By Alicia Barber
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…

By Donna and Paul Erickson
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…

By Donna and Paul Erickson
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…

By Donna and Paul Erickson
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…

By Donna and Paul Erickson
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…

By Donna and Paul Erickson
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…

By Donna and Paul Erickson
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,…

By Donna and Paul Erickson
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). …

By Donna and Paul Erickson
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…

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 Lauren Culleton
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…

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…