Battles, war also took a toll. The Shoshones fought as best they could with rocks
and sticks, against guns and gunpowder and cannons. And of course, eventually, we lost.
Before 1863, there was no such entity as the Western Shoshone Nation, or the Western
Shoshone Tribe. That came about via treaties that were made by the United States with
the Shoshone Nation. Because the Shoshone covered such a large area, such a large
country, they couldn’t get the Shoshone Nation per se in one place. So they ended up
making five treaties with the Shoshone Nation proper. The Eastern Shoshone—these are
the names that they ended up with—the Eastern Shoshone, the Northwestern Shoshone,
there’s one in the middle of Utah, at Soda Springs, didn’t get a nation name, the Goshute
Nation—Goshute Shoshone—and the Western Shoshone. That’s when the names of
those began. And because of the Treaty, that became the names that we use now. In 1863,
when they made the Treaty with the Shoshone, basically they were first Treaties of Peace
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and Friendship. Later on, they came back to the Eastern Shoshone, the Northwestern
Shoshone, I’m not sure about the Soda Springs—but they never came back to the
Goshute Shoshone or the Western Shoshone for a treaty of land cession. So, that was our
understanding of how the Treaty went. The struggle started way, way back, almost right
after the Treaty of Peace and Friendship was made, as far as the Western Shoshone are
concerned. They began to ask, when white settlers began to come in here, how the
Shoshone land was taken. And being uneducated at that time in the white language, and
not going to the white schools, they could not put their position forward the way that they
needed to do. And from leadership to leadership down through the years, that question
remained: how did United States government get the territory of the Western Shoshone
Nation? In 1861—let me go back a little bit. In 1787, the United States was about 10
years old, having become a nation in 1776. And one of the things that they passed in
1787 was what they call the Northwest Ordinance. And this ordinance applies to all
Shoshone, or all Indian nations within United States. In simple terms, it says that Indian
land will not be taken without their consent. Now, when we’re talking about consent, this
turned out to be, in later practice, treaties of cession, where Indian nations would cede
their land to the United States via a treaty. And so, in 1848, when the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed—which supposedly took in Shoshone country as well as
other Indian nations—that’s what the United States hangs its hat on of how they acquired
the territory of the Western Shoshone Nation. But if you look at Article 6 of that treaty, it
does not say that. It does not say that the Mexicans had extinguished the title of any of
the Indian nations within the area that they claimed. And a close examination of Article
11 says, “it is contemplated”—and the word ‘contemplated’ means what you think about
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it, or thought it to be—“in the future”—in other words, not with the signing of that treaty,
but sometime in the future—“to be within boundaries of the United States”—and the next
key phrase is “now occupied by savage Indian tribes.” And the Western Shoshone was
one of the so-called “savage Indian tribes” that occupied our territory. So, that’s, United
States hangs its hat that that’s how it got the land, the whole land that the Mexicans
supposedly had. In 1861, when they founded the territory of Nevada, the Congress went
right back to the 1787 Northwest Ordinance, and included that in the Nevada Territory
Act: that Indian land within the territory of Nevada will not be included in the territory
without their consent. And their consent would be by treaty. We have never signed a
treaty ceding our land to the United States. So, the struggle, like I said, started almost
from the signing of the treaty, and continued down through the years as best people
could. And as time went on, we got a little bit more educated, and began to read some of
the papers and some of the laws that had been passed. Unfortunately, in the mid-1940s,
1946, they passed what they call the Indian Claims Commission. Maybe some of you
might be familiar with the Indian Claims Commission. And unfortunately, and sadly, a
group of Shoshones applied for a claim within that system. And even though the
traditional government at that time, the members of the traditional government were still
around, the continued entity that had signed the 1863 treaty, stated that they did not need
to submit a claim, because the land had never been taken. But of course, the white
government seized upon that issue, and seized upon the fact that there were some people
that wanted to file a claim. And so it was filed in the Indian Claims Commission. And
that proceeded down through its process for a number of years. At every meeting that
happened within the territory, when the Indian Claims Commission lawyers came here,
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there was always a group that protested that action, and asked the question, “How did
United States acquire the territory of the Western Shoshone Nation?” And the answer that
was finally developed after some time was, “Oh, it happened through gradual
encroachment. Gradual encroachment of the white settlers coming in here to settle their
land.” And early on, we didn’t know how to counter that, that claim. Because you see,
look around, there’s towns, there’s cities, and ranches, and other things that’s going on.
But as we looked at it more, and as we become more educated, we began to ask: the
whole state of Nevada, there’s only 13 percent of it that’s privately owned. And then,
Shoshone country lays in the most arid and most desolate part of that state. And we never
have determined how much of Shoshone country is actually private land by the American
citizens. And we began to ask the question, “If it’s gradual encroachments, how many
encroachers do you have to have to be able to say you effected an encroachment?” And
that was never determined. The lawyers that handled the Indian Claims Commission
never asked that question. And looking back, we see now that all they wanted was to
make money. The lawyers that happened to represent the Western Shoshone Nation were
the ones that wrote the law itself. Wilkinson, Kragun, and Barker. Washington, D.C. law
firm. They wrote the Indian Claims Commission law, and they wrote in there that they
would do it on the contingency—and that means that they would not be paid up front, but
they would be paid with whatever they would win. And so their motivation, in order to
get paid, was to show that the Western Shoshone had lost their land. If they could show
that they did not lose their land, they were not going to get paid. They got 10 percent, the
dollar amount value that would be determined through the Indian Claims Commission
process. So, that was the motivation of the lawyers that represented the Shoshone Nation.
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Later on, when during my tenure, when I became interested in what was going on, we
began to look back into the various processes. Like I said, the Nevada Territory Act, and
other things that should have been done. The United States purports to be a nation of law.
The rule of law nation. In language terms, that means that when the law is set up, it has to
be followed to the letter. And sadly, probably not only in the Shoshone case, but in many
other Indian nations’ cases, that was not done. They ignored the rule of law, and
conquereed under rule of law. And we mounted a struggle as best we could, I guess
beginning, probably, in the 1930s. The leaders at that time, like I said, maybe had a third
grade education or a fifth grade education, and [__inaudible at 12:31__]. But as time
went on, their education became a little higher, and so they began to look into various
documents, as to the rule of law and how it was supposed to be followed. What we found
out was that Indian Claims Commission lawyers did not look at the rule of law. They did
not look at the Nevada Territorial Act. They did not look at the 1787 Northwest
Ordinance. And instead, proceeded as best they could to say that Shoshone land had been
taken, and all they could get was money. And they would tell us this when they came out
here. “You can’t get your land back.” And they didn’t say how we lost it. Later on, they
said it was gradual encroachment. But all we could get was money. We couldn’t get the
land back. But there’s always a group, like I said, that never took that as an acceptable
answer, and continued to raise that question, and to demonstrate through various ways
their dissatisfaction with what was going on. In 1980, the last event that happened in
Indian Claims Commission is what is called the Hearing of Record. And that hearing of
record has to be held within the territory of the Indian nation that’s being affected. They
held that hearing of record in Elko in July of 1980. And we mounted a defense, an
�GBIA
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opposition to that—the traditional people that still wanted that question answered. And as
I remember back, I think the second or the third testifier in that hearing of record asked
the hearing officer how much, “What law did the United States use to take the Shoshone
land?” And the hearing officer couldn’t answer the question. And when that happened,
every Shoshone that came up to testify rejected the claim, with the words, “Until you can
answer that question, keep your money. We don’t want it.” And so the claim was rejected
at that time. This is an official action. This was a hearing set up by the Bureau of Indian
Affairs, it was an official action. In 1983—well, I’ll begin earlier: in 1981, the various
Indian reservation cattlemen began to talk. “Why are we paying the BLM for our land,
for grazing cattle on our land?” It turns out that, maybe you’re not aware, but the
agricultural reservations are things that, Western Shoshone territory did not include the
grazing land, but left it purportedly in the hands of the BLM—Bureau of Land
Management. So in 1981, 1982, those cattlemen on these reservations began to talk. And
the Duckwater Reservation took the lead, and told the BLM, presented them a letter,
“We’re not going to pay you until you can show us how you took our land.” And the
South Fork Reservation followed suit in 1983, wrote the BLM the letter saying, “We’re
not going to pay you until you can show us how you took the land.” The Yomba
Reservation followed suit with the same question. And the Dann sisters were already not
paying the BLM. And so you had the four different entities that were forcing the United
States by action to show how they acquired the territory of the Western Shoshone Nation.
