All Stories: 183
Grimmon House (site)
What is now a vacant lot at 543 Court Street was once a beautiful residence overlooking the river. Its story began in 1906, when Robert Grimmon purchased five acres from Senator Francis G. Newlands, just east of the Newlands House. The large tract of…
E.C. Lyon Building
For years, a Chinese laundry stood at the corner of Center and Second Streets. Once considered well away from the town’s business district, the site became increasingly desirable in the first decade of the twentieth century, as the mining booms in…
Roy House
The house at 491 Court Street was built for Roland F. Roy in 1907, the same year that the nearby Nixon Mansion was completed. Newlands Heights was the most exclusive neighborhood in town, a testament to the affluence and prominence of its residents.…
Reid House
In 1901 Hosea Reid became one of the founders of the Gray, Reid & Company dry goods store, along with partner Joseph Gray, whose house is located at 457 Court Street. Their store was originally located at the corner of Second and Virginia Streets,…
Frederic DeLongchamps Cottage
Frederic DeLongchamps, Reno’s most famous and prolific architect, designed this enchanting house in 1919. It is an example of the English Country Cottage, or Tudor Revival style popular throughout the Newlands Heights neighborhood.
The house…
Francis G. Newlands Office
In 1890-91, soon after constructing his impressive residence on the bluff overlooking the Truckee River, Francis G. Newlands had a smaller house built on his estate to serve as his personal office. The second building, like the first (see separate…
Hawkins House
Attorney Prince Albert Hawkins purchased this plum piece of property from Senator Francis G. Newlands in 1912 and hired architect Elmer Gray of Los Angeles to design his grand family residence at 549 Court Street. Gray also designed and built the…
Gosse House
The house at 465 Court Street was originally the home of Harry “Pop” Gosse, a Nevada resident for more than 80 years who was perhaps best known as the owner of one version of the famous Riverside Hotel, located on the south bank of the Truckee…
West/Hood House
This residence has been referred to as the “medical mansion”; two physicians owned it, but not in succession. The original building was a large, garage-like structure situated on the Nixon estate overlooking the Truckee River. The structure and…
Johnston House
This chateau, sometimes referred to as “The Castle,” began as a guest house owned by Janet Sharon Newlands Johnston. Johnston was perhaps the closest thing to Nevada royalty, as the granddaughter of U.S. Senator William Sharon and the second of…
St. Albans Hotel
The St. Albans Hotel opened in the spring of 1908 at what is now 380 N. Virginia Street. At the time, it was situated at the far northern end of Reno’s business district, which was concentrated south of the railroad tracks. Initially surrounded to…
Muller House
Mary Ruth “Maisie” Kinder was born and raised in Pennsylvania; as a youngster she had the opportunity to go to London to live with her aunt. There she began acting, singing, and dancing. After working as an understudy, she was selected for…
Steinmiller/Parsons House
According to George Steinmiller’s granddaughter Alice Parsons, “He wanted to be a big fish in a little pond. That is why he came to Reno from Sacramento.” George Steinmiller practiced dentistry in Reno for fifty years. He and his wife Alice…
Dexter/McLaughlin House
Architect Edward Parsons, who lived next door at 761 California Avenue, designed the estate at 775 California, modeling the residence after George Washington’s Mount Vernon Home. His client was Irving Briggs Dexter, a Philippine mahogany lumber…
Gray House
This house was the residence of Joseph H. Gray, Jr., said to have been the first white child born in Truckee, California. The year was 1868, five years after his father, Joseph H. Gray, Sr., a lumber mill operator, had constructed the first cabin in…
Price House
This was the longtime home and law office of attorney Robert M. Price, who moved to Reno with his wife, Jennie, in 1904. Practicing first with the firm of Cheney, Massey, and Smith, Price quickly became an active member of the community. He was a…
Payne House
Esteemed Reno architect Edward Parsons designed the house at 745 California Avenue in 1941 for Frank R. Payne and his new wife, Hazel. Mr. Payne was a retired executive for the J.C. Penney organization who had moved to Reno with his first wife,…
George S. Nixon Mansion
This impressive Newlands Heights home was finished in 1907 as a statement piece for U.S. Senator George S. Nixon, who was elected in 1905 by the Nevada State Legislature (which elected the state's representatives to the U.S. Senate until 1909). …
French/Cooke House
The French/Cooke House, now owned by the Cooke family's third generation, tells the intertwined story of two attorneys who came to Nevada from very different parts of the country at the height of the state’s mining boom and later became partners…
Chinatown (site)
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…
Patrick Ranch House
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…
Historic Huffaker Schoolhouse
The little white schoolhouse near the entrance to Bartley Ranch Regional Park in southwest Reno fits so snugly into the surrounding landscape that one might assume it has always been there. But it was in fact originally located two miles east on…
Peleg Brown Ranch
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,…
Moana Springs
In mid-autumn, 1905, as the last bit of concrete was being poured for the Virginia Street Bridge, hundreds of people converged three miles south of town for the grand opening of Moana Springs. Sitting on a portion of the Haines Ranch atop a…
777 Motel
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…
Hudson-Essex/Fix-It Shop
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…
Caughlin Ranch House
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…
Q.S. Wong, Chinese Herb Specialist
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…
Reno Elks Home (site)
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…
Fulton Alley
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…