Sparks High School - Terminus Yearbook (Sparks, NV)

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- .: Fqfzg zfgfafreb, ..,Q 3. r Q .,'. -K 4 1 a ' HB? in 1 Predecessor companies of Sierra Pa- cific Power Co. have played a part in Nevada's colorful history and growth. .jig if F Va aj A . .K 5 Smce the 1880s, when a predecessor of C h 2 ' Q Q 2 -He' L Sierra Pacific be an rovidin elec- ' f A f 8 P S fFtf:','A'vK',L,. i7 ' i 1 W 4 ,2e' . y I t h. h .d d' th t af?- -fQf !:,...'-2 2. '11 y e 'L tiny steam P an w ic Provi e a 'f 'i'f'.',g,+a t 2.1, Y wi,-1rf,.w, 2-1, ,t c,,, ' 'K 2 ,.cc . . P 'QL-Q fgt power was soon retired in favor of L. M water power from the swift Truckee ky: ' J yg, i?E?fA,iiwi 1525. is 9 River, an inexpensive source of energy -'1 ' i . f' t'll dt d an lgyfgzyw. J, sr- .,,,. 1 Qi J ,GgvvYr9Qfr,,ag.at.w,,,, ,. si use o ay. . r' - - f M, -sl .i Q r fer 3-55552 -f?,.,.: f,J',-,'q.-.ggi-.,L,1 -f ' 2 'wr 4-L. A . C rs- gays-f5'.si'i 5:v,m.:..- Crew setting pole in early 1900s Pole set by helicopter at Lake Tahoe But increasing demands for power in the Virginia City mines led to the con- struction of the Farad Power Plant 119001, a small hydro-electric plant near Floriston, Calif. 20 miles up- stream from Sparks. BE.. Sierra Pacific Power Curnpang Four more hydroelectric plants were later built on the Truckee. Three of these plants are still helping to meet today's energy needs. By 1923 the increasing demands for electricity in the Truckee Meadows led to the construction of an interconnecting line traversing the Sierra Ne- vada Mountains from California to Reno and Sparks. You have to be a mountain goat to work on that line is the way the young linemen of 1923 de- scribed the project. From Donner Summit eastward the line leaped from rock to rock. Setting the poles was a matter of drill and blast, drill and blast in the hard granite. We tried to get some dirt around the poles, but mostly it was just a question of packing rock in the holes, says one Sierra Pacific veteran who worked on the line.

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Coming full circle in this Bicentennial year, the Sparks Tribune has announced plans to return to the B Street business district. Many years ago, the Tribune was an integral part of the B Street scene. In fact, in those days, B Street was Sparks. The paper is remembered by old-timers, depending on their ages, on B Street between llth and 12th Streets, on llth Street just a door off B Street, or at 6th and B Streets. In recent years, however, under the ownership of Matie and Stan Barker and, presently, Don and Lynn Woodward, the Trib has been located on Marieta Way in the industrial district and in offices located in the Professional Building in Greenbrae. With rekindled interest in B Street and the new Bicentennial town center plan, the Tribune has made plans to return to that area. The move during the summer will take the Tribune and its sister publication, the Big Nickel, into facilities purchased at the northwest corner of 10th and C Streets, the building occupied for many years by the city post office. In addition to acquiring its first newspaper-owned plant and offices, the Tribune has developed new growth and vigor during the Bicentennial. Because of higher costs of production and mailing, the management was forced to develop a new delivery system starting in March 1975. After contracting services of others, the Tribune began its own distribution service in October. Now a crew of 54 paperboys and girls work late Wednes- day afternoons to deliver the Tribune to almost every home in Sparks. The circulation, which has been about 2500 for many years,jumped in six months to 10,000 and is still climbing. These new developments add another interesting chapter to a publication that has an up-and-down career for 70 years. It has been a weekly, a bi-weekly, a tri-weekly, and a short-lived daily. And there were several predecessors to the Tribune-in the days when newspapering was more adventuring than business. When the city of Sparks came into being, having been moved here, for the most part from Wadsworth when the Southern Pacific shifted its division point yards, the first newspaper to make an appearance was the Har- riman Herald, established Jan. 16, 1904, by H.W. Dalton. It was a weekly and the name derived from the fact that the new community was first named Harriman in honor of the president of the railroad. But Harriman was modest and insisted that his name be removed. The residents wanted their town called Glendale but the U.S. Post Office said there was already a town in California by that name, so the town was named Sparks, for the governor of Nevada, J ohn Sparks, who owned a ranch in Washoe Valley and the Wede- kind Mine, north of town. From 1905 to August of 1910 when the Sparks Tribune began publication as a tri-weekly, two other news- papers were published in the community. Neither the Sparks Dispatch nor Nevada Forum was able to continue publication, the former ending Dec. 1905 and the later Mar. 1910. lf you look closely .. . you'll see the sign Sparks Tribune on the building to the right of the livery stable lbuilding with pointed top, open front doors.J

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Cedar poles were unloaded from a nearby railroad line and floated downstream to the most convenient landings, where teams of horses took over to drag them into po- sition. In 1960 Sierra Pacific embarked on another era. By now power pro- duced from the Truckee was in- adequate to serve Western Nevada's increasing requirements. Sierra Pacific decided that the growing Truckee Meadows would be better served with its own gen- eration plants which would make Sierra Pacific selfreliant. In the 1960s and 1970s steam gen- eration plants were built at Tracy Power Station, 14 miles east of Sparks and Fort Churchill Power Station near Yerington. For the 1980s a coal-fired plant, now in the development stages, is to be completed near Battle Mountain. Since the early 1900s when Sierra's hydroelectric plants were operating along the Truckee, complex ma- chinery has replaced physical labor in many instances to make line maintenance and easier. With the continued growth of the and northern construction Truckee Meadows Nevada, Sierra Pacific, as in the past, must continually plan for the future . . . Old hydroelectric plant on Truckee River ' ' n- - -... .- Modern steam generating plant near Yerington Power plant control room today Power plant control in early 1900s ii V r tif Photos courtesy of Nevada Historical Society. um m E. n ., U , . U 'S ' ' I 3- 1 ,ir .. Lf S.