And our main position during all this time was, we’re open to negotiations. We’re open
to negotiations. If you want to talk with us about this, we’re willing to sit down with you
at the table and discuss this matter, and enter into various agreements as far as the use of
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the land is concerned. And one of the positions that we had was, we’re going to keep a
certain amount of that for ourselves. You can’t show how you got it, so we’re going to
keep a certain portion of it for ourselves, and use it for whatever purpose we want. But
there’s other lands that we might let you use under certain conditions, under certain
agreements. Number one, the storage of high-level nuclear waste was not a negotiable
item. That was not even considered. We don’t want a deal, we don’t want it. The testing
of the nuclear weapons was also non-negotiable. We don’t want it. We don’t want that
being done in our territory. We were successful in getting five negotiation sessions with
United States government, and basically it was the Bureau of Indian Affairs. If you think
about that, those of you that are fated with private governments, the United States has a
position that they are our trustee, and then the Bureau of Indian Affairs is our trustee.
And so, later on, when we got to thinking about these negotiations with the Bureau of
Indian Affairs being the main entities at the table, it dawned on us: why are we
negotiating with our trustee? Shouldn’t we consider an outsider’s opinion? You’re
supposed to be our trustees, you’d be on our side. But they’re the ones across the table.
And of course, being novices, and inexperienced, and those kinds of things, it didn’t
dawn on us until afterwards, when we got to thinking back. And looking at some of the
videos that was taken of those happenings. And unfortunately, the Dann case came along,
and had started before that, and was in the court process. And in 1985—well, it went into
[19]84, then rendered decision [19]85, that the land had been taken by gradual
encroachment according to what the Indian Claims Commission had decided. And
therefore, we cannot raise that issue. So when the United States, when the Supreme Court
of the United States came out with that decision, the United States, they said, “We don’t
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have to talk with them no more. They’ve lost the land, and that’s the end of that.” And so
that’s basically where the struggle ended internally. And by that, I mean in the United
States. We then devoted our efforts to the international scene, since we had lost in the
local area, and internally in the United States, we went to the international scene. The
first time we went to the other Dann case was to the Organization of American States,
which is basically a UN for North and South America. And that case was in there for a
number of years. In the end, they came out, and they supported every one of our
positions. They did not reject any of the positions that we had put before them. We were
right on every point: the lands were not taken, the human rights had been violated, and so
forth. I’ll have Carrie talk more about that when she talks. And what happened was, then,
the United States basically ignored that. Even though they’re part of the Organization of
American States. And when they joined that, they say they pledged to do whatever that
entity finds, they will comply with it. But in this case, they just ignored it. And so then,
we made a move to the United Nations, to the Elimination for Racial Discrimination—
CERD. Committee for Elimination of Racial Discrimination. And then that was there for
a number of years, and in the end they come out with the same decision as the
Organization of American States. That Western Shoshone land has never been taken the
way it should have been taken, and ordered the United States to get with the Western
Shoshone to resolve the situation. And again, the United States has drug its feet. It has
not indicated any willingness to talk any further with the Western Shoshone. And so,
basically, that’s the history of our struggle here. And as we sit here today, the United
States has yet to show any document of how it acquired the territory of the Western
Shoshone Nation. And that remained to be answered, and there’s people that are still
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going to carry that forward on the international scene. And I myself was part of the
Western Shoshone National Council, and led that fight for quite a number of years. I’m
getting up in age, and I’m getting hard to get around, and my feeling is gone. And I have
stepped down from that position, and am no longer at the forefront. But I’m still
interested, and still support the best I can of that fight. So thank you very much.
[End of recording]
�
Dublin Core
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Western Shoshone Oral Histories
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Oral histories of Western Shoshone elders collected by the Great Basin Indian Archive.
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Oral histories compiled
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Great Basin Indian Archive, in partnership with Barrick Gold of North America
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GBIA Oral History Collections
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Great Basin Indian Archive
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2006-2015
Oral History
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Norm Cavanuagh
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Raymond Yowell
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South Fork Reservation, NV [Indigenous Environmental Network]
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00:22:07
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http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/files/show/449
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Raymond Yowell IEN (Indigenous Environment Network) - Oral History (05/08/2006)
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Oral History by Raymond Yowell, Western Shoshone from South Fork Reservation, NV, on 05/08/2006
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<p>At the Indigenous Environment Network (IEN) meeting in Lee, NV on May 8, 2006 Raymond Yowell spoke of the Western Shoshone’s struggle with the United States. He recants the audience with the history of the Shoshone people explaining the various groups which belong to the Shoshone Nation before the United States re-organized them. Furthermore, he describes the methods which were applied towards the Western Shoshone in relation to land ownership. He goes on to tell the audience about the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Claims Commission court proceedings, and the appeals which took place at the international level in the U.N. courts</p>
Video pending <br /> <a title="Raymond Yowell Oral History Transcript" href="/omeka/files/original/1ca631b079c9ea0bcede0866c7e557ac.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read Raymond Yowell Oral History Transcript [pdf file]</a>
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Great Basin Indian Archives
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Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 007A
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Great Basin Indian Archives
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05/08/2006 [08 May 2006]; 2006 May 08
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Norm Cavanaugh [GBIA]; James Hedrick [GBIA/VHC]; University of Utah SYLAP [streaming video]; Great Basin College; BARRICK Gold of North America
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Non-commercial scholarly and educational use only. Not to be reproduced or published without express permission. All rights reserved. Great Basin Indian Archives © 2017
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English
Bureau of Indian Affairs
Community
Crossroads
GBIA
history
Indigenous Environment Network
Land claims
Shoshone
Shoshone Nation
South Fork
Story
U.N.
-
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/b64290e28e996920ee26acffdb3c9f75.pdf
ed74cf7e3e23116580b4b0dc5fc2b7ab
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"Wilkins, Nevada: A 20th Century Ghost Town"
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A history of the small roadside community of Wilkins, Nevada in the twentieth century by Howard Hickson.
