View from the Past

100 Years Ag

The Nevada State Fair is now located at Fallon. Senator Keddie’s bill to move the state fair from Reno to Fallon was not a joke. Fallon and Churchill County gladly welcome the Nevada State Fair to its natural home on “Uncle Sam’s Nine Million Dollar Farm.” Where could one find a more appropriate place in the entire Sagebrush State for the annual meetings of the State Agricultural Society than in the midst of this thrifty farming community with hundreds of prosperous farms clustering like so many gems about the great agricultural and horticultural exhibits?

Churchill County Eagle, Saturday, February 13, 1915

The value of all the gold produced in the United States from 1792 to January 1, 1914, is estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey at $3,549,799,400, the value of the silver at $1,709,517,600. Churchill County Eagle, Saturday, February 13, 1915

75 Years Ago

Valentine’s Day…Mental meanderings of Johnny, youthful swain who has decided to eulogize the light of his life in immortal verse. “Boy am I hot! This will make even Shakespeare shudder. Toots will think I’m the great American Lover. Let’s see what rhymes with “June?” There’s balloon, goon, baboon. Moon! What rhymes with affection? Why can’t I get this junk to sound like poetry? What did Shelley have that I haven’t got? Baa baa black sheep, goosey gander. Valentine’s Day, bah! It’s a racket! I’m through - washed up – done! Let someone else write poetry. I’ll stay single. The Fallon Eagle, Saturday, February 10, 1940

History will repeat itself in a novel manner on March 16 when this city of ghosts sheds its sepulcher to throw a celebration the like of which has not been seen since the days of the bonanza kings – Comstock, Sutro, MacKay, and many others who clawed the foundation of vast fortunes from the fabulously rich Comstock lode. A fleet of sleek motor busses will contain personages as important and celebrated in this day as the bonanza kings were in theirs. There will be Errol Flynn, Miriam Hopkins, Humphrey Bogart, Randolph Scott. These are film stars, not bonanza kings and queens, but in this modern world their names are known to millions. The busses will contain many other celebrities, newspaper men and women, magazine writers and cameramen. They’re all coming to Virginia City to help revive its glamorous past in conjunction with the world’s premier of the lavish Warner Bros. motion picture, “Virginia City.”

The Fallon Eagle, Saturday, February 10, 1940

50 Years Ago

The Nevada Heart Association yesterday awarded a $500 research grant to the Medical Center to improve the devise which stimulates lagging heartbeats within the heart itself. Dr. Fredrick Elliot said the fund grant is the first of its kind in Nevada. The devise would not be activated by transistors, but by an impulse from the heart.

Fallon Eagle-Standard, Friday, February 12, 1965

A View From The Past…Stories from the Churchill County Museum Archives, researched and compiled by Margo Weldy, Churchill County Museum & Archives Assistant