Central Pacific stations Tecoma to Wells
Your Guide Book to the Pacific Railroad, 1879
Stations in Nevada
Tecoma to Wells
As we near Tecoma, the traveler will notice a small granite monument on the left side of the track, near the summit of the grade, supported by a heap of stones. This monument marks the Nevada State Line and passing it, we enter the land of the "big bonanzas."
TECOMA
(724 miles from San Francisco, elevation 4,812 feet)
This is the nearest railroad station to the celebrated Tecoma Mines, one
owned by Howland & Aspinwall of New York, and the other by a London company.
Tecoma is the railroad station for Lucin Mining District, and
stages leave here every morning for Buel City, the mining town of the district,
six miles south.
The town has two or three stores, saloon, dwellings, etc.,
and will soon have a smelting works. It has a population of from 50 to 100; and
most of its business is with the mines and cattle men.
MONTELLO
(715 miles from San Francisco, elevation 5,010 feet)
At this station is a large water tank supplied with water from a spring in
the mountains on the right, some ten miles away.
TOANO
(698 miles from San Francisco, elevation 5,793 feet)
It is the western terminus of the Salt Lake Division of the Central Pacific
and nearly 183 miles from Ogden. Toano has a roundhouse with 14 stalls and an
adjoining shed where two engines can be sheltered. The town has a population of
about 250 people.
The following mining districts are tributary to this place
and transact the most of their business here:
Silver
Zone, distant 20 miles
Dolly Varden, 55 miles
Cherry Creek, 100 miles
Egan Canon, 105 miles
Shellburn, 110 miles
Mineral City, 130 miles
Ward, 140 miles
They are all south of the railroad, and connected with Toano by a good wagon road. Stages run regularly to Cherry Creek.
PEQUOP
(689 miles from San Francisco, elevation 6,184 feet)
It is simply a side track, at which passenger trains do
not stop.
INDEPENDENCE
(676 miles from San Francisco, elevation 6,007 feet)
We are now crossing a low divide between the valleys on
our right and Independence Valley on our left.
This station is on a heavy down grade, and trains going west
seldom stop. There is a winter telegraph station for use of snow-bound trains.
MOORE'S
(669 miles from San Francisco, elevation 6,166 feet)
It was formerly quite a town for wood-choppers and frontier
men, when the railroad was being built; but its glory has departed and the
stakes and posts of a few houses are all that remain to mark the spot.
Down the grade we go into the far-famed Humboldt Valley.
WELLS
(661 miles from San Francisco, elevation 5,629 feet)
The town has about 200 inhabitants, with roundhouse for three
engines, a hotel, stores, saloon, etc.
Humboldt Wells as they are called, give celebrity to this
place. They are really springs about thirty in number, situated in a low
basin half a mile west of the station.
It was the great watering place in times of the old emigrant
travel, and at least three of the roads converged to this place and united
here.
These were the Grass Creek, the Thousand Spring Valley and
the Cedar Pass Roads. Emigrants in those days rejoiced when they had passed the
perils of the Great American Desert, and arrived at these springs where there
was plenty of water, pure and sweet and an abundance of grass for their weary
and worn animals. Hence it was a favorite camping ground.
Travelers will take notice that a mail and express stage line
leaves Wells tri-weekly: Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the morning, for
Sprucemont, 40 miles, and Cherry Creek, 95 miles distant.
At Cherry Creek this line connects with stages for Egan
Canon, on the line of the old overland stage route.
Stages also run 100 miles south to Shellburne, also to Bull
Run.