HERITAGE PEOPLE, HOMES AND HISTORY of Old Southwest Reno
IN THIS ISSUE A LIBRARY ON EVERY CORNER
RENO HISTORICAL APP
THE WINDS OF CHANGE
The story of a growing movement
History in the palm of your hand
Saying goodbye to Wildcreek Golf Course
HERITAGE Spring 2020
EDITOR/DESIGNER/PUBLISHER
Patrick Turner WRITERS/EDITORS
Alissa Turner Kaitlyn Turner CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Don Vetter CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Patrick Turner Don Vetter ADVERTISING
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PUBLISHER’S LETTER
Spring is just around the corner No one season in the Old Southwest is without its merits, but spring is by far the most beautiful. When the flowers and trees awake from their winter slumber and yards begin to fill with color, our historic neighborhood is one of Reno’s best places for a leisurely walk. My family and I have been residents of the Old Southwest for 15 years now. Over the years, I’ve had many interesting conversations with fellow residents and have heard a lot of interesting stories about the people, homes, and history of this great neighborhood. As this neighborhood continues to evolve, I thought about how sad it would be if these stories were lost. I hope you enjoy this first issue of
HERITAGE, my attempt to capture the stories this neighborhood has to tell and continue their legacy. If you enjoy this issue, please e-mail info@heritagemagazine.org to let me know. I would also like to hear from you if you have a suggestion
COVER PHOTO
for a story for HERITAGE. There are so many interesting facets to this historic neighborhood—I want to make sure they’re preserved. Sincerely,
Patrick Turner, Publisher
P.S. See more from HERITAGE on Facebook. Just search for Heritage Magazine. Residence on Manor Drive owned by Tiffany Barnett.
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Originality lives here. Here is a place built on an unwavering love for the output of the human imagination. A place of wide smiles and infinite horizons where books, music, and any other notion that endeavors to open one heart to the wonders of another will always have a place at the fire. A creative tavern of the soul where, through reading, writing, and listening, we can experience our best selves and enjoy the fellowship of others doing the same. Sundance Books & Music, the Radiant Original. Monday through Friday · 9am to 9pm Saturday & Sunday · 9am to 5pm 775-786-1188 · sundancebookstore.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
7 History in the Palm of Your Hand Curious about Reno’s long and storied history? There’s an app for that.
8 Little Library, Big Movement The growing movement that’s putting a library on every corner.
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11 Saying Goodbye to Wildcreek Reno says so long to another golf course and icon of tourism’s past.
14 Reno’s Mansion on the Hill The Old Southwest mansion originally built for Senator George S. Nixon.
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TECHNOLOGY
History in the Palm of Your Hand Reno and the Newlands Neighborhood are full of surprising and interesting history. But walking by a historic home, or shopping in a store housed behind a historic storefront rarely lets you understand the rich history of the location. That’s why there’s an app (and a website) for that. In 2014, the Special Collections Department of the University of Nevada, Reno Libraries launched a mobile app and website called Reno Historical to help reveal the amazing history of our great city.
“Right now, thanks to all our community partners, we have almost 200 featured buildings, and many more in the works, so there’s always something new to discover.” You can download the Reno Historical app from Apple’s App Store and from Google Play. If smartphones and apps aren’t your thing, you can still check out what Reno Historical has to offer at renohistorical.org.
Reno Historical, available for iPhone and Android devices, as well as online at renohistorical.org, provides a detailed and interactive way to explore Reno’s history. Users can search for interesting people, places, and events and enjoy curated tours of the city. Each point on the interactive GPS-enabled map includes historical information about the site, with historic images from Special Collections, the Nevada Historical Society, and other relevant historical collections. Many locations highlighted in the app also include audio clips and short documentary videos based on the University of Nevada Oral History Program’s collection of interviews. Historian Alicia Barber, who has served as the editor of content for Reno Historical from its outset, recently joined the Board of Directors of the Historic Reno Preservation Society, where she will continue to supervise the project. The project is curated from archives and volunteers who supply essays, historical images, interviews, and local historical expertise. “With a digital project, we can keep adding new stories and photos all the time,” Alicia Barber said. HERITAGE
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NEIGHBORHOOD
Little Library, Big Movement You may have noticed an increasing number of “little libraries” popping up throughout the neighborhood. These clever little structures, most of them residing on posts in people’s front yards, are part of a movement that began in Wisconsin in 2009. The movement started when Todd Bol of Hudson, Wisconsin, built a model of a one-room schoolhouse as a tribute to his mother—she was a teacher who loved to read. He filled it with books and put it on a post in his front yard. His neighbors and friends loved it, so he built several more and gave them away. In 2010 the movement took on the name, “Little Free Library” and the purpose became clear: share good books and bring communities together. Inspired by community gift-sharing networks and “take a book, leave a book” collections in coffee shops and public spaces, Bol and partner Rick Brooks set the goal of surpassing 2,508 Little Free
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Libraries by the end 2013. They exceeded that goal in August of 2012, a year and a half ahead of schedule. Growth of Little Free Library continued rapidly from 2012 to 2018. The organization officially became a nonprofit in 2012, published a book about the growth of the movement in 2014, and in 2016 launched a festival in Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis to celebrate the joys of reading and sharing books. According to the Little Free Library website, there are more than 40 registered libraries in the greater Reno area. However, a quick drive around town will reveal that there are many more neighborhood libraries in existence. In the Newlands Neighborhood alone, there are more than eight little libraries. So, if you’re looking for a good book that comes with the endorsement of a neighbor, look no further than the Old Southwest’s network of Little Free Libraries.
