r
Pahrump Valley Gazette, Thursday, October 30, 1997 17
,!
Gazette on the street...
What is the zaniest thing you ever did on Halloween?
Pahrump Utah
PAT PATTERSON-- Machinist
-- "Put a wagon up on top of the
post office."
[EANNINE VanAUSDAL --
Engineer -- "A bunch of married
women dressed up in costumes and
we went around to each others
homes. The husbands w¢re the only
one home and we put on a show and
made them give us something to
eat."
Pahrump
GRACE WILLIS -- Retired
housewife -- "We had a scavenger
hunt and it was t lot of fun."
Pahrump
GERALD URQUHART --
Retired chemist -- "I was really
good on Halloween -- we just
went out trick or treating. We
would have got in big trouble had
we done anything bad. I am from
Canada so perhaps they are more
strict up there."
Pahrump
RED CRAWFORD -- Retired
miner -- "Pushed over an outhouse
with a woman in it. That was up in
Ely, Nevada."
Compiled by PVG staff photographers
482-3016 No to Abuse 751-1118
Tonopah 24 Hr. Crisis Line Pahrump
Nevada-then and now
New Book on Lake Tahoe/Sierra Eastern slope
by Phillip I. Earl
Nevada Historical Society
j ust off the press is a new historical work by Mark McLaughlin,
focusing on Lake Tahoe and the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada,
"Siei'ra Stories: True Tales of Tahoe." Available from the Nevada
Historical Society,
1650 North Virginia St., Reno,
Nev. 89503, at a cost of $10
plus $1.50 postage and han-
dling for mail orders, this book
would be a worthwhile addi-
tion to anyone's library. Al-
though all of the twelve stories
have been published elsewhere
over the years, they are long
out of print and otherwise un-
available to modem readers.
The story of Moses
Schallenberger's solitary so-
journ at Donner Lake during
the winter of 1845-46 is over-
shadowed by the saga of the
Donner Party just a year later.
Some members of the party took
over his cabin at the lake and
the mountain just to the south
is known as Schallenberger
Ridge to this day. A flume laborer riding a "go-devil" on a Sierra Nevada flume.
The chapter on Snowshoe
Thompson, a Norwegian who carried mail on skis from Placerville to Carson
Valley in the 1850s deserves reprinting, as does the chapter on the Pony
Express, particularly the sections dealing with the hardships and dangers of
carrying mail across the mountains in the early 1860s.
Squaw Valley, famed as the site of the 1960 Winter Olympics, is touched
upon in terms of a mining rush in 1862-63. Many heretofore obscure
historical sites in the area are mentioned and plotted on a sectional map, a
bonus for hikers and explorers. The history of the timber flumes of the eastern
slope chronicled in the book
would be of equal interest to
those who have turned the
old flume trails into venues
for mountain hiking and bik-
ing.
Among the odd and as-
sorted characters associated
with the Sierra Nevada and
Lake Tahoe who find a place
in the book are Hank Monk,
legendary stagecoach
driver, and Charley
Parkhurst, stage driver and
freighter, who was discov-
ered to be a woman follow-
ing her death in 1879.
The author also
chronicles the Verdi Train
Robbery in November 1870,
and several incidents related
to the Great Snow Block-
ade in the mountains in
January 1890. In a conclud-
ing chapter, the history of marathon swimming at Lake Tahoe is discussed
in some detail.
This book is a limited edition, so readers should get their orders in if
interested. For further information, call the Nevada Historical Society in
Reno at (702) 688-1191.
