Mormon Station State Park
     

     Mormon Station commemorates the settlement of Nevada in 1851 when the first permanent trading post was established by a group of Mormon traders from Salt Lake City. 
     The area, then a part of Utah Territory, had been traversed by mountain men and fur traders, beginning in 1826, by emigrant wagon trains headed for California and Utah during the 1840's and explored by General John Charles Fremont during the 1840's. 
     The first effort at settlement came in 1850 when a group of young Mormon men, veterans of the Mormon Battalion during the Mexican War, dropped out of a party of 80 Mormons, headed for the California gold fields.  Hampden S. Beatie, Abner and DeMont Blackburn, a Mr. Carter and three others built a temporary roofless shelter for a trading post just north of present-day Genoa. 
     They sold the structure to a Mr. Stephen Moore at the end of a very profitable summer and headed homeward to Salt Lake City.  Unfortunately, Shoshones robbed them on their way and Beatie arrived home to work for his uncle, John Reese, in a store in Salt Lake.   
     His tales led Reese to load 13 wagons and set out with 17 men for the Carson Valley where he established a trading post north of Beatie's on the site of present-day Genoa.		 They built a 30-by-50 hotel-store inside a stockade on the site of the winter quarters of Washos. 
     The post thrived, especially with traffic to the gold fields of California. 
     Reese sold the post ot A. Woodward & Co., a mail service of Woodward and Major George Chorpening.  In March 1853 Reese filed an attachment after Woodward was killed by Indians in what was later Humboldt County. 
     On September 1, 1854, Reese sold the property to William J. "Lucky Bill" Thorington with all ranch and farm property, livestock, tools, household furniture and cooking utensils. 
      The July 1, 1857 issue of The Scorpion, a handwritten paper published by Stephen Kinsey, announced a grand ball at Lucky Bill's Hotel (old Mormon Station) on July 5th. 
     The hotel-store passed through many hands.  Henry van Sickle owned it in 1874, and T.N. Hansen was listed as owner in 1910.  It was in use as a store at various times. 
     However, the "Terrible Fire of 1910" destroyed the old building, the oldest in Nevada, as well as much of North Genoa.  
      In 1947 the state constructed the replica which stands at the site.  In 1978 it was changed to its present layout with gazebo, barbecue pit and new rest rooms.  The building is a museum.

This material is copyrighted by author Nancy C. Miluck, and may also be found in an article by Eva Scarselli in The Genoa-Carson Valley Book, 1991-92 Issue, May1991    (702) 782-4325  


For membership or other information contact us by email
or send us a note at P.O. Box 226 Genoa, NV 89411