It would be a lie to say we had never heard that the 6 p.m. siren was established to tell the Washoe to get out of town.
It is an urban myth like many that have spread through Carson Valley and it has a nugget of truth.
Research has uncovered the rather uncomfortable fact that an ordinance was indeed enacted in Douglas County that ordered an entire race of people, Indians, to leave Gardnerville by sunset. Whatever its motivation, the ordinance violated both the letter and the spirit of the 14th amendment of the Constitution at the time. That it took 66 years for the county to repeal the ordinance is a sin we agree must be atoned for.
Just as the ordinance failed to treat the Washoe as individuals under the law, so does the elimination of Minden's 6 p.m. siren apply the general to an individual who may not be guilty.
At the risk of pleading a losing case, we point out that the ordinance researched by county staff is the only version we have. There may be others, but this is the one we know of. We've already shown that if the 6 p.m. siren was indeed a signal for the Washoe to leave town by sunset it was a very poor one. In winter it would have gone off too late and in summer, too early.
More telling perhaps is that the ordinance is very specific about its application in terms of geographical application.
The ordinance applied to Gardnerville and Millerville. It did not by any reading apply to Minden, which at the time would have been the railroad depot, the flour mill and a smattering of houses. Under a strict reading of the ordinance, those Washoe who made it to Minden by sunset would have been safe from Gardnerville's constable.
Before we convict Minden's 6 p.m. siren in the court of political correctness, let's at least make sure that we are correct in our assumptions about it. Otherwise we are showing the same prejudice the siren is accused of representing.
