Past Pages for Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016

150 years ago

Grew like a toadstool. When we went to bed Sunday night, the old burn corner at the intersection of Carson and Second streets was deserted, as it has been many time in the last six months. When we turned out yesