Out of Truckee we ran for fifteen or twenty miles through a barren sagebrush country with only an occasional tumble-down abandoned ranch house to break the monotony of the scene. The road was fine, but it took a sudden turn for the worse when we entered the straggling yellow pine forest that covers the hill range between Truckee and Reno. It was rough and stony in spots and we climbed steadily for several miles. We saw some pretty scenery, however, for the mighty forest rose to the very summits of the rugged hills above us and followed the dark canyon below downward to the river’s edge. Beyond the summit we began the descent of Dog Canyon—whence its poetical designation we did not learn—the longest and steepest straight grade we encountered in several thousand miles of mountaineering. For seven miles or more it drops down the side of the canyon without a single turn, the grades ranging from six to twenty per cent, deep with dust and very rough in places, a trying descent on brakes and driver. We met a few cars scrambling wearily up with steaming radiators and growling gears, but what more excited our sympathies were several canvas-covered wagons drawn by reeking horses that seemed ready to drop in their tracks from exhaustion. At the foot of the grade just beyond the Nevada line, we came into the village of Verdi, directly on the river and evidently the destination of many of the pine logs we had seen along our road, for here was a large saw mill. Beyond Verdi we followed the Truckee, bordered by emerald green alfalfa fields just being mown. The yield was immense, indicating a rich, well-watered soil, but in the main the ranch houses were small and poor, with squalid surroundings. Nearer Reno, however, we noted some improvement and occasionally we passed a neat and prosperous-looking ranch house. Coming into the town we sought the Riverside Hotel, which is rightly named, for it stands directly on the banks of the Truckee. We had difficulty in getting satisfactory accommodations—court was in session and it was opening day of the races, with a consequent influx of litigants and sports. We learned later that Reno is always a busy town and advance hotel arrangements should not be neglected by prospective guests.
III
RENO TO KLAMATH FALLS
Reno has acquired a nation-wide fame for its “wide open” proclivities and we fear that much of the prosperity we saw on every hand may be due to its liberal though generally deprecated practices. The 1910 census gave the town a population of about ten thousand and if we allow a gain of as much as fifty per cent since then, it is still no more than a good-sized village so far as people are concerned. However this may be, its buildings, public and private, its streets and residences, its shops and hotels, would do credit to the average eastern town of from thirty to fifty thousand. One bank building we especially noted would not be out of place on Fifth Avenue and the courthouse, postoffice, the Y. M. C. A. building, and the theaters are all out of the small-town class. On the ridge east of the river, surrounded by beautiful grounds, are numerous handsome residences built by old-time mining magnates, most of whom are now dead.
Mining was the foundation of Reno’s prosperity and it cuts considerable figure in the commerce of the town at present. The greater part of its business activity, however, is due to the rich farming country that surrounds the city, to the railroad machine shops, which employ over two thousand men, and to several minor manufacturing establishments which in the aggregate employ a considerable number of people. These are resources that may be common to many other live towns, but Reno has several sources of income quite peculiar to itself that an indulgent state legislature, largely composed of Renoans, has made possible by shrewd enactments. Here it is still lawful to race horses as in the good old days with everything wide open and bookmakers galore. A solid month each year is devoted to the speed track, during which time the sportively inclined congregate in Reno from all parts of the West and squander much ready cash in the town. Prize fighting is also permitted and here it was that Robert Fitzsimmons plucked the laurel wreath from the classic brow of Jim Corbet before an appreciative audience of fifty thousand devotees of the manly art from every corner of the country.
But Reno’s great specialty has been the loosening of the matrimonial tie—for a consideration—and many well-known and wealthy people became guests of the town for the six months’ period necessary to secure a divorce. Yielding to outside public sentiment after awhile, the legislature extended the period of residence to one year, hoping, no doubt, to get credit for righteousness—and more cash from seekers after matrimonial freedom. It killed the infant industry, however; evidently the idle rich preferred to endure the tortures of unhappy married life rather than spend a year in Reno, and they quit coming. The legislature hastened to restore the six-month clause in the statute and as a consequence the divorce mills are turning out fair grist again. Our waitress at the hotel pointed out one or two bejeweled females who were “doing time” in Reno to get rid of their incompatible mates, and declared that there was a considerable colony of both sexes in the town waiting for their papers. Some authorities intimate that two thousand dollars is the minimum sum necessary for an outsider to secure a decree in a Nevada court, but doubtless many of the multi-millionaires leave several times that sum behind them, for the citizens do their full duty in providing entertainment that will separate their guests from their cash.
It would hardly be expected that the prohibition wave now sweeping the west coast would be at all likely to cross the Nevada line—in fact, at this writing Nevada is the only state to contest with New Jersey for the doubtful honor of being all wet, where even local option has not succeeded in getting a footing. The saloons of Reno are numerous and palatial and doubtless contribute not a little to the comfort of those of the sporting fraternity who make the town their Mecca. The only attempt at sumptuary legislation is an “anti-treat” law which insists that everyone must drink at his own expense. As to gambling, I was told that this pleasant pastime has been little interfered with since the old mining days, though it is not now conducted so openly except in connection with the races.
As the metropolis and center of population of the state, Reno should logically be the capital, but this honor is held by Carson, a village of five thousand people about twenty miles to the south. Within a radius of fifty miles is grouped perhaps half the population of the state, which, with all its vast area of seventy-five thousand square miles, had but seventy-five thousand people according to the last census. No other state in the Union has such vast areas of uninhabited desert, but the natives will strive to impress upon you that a great future is assured—all that is necessary to make this sagebrush country bloom like the rose is water, and water can be had from artesian wells almost anywhere in the Nevada valleys.
However, it is quite outside my province to write a disquisition on the resources of Nevada, and I have been dwelling on Reno only because it seemed of unusual interest to me and was a stopping-place on our tour. Our hotel, the Riverside, is a huge red-brick structure standing directly on the banks of the Truckee so that its windows overlook the swift stream, which moves so rapidly that it does not lose its clearness even in the town limits. We found the Riverside fairly comfortable—it would have been still more so had we made reservations in advance—and its rates were very moderate as compared with the average Western hotel of its class. Reno occupies an important position in the motor world as a stopping-place on the Lincoln Highway and an outfitting station for much of the surrounding country. It has excellent garages with good repair facilities and its streets were thronged with cars of all degrees.
The next morning we took the road to the north out of the town roughly following the recently completed Northern California & Oregon Railroad, which gives Northeastern California and Southern Oregon an outlet to the Southern Pacific at Reno. The twenty miles in Nevada before reaching the California line gave us an opportunity to see first-hand some of the state’s resources of which they talked at Reno. The road was unexpectedly good, smooth and free from dust, with gently rolling grades. The view was quite unobstructed and permitted speed ad libitum, keeping a sharp lookout, of course, for an occasional rough spot or sandy stretch. A more desolate country than that which stretched away on either hand would be hard to imagine. A wide valley, without even sagebrush or cactus to relieve its barrenness, was guarded on both sides by ranges of bleak, rugged hills which, near at hand, seemed more like vast cinder heaps than anything else. Only the far distance was able to transform the scene and to lend something of “enchantment to the view,” softening the rough outlines with a violet haze and tinging the desert sands with hues of mauve and lavender. Trees and shrubs there were none and there were scant indications of vegetation at any time of the year. At long intervals we passed little deserted ranch houses which indicated that some hopeful soul had once endeavored to develop the “resources” of the country, but had given up in despair and “of his name and race had left no token and no trace.” At one point we crossed Dry Lake, a vast, level saline deposit as hard and white and nearly as smooth as polished marble—an ideal auto race course.