Description
An account of the resource
Wilkins, Nevada, was located about 25 miles north of Wells on U.S. 93. Build next to the Wine Cup Ranch, Wilkins was centered on the Thousand Springs Trading Post, built in 1947 and purchased in 1953 by a group headed by movie star Jimmy Stewart. Hickson's story focuses on John Moschetti, who managed the trading post and served as Wilkins' postmaster for the seventeen years a U.S. Post Office operated in the area.
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Howard Hickson
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Howard Hickson's Histories archive at Great Basin College: <a title="Wilkins, Nevada history html page" href="http://www.gbcnv.edu/howh/Wilkins.html" target="_blank">http://www.gbcnv.edu/howh/Wilkins.html</a>
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GBC Virtual Humanities Center
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Scott A. Gavorsky [VHC]
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© Copyright 2010 by Howard Hickson
PDF Text
Text
Howard Hickson’s Histories
Wilkins, Nevada
A 20th Century Ghost Town
Wilkins looks like a war zone today. There is nothing there except burned ruins in the sagebrush.
It is a far cry from the vital days of the Thousand Springs Trading Post and its café, motel,
garage, bar, post office, store, living quarters and truck stop. John Moschetti was proud of the
place. He was the boss.
Can a wide spot on US93, 25 miles north of Wells, Nevada, with only a few people living there
be called a town? You bet it can. There was an official US Post Office there for almost seventeen
years. The place was named Wilkins for Russ Wilkins who, with partner Martin Wunderlich,
once owned the Utah Construction Company ranches in California, Idaho, Nevada and Utah, one
of the largest livestock businesses in the nation. Moschetti was Postmaster for the entire life of
post office – July, 1948 to April, 1963.
John moved from Colorado to northeast Nevada as secretary to Wilkins when the mighty UC
was subdivided into smaller outfits and sold.
�Howard Hickson’s Histories – “Wilkins, Nevada: A 20th Century Ghost Town”
Joe Lissolo, Bill “Wil” Moschetti, Lynn Moschetti, and Neva Lissolo.
The Lissolos were Marta (John’s wife) Moschetti’s parents. c. 1952.
Around 1947, a trading post was built on the highway near the Wine Cup Ranch where Wilkins
headquartered. By then all the other ranches had been sold and Wilkins said John could go back
to the Denver office or manage the new Thousand Springs Trading Post. Moschetti opted to take
over the roadside business on January 1, 1948, and stayed for 16 years.
Russ Wilkins died in 1952 at a young age. His family sold the ranch. In 1953 the Wine Cup and
trading post were sold to a group headed by movie star Jimmy Stewart. They owned the places
about four years.
Page 2 of 7
�Howard Hickson’s Histories – “Wilkins, Nevada: A 20th Century Ghost Town”
John Moschetti at the Thousand Springs Trading Post
Actor Jimmy Stewart, one-time owner of the Winecup, wrote John Moschetti a letter in 1957
praising him on the job he was doing at the trading post
Page 3 of 7
�Howard Hickson’s Histories – “Wilkins, Nevada: A 20th Century Ghost Town”
A café, bar, motel and garage were added. It was a successful operation. The owners and
Moschetti made money. Local businesses and residents bought fuel and supplies. Highway
traffic brought in a lot of business. There was a full time mechanic on duty while about twelve
other employees kept things running.
John Moschetti, center, bartending in the Wilkins bar.
B.H. Grube was the next owner. He thought there was oil on the Wine Cup and, for years,
ranching operations went down hill but the trading post continued to prosper and grow.
Moschetti recalls good times and somber events. In early 1949, there was a terrible snowstorm. It
snowed and snowed. Hard winds blew the white stuff into drifts that eventually closed the
highway. The highway department just couldn’t keep up with it and finally the roads were
closed. There were 20 to 30 travelers snowed in a Wilkins. At the time there was no café or
motel. People slept on the floor or in their cars while the trading post workers fed them a couple
of hot meals every day.
Page 4 of 7
�Howard Hickson’s Histories – “Wilkins, Nevada: A 20th Century Ghost Town”
They were trapped at Wilkins for four days before the highway department was able to open the
highway. The stranded travelers followed the plows to Wells. It had taken 20 hours to plow the
25 miles from Wilkins to Wells. The highway immediately drifted shut again and was blocked
for 17 days. The storm made national news.
One day a trucker dropped off a fellow who was skinned up and bleeding. He complained that he
was hungry. John told him he would feed him but he had to clean up himself in the restroom.
The man grabbed a large ashtray off the counter and threatened John. John and his brother, Nick,
were able to tie him up with a rope.
A lot of people were coming and going and there wasn’t much help. There was a hitching post
out front. John and Nick took their prisoner and tied him to the post where he remained for the
couple of hours it took Sheriff Jess Harris to get out to Wilkins from Elko. The man had escaped
from a mental hospital in Tennessee and made it all the way to Nevada before capture.
On November 20, 1956, Lonnie Jeffs, from Montello, pulled up to the trading post and shouted,
“My wife is having a baby!”
John rushed them to the nearest motel room where they put Lonnie’s wife on the bed. Almost
immediately, the baby was born. The new father had been in the Army and knew what to do. He
cut and tied the umbilical cord of his newly born daughter and they continued to Elko where
medical help was available if needed.
Being stuck out in the middle of nowhere, the youngsters at Wilkins were very short of
entertainment. Being kids, they found or invented things to do. According to plan, the children
were supposed to board the school bus at Wilkins for the 25-mile trip to school in Wells. It didn’t
always happen that way. Frequently, they got on the bus in Wilkins and rode north as far as they
could go, eventually all the way to Jackpot, where the bus turned back south for the trip to Wells.
Page 5 of 7
�Howard Hickson’s Histories – “Wilkins, Nevada: A 20th Century Ghost Town”
Wilkins in its heyday. Plot plan drawn by Wil Moschetti.
Page 6 of 7
�Howard Hickson’s Histories – “Wilkins, Nevada: A 20th Century Ghost Town”
Those kids put in a lot of miles. When Jackpot finally had students, a typical bus trip was get on
at Wilkins, ride about forty miles north to Jackpot, drive back those same forty miles to Wilkins
and then the 25 miles to Wells. So, sharpen your pencil and do a little figuring – All that riding in
a daily roundtrip added up to more than two hundred miles, but it was fun.
Grube sold the Wine Cup to Bill Addington in 1963. Moschetti had operated the profitable
trading post from 1948 to 1963. Addington wanted John to work for wages instead of the yearslong partnership. John packed up his family and moved to Wells, then Elko.
Although Wilkins precariously hung on for a few more years, it was, essentially, the end.
Wilkins is one of those places where, if you blink driving by, you’ll miss the place. Still, though,
it is one of those sites in northeast Nevada that is now a reminder of history and the years are
slowly sapping even memories when someone mentions Wilkins.
“Wilkins? Never heard of the place.” That’s sad.
