FEBRUARY, 1951 35 CENTS - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

through Wabuska and down green, irrigated
Mason Valley.
When we reached Yerington, we
found that Arthur Gentry's son-inlaw,
Bruce Barnum, mayor of the
town, had arranged to leave business
and official duties to help guide us to
the rock field. Yerington, trading center
of Mason Valley, is the seat of
Lyon county. Mason Valley's first inhabitants
settled there in 1860, when
the rush to the silver discoveries at
Aurora was on, taking up ranches
which they watered from the east and
west branches of the Walker River.
In its infant days, Yerington bore
the amazing name of Pizen Switch.
There are many stories as to the origin
of the name, and Mayor Barnum
told us one. During the silver rush,
one fellow didn't wait for buildings
before going into business here. He
simply opened a whiskey barrel at the
edge of the sagebrush. As the level in
the barrel fell and he had no way of
replenishing it, he poured in odds and
ends of whatever was available—even
plug tobacco, some said. Then he
stirred the mixture with a sagebrush
switch.
It was such vile stuff that the imbibers
called it "pizen" and the title
Pizen Switch gradually became attached
to the place. When enough
solid citizens settled near, they changed
the name to Greenfield. Then, about
1869, the Virginia and Truckee railroad
was built to connect Carson City
and Virginia City. The Mason Valley
inhabitants wanted the railroad extended
to tap their country. H. M.
Yerington was an official of the road.
They named the town Yerington. The
name stuck, but the railroad was not
extended.
Yerington is proud of the attractions
it has for mineral collectors.
Mayor Bruce was determined to show
us as many of them as possible. Before
we started for Wilson Canyon, he
drove us to the Singatse Mountains,
west of town, to visit the dumps of
copper mines for which Yerington once
was famous and especially to see the
big glory hole of the Bluestone.
Copper first was discovered in these
mountains at the Ludwig mine in 1865.
In some of the claims chalcanthite—
or bluestone—was found in quantities
that could be mined profitably. This
ore formed the principal output of the
area in the early days, being shipped
to Virginia City to furnish the copper
sulphate used in amalgamating rich
silver ores of the Comstock lode.
After 1907 important companies
became interested in the big lower
grade ore bodies below the enriched
oxidized zone. The Southern Pacific
railroad was at Wabuska then, and
from it the Nevada Copper Belt railroad
was built to the Ludwig mine,
being completed in 1911. Records
indicate that prior to 1905 about a
million pounds of copper was produced
in the district. More accurate
figures of the U. S. Geological Survey
from 1905 to 1917 show a production
of 61,193,800 pounds of copper,
largely from the Bluestone, Mason
Valley and Douglas-Nevada mines.
With exhaustion of better ores, low
copper prices and increased mining
costs, the big mines closed down. Recent
diamond drillings reportedly have
shown large reserves, and big scale
operations are said to be under consideration
now.
Once the road to the Bluestone was
good. But through the years the fine
sand of the mill tailings has formed
15.7 M
WILSON CANYON
PETRIFIED WOOD AREA
/• \'
many large sand dunes, and a great
deal of it has blown across the road.
When the wheels began to chatter and
spin, we left the car and hiked around
the curve to the first waste dumps. In
them were many bright-colored bits
of copper ore. Bruce advised us to
keep climbing, saying that there was
better material ahead.
Passing big pits where the ore had
been gouged out, he led us through a
40-foot tunnel which opened onto a
still larger pit. We scrambled up a
goat trail and stood, uncertainly balanced
in the wind, on a narrow ridge
at the edge of the huge glory hole, so
big that full-sized tunnels on the far
side looked like mice holes.
We returned to the car, stopping
briefly to collect specimens of malachite,
azurite. bornite, chalcanthite
FEBRUARY, 195 1 13