Historic Houses And Buildings Of Reno Nevada

This guide highlights the architectural and historical significance of more than sixty important homes, ranch houses, and buildings in Reno, Nevada. Known as The Biggest Little City in the World since the 1930s, when quickie divorces and casino gaming were legalized by the Nevada Legislature, Reno has reinvented itself several times during its nearly 150 years of history. Founded in the 1860s on the banks of the scenic Truckee River in Northern Nevada, Reno has had a fascinating journey, from its beginnings as an Emigrant Trail outpost, to its role in the mid-1930s invention of the hotel and casino industry. Cattle barons, mine speculators, and bank presidents in 19th century Reno built their mansions on the high bluff above the Truckee River, surrounded by extensive gardens, transforming the arid little town into what author Walter Van Tilburg Clark called The City of Trembling Leaves. Also featured is the beautiful University of Nevada, Reno, campus, with its Neoclassical buildings designed by Reno s most prominent architect, Frederic Delongchamps. Enhanced with both historical and contemporary photographs, the book includes maps, a glossary of architectural terms with local examples, and a list of architectural styles found in Reno.

This completely revised and updated edition of A Short History of Reno provides an entertaining and informative account of Reno’s remarkably colorful history. Richard Moreno discusses Reno’s efforts, from its early beginnings in the 1850s to the present day, to reinvent itself as a recreation, entertainment, education, and technology hub. Moreno looks at the gamblers, casino builders, and performers who helped create the world-famous gaming industry, and he considers the celebrities who came to end unhappy marriages back when Reno was “the divorce capital of the world.” Moreno brings the city’s history up-to-date with coverage of the businesspeople and civic leaders who helped make Reno an attraction that still lures millions of visitors each year. Today’s travelers and residents explore Reno’s flamboyant heart and scenic wonders, topics the author examines in an accessible and lively fashion.

LaVere Redfield was a prolific hoarder. When he died in 1974, his estate was estimated at more than $70 million. Executors found 680 bags of silver coins and 407,000 Morgan and Peace silver dollars in his Reno mansion. A local Reno legend, Redfield gambled regularly in Virginia Street casinos. He survived robbery and burglaries of his home, which contained false walls to store millions of silver dollars. Hating banks and paper money, as well as big government, Redfield opted to serve a prison term for income tax evasion rather than pay his debts from his ample fortune. Join author Jack Harpster for this first book-length study of this unconventional man behind the folklore and the myth.

Over 157 years ago—before there was a Reno, Nevada; before there was a state of Nevada; and even before there was a Nevada Territory—there was a bridge over the Truckee River at a narrow, deeply rutted cattle and wagon trail that would one day become Virginia Street. There was also a small rustic inn and tavern occupying a plot of ground at the southern end of the log-and-timber bridge, catering to thirsty cowboys, drovers, and miners. The inn and the bridge were the first two structures in what would one day be a bustling metropolitan area, and to this day they still form the nucleus of the city. The Genesis of Reno traces their history up to the present day. The 111 year-old concrete bridge that was replaced in 2016 by a magnificent new structure was honored for its longevity and unique character with placement on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

In 1991, Nevada’s Commission for Cultural Affairs was formed to oversee the preservation of the state’s historic buildings and the conversion of the best of them for use as cultural centers. This program has rehabilitated dozens of historic structures valued by their communities for the ways they represent the development of the state and its culture. Nevada’s Historic Buildings highlights ninety of these buildings, describing them in the context of the state’s history and the character of the people who created and used them. Here are reminders of mining boomtowns, historic ranches, transportation, the divorce and gaming industries, the New Deal, and the innovation of Las Vegas’s post-modern aesthetic. These buildings provide a cross-section of Nevada’s rich historic and cultural heritage and their survival offers everyone the experience of touching the past.