Sources: Oral history tape, October 12, 1993, John W. Moschetti, Northeastern Nevada Museum
Archives, Elko; Dale Porter, Elko; members of John Moschetti’s family, Elko; Nevada’s Northeast
Frontier, Edna Patterson, Louise Ulph, and Victor Goodwin, reprint, University of Nevada Press, Reno,
published by the Northeastern Nevada Museum, Elko; and Nevada Place Names, Helen S. Carlson,
University of Nevada Press, Reno, 1974.
Photographs: From the John Moschetti Family Collection.
©Copyright 2010 by Howard Hickson
Archived and Presented by the
Page 7 of 7
�
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Howard Hickson Histories
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Stories of northeastern Nevada history authored by Howard Hickson.
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Howard Hickson's Histories are true stories about Northeastern Nevada's colorful past, written with wry humor and keen insight into the sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, sometimes downright eerie lives of cowboys, miners, and gamblers, villains and saints and men and women of both extremes, who've inhabited or passed through the region. The collection is a cultural treasure that Great Basin College is privileged to make available to the world via the Internet. New stories are added as Howard sees fit.
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Howard Hickson
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Web site of Howard Hickson's Histories. http://www.gbcnv.edu/hickson/index.html
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Great Basin College
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07/08/2014
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Great Basin College
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c.2014 Howard Hickson
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Web site of Howard Hickson's Histories. http://www.gbcnv.edu/hickson/index.html
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English
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Stories of northeastern Nevada history authored by Howard Hickson.
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Elko, Nevada, northeastern Nevada, history, articles, Great Basin
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<div align="center"><span class="header"><span style="font-size: medium;">H</span>OWARD <span style="font-size: medium;">H</span>ICKSON'S<span style="font-size: medium;"> H</span>ISTORIES </span><br /> <span style="color: #ffffff;"></span></div>
<table width="100%" cellspacing="20" cellpadding="0" border="0" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" align="center">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td scope="col" width="575" valign="top" align="left">
<div align="center">
<p><span class="title">Wilkins, Nevada</span><br /> <em><span class="subtitle">A 20th Century Ghost Town</span></em></p>
<p> </p>
</div>
<p>Wilkins looks like a war zone today. There is nothing there except burned ruins in the sagebrush. It is a far cry from the vital days of the Thousand Springs Trading Post and its café, motel, garage, bar, post office, store, living quarters and truck stop. John Moschetti was proud of the place. He was the boss.</p>
<p align="center"><img src="http://www.gbcnv.edu/howh/wilkins1.jpg" alt="Photo of Wilkins today" width="600" height="244" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Can a wide spot on US93, 25 miles north of Wells, Nevada, with only a few people living there be called a town? You bet it can. There was an official US Post Office there for almost seventeen years. The place was named Wilkins for Russ Wilkins who, with partner Martin Wunderlich, once owned the Utah Construction Company ranches in California, Idaho, Nevada and Utah, one of the largest livestock businesses in the nation. Moschetti was Postmaster for the entire life of post office – July, 1948 to April, 1963.</p>
<p align="center"><br /> <img src="http://www.gbcnv.edu/howh/wilkins2.jpg" alt="Family Members photo" width="423" height="600" /></p>
<p class="caption" align="center">Joe Lissolo, Bill “Wil” Moschetti, Lynn Moschetti,<br /> and Neva Lissolo. The Lissolos were Marta<br /> (John’s wife) Moschetti’s parents. c. 1952.</p>
<p>John moved from Colorado to northeast Nevada as secretary to Wilkins when the mighty UC was subdivided into smaller outfits and sold.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Around 1947, a trading post was built on the highway near the Wine Cup Ranch where Wilkins headquartered. By then all the other ranches had been sold and Wilkins said John could go back to the Denver office or manage the new Thousand Springs Trading Post. Moschetti opted to take over the roadside business on January 1, 1948, and stayed for 16 years.</p>
<p align="center"><img src="http://www.gbcnv.edu/howh/wilkins-john.jpg" alt="John Moschetti at the Thousand Springs Trading PostJohn Moschetti at the Thousand Springs Trading PostJohn Moschetti at the Thousand Springs Trading Post" width="440" height="332" /><br /> <span class="caption">John Moschetti at the Thousand Springs Trading Post </span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Russ Wilkins died in 1952 at a young age. His family sold the ranch. In 1953 the Wine Cup and trading post were sold to a group headed by movie star Jimmy Stewart. They owned the places about four years.</p>
<table width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" border="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><img src="http://www.gbcnv.edu/howh/wilkins-stewart.jpg" alt="Jimmy Stewart" width="300" height="519" /></td>
<td><img src="http://www.gbcnv.edu/howh/wilkins-letter.jpg" alt="Jimmy Stewart Letter" width="487" height="537" /></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p class="caption" align="center">Actor Jimmy Stewart, one-time owner of the Winecup, <br /> wrote John Moschetti a letter in 1957<br /> praising him on the job he was doing at the trading post</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A café, bar, motel and garage were added. It was a successful operation. The owners and Moschetti made money. Local businesses and residents bought fuel and supplies. Highway traffic brought in a lot of business. There was a full time mechanic on duty while about twelve other employees kept things running.</p>
<p> </p>
<p align="center"><img src="http://www.gbcnv.edu/howh/wilkins3.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="425" /><br /> <span class="caption">John Moschetti, center, bartending in the Wilkins bar.</span></p>
<p><br /> B.H. Grube was the next owner. He thought there was oil on the Wine Cup and, for years, ranching operations went down hill but the trading post continued to prosper and grow.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Moschetti recalls good times and somber events. In early 1949, there was a terrible snowstorm. It snowed and snowed. Hard winds blew the white stuff into drifts that eventually closed the highway. The highway department just couldn’t keep up with it and finally the roads were closed. There were 20 to 30 travelers snowed in a Wilkins. At the time there was no café or motel. People slept on the floor or in their cars while the trading post workers fed them a couple of hot meals every day.</p>
<p>They were trapped at Wilkins for four days before the highway department was able to open the highway. The stranded travelers followed the plows to Wells. It had taken 20 hours to plow the 25 miles from Wilkins to Wells. The highway immediately drifted shut again and was blocked for 17 days. The storm made national news.</p>
<p align="center"><img src="http://www.gbcnv.edu/howh/wilkins4.gif" alt="Wilkins plot plan" width="602" height="853" /><br /><span class="caption">Wilkins in its heyday. Plot plan drawn by Wil Moschetti.</span></p>
