By Edan Strekal
Following the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, Reno—like other towns in the West—became a home for displaced Chinese laborers. The Sacramento-to-Reno section of the Central Pacific Railroad was completed in the spring of 1868; Chinese…

By Mella Harmon
The Patrick Ranch House, a charming example of the Folk Victorian architectural style, was erected at the turn of the twentieth century on the Arlington Ranch, also known as Arlington Place. Jane Lake, the first wife of Myron Lake, acquired the…

By Mella Harmon
Peleg Brown, along with his brother Joshua, settled at the north end of Steamboat Valley in 1857. The brothers had left their home in Rhode Island, traveling first to Kentucky where they purchased 211 head of cattle. They drove their cattle west,…

By Alicia Barber
South Virginia Street was an increasingly busy thoroughfare in mid-century Reno, with many motels cropping up to serve the traveling public. The 777 Motel was constructed at 777 S. Virginia Street in 1964, one year before the street was widened to…

By Alicia Barber
As its name indicates, West Street originally marked the western edge of Reno city limits. For three decades following the city’s founding in 1868, this side of town was dominated by houses, churches, and schools, far removed from the central…

By Debbie Hinman and Alicia Barber
The Caughlin Ranch House, along with its outbuildings and pastoral setting, provides a rare and enduring link to Reno’s rich ranching heritage, right in the heart of the city. Since the early 1900s, this lovely Italianate home, one of the area's…

By Alicia Barber
Chinese herbalist and chiropractor Q.S. Wong opened his practice at 138 West Street, a building whose construction he likely financed himself, in 1924. A Reno resident since at least 1913, Wong was a well-respected local businessman who occasionally…

By Alicia Barber
Today this site is occupied by the Palladio condominiums, which opened in 2007, but for more than 50 years it was the location of the Reno Elks Home. The Reno Elks Lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (B.P.O.E.) was chartered as Lodge…

By Sharon Honig-Bear
Much of the length of Fulton Alley remains. Harking back to the way Reno alleys were originally used, Fulton is the only one that still has entrances to businesses that front on Virginia Street. Step through an alley entrance into the Little Nugget…

By Sharon Honig-Bear
Lincoln and Douglas Alleys reportedly received their names in 1868 from Lathiel T. Chase. Chase was a native of Illinois and a keen student of debate, leading him to name the alleys after the famous rivals Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. Chase…

By Sharon Honig-Bear
The Douglas Alley of today is just a shadow of what it was in its heyday. Running parallel to Commercial Row, the alley once ran east from Peavine (now Evans) Street to West Street. Over time, the development of large casinos reduced it to its…

By Sharon Honig-Bear
Although unnamed and all-but-forgotten, Lovers Lane still exists as a sanitized version of its former self. The alley runs north between 1st (originally Front) and 2nd Streets and east between Center and Lake Streets. Despite the cement anonymity…

By Alicia Barber
Far more than just a restauranteur, Miguel Ribera was a beloved community leader with a passion for helping local Hispanic youth. Born in New Mexico in 1918, Ribera bought the restaurant at 1415 South Virginia Street from its previous owner, Maria…

By Alicia Barber
Known today as the Best Value Lodge, the single-story, 18-unit Longhorn Motel opened at 844 S. Virginia Street on May 15, 1954. The project was a joint venture of Joe Ginocchio and his sister, Katherine Ghiglieri, whose family had owned the land for…

By Alicia Barber
What is now a driveway and parking lot at a busy urban intersection was once the site of Reno’s most charming fire station. First known as the Southside Station, it was designed by prominent Nevada architect Frederic DeLongchamps to resemble a…

By Alicia Barber
As South Virginia gradually converted into a business corridor, many of its longtime residents began to develop their properties for commercial purposes. Some had their houses demolished and constructed new buildings where they had stood. Others…

By Alicia Barber
Now combined as a single business, this was originally two separate buildings, 1055 and 1065 South Virginia Street. The southern half was built first, opening in 1927 as the Auto Painting & Trimming Company. The company offered complete overhauls of…

By Alicia Barber
“Enjoy the helpful, wholesome habit of 3-a-day at 10, 2 & 4 o’clock!” So urged an advertisement for Dr. Pepper upon the soft drink’s official arrival in Reno in 1939. The promotional blitz (with its somewhat questionable nutritional advice)…

By Alicia Barber
In the late 1920s, South Virginia Street was heeding the siren call of the automobile age. Service stations, dealers, and repair shops were popping up all along the thoroughfare, gradually adding a different character to the formerly quiet stretch of…

By Alicia Barber
James A. Barnes was a true Reno radio pioneer. His lifelong passion began as a hobby during World War I, as he learned to assemble kit radios he had ordered from magazines. By the early 1920s, he was selling a few radio sets out of his garage and his…

By Alicia Barber
Abner W. Sewell opened his first general merchandise store in the northeastern Nevada town of Tuscarora in 1897. A native of Ohio, Abner had ventured west with his brother in the 1880s, working as a cowboy on various Nevada ranches before entering…

By Alicia Barber
There’s something soapy at the intersection of St. Lawrence Avenue and Forest Street. Two businesses, separated in time but linked by a passion for keeping things clean, have perched on this little hilltop since 1906, when it was still the…

By The Reno Historical Team
Constructed sometime between 1890-1910, the two-story house at 843 N. Lake Street is a rare, significant example of the Free Classic Queen Anne style in Reno. Defining features of this house include its prominent round porch, which is supported by a…

By The Reno Historical Team
University of Nevada Professor of Geology J. Claude Jones and his family lived in the house at 825 N. Lake Street from the early 1920s to the early 1930s. Jones later served as Acting Dean of Men on the university campus. In 1916, Jones had earned…

By The Reno Historical Team
Constructed c. 1910-1913, the house is an American Four-Square with a combination of Free Classic, Craftsman, and Prairie School detailing. It is a unique combination of architectural styles rarely seen in Reno. Prominent Nevada architect George A.…

By The Reno Historical Team
From 1900 to about 1913, Albert T. and Christine Donnels and their son Albert Jr. lived in the Queen Anne house at 815 N. Center. Donnels and his partner Theodore Steinmetz had established a successful furniture store on the northwest corner of 2nd…

By Alicia Barber
Rex Arlo Crider was an established chiropractor when he had this two-story combination commercial and apartment building constructed in 1936. An Iowa native, Crider had moved to Reno in 1915 to establish his practice after receiving his degree at the…

By Donnelyn Curtis
The two-story Queen Anne-style house at 839 N. Center Street, built around 1900, was home to four families and a university professor during the 1900s, before becoming a rental in 1999. The Norths were the first occupants. A newspaper article in…

By Debbie Hinman
This lovely spacious home was built circa 1910 and though alterations have been made over the years to accommodate its use as student housing, the downstairs rooms of the home retain their original character. The architectural style is a bit…

By Debbie Hinman
Today, only one home remains of those properties that used to occupy the east side of the 800 block of North Center Street. Gone is the first Nevada Historical Society, a small brick building that owed its existence to Jeanne Wier, who ran the…