Pine Nuts: Leo Hechinger and the Virginia City keg party bet
Submitted by Jeff Munson on Sun, 11/03/2024 - 4:02pm
Nevada has always been a betting man’s jungle. Before casinos we bet with each other, and here’s how one friendly wager played out on a Saturday afternoon away back in 1862.
Leo Hechinger was a stocky Dutch German who threw a keg party on his B Street Virginia City deck every Saturday afternoon during the month of May to celebrate the end of winter. His mining friends tossed a half-dime into a mason jar, and the end of winter celebration began.
A keg was delivered by horse-drawn wagon at high noon, and on this particular Saturday the young lad delivering that keg could not wrestle it out of the wagon. He was maybe 16 years old and thin as a rail, so the boys started taking bets on whether that lad could deliver or not.
Well, the poor boy gave it his all, which was not quite enough, and he dropped the keg on the ground, which brought a groan from half of his audience, and a cheer from the other half. Then Leo walked over, hefted that keg, and carried it up onto his deck like it was a child.
“Leo,” somebody shouted, “I bet you could carry that keg to the summit of Sun Mountain!”
Leo set that keg down, smiled at the boys, and said, “Don’t know if I could, or if I couldn’t, but I’m willing to try.”
That started it. The boys began placing bets and talking up next Saturday’s happening. Word spread like fire in a mine, and the following Saturday speculators came from as far away as Hangtown to place their bets and bear witness to what could go down as the most Herculean Feat in the history of Nevada.
It was said $30,000 was wagered on a side, which was held in a sort of escrow. One man from each side of that bet was assigned to accompany Leo, to safeguard that the keg would either touch the ground, or be borne to the summit of Sun Mountain, one thousand feet straight up. A keg of beer back then weighed over a hundred pounds, and Leo Hechinger weighed all of 145 pounds.
Well Leo wrestled that keg from one shoulder to the other, and then down onto his hips and every which way you could conceive of lugging a keg, and yes, Leo Hechinger made it to the summit of Sun Mountain without that keg ever once touching the ground.
And what was amazing about that feat was that Leo knew he could do it, for he had done it before — at midnight.
That’s the kind of person we used to bet with back in early Nevada. Yes, Leo Hechinger was the sort of loveable character that was waiting in the weeds for you back in those hoary old days before a more sophisticated means of lightening our wallets would arrive here in the great state of Nevada.
— For more than 35 years, in over 4,000 performances, columnist and Chautauquan McAvoy Layne has been dedicated to preserving the wit and wisdom of “The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope,” Mark Twain. As Layne puts it: “It’s like being a Monday through Friday preacher, whose sermon, though not reverently pious, is fervently American."
Want to hear McAvoy Layne tell it? Go here for an audio version of this column.