<p>One day a trucker dropped off a fellow who was skinned up and bleeding. He complained that he was hungry. John told him he would feed him but he had to clean up himself in the restroom. The man grabbed a large ashtray off the counter and threatened John. John and his brother, Nick, were able to tie him up with a rope.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A lot of people were coming and going and there wasn’t much help. There was a hitching post out front. John and Nick took their prisoner and tied him to the post where he remained for the couple of hours it took Sheriff Jess Harris to get out to Wilkins from Elko. The man had escaped from a mental hospital in Tennessee and made it all the way to Nevada before capture.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>On November 20, 1956, Lonnie Jeffs, from Montello, pulled up to the trading post and shouted, “My wife is having a baby!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>John rushed them to the nearest motel room where they put Lonnie’s wife on the bed. Almost immediately, the baby was born. The new father had been in the Army and knew what to do. He cut and tied the umbilical cord of his newly born daughter and they continued to Elko where medical help was available if needed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Being stuck out in the middle of nowhere, the youngsters at Wilkins were very short of entertainment. Being kids, they found or invented things to do. According to plan, the children were supposed to board the school bus at Wilkins for the 25-mile trip to school in Wells. It didn’t always happen that way. Frequently, they got on the bus in Wilkins and rode north as far as they could go, eventually all the way to Jackpot, where the bus turned back south for the trip to Wells.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Those kids put in a lot of miles. When Jackpot finally had students, a typical bus trip was get on at Wilkins, ride about forty miles north to Jackpot, drive back those same forty miles to Wilkins and then the 25 miles to Wells. So, sharpen your pencil and do a little figuring – All that riding in a daily roundtrip added up to more than two hundred miles, but it was fun.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Grube sold the Wine Cup to Bill Addington in 1963. Moschetti had operated the profitable trading post from 1948 to 1963. Addington wanted John to work for wages instead of the years-long partnership. John packed up his family and moved to Wells, then Elko.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Although Wilkins precariously hung on for a few more years, it was, essentially, the end.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Wilkins is one of those places where, if you blink driving by, you’ll miss the place. Still, though, it is one of those sites in northeast Nevada that is now a reminder of history and the years are slowly sapping even memories when someone mentions Wilkins.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Wilkins? Never heard of the place.” That’s sad.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr width="20%" noshade="noshade" align="left" />
<p class="copyright"><!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --></p>
<p class="sources"> </p>
<p class="sources">Sources: Oral history tape, October 12, 1993, John W. Moschetti, Northeastern Nevada Museum Archives, Elko; Dale Porter, Elko; members of John Moschetti’s family, Elko; <em>Nevada’s Northeast Frontier</em>, Edna Patterson, Louise Ulph, and Victor Goodwin, reprint, University of Nevada Press, Reno, published by the Northeastern Nevada Museum, Elko; and Nevada Place Names, Helen S. Carlson, University of Nevada Press, Reno, 1974.</p>
<p class="sources"> </p>
<p class="sources">Photographs: From the John Moschetti Family Collection.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="copyright">©Copyright 2010 by Howard Hickson</p>
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<tbody>
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<td width="100%"> </td>
</tr>
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</table>
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Wilkins, Nevada: A 20th Century Ghost Town
Subject
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A history of the small roadside community of Wilkins, Nevada in the twentieth century by Howard Hickson.
Description
An account of the resource
Wilkins, Nevada, was located about 25 miles north of Wells on U.S. 93. Build next to the Wine Cup Ranch, Wilkins was centered on the Thousand Springs Trading Post, built in 1947 and purchased in 1953 by a group headed by movie star Jimmy Stewart. Hickson's story focuses on John Moschetti, who managed the trading post and served as Wilkins' postmaster for the seventeen years a U.S. Post Office operated in the area.
<p><a title="Wilkins, Nevada history pdf file" href="/omeka/files/original/b64290e28e996920ee26acffdb3c9f75.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read the Article [pdf file]</a><br /> <a href="http://www.gbcnv.edu/howh/Wilkins.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">View Original webpage [archive website]</a></p>
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Howard Hickson
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Howard Hickson's Histories archive: <a title="Hickson's Histories - Wilkins, Nevada" href="http://www.gbcnv.edu/howh/Wilkins.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://www.gbcnv.edu/howh/Wilkins.html</a>
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GBC Virtual Humanities Center
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Scott A. Gavorsky [VHC]
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© Copyright 2010 by Howard Hickson. Used with permission of author.
http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/items/show/103 [admin access only]
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English
Community
Crossroads
HHH
history
Nevada
Northeastern Nevada
Story
-
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/db8364c73d639f518b37ea2672d03129.pdf
dae3a6427eb7a24c2c3379d3c648764b
PDF Text
Text
NORTHEASTERN NEVADA MUSEUM
Newton Hunt Crumley
by Chris H. Sheerin
re'-ptbj~ from
1979 Quarterly
It Began in Elko
by AngelA Aguirre (JeBraga)
re-printecf: .ftom 1982 Quarterly
2011-4
NORTHEASTERN NEVADA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
�119
IT BEGAN IN ELKO
Big-Name Entertainment in Nevada
by Angela Aguirre {deBraga)
This story about big-nanie entertainment in Nevada
and its Elko beginnings was published in the
Northeastern Nevada Quarterly in 1982.
It is being re-printed here because this was also an
important part of the history of this area and many
of the present Quarterly readers either did not live
here, were not members, or were not even born when
this story came out the first time.
'J
�120
A hush fell over the opening night audience in the·
Lounge of the Commercial Hotel in Elko as plush
curtains parted. Applause broke out when the tuxedodad orchestra leader raised his battered silk top hat and
asked, "Is everybody happy?"
Big name show business in Nevada started that night
as Ted Lewis asked his famous question and gave his
That successful merging began in 1937 when Newton
Crumley opened the first lounge in the Commercial
Hotel. Although the hotel bar had been open, even
during periods of prohibition, the new addition was
Elko's first sophisticated cocktail lounge. There was a
small dance floor in front of an alcove where three or
four musicians held forth entertaining bar patrons and
dancing couples, The popularity of the room led Newton
The Commercial Hotel, at approximately the time Newt Crumley
started bringing in big-name entertainment..,
Museum photo, donated by Jean Humt:r
jazz band a downbeat. The date was April 26, 1941 . The
Commercial's show room was simply ... The Lounge.
There was no cover charge and no food was served.
Hunt Crumley, son of the hotel's owner, to the idea that
made him the "Father" of big name hotel-casino show
business.
Today, when people think of the Silver State, they see
visions of exotic showgirls, dazzling lights, top-notch
entertainment and that unique magic of gambling.
Through young Newt's activities big time entertainment
thrived in Elko for more than two decades.
Gaming in Nevada was legalized by the 1931 state
legislature, but it wasn't until the 1940s that gambling
and name entertainment joined hands in a winning
combination that would grow into today's huge exciting
industry.
In early 1941 remodeling was completed on a new
show area just west of the old lounge.
Young Crumley contracted the "High-hatted Tragedian
of Jazz," along with his world famous orchestra and
21-member stage revue for an eight-day run. On April
26, Lewis began the parade of big name entertainers to
�121
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I
~-j
s
,.tiOIS
DR[ttESTRA
.,, ~ l April 26
:;:r·,·· ~
1-Yr · Through
\
'
:·/ f
'
Plus-
May 3rd
'
His Sciniil. .
~'RHYTHM
rn
RHAPSODY : N REVUE"
Starting Tomorrow at
The Lounge
�122
Elko. The tab was $12,000 per week, a fabulous price- for
a modest-sized city like Elko.
When local citizens heard that Ted Lewis was coming
to Elko, it was too much for them to believe. A rumor
circulated that Lewis would not appear and, if the band
did come, the leader certainly would not be the famed
Lewis himself, but someone posing as him. After his
appearance, someone was heard to remark, "If the former
During the orchestra's appearance, the Commercial's
business was brisk and even Lewis joined in the
gambling. In fact, when he left Elko, he had spent all
he made and departed with the two Crumleys holding
his IOU for a sizeable amount- so large that Lewis
endorsed his contract check in such a manner that he
agreed to a return engagement to square the marker.
