Nevada Lore Series: Abe Curry and the Founding of Carson City

People, even Nevadans themselves, often ask why Carson City is our beloved capital. It does seem odd, when you look at the “City,” half rural, half town. Reno has more than double our population, and Las Vegas even more. During the Comstock Boom, Virginia City was arguably the largest, most profitable city in the state.

So how did little Carson City become the central legislative hub of Nevada?

It began in the 1850s. In the Making of a State, we learned that the Mormons had control over the Nevada territory for decades. But when Brigham Young called his people back to Salt Lake City, the Mormons abandoned the territory and sold off much of their property as quickly as they could.

Enter Abe Curry in 1858, who’d moved West from New York to seek fame and fortune. He was born in February of 1815, and in 1854 sailed to San Fransisco with his only son, Charles.

In 1856, Curry and Charles settled in the mining town of Red Dog, where, oddly enough, Curry opened a bowling alley of all things. It was in Red Dog that he met his future business partners, Benjamin Green, John Musser, and Frank Proctor.

Together with his three partners and son, Curry traveled to Genoa after the abandonment of the territory by the Mormons reached California.

Curry first attempted to buy land in Genoa, but his offer of a $1,000 for a corner lot to build a store was rejected, and he moved instead to Eagle Valley.

With Musser and Proctor, they purchased most of Eagle Valley from the Mormons, including the Eagle Valley Ranch and Trading Post, two stops that were essential to those travelers heading to California looking for furs, land, or gold. He gave the previous owners a $300 down payment with a full sale price of a $1,000 for the nearly 900 acres of land.

Curry took his opportunity after paying attention to the rumblings of those who wished to separate from Utah and become an independent territory, with statehood close behind. He decided to promote Eagle Valley to become the capitol. Musser and Proctor, who were attorneys by trade, worked to make the territory independent, and Curry set aside ten acres of land for the capitol to be built

Despite the fact that there was nothing in the valley beside the ranch and the trading post, Major William M. Ormsby got behind Curry and concluded the site was to become the capitol.

Ormsby named the capital Carson, after the legendary mountain man Kit Carson.

In 1859, deposits of gold and silver were discovered in Dayton just a stones throw from the new town. People clamored from across the country to stake their claim.

Unfortunately for Curry, the father of Carson City, he sold his claim and land of the Comstock for only a few thousand dollars in what would become one of the richest deposits in U.S. history. Those that purchased it from him became millionaires overnight.

Quickly, the town of Carson began to fill. By 1860, 500 residents were living within its streets, and Curry pushed on towards its recognition.

On November 25, 1861, Carson City was decreed the permanent capital of the Nevada Territory, and the seat of Ormsby County. Other towns and cities had been vying for the position, such as Virginia City and the now-ghost-town of American City, but Carson won out in the end.

A year into it being the official capitol, Carson’s population had doubled. In 1862, Carson became a Pony Express station, and had a telegraph line installed which began in San Fransisco.

On the fight for statehood, Curry offered up the Warm Springs Hotel, not much more than a hovel by the river, to act as a location for the assembly and senate to meet.

On October 31, 1864, Nevada achieved statehood in the midst of the civil war by the hand of President Abraham Lincoln.

However, since they were now an authentic state, they needed to look the part. The riverside Warm Springs Hotel wouldn’t cut it when it came to a courthouse.

Curry sold his Great Basin Hotel to the State to be used as the first courthouse and legislature in Nevada. He transported law men, judges and legislators to the building in Carson City’s very first horse-drawn street car.

Curry’s job with his capitol wasn’t over yet, however. Since his Warm Springs Hotel was now abandoned for the new courthouse, the building was converted into a prison, with Curry as its first warden.

Prisoners built the majority of Carson’s early buildings with sandstone found in the Nevada State Prison Quarry, including the first U.S. Mint in Nevada, which, naturally, appointed Curry as its first superintendent in 1870, but he gave it up to campaign to become Nevada’s lieutenant governor, which he lost.

He then put his talents to use building shops for the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, which became the country’s richest short-line railroad.

In 1873, Curry died of a stroke. Despite being one of the founders of Carson City, and despite the fact that he literally built the town from scratch, his wife said that when Curry died, he had only a dollar in his pocket.

On the day of his death, the mint was closed down out of respect. Curry was buried in the Lone Mountain Cemetery in what was said to be the largest funeral ever held in the town.

Despite not being able to enjoy retirement after his life's hardworking building the Capitol City, Curry's legend within Carson City and Nevada as a whole lives on still today.

Besides, it is said his spirit haunts the Curry house, located at 406 N. Nevada Street. The stories say that Curry is annoyed he only got to live in the dream house he built for he and his family for two years before his death, and stubbornly refuses to give it up.

They say he can be seen pacing through the house as if looking for something; maybe his wife, Mary, who was allegedly left destitute after finding only the single dollar in his pocket after his death.

— The Nevada Lore Series focuses on the legends of Nevada and the surrounding areas that help build our culture, from ancient Washoe stories, to Old West ghostly visions, to modern day urban legends.

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