150 years ago
Prison birds: Sheriff Reed brought in from Washoe yesterday two convicts under sentence of three years each in the penitentiary. Their names are Peter Kelly and — Brannan. Their hankering after amalgam at Dahl’s mill got them into the difficulty which has overtaken them.
130 years ago
Dayton reporter: In Mason Valley there were about 200 Paiutes in line a few days ago, hunting rabbits. They marched about 50 feet apart and their line extended about two miles.
100 years ago
More than 40 years ago, in the little mining town of Virginia City, Thomas F. Kelly bought a shirt, says the San Diego Union. Yesterday he paid the bill. Kelly, then a young miner, now residing at Galena, Ill., purchased the shirt of Joseph Barnett, merchant of Virginia City, before the fire that destroyed that town in 1876. He bought it on credit. It cost him $2.50. Kelly drifted off after the fire and later remembered the bill. He put an ad in the San Francisco Chronicle asking for whereabouts of Barnett or his heirs. An attorney read the article. He knew of Barnert’s widow in San Diego and forwarded the information to Kelly. Kelly is an old man now, but his mind is free for he has set his house in order.
70 years ago
Formation of a group of Alcoholics Anonymous in the Nevada State Prison moved toward realization this week after a meeting attended by five members of Reno and Carson City groups and 14 volunteer alcoholics confined in the penal institution. “Probably 75 percent of the men in our state prison are not criminals,” said Governor Vail Pittman. “Most of them are convicted of crimes committed while drunk or trying to get money for liquor.”
50 years ago
Gov. Grant Sawyer and his family moved out of the Governor’s Mansion into an apartment in Carson City, while overcast skies threatened snow. The Governor’s term ends Jan. 2.
30 years ago
Final campaign reports filed this week show Democratic Gov. Dick Bryan led all other candidates for state elective office by spending nearly $1.5 million in his successful re-election bid.
Trent Dolan is the son of Bill Dolan, who wrote this column for the Nevada Appeal from 1947 until his death in 2006.