Elko appealed to other entertainers. Many show people
stayed in Elko for a week or two
just to have fun. In order to rest
and "get a little Nevada sunshine,"
Sophie Tucker, the famed singer. comedienne, billed as the "Last
of the Red Hot Mamas," came
to town two days prior to her
Commercial engagement. After
her arrival, she met a number of
Elkoans at the Lounge and topped
off the day by going to the movies.
The hotel management also
arranged for her to visit the Petan
Ranch in northern Elko County.
An early picture ofthe Lounge at the Commercial Hotel.
Museum phoco, donated
by Tony Fllen Primeaux
doubting Thomases ofElko heard that Eleanor Roosevelt
was going to broadcast 'My Day' under the Lounge
auspices from the corner of Fourth and Railroad Street,
they'd be on hand to watch the proceedings."
Lewis, his orchestra, and revue had the desired effect.
Former Nevada State Journal editor, Paul Leonard,
remembered the reaction as "electric."
When the show was over, many in the crowd stuck
around in the Commercial's casino that contained a long
bar, a roulette table, a couple of21 tables, a few poker
tables and a simple lunch counter.
Thus, Nevada casino owners discovered that famous
name entertainment set an excellent atmosphere for
gambling, attracted people to the gaming rooms and,
therefore, paid off well in the long run.
Miss Tucker appeared with Carl
Ravazza's popular dance band in
the hotel's "Serenade to Summer."
She made such a hit Saturday
and Sunday nights that it was
announced that there would
also be a show Monday evening.
Ordinarily, no performance was
presented on Mondays; shows ran
from Saturday to Saturday, with a
break on Monday.
Huge crowds quickly made seating difficult on weekend
nights and the Commercial staff began taking fewer
reservations and held them only until 8:45 p.m. Efforts
were made to accommodate patrons on other nights so
there would be more room for dancing. The big bands
took up a large section of the floor. Floor shows in those
days were just that ... "floor shows."
The situation led to construction of a tiered platform
at the north end of the Lounge to afford guests seated
in that area of the night spot a better view of the
performance. Later, a stage was built in the end of the
room.
Many bandleaders of the era wrote one or two hit
songs, but Ray Noble, who came to Elko in July, 1941,
�123
SOPHIE TUCKER in person
with TED SHAPIRO at the piano, appearing at
TI-lE
OUNGE
Glorious Roor Show
in ·
Opening Tomorrow Night
Saturcby, June 21
For
An
8-0ay
Run
�II
124
was, perhaps the only one who achieved equal distiilction
both as a bandleader and composer.
Radio." Together, they presented the "1941 Harvest of
Entertainment."
Next up, just returning from a theatre engagement in
New York City, came Paul Whiteman, "King of Jazz,"
who blitzed Elko crowds during his nine-day stint. This
left the Lounge management wondering where they were
going to "hang" the customers during the Elko County
Livestock Show and Fair.
The seventh "big time" show of the year featured Dave
Marshall and the NBC orchestra during Thanksgiving
week.
Club patrons who got a closeup ofWhiteman for the
first time went away remarking: "He's a real guy," "I liked
his informal way." "You can tell he's from the West."
When Whiteman was first signed to appear in Elko,
it made the front page of Variety, the show business
newspaper. So
astounding was the
news in the night
club entertainment
field, that the
headlines read
"Whiteman Fixed to
Play Stix."
Ending the 1941 list of famous personalities in the
entertainment world, Chico Marx, a member of the
popular Marx Brothers comedy team, starred in the
seven-say Christmas and New Year's Eve celebrations
with a five-act floor show.
Young Crumley had a clause in every contract that
required the star to give at least one free performance for
the children and teenagers of the community. Most of
While in town,
Whiteman, with
the help of the
mayors from Reno
and Winnemucca,
selected the 1941
Miss Elko County
to rule over fair
time festivities.
Headline in the
Elko Daily Free
Press of September
Another view ofthe early lounge at the Commercial Hotel.
9, 1941, declared"
Museum photo, donated by Tony & Ellen Primeaux
'41 Fair Looms as
Biggest in Show's
these shows were held in the Hunter Theatre. He insisted
History." People were attracted here from all sections of
upon, and enforced, a policy that all these shows be on a
Nevada and neighboring states to see Whiteman and his
level "to which you could bring your children." Anyone
orchestra in downtown Elko.
offering off-color entertainment soon found his contract
It is putting it mildly to say that the entertainment
cancelled. Special performances were also presented at
world was agog over the fact that city the size of Elko was
the Old Folks Home and Nevada Industrial School.
so privileged to see big names appear one after another.
In 1942 after the nation entered World War II, the
Ted Fio Rito and Getrude Niesen followed Donald
economy was booming and the American public became
entertainment hungry. The Commercial's shows, during
Novis as the next Lounge attractions. Rio Fito was
the war, were taken to Wendover Air Base, Utah, for the
a world-famous composer and Niesen was billed
as "America's Sweetheart - Star of Stage Screen and
men who were stationed there.
�125
'The Greatest Name in American Music"
and
HIS ORCHESTRA
McEachern
•
Howard
•
•
0
at
'.f'BB £0UNGB
I
9 Day~~f.!'!*!.,2c~~~gh 14
�126
The Commercial Hotel continued its "big-name" policy
after the war and was joined by its rival directly across the
railroad tracks through downtown Elko, the Stockmen's
Hotel. Once the Mayer Hotel, the 102-room building was
bought by R.C. "Red" Ellis and A. C. Bigham who changed
the name to the Stockmen's. They opened a lounge in
August, 1946, to take advantage of the county fair crowd
around Labor Day. A few weeks later, on October 4, the
name of the room was changed to the Roundup Room and
opened with "Hi" Davis and his orchestra, with Ann Triola,
a singing comedy star. The Andrini Brothers rounded out
the show.
Following the first show were stars Margaret Whiting, Burl
lves, Alfred Drake, Rex Allen and Tennessee Ernie Ford.
Elkoans and their visitors never had it so good as when the
In 1946, another hotel, the Ranchinn, was built and
opened by young Crumley. Elaborately dedicated on
December 18, the "super motel," one of the first ever
built after the war, had a second-floor club room, and
elegant bar and cabaret, fine Chinese food and the
highest gambling limits in town.
Tex Ritter, "America's Most Beloved Western Star,"
and Henry Busse, the famous "Hot-Lips Trumpet
Man," entertained at the Commercial's Christmas
show to honor the Ranchinn's opening.
The Intermountain West's biggest professional rodeo
came to Elko in 1948 and the First Annual Silver
State Stampede was not exclusively a local show;
it was also sponsored by several casinos in other
Nevada towns. Bing Crosby, Elko's Honorary Mayor,
rhe Stockmen's Hotel, the second establishment to feature big-name entertainment in Elko.
Museum photo
Crumleys and Ellis were in competition; and the prices were
right- there was never a cover charge or minimum. Hotel
patrons saw the most beautiful floor shows in the world.
