The Record-courier. [volume] (Gardnerville, Nev.) 1904-current, 1904-05-27
RECLAIMINC
ARID LANDS.

In an interview, Frederick II. New.
ell, chief engineer of the reclamation
service, says in the Washington
Times, describing recent inspection
tour through the vest
"Ihe most interesting thing | saw
was the construction work now going
on in Nevada to convey water from
the Truckee to the Carson river and
there to store it in a large reservoir a
short distance above Ragtown.
"This settlement was so named in
the days of the overland emigration
because, after the caravans had crossed
the Carson desert, they rested there to
overhaul their outfits before going up
the Carson river and across the Sier-
ra Nevada mountains
Near the spot where the reservoir is
now building the emigrants went into
camp, washed their clothes for the
first time in a long while, and hung
them out to dry, where they made an
impression on beholders which has
been preserved in the town name. In
general, travellers have put up at this
place, abandoning whatever was worn
out or useless before starting across
the mountains.
ITO reach Ragtown they had come
down the Humboldt river, from which
they had fair supply of water until
they reached the Humboldt sink.
Beyond that the water was sometimes
very bad, as the country is full of al
kaline lakes, clear and of great depth,
very attractive to the eye, but ex-
tremely poisonous. The horses and
mules would not ordinarily drink it,
but sometimes, under intense thirst,
they would rush into one ofthese lakes
and drink with fatal results.
From the lower Humboldt over to
the Carson there is fully forty miles of
very sandy, alkali desert rolling,
hummocky ground-across which the
tired animals could hardly force their
way, and the road in old times was
said to be literally strewed with bones
and with fragments of household fur
nishings dropped out on the way to
tighten loads. Many people died on
this last piece of road, and their friends
on reaching the Carson river, would
bury their bodies in a little cemetery
which eventually came to contain
many hundred bodies, as was shown
by the gun barrels or other pieces oil
iron driven into the ground at the
head of each grave. This land was
lately plowed up and put into alfalfa.
The farmer who did it gathered many
wagon loads of old iron which he
dumped into the Carson river to get it
out of the way. There is now moth
ing left of Ragtown but one house
and Il blacksmith shop.
ut is proposed, with the water to be
stored there, to reclaim this great ex-
tent of desert and convert a consider
able part of it into a densely settled
and highly cultivated farming region
The soil, although sandy and in places
alkaline, is, as a whole, of good quality
and with a adequate water supply
would yield good crops. Within the
present decade it is hoped that this
desolate country will be covered with
farms and traversed by good roads,
Transformation more wonderful than
anything the emigrant trains were
destined to find in FL Dorado.
Zone of the curious things about
this change is that on the very land
over which the emigrants passed with
SO much suffering and where so many
persons died from thirst it has recent
ly been found possible to dig wells and
get a fair quality of water. To be
sure, they did not have the strength
or interest to dig, and naturally they
would have supposed that if they
would strike water it would be aka
lne.n