Ghost town lecture at museum Thursday

Stan Paher will be lecturing about Nevada ghost towns at the Douglas County Historical Society's monthly lecture series on Thursday. Stan is a special friend of the historical society and has written several books about the history of our state. This will be your chance to get out and hear this expert on Nevada.

The lecture starts at 7 p.m. and admission is free for all DCHS members or $3 for nonmembers. Stan will cover historic ghost towns such as Bodie, Aurora, Hamilton, Ward and Candelaria. Just to learn about Bodie alone is worth the time. Come live history and possibly pick up a book or two about it.

Tickets are now on sale for our Haunted Weekend on Oct. 21-24. This is a special four-day event that will walk you past several of our area's founding fathers and mothers. You'll get to meet them, learn their stories and enjoy our fall weather as well. Tickets are $5 and available at the Carson Valley Museum & Cultural Center in Gardnerville. Call 782-2555 for more information.

Saturday, Oct. 23, at the Dangberg Home Ranch features Anita Watson portraying Emma Nevada who was considered one of the finest coloratura sopranos of the late 19th century. She was born Emma Wixom in a mining camp near Nevada City, Calif., in 1859, and spent much of her childhood in Austin, Nev. She adopted the stage name Emma Nevada to honor her Western American roots. The event begins at 10 a.m. Bring lawn chairs and water, but please leave your family pet at home.

Remember to put the park's annual clothing exhibit on your calendar for noon to 4 p.m. Oct. 29-31 and Nov. 6-7. Come see what they wore way back when and how tiny the sizes were.

We now have two geocaches at our museums. Dave Thomas and Vicki Hargrove have hidden one geocache at the Gardnerville museum and the other at the Genoa museum. The online description of each geocache tells about the museum and describes the exhibits inside. Hopefully the geocaches will draw people to the museums and some will stay for a tour.

Geocaching is a fast growing sport that started about 10 years ago. Using a hand-held GPS, the geocacher looks for hidden containers called caches. Because people usually hide geocaches at locations they think are interesting, geocaching often takes you to places you did not know about.

Find out more at www.geocaching.com, the official geocaching website. To see the description of each of the museum caches, enter GC2ANBR and GC2AR44 in the search box on the website. Try geocaching; it's fun.

For any questions, contact the Douglas County Historical Society at www.historicnevada.org or the Carson Valley Museum & Cultural Center in Gardnerville at 782-2555. Remember, DCHS and its two museums in Gardnerville and Genoa don't receive any regular state or county funding. It's up to our members and friends to help keep our doors open.

Contact Ellen Caywood at in2my2cats@yahoo.com or 790-1565.