Entertainment was fabulous, hard to believe - and it didn't
cost more than a drink or rwo at one of the hotels. All this
was offered at a time when drinks were 25 cents apiece!
officially opened the celebration that featured the
nation's foremost riders, ropers, bulldoggers and arena
entertainers.
Top attractions were booked into the local nightspots.
The Rocky Mountain Playboys performed in the
�127
Now Play"ng
•
1'U DAJiiCDfG
01'
Bill
�128
Roundup Room while The
Lounge featured stage and
screen favorites, Professor
Lambert and Pinky Lee, in its
"Stampede Revue," In short,
according to the Elko Daily
Free Press, "no expense had
been spared, no stone left
unturned and nothing was
left out" in order to make the
Stampede a success.
In 1951, a movie premiere
was scheduled to be held in
Elko and elaborate citywide
preparations began for the
three-day festivities. Fifteen
thousand windshield stickers
1he opening ceremonies for the new Ranchinn drew a
were pasted on vehicles
big crowd, considering it was in late afternoon in December.
entering town: "We are coming
1he dignitaries, including Governor Pittman and Bing Crosby,
back for the World Premiere
were on the balcony, addressing the crowd in the parking lot.
of 'Here Comes the Groom."'
Museum photo
Store fronts and windows,
street lamps and "public
conveyances" were derorated to give the entire community
More than a hundred Hollywood celebrities, newsmen
a holiday atmosphere. The eyes and ears of the nation were
and political dignitaries arrived in chartered planes at the
focused on Elko when the premiere showing of Paramount
Elko airport. Their coming was witnessed by the largest
Picture's "Here Comes the Groom," starring Elko's
gathering of people in the history of the city.
honorary mayor, Bing Crosby, was held.
The huge celebration began with the
CBS coast-to-coast radio broadcast of a
street show from a platform in front the
Hunter Theatre featuring all the stars,
several media people, Utah governor
J. Bracken Lee, Nevada governor
Charles Russell, Nevada Congressman
Walter S. Baring and Elko Mayor Dave
Dotta. A giant stage show of stars was
held in the Hunter Theatre later that
evening starring Bing Crosby, Alexis
Smith, Dorothy Lamour, Cass Daley,
Jay Livingston, Ray Evans and Connie
Bosswell and the Cass County Boys.
The entertainers then appeared on
the stage at the Rainbo Theatre. The
showing of the film took place later
that evening.
1he Ranchinn, after a new sign was put in place and the
gate andfence had been removed from
he front ofthe parking lot.
Museum photo, donated by Pete & Dawn Ormaza
Almost ten thousand dollars were taken
in from the premiere. The money was
turned over to a fund for constructing a
new million-dollar hospital for Elko.
�129
1ha Comm
ElllO, _
�130
The general opinion of many was that this had been the
"biggest and most elaborate movie send-off since "Gone
With the Wind" in Atlanta," and that "Here Comes
the Groom" represented the greatest "entertainment
package" in Crosby's career, including "Going My Way,"'
He won an Oscar for Best Actor in 1944 for his role in
"Going MiWay."
Ellis sold the Stockmen's Hotel to Dan Bilboa Sr.,
J.B. Dollard and VJ. McGee, all of Boise, Idaho, on
December 30, 1952. By 1955, young Crumley decided
to look for new fields of action and had sold the
Commercial to Harrigton Drake. The sale did not go
through and Red Ellis purchased both the Commercial
Hotel and Ranchinn.
Entertainment in Elko continued to be first rate. Such
stars as Nelson Eddie and Jeanette McDonald, Anna
Maria Alberghetti and the original Sons of the Pioneers
performed.
Wayne Newton sang in Elko when he was just 12-years
old. Because of his age, he was escorted to and from the
stage.
Vikki Carr first came to Elko in 1959 with The Pars.
After playing only a short time at the Commercial, a
misunderstanding arose and she left the group. Being
19 then, she took a job at the front desk of the hotel
and became acquainted with Eileen and "Dutch"
Holdren who be~ame her "adopted parents," Miss Carr
moved in with the Holdren family and later returned
to entertaining at the hotel bar. From the Commercial
Hotel, she moved to the Ranchinn with the duo, Knight
.,
A banquet during the grand opening of the Ranchinn. Newt Crumley is at the
microphone, with Ida Pittman, Governor Vail Pitmann,
and Frances Crumley, to his left.
The large cake on the table was made in the shape ofthe new hotel
Museum photo, donated by ]tan Hunrer
�131
�132
and Day. After that engagement, she left Elko but
returned to stay with the Holdrens in 1960 and 1961.
She often cleaned house, fixed meals and even mowed
the lawn during her visits.
Advertising has always played an important role in
attractive visitors to see big name casino attractions.
Thomas C. Wilson, in Nevada magazine, said, "In Elko,
where big name showbiz began in Nevada, there has
always been keen competition between the two leading
casinos. Billboards for the Stockmen's Hotel featured an
eye-grabbing bull in a strong highway campaign from
the Utah border to California. Scores of signs featured
the huge bull. One night a group of friends of the rival
Commercial Hotel drove across the entire state painting
the cattle brand of the Commercials owner on the side of
every Stockmen's bull. It meant nothing to tourists, but
provoked belly-laughs in every Western cowtown.
Exact prices paid for special entertainers are closely
guarded secrets, but in the forties, Ted Lewis was paid
$12,000 a week. From the mid-fifties to the mid-sixties,
the Commercial Hotel's entertainment budget was
$600,000 a year. Today, its budget is under $275,000
annually. The biggest and most expensive shows have
always been booked during holidays and county fair
time.
In Elko, shows have mostly been promoted locally,
though advertisements were run in Salt Lake City in
the 1950s through the 1970s.· Some commercials now
appear on the three Salt Lake television stations. Ellis
A crowd in front ofthe Hunter 1heater, awaiting the arrival ofthe movie stars
for the world premier ofHere Comes the Groom.
Museum photo
�133
Get Your Tickets Now at Dupont Pharmacy and
Hunter and Rainbo Theatres for -
World Premiere
Mayor Bing Crosby's
I
Bing and All-Star Cast IN PERSON
*
Monday, July 30
ENTIIE PIOCUDS TO lLKO'S
NlW COUNTY HOWITAL FUND
Hunter and Rainbo Theatres - Elko, Nevada
�134
Shortly after the hotel opened, a swimming
pool was installed in the middle ofthe
front parking lot. After several years, it was
removed because the parking spaces were
needed. This picture shows the Ranchinn sign,
reflected in the pool.
Museum photo, donated by Earl & G~nevieve Frannen
About the Author
7he following was written in the 1979 Quarterly about the author,
Angela Aguirre.
says he now employs around 250 people and spends
about $1.5 million annually on advertising.
Appearances of top-ranking performers cost their
sponsors hundreds of thousands of dollars for a week's
engagement. Such prices, the lack of proper facilities
and policy and ownership changes in Elko's leading
casinos brought an end to the "big name" era and
the entertainment center has migrated to the two
metropolitan areas in the state. Although big time shows
are gone from Elko, the memory of where it all started
in Nevada remains, and the city will always hold, with
pride, the title of where it all began back in 1941.
