By Mark McLaughlin ·
In October, Nevada will celebrate 150 years of statehood. It was on Halloween in 1864 that Congress approved admittance of the Silver State into the Union.
America’s Civil War was still raging and Nevada’s entry as a free soil state helped bolster President Abraham Lincoln and his Republican Party in their efforts to abolish slavery in the United States. And, the wealth being produced by the Comstock mining operations would help finance the war. The U.S. government had lost much of its revenue after the North imposed a naval blockade on imports to Southern ports. The loss of tariffs on imported goods gutted the Treasury and forced the federal government to impose the country’s first income tax.
One of Nevada’s most prominent early citizens was Myron C. Lake, the “Founding Father of Reno.” Myron Lake bought much of the land that is now downtown Reno from C. W. “Bill” Fuller, who had arrived in the Truckee Meadows in 1859. Fuller had built a bridge over the Truckee River for which he charged a toll from all the stagecoaches and commercial wagon freighters rushing to the booming Comstock. In 1861, Myron Lake acquired Fuller’s land and toll bridge business with the intent to expand with a large hotel and other amenities.
Myron Lake possessed a keen eye to take advantage of any business opportunity. Considering that Reno later became known as the “divorce capital of the world,” it is somewhat ironic that the inside story of how Myron had become such a rich man was revealed during his highly publicized 1880 divorce from his wife Jane.
At the trial, Lake testified, “I came to California overland in the spring of 1852. I went to a place called Rabbit Creek [present day La Porte] and mined there in surface diggings for five years. I then went to Lassen County, California, to Honey Lake Valley and went into farming. I got a farm by giving $50 and a house for it. I lived there four years and farmed all the time. From there I came to what is now Reno and bought the property here.” That property later became the site of the famed Riverside Hotel.
“I traded my ranch in Honey Lake Valley for the Reno property on June 22, 1861,” Lake reported. “I got $1,500 to boot in the trade. I have resided here ever since. When I bought this property there was just the toll road, the bridge, and a wayside hotel for teamsters, with a barn connected to it. It was a pretty fair hotel, a frame house, one-and-a-half stories high. I met Mrs. Lake at Honey Lake Valley at her father’s home. I had not visited her very frequently before we were married. We were married at her father’s house with the intention of coming to Nevada to reside afterward. I brought her and two of her children, Florence and Seymour, down to my place which is known as Lake’s Bridge,” he concluded.
But Myron had not found financial success by himself. Contesting her husband’s proposed financial settlement, Jane Lake told the court her side of the story. She explained that they were married at Honey Lake on Sept. 9, 1864, and came to live in Reno at Myron’s hotel. Unfortunately, the mines in Virginia City had temporarily stopped paying dividends and the region was suffering an economic depression. The next year, the struggling newlyweds decided to cash in on the new mining excitement at Meadow Lake, north of Donner Pass. The remote site high in the mountains had exploded into a bustling boomtown due to a gold strike in the area. Prospectors were swarming all over the district and the price of real estate was soaring. In the summer of 1865, the couple made the difficult and arduous climb up and over the Sierra crest to the isolated alpine lake.
Jane bitterly recounted the trek in her divorce testimony. “In 1865 or 1866, I’m not certain, Mr. Lake took me up to Meadow Lake. It was the time of the excitement there. We intended to start a hotel. We went in a wagon, heavily loaded, so heavy that I had to walk up the hills for miles at a stretch. The fatigue that I endured on that trip, together with the hard work at the mines, brought on a dyspeptic and bowel complaint from which I never fully recovered. At Meadow Lake we opened a hotel in a canvas tent, keeping from 50 to 75 boarders, for whom I cooked and waited upon. This lasted for five months.”
While his wife toiled, Myron built a large two-story wooden hotel. By the end of the 1866 summer mining season, there were 600 new buildings at Meadow Lake, including a church and a sturdy, brick bank. Besides Lake’s hotel, there were now two other large boarding houses; all three were packed with customers day and night. As summer waned, about 400 people decided to winter at Meadow Lake, but a nasty snowstorm on Sept. 24 sent half of them packing for Sacramento, Virginia City or Reno. Jane and Myron Lake were among the deserters.
A long, cold winter in the High Sierra had no appeal for the couple, so they sold their hotel for a tidy profit and returned to Nevada. It was well that they did, for those who stayed found themselves marooned most of the winter (more than 65 feet of snow fell on the Summit that winter). In 1868, fire leveled the Lake House Hotel, which had already been abandoned and standing vacant. While this catastrophe did not end other adventures at Meadow Lake, it severed all ties that the Lake’s had to that short-lived boomtown.
Meanwhile, Jane and Myron were becoming wealthy. Central Pacific Railroad was building the nation’s first transcontinental railroad across northern Nevada and construction reached Reno in 1868. In a stroke of good fortune, the line for the railroad crossed right through the Lake’s property. Myron Lake saw another gold strike in a deal with Central Pacific. His contract with construction supervisor Charles Crocker for the railroad right-of-way became the solid basis for the famed Lake fortune. Find out how Myron and Jane split the money in the next issue.
Tahoe historian Mark McLaughlin is a nationally published author and professional speaker. His award-winning books are available at stores or at thestormking.com. Mark may be reached at mark@thestormking.com. Check out Mark’s blog at tahoenuggets.com.
