Nevada History

Nevada’s contribution to the western United States is much more than Las Vegas. Old West towns such as Rhyoltie, Goldfield and Pioche have a significant place in the history of the frontier. Take for example Pioche.   Bartender Faddiman had been warned often enough. Friend told him, “Don’t take that job at Pioche.”…”You’re as good as dead if you go to work in Pioche”…”No bartender ever lasted longer than a year there. Not one of Faddiman’s well-wishers wanted to see him go to certain disaster but his reason was simple, his need urgent. “I need a job and I don’t care where it is. I can take care of myself.” He did go to the most notorious town in Nevada – and stayed there. In his second week a drunk ordered a drink. “You don’t need another drink,” Faddiman told him – and those were his last words. The customer objected to them, simple and straightforward as they were, took out his six shooter and Faddiman set up no more drinks. The killer walked calmly behind the bar, stepped over the barkeep’s body and stripped the till. Then he went next door to the butcher ship of buxom, “Negro Liza” and for variation, slit her throat with his knife. He emptied her till too but by this time the sheriff knew about the bartender’s slaying and met the murderer at Liza’s door with a rattle of lead. And this was the way the single row of unmarked graves in Pioche’s Boot Hill grew so long, so fast. Piochee, pronounced Pee-oche with accent on the last syllable, was developed by Frenchman F.L.A. Pioche, although original deposits of lead-gold-silver were discovered by William Hamblin in 1863. Hamblin had it easy. Instead of spending years at prospecting, his Paiute Indian friends led him to the highly colored ledges that were to produce $40 million in ore. Hamblin had little money for developing and later sold the claims to the French banker from San Francsico. By 1870, the camp was considered the wildest in the West, the gun being the only law. The climate was fine enough to keep people dying of natural causes, unnatural being most popular, the first 75 deaths being from “lead to head: or violence of some sore. Not only did bad men drift into town to bully and shoot residents by mine owners imported their own bad men at the rate of 20 a day to fight encroachments. Death rate of these assassins was high and they got the camp’s Boot Hill off to a good start, with special editions for various categories. Today Pioche is no longer wild. Many relics of the old days remain, such as the Lincoln County Courthouse. Built of brick in the lat 1860s, it cost more than half a million, was condemned as unsafe as in 1933, three years before it was paid for. I’m exhausted from the Vegas trip and anxious to get back to work on the book about women outlaws of the mid-west and the love lessons women learned in the old west. I was absolute amazed at how short and tight the dresses worn by the 20 something crowd roaming through the casinos. Why are stores only selling half dresses? I couldn’t wear anything that short. I’m 50. I doubt anything wants to see that. I’m not ashamed of my body, I just don’t see any reason to not cover it up as much as possible. I’m one of those people who think those garments the Amish women wear are a great idea for everybody, regardless of their religious affiliation. I’m someone who considered becoming a nun, for the outfits.