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Art is in your DNA. Express it here! The E.L. Cord Museum School at the Nevada Museum of Art delivers a variety of classes for people of all ages, skills, and technical abilities. So dust off that paint brush and let your creativity soar.
Register today at nevadaart.org
Donald W. Reynolds Center for the Visual Arts E. L. Wiegand Gallery 160 West Liberty Street in downtown Reno 775.329.3333
Photo: Don Vetter
RENO HISTORY
Wildcreek and the Winds of Change Wildcreek Golf Course as we know it ended a 40-year run this fall on a brilliant windless day that turned the little valley of controversy into a golden child of fond memories. While not as iconic as the Mapes Hotel, Wildcreek will always serve as a historical totem that reflects our town’s inspirations and aspirations... warts and all. It’s a shame that our school district couldn’t see that unique history and preserve the Wildcreek saga by naming its $200 million high school after the course. (They chose to stay with Hug High School). Wildcreek’s topography is a mix of willowed wetlands that ascend into the rock scrabble of the former Wedekind Mining District, today the largest piece of open park lands left in the City of Sparks. The course’s lowlands were a part of John Capurro’s dairy farm. His family was among the many Italian,
don’t forget the Irish, immigrants who helped form the community’s breadbasket. There was no trendy local food movement back in the late 1800s; “local food” was just how you got fresh milk, fruit and vegetables. On Wildcreek’s western border, the Orr Ditch (1875) still winds its way to the once bucolic Spanish Springs Valley, a reminder of the engineering it took to cultivate the towns’ 20,000+ acres of farmlands in the Great Basin Desert. From Farmland to “Golf-cation” Amenity Wildcreek was opened at the end of the go-go ’70s, another amenity to help fill the 1,000-plus new hotel rooms thrust into the market from the Circus-Circus, MGM Grand (i.e. Reno Hilton and Grand Sierra Resort) and other casino resorts that were erected in that decade. The course was part of the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority’s (RSCVA) Reno
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“golf-cation” strategy: golf in the morning followed by showgirls, blackjack and 99-cent jumbo shrimp cock-tails until the next tee time. The RSCVA purchased the major portion of the site for $165,000 in 1974 from renowned professional bridge player Joe Conforte and his wife Sally, probably better known as the proprietors of the
former state senator and Reno City Councilman and realtor Clyde Biglieri. Biglieri, who died in 2018, spent a good portion of his later years trying to clear his name from conflict of interest charges leveled against him in the March 1976 grand jury report. With the help of the ACLU, the Nevada Supreme Court eventually ordered his name expunged from the report. Photo: Don Vetter
Two years later, Wildcreek opened to mixed reviews. The back nine, built hard against the Wedekind hills, had a definite slant that would drive golfers batty (“I swore I hit it in the fairway”). It even tilted the tempers of the professional senior golfers like the great Sam Snead, who descended on the course from 198385, the first taste of PGA Tour golf that the town experienced.
Mustang Ranch Brothel. (RSCVA also cobbled together some BLM property for the site.) Then Washoe County District Attorney Cal Dunlap empanelled a grand jury to investigate not only the sale, but also the general relationship between Conforte, the Sparks and Reno city councils, the Washoe County Commission, the Reno-Sparks Convention Authority, a Sparks municipal judge, a
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It was during those years that members of the University of Nevada Men’s Golf Team dubbed the course “Wild Bounce,” a moniker which stuck through most of the course’s history even after the RSCVA spent more than $300,000 trying to flatten the back nine, in particular rebuilding the green on the par 5 14th. This hole was also the scene of a golfer-caused brush fire that garnered some national media attention. Wildcreek was an early adopter in our community efforts to employ more treated effluent water for irrigation — recognition of modern urban life in
a desert. Unfortunately, the program didn’t have enough customers to keep costs down. The mid-’90s deal had the RSCVA spending $300,000 annually through 2021, exchanging its Truckee River water rights to the City of Sparks for the reclaimed water.
course a home away from home mounted a kitchen sink rebuttal that claimed everything from corruption and malfeasance at the District to traffic gridlock and the dreaded decrease in property values should the school plans come to fruition.
