Firefighters return flag to Virginia City peak

VIRGINIA CITY -- Old Glory flies on the summit of Mount Davidson for the first time since a flag placed at half-staff after Sept. 11 was destroyed by a Washoe zephyr.

With July 4th looming on the horizon, firefighters from Storey Country scrambled up the rocky peak last week bearing a new, 8-by-12-foot flag.

A pole on the 7,820-foot summit has secured U.S. flags through gusting winds for 140 years. It was a strong zephyr which ripped the last flag loose and wrapped it around the pole.

"That was the Sept. 11 flag," said Virginia City Volunteer Fire Chief Joe Curtis, one of the team who climbed the hill. "Our mistake was we put it at half mast and it got caught around the guy wires and some bolts on the pole."

Virginia City firefighters have maintained the flags since they were first placed on the summit in 1863 -- almost a year before Nevada attained statehood.

"It was put up there to commemorate the birth of the nation," Curtis said. "The idea -- you know, who decided to put it up there -- is lost in time."

The flag is replaced on the summit of Mount Davidson each year for the Fourth of July.

Curtis said the firefighters who ascend the peak to replace the flag prefer to do it anonymously.

"That way there's not any attention going to any particular persons. We'd rather have the notoriety go to the fire department."

This year's volunteers were all Curtis' family. There were his two sons, David and Tracey -- both career firefighters in Story County, and his "imminent daughter-in-law" Cheryl, a dispatcher for the sheriff's office. She and Tracey plan to marry in October.

The fire chief's wife, Ellie, climbs the peak every June 7 for her birthday.

She used to take friends with her, he said, but not any more.

"They won't go with her anymore because she's too fast. She leaves them in the dust."

The flag team went up the hill on June 26 to assess the situation and decide what tools they would need. They returned to the summit on Monday with a ladder and the new flag.

The flag was a gift from Susan Churches of the Virginia Highlands who donated it in honor of her husband, Richard. The owner of Churches Trucking, Richard died Nov. 24 of esophageal cancer after living on the Comstock for 30 years. He and his wife bought the flag together in Sparks after Sept. 11, she said.

Joe Curtis climbed halfway up the 140-year-old pole on the summit to remove the entangled flag.

"It's a huge, tall flag pole," he said. "I climbed halfway up -- that's a heck of a view 30 feet up that flag pole."

The firefighters plan to climb the peak again at the end of the month to remove the flag. It's important to have it up there for Independence Day, but then it should be removed, Curtis said.

"Because the zephyr will destroy it if it stays up there."