Gardnerville

Gilman’s Hotel on the Gardner Homestead

The J and T Basque Restaurant building at 1426 Highway 395 dates to the 1870s and was moved to Carson Valley from Virginia City before the end of the 19th century.³ Town founder Lawrence Gilman used it as the bar and dining room for the Gardnerville Hotel, which later burned down and was never rebuilt.³ Gilman had moved the hotel itself in 1879 from the emigrant trail between Genoa and Walley’s Hot Springs, where it was known as Kent House, to the homestead of John M. Gardner.¹ A blacksmith shop, a saloon, and the hotel were the first buildings, and they served the farming community and the teamsters who hauled local produce to booming Bodie.⁴ A state study of fire stations says Gardnerville was founded by 1879 as an alternative to Genoa for commercial and shipping services.⁵

Danes, Germans, and Basque Inns

The state marker says that Genoa had been the center for British, largely Mormon, settlers after 1851, and that Gardnerville became the center for Danish immigrants after 1879.⁴ The Danes founded the Valhalla Society in 1885 and met in Valhalla Hall, one block south of the marker.⁴ Wilhelm Lampe was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1858. He acquired a ranch in January 1887, and he and Maria married in Gardnerville the following month.⁶ The Record-Courier gives 1872 as the year Wilhelm bought the ranch, while the state register says Lorens Christensen first established it that year.^7,8 The Lampes grew alfalfa, wheat, and barley and raised dairy cattle and sheep, and in 1909 Wilhelm built a brick creamery to process the ranch’s growing dairy output.^6,9 According to the ranch’s National Register nomination, Gardnerville residents were generally displeased that the Dangbergs placed primary agricultural facilities, a railroad terminus, and other venues in Minden rather than Gardnerville.⁶ Starting in 1898, Spanish and French Basque shepherds tended some 13,000 sheep in Carson Valley, a number that reached 25,000 by 1925, when the Basques began acquiring their own sheep and land.⁴ After 1918, several Basques in Gardnerville opened inns, which flourished during Prohibition in the 1920s.⁴

The Branch Jail and the High School

Genoa became the county seat of Douglas County in 1861.¹⁰ When fire destroyed the main jail in Genoa in 1910, Douglas County quickly put the Gardnerville Branch Jail at 1440 Courthouse Street into full service; it had been built that year on land donated by Justice of the Peace L.S. Ezell.¹¹ Between 1910 and 1915 it was Douglas County’s only jail in the valley; its lower floor housed “guests” and its upper floor held a courtroom, which cost the town an additional $400.¹¹ Minden and Gardnerville were both likely candidates for the county seat; in the outcome, Gardnerville would become home to the new high school, and the new seat of government took effect January 1, 1916.¹² Frederick J. DeLongchamps designed Douglas County High School in 1915; the school fronts the main highway through Gardnerville and served as the high school until 1958.¹² The East Fork School, built in 1876, was moved to its present site in Gardnerville in 1916.¹³

Store, Bank, Press, and Laundry

In 1904 Dr. Southworth merged the Gardnerville Record and the Genoa Weekly Courier into one newspaper, and Bert Selkirk and W.S. Ezell bought it from him that year.¹⁴ In 1940 the state guide linked the merger to the shift of much of Genoa’s population to Gardnerville, and it found the Record-Courier still appearing weekly.¹⁵ Arendt Jensen built a general merchandise store in the early 1900s and founded the Douglas County Farmer’s Bank in Gardnerville, which the marker calls the first bank in Carson Valley.¹⁶ As late as 1899 the town had no fire services, but by 1923 its fire department had grown to 100 members.⁵ The Nishikida Laundry Building at 1403 U.S. Highway 395 North housed a Japanese-owned laundry from 1918 until 1998; it is tied to the Nishikida family, one of very few Japanese American families in town.¹³

Lampe Fields into South Gardnerville

William Lampe expanded the ranch to 300 acres. In 1965 he and Francis Lampe sold most of it to Led-Mil, a development company, and the land sold for development now makes up most of southern and eastern Gardnerville.^6,8 Wilhelm and Maria Lampe built their ranch house in 1898, and the state preservation office calls it the latest known Gothic Revival ranch house in Carson Valley.^6,9 A 5-acre remnant keeps the main house, barn, and creamery, now operated as the Jacobs Family Berry Farm, where berries have replaced the alfalfa.^8,9