This big payment, thanks to a lack of others hooking into the purple pipe to reduce the course’s outlay, was a big reason Wildcreek could never pencil out in its last decade of operation.
A lawsuit filed by Save Wildcreek, LLC was dismissed last fall by District Court Judge David A. Hardy `thanks to an overwhelming legal defense team and the unusual political occurrence of the School District, RSCVA and the County Commissioners all rowing in the same direction. It might have been our first “OK Boomer” moment, as the judge said the group, mostly comprised of long-time residents, held “no legal standing” to pursue their action to stop the project.
Local Growth Threatens Change The course’s latest chapter began in April 2017 when the Washoe County School District identified about 75 of the 140-acre site as one of four potential parcels for a new high school. Its infill location and existing road, water, internet and sewer infrastructure made it their top choice and a good relief valve for the burgeoning Spanish Springs and Reed high schools. The revenue for the school came thanks to the passage of a 2016 ballot measure to raise sales taxes; a big-money campaign that succeeded where other school tax efforts had failed. Over the last 30 years, our track record shows that we generally don’t vote to raise taxes in Reno, Sparks or Washoe County. The RSCVA as golf course manager was unique – most convention and tourism agencies don’t manage facilities – and not terribly successful at sustaining its golf resources. The RSCVA’s Northgate Golf Course closed in 2009 after a 20-year run and the property remains abandoned. Plus, the golfing landscape had changed dramatically with more “resort course” competition that would satisfy the casinos’ customer amenity packages. The school district’s targeting of Wildcreek brought a familiar action when any large development project attempts to dramatically change the physical and cultural landscape — Not in My Backyard (NIMBY). Nearby residents and the golfers who consider the
One Last Moment in the Golden Autumn Sun There was no dramatic, Mapes-like implosion on Wildcreek’s last day. Just a course full of golfers enjoying one last moment in the golden autumn sun. Maybe the new school’s civics teachers (do we still teach that?) can include this case history of what it takes for a community to morph itself into the next generation’s favorite hometown. Change. That is what the new high school with the old name represents at Wildcreek Golf Course. It won’t end with Wildcreek. The course may or may not come back as the County vaguely promised to use $1 million from the $5.1 million land sale to create a smaller golf and recreation resource at the south end of the site. The little nine-hole layout is expected to stay open during construction of the school. Don Vetter was the local golf reporter at the Reno Gazette-Journal from 1990 to 1991. He has since done marketing and public relations for local and regional golf courses as well as regional economic development programs. Article reprinted with permission from ThisIsReno.com.
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Photo courtesy Chase International Real Estate, Reno
HISTORIC HOMES
Reno’s Mansion on the Hill Reno’s Old Southwest neighborhood is as architecturally diverse as they come. From twobedroom bungalows, to sprawling ranch-style residences, to stately mansions, if you’re searching for a particular size or style of home, you’re bound to find it. The Old Southwest is also where you’ll find Reno’s king of all historic mansions, the George S. Nixon estate, sitting high above the Truckee River on California Avenue. Completed in 1907 as a statement piece for U.S. Senator George S. Nixon, this 17,964 square-foot residence sits on 2.03 acres. The Nixon family lived in Winnemucca for a number of years before starting construction on the home, paying $10,000 for the lot with construction costing another $100,000. Following his death in 1912, Senator Nixon’s wife Kate sold the home and relocated to California. Several owners and many years later, a massive fire in 1979 left the interior uninhabitable. The home sat 14
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vacant and in disrepair until 2002 when Carla and Harry Hart purchased the estate and meticulously restored the property inside and out. Interesting interior features of the home include eight bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, a formal dining room with seating for 60 people, butler’s pantry, a library, a ballroom, a river-view bar, and an 1,800-bottle wine cellar and tasting room. The home also includes an elevator, one of the first homes in Reno to have such a thing. Despite its impressive historic appearance, a number of modern convenices have been added. The awe-inspiring ash tree just outside the home’s main entrance is more than 100 years old and is cared for annually by the Arbor Association. This home is currently on the market for a modest $13.9 million. But with so few comps and no recent sales history, real estate website Zillow can’t even guess at the home’s true market value.
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