Emigrant Trail subject of free lecture series

by Sharlene Irete

Staff Reporter

Nevada author Stanley Paher discusses emigrant trails through Douglas County to California, 7 p.m. Thursday, at the Carson Valley Museum & Cultural Center 1477 Highway 395, Gardnerville.

The lecture and slide show is about a new book edited by Paher, "Emigrant Trails: The Long Road to California."

"Mainly the talk is about the Carson River route from the Humboldt River through the Forty-Mile Desert north of Fallon," said Paher. "The emigrants' diaries from that time said it was a hard route."

Paher's presentation includes early photographs of Carson Valley, Genoa, Virginia City and Dayton.

"I'll have maps and pictures from the new book that people may not have seen before, and some new slides and photos that I just took," he said.

"Emigrant Trails: The Long Road to California, a History and Guide to the Emigrant Routes from Central Nevada to the Crossing of the Sierra with the End of the Trail for the Donner Party" by Marchall Fey, R. Joe King, Jack Lepisto, and edited by Paher, was published in 2008 by the Western Trails Research Association of Reno.

The book is available at Borders, the Nevada State Museum and at the Main Street Book Store inside the Gardnerville museum.

Paher is working on the eighth edition of "Nevada Ghost Towns & Mining Camps: Illustrated Atlas," due out March 2009. The updated full-color atlas contains maps and photographs of gem and placer gold sites, caves, lime kilns, pioneer cemeteries and identification of 72 historical railroad T markers in Nevada.

"And especially information about ghost towns," he said. "The book contains anything of interest to people who like to explore the desert, just off paved roads or off-road. You don't need a four-wheel drive to find some of these places."

The free lecture series is sponsored by the Douglas County Historical Society the second Thursday of the month. The museum and the Main Street Book Store will be open before and following the one-hour lecture.

Information, 782-2555.