Angela Aguirre is presently attending the University
of Nevada, Reno, and is in her second year of business
administration. She is
a member of the Ad
Club and Delta Delta
Delta sorority and is
studying with a scholastic
scholarship.
Her monograph about
the start of big name
entertainment in Nevada is
her first published work.
She was born in Elko
in 1962, attended local
schools and grduated
from Elko High School in
AngelaAguirre, 1982
1981 where she actively
participated in band,
cheerleading, student government, German Club,
Honor society, Girls State delegte, Homecoming Queen,
Cathoiic Young Group and recipient of the Triple "E"
award, Nevada Insurance Education Scholarship and
Phyllis Carter Memorial Scholarship.
Angela's parents are Frank and Louise Aguirre of Elko.
Editor's note:
In 2011, Angie is married to joe deBraga and they are the
parents of two sons, Thomas and justin. She is the Director
of Continuing Education and Community Outreach for
Great Basin College and previously was with the University
ofNevada, Reno Extended Studies in Elko for 15 years.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Northeastern Nevada Museum Quarterly
Subject
The topic of the resource
Collection of the Northeastern Nevada Museum Quarterly journal.
Description
An account of the resource
Quarterly journal of the Northeastern Nevada Museum, located in Elko, Nevada.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Northeastern Nevada Museum
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Northeastern Nevada Museum
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1978-2015
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Scott A. Gavorsky
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Northeastern Nevada Museum
Format
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.pdf files
Language
A language of the resource
English
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Print
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
"It Began in Elko: Big-Name Entertainment in Nevada"
Subject
The topic of the resource
The early history of national big-name entertainment acts in Nevada, focusing on the role of Elko.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Angela Aguirre (de Braga)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Northeastern Nevada Museum Quarterly 2011, no. 4, pgs. 119-134
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Northeastern Nevada Museum
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1982
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Scott A. Gavorsky
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<p>VHC Deposit Agreement on file:<br />http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/items/show/185<br />[administrator access only]</p>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf file
Language
A language of the resource
English
Community
Crossroads
Elko
entertainment
GBC50
history
NNM
Story
Student
-
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/25ce2e98f4c107f32222e0d32bb59087.pdf
39e862decfb1cdf46f97a9007da088ce
PDF Text
Text
10/22/13
Halley's Comet
HOWARD HICKSON'S HISTORIES
[Index]
Halley's Comet
Midas, Nevada - April 27, 1910
Residents of Midas, a gold camp in Elko County, were jolted from bed at 3:30
a.m. on April 27, 1910, when a blast rocked the countryside and shook buildings.
Running from their houses and cabins, still in their gowns and nightshirts, they
heard a voice in the darkness, "Everybody up! Halley's comet is about to appear!"
Tousled heads and bleary eyes turned toward a nearby hill just east of town as
a very bright light appeared. They were suddenly awake and watched in
amazement and wonder as the light lit the sky for about twenty minutes. Then it
faded away and the morning star appeared. It was indeed a beautiful sight.
Midas around the time when Halley's Comet visited the place. Photograph
from the Northeastern Nevada Museum collections, Elko.
Everyone was thrilled. Sighting the famed comet was a once in a lifetime event.
It crosses the sky only about once every 75 years, give or take a couple of years.
The great American humorist Mark Twain claimed to have been born during the
comet's last sighting in 1835 and maintained that he would leave this life when it
next appeared.
Wide awake now but hoping to salvage a little sleep, Midas residents went
back to bed. They would learn, when the news reached Midas a couple of days
later, that Twain had passed away on April 21. Close enough, most commented.
Dick Avery, a night shift miner at the Rex Mine, harbored a secret most the of
following day. After getting a snoot full at one of the bars, he told all about the
www.gbcnv.edu/howh/Comet.html
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Halley's Comet
previous night when Halley's Comet visited Midas.
He had gotten a long pole about thirty feet in length. After fastening a bundle of
waste cloth on one end, he saturated it with oil then detonated a stick of dynamite
to wake the town.
After announcing the comet's coming, he raced to the hill top which was, more
or less, the proper direction for sighting the celestial wonder. He lit the torch and
proceeded to fake the miracle of the heavens. He did such a good job that
everyone, bar none, thought they had seen the famous comet.
Many of those who had walked a half mile or so to view Avery's Comet were
not entirely pleased about the hoax. In fact, some were outright mad. Others
chuckled at the joke played on them. After all, it put some excitement and fun into
a sometimes dull life of a remote mining camp.
Downtown Midas around 1928. Photograph from the Northeastern Nevada Museum
collections, Elko.
On April 28, 1910, the real comet was first sighted by the naked eye and was
seen nightly until the end of June. May 10 was the night it was closest to earth, only
14,300,000 miles away.
Midas was named for the legendary Greek king whose touched turned
everything to gold. Before that it was called Gold Circle and Summit, at different
times, of course.
Midas citizens have put together a museum in the old school there. It is worth
the trip to visit the town. Although there are still mining operations nearby, the
flavor and personality of the old mining camp are still there.
Howard Hickson
April 21, 2001
Sources: Much of the research for this article was done more than twenty years ago by
Claudia Riordan when she was on the staff of the Northeastern Nevada Museum, Elko. An
excellent source for town names and brief histories is Nevada Place Names by Helen S.
Carlson, University of Nevada Press, Reno, 1974.
www.gbcnv.edu/howh/Comet.html
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Halley's Comet
©Copyright 2001by Howard Hickson. Permission to use is given but, if any portion or all of this article is quoted, proper
credit must be given.
[Back to Hickson's Histories Index]
www.gbcnv.edu/howh/Comet.html
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Howard Hickson Histories
Subject
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Stories of northeastern Nevada history authored by Howard Hickson.
Description
An account of the resource
Howard Hickson's Histories are true stories about Northeastern Nevada's colorful past, written with wry humor and keen insight into the sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, sometimes downright eerie lives of cowboys, miners, and gamblers, villains and saints and men and women of both extremes, who've inhabited or passed through the region. The collection is a cultural treasure that Great Basin College is privileged to make available to the world via the Internet. New stories are added as Howard sees fit.
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Howard Hickson
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Great Basin College
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07/08/2014
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c.2014 Howard Hickson
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English
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Stories of northeastern Nevada history authored by Howard Hickson.
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Elko, Nevada, northeastern Nevada, history, articles, Great Basin
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Halley's Comet
Subject
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Story from Howard Hickson's Histories regarding the visit of Halley's Comet.
Description
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Story from Howard Hickson's Histories regarding the visit of Halley's Comet.
Creator
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Howard Hickson
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Website for Howard Hickson's Histories and the story, Halley's Comet: The First 100 Years. http://www.gbcnv.edu/hickson/Comet.html
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Great Basin College
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04/21/2001
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Great Basin College
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c. 2001 Howard Hickson
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Website for Howard Hickson's Histories and the story, Halley's Comet: The First 100 Years. http://www.gbcnv.edu/hickson/Comet.html
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PDF format.
Language
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English
Type
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Story from Howard Hickson's Histories regarding the visit of Halley's Comet.
Coverage
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Elko, Nevada, northeastern Nevada, history, articles, Great Basin
Community
Crossroads
Elko
Great Basin
history
Northeastern Nevada
Story