US 395, Part 13: Reno (BR 395/NV 430, Old US 395)

Reno is Nevada's third largest city at 180,480 [2000], behind Las Vegas and Henderson (both of which you can see in the US 95 Vegas to Blythe photoessay), and Washoe county's seat since 1871. It sits around 22 miles northeast of Lake Tahoe. Nevada's "Biggest Little City in the World," as it is self-billed (originally "Biggest Little City on the Map," from a slogan for a 1910 prizefight), was historically first established as Lake's Crossing in 1861 by Myron Lake. In turn, Lake's little service community owed its roots to entrepreneur Charles Fuller, who had built a toll log bridge across the Truckee River in 1859 to cash in on the transportation racket to and from Virginia City and the mines. Fuller sold out to Lake after two years, who grew the bridge into his eponymous community offering lodging, meals, and mill and livery service. When the Central Pacific Railroad arrived in 1868 to complete the transcontinental railroad, Lake was anxious to guarantee a rail connection for his enterprise and gave land to Central Pacific in exchange for a promise the railroad would establish a depot at Lake's Crossing. This was established in 1868, at which point the town of Reno was born and named in honour of Union Maj. Gen. Jesse L. Reno, a casualty of the Civil War.

Reno, like Las Vegas, did not gain preeminence in the state until the mining boom died out. Its economy was further enriched with Nevada's legalization of gambling in 1931 and its then-liberal divorce laws that made it the best spot in the nation to cut the knot until other states eventually relaxed their restrictions as well. However, Las Vegas' proximity to southern California combined with the rise of local Indian gaming has tarnished Reno's casino viability (as well as that of northern Nevada in general), killing off many smaller gaming establishments and dropping business for the few large enough to remain. Today, in addition to the remaining casinos (which still do a brisk business on travel weekends), it is also the home of University of Nevada Reno, Nevada's oldest university (established 1874) and the only judicial college in the entire nation.

Old US 395 through Reno survives as Virginia Street, over which the famous Reno neon arch stretches (which we will get to see). This is well-demonstrated on the small map inset at right from 1966. US 395's alignments through Reno are the only other sections of the highway that ever had ALT or TEMP alignments, to be discussed as we reach them. None of them remain in the present day. Click the inset at right for a complete basic city map at that time (64K).

In highway history, the intersection of Virginia St and Fourth St is the historic junction of US 40 and US 395, and also the southeastern terminus of Alternate US 40 from 1955-64 (shown just after its initial signage to the left; note how it is now gone from the 1966 map above). US 40 was the Victory Highway (which we will discuss), the inheritor of the famous "National Road," as well as the western portion of the northern "Donner" alignment of the Lincoln Highway in California (see Part 11); it has been replaced in the present day by Interstate 80 between San Francisco and Silver Creek Jct, UT since 1975, although Reno was its western terminus between 1966 and 1975 after I-80's construction in California. Note the presence of TEMP I-80 shields on the 1966 inset. From its western terminus today near Salt Lake City, it continues on its historic old alignment across the nation to Atlantic City, NJ, its unchanged eastern terminus. As for the Lincoln Hwy, as we discussed in Part 11, the "Donner" alignment then proceeded east on US 40 to Wadsworth, where it dipped south towards US 50 on what is now ALT US 50 today, and then east from there on the "mainline" along US 50. We will talk about the Victory Hwy and a little more about ALT US 40 presently.

The significance of 2nd St on the 1966 map is unclear; it may represent a minor local alternate alignment.

Just like old US 395 in the previous part is now legislatively NV 430, so is old US 395 through Reno (despite nearly all of it still having US 395 postmiles). The majority is also signed as Business Route 395. The oddity is, if old US 395 has US 395 postmiles, then what postmiles does the modern US 395 freeway have? Well, that's another story to be discussed in the next Part.

Old US 395/US 40A more or less from the old US 40/US 395 junction up to Alternate US 40's diversion (modern CA 70) in Part 15 is part of the Old Beckwourth Trail, named for James Pierson Beckwourth (1798-1866, picture at right). James Beckwourth was an African-American explorer who ascended from an unhappy childhood as a slave in Virginia and Missouri to become a fur trapper in the Rocky Mountains in 1824. No pun intended, but his stories made him a most colourful figure and his adventures as a mountain man in the early American west made for entertaining, if somewhat exaggerated, storytelling. What is not in doubt was his keen exploratory and pathfinding sense, enhanced by almost eight years spent with the Crow Indians during which he became a war chief and enjoyed dalliances with many an Indian girl. However, his reputation was ruined by assertions that he deliberately infected the Crow with smallpox on a later visit to the tribe (a point of some controversy), and the American Fur Company declined to hire him back in 1837. Following this possibly unjustified disgrace, he wandered aimlessly throughout the south and southwest engaging in itinerant work and travel for nearly a decade. As luck would have it, he was in the west when James Marshall found gold at John Sutter's mill in Coloma in 1848, and he found prospecting to be a more gainful pursuit than trapping ever was. Naturally, so did everybody else, and the city of Marysville, CA (along US 99, now CA 99, and the junction of CA 20 and CA 70) was one of the towns near Gold Country finding itself flush with miners and no local support for them. Marysville and Beckwourth struck a deal: Beckwourth would help Marysville construct an easier settler's crossing into Gold Country -- through Marysville, of course -- for a fee and expenses, with the hope that some settlers would stick around along the way. Beckwourth's exploratory sense was hardly any the less acute for its long years of use and he promptly discovered a lower crossing north of the Donner with a far less onerous climb at 5,221' in 1850. That pass is still in use, named the Beckwourth Pass, and traversed today by modern CA 70; we will talk about the course of the Beckwourth Trail when we get to its diversion point in Part 15. Conveniently for the city, by the time Beckwourth had set up the trail and was guiding the wagon train in as agreed during the summer of 1851, he discovered that much of Marysville had burned to the ground during a fire in his absence and the city was broke. There is no record that Beckwourth ever got his fee, although there is now a park in Marysville named for him (Beckwourth Memorial Park) at the junction of the Feather and Yuba Rivers, established 1995.