The Truckee River is named after “Captain Truckee,” a Piute chief who in the early days guided a party of emigrants from the Humboldt to the beautiful stream and thence through Henness Pass across the Sierras to California. Captain Truckee also acted as a guide for Colonel Fremont when he passed through the country in 1846. He died in the Como Mountains in 1860, from the bite of some poisonous insect, and was there buried by members of his tribe, and whites, with much sorrow. A description of Pyramid Lake will be given further along, as it deserves a separate notice, being the largest lake wholly owned by Nevada, and almost as large as the Great Salt Lake, in Utah, which is seventy miles in length by about thirty in width.
CARSON RIVER.
The Carson River rises in the Sierras and has several tributaries across the line in California, in Alpine County. The river is about 220 miles in length and ends in Carson Lake. It enters Nevada in Douglas County. It has two branches, known as the East Fork and the West Fork. These unite near the town of Genoa, the county seat of Douglas County. The river then plows through the center of Douglas County into Ormsby, passing near Carson City, the capital of the State, thence into Lyon County, and finally finds its terminal “sink” in Carson Lake, in Churchill County. This lake has an outlet several miles in length into a second lake, or sink, which at times of great freshets is united with the lower sink of the Humboldt, as has already been mentioned. Carson Lake is circular in form and is about twelve miles long and eight or nine in width. It has a depth of forty or fifty feet, and its waters are quite sweet. The lower sink is about twenty miles long and from four to eight miles wide. Its waters, particularly toward the north end, where it is very shallow, are strongly alkaline. These lakes are at times resorted to by great flocks of all kinds of water fowl. It is a poor place for fish. Trout are not plentiful, and the other kinds—suckers and chubs—are soft and insipid.
The Carson River affords water for the irrigation of immense tracts of land in Douglas County, in Carson Valley, and other valleys below, and power for running many large quartz mills that work the ores of the Comstock Lode. The first of these mills are at Empire City, and they are thence found all along down the river to, and a short distance below, the town of Dayton.
Owing to the great quantities of water taken from it for the irrigation of ranches above in Carson Valley, the river becomes almost dry in the lower part of its course during the latter part of each summer. To remedy this evil large storage reservoirs should be constructed in the mountains and higher foot-hill regions.
WALKER RIVER.
Walker River rises in Mono and Alpine Counties, California, and flows through Douglas and Lyon Counties, Nevada. Walker Lake, Esmeralda County, forms its terminal sink. The river is about 150 miles in length. Its waters are bright and sweet, and are filled with trout and good food fishes of other varieties. The river has two large branches, known as the East and the West Walker, which unite below Mason’s Valley. The waters of Walker River serve to irrigate immense tracts of as fine land as is to be found on the Pacific Coast, lying in Antelope, Smith’s, and Mason’s Valleys. For the first half of its course the river flows northward, then it suddenly turns south and forms Walker Lake. This lake is a very bright, beautiful, and picturesque sheet of water. It is very irregular in form, being frequently widened and contracted between its rocky shores. It is about thirty miles long and has a width of from five to eight miles.
THE OWYHEE.
The Owyhee is the only Nevada river that finds its way to the ocean. It rises in Elko County, in the northwestern corner of the State, and, flowing north into Idaho, becomes a tributary of the Snake River. Through the Snake its waters find their way north into the Columbia River, and thence into the Pacific Ocean. Every spring salmon ascend the Owyhee and afford the anglers of Tuscarora and other mining towns and camps in that part of the State excellent and profitable sport. The Owyhee irrigates many beautiful valleys. In this region prairie-chickens and sage-hens are abundant, and a few deer are also found. In the vicinity of the river are fine and extensive cattle ranges.