At one time there were in operation in Washoe County ten mills (four or five near Washoe City), having an aggregate of 281 stamps, but the completion of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad to the Carson River was sudden death to all the mills, and killed all the towns. All the ore went to the river.
Wadsworth.
Wadsworth, on the Central Pacific, thirty-four miles east of Reno, is a bright and growing little town. It is situated at the “Big Bend” of the Truckee River, a place well known to those who toiled across the plains in the early days. The place contains about 600 inhabitants. In it are the machine shops, round-house, and freight depot of the Central Pacific, and many good and substantial buildings, both public and private. Before the Carson and Colorado Railroad was built, Wadsworth was a shipping-point for many mining towns and camps to the southward. It still has a very fair trade.
Verdi.
Verdi, eleven miles west of Reno, on the Central Pacific, is a pleasant little lumbering town on the Truckee River, at the eastern base of the Sierras. It is a town of saw-mills and of manufactories of articles made of wood. In the way of mills and machinery Verdi contains a large amount of valuable property.
LAKE TAHOE.
Surrounding Objects of Interest.
All visitors to the Pacific Coast who are lovers of the beautiful and picturesque in natural scenery, will endeavor to spend some time at Lake Tahoe. Taking into consideration the surroundings, there is nowhere in the world a more grandly beautiful mountain lake. The lake lies between the eastern and western summit ridges of the main ridge of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, at an elevation of 6,247 feet above the level of the sea. Its length is a little over twenty-one miles, and its width about twelve miles. Roughly it has the form of a parallelogram, lying nearly north and south, about one-third in Nevada and the remainder in California. It has an area of 204 square miles, as is shown by measurements made in four places across its width, and longitudinally (north and south) in three places. Its greatest depth is 1,800 feet.
It is shut in and surrounded on all sides by mountains that rise to a height of from 2,000 to 5,000 feet above its surface. The lake evidently occupies an extinct volcanic crater of great size. Soundings show in the bottom a deep channel or crevice which extends nearly the whole length of the lake in a north and south direction. In this the depth is everywhere from 1,500 to 1,700 feet. The deepest spot (1,800 feet) is toward the south end of the lake, in front of Mount Tallac. The water is of great purity and crystal clearness, and never freezes.
The lake receives the waters of fifty-one creeks and brooks, the largest of which is the Upper Truckee, which falls in at the south end. It also receives the aqueous contributions of almost innumerable ravines, gorges, and canyons. It drains an area of over 500 square miles, composed largely of lofty mountains on which the snow falls to a depth of many feet, and by the melting of which the numerous streams are fed. There are also many living springs on the sides of the surrounding mountains, with a great number (both hot and cold) along the shores of the lake, and doubtless a much larger number deep beneath its surface. The only outlet of the lake is the Truckee River, at its northwest corner. This outlet, which forms the head of the Truckee River, is fifty feet in width, has an average depth of five feet, and a velocity of six feet a second, making the discharge 123,120,000 cubic feet in twenty-four hours, in early spring when the snow in the mountains is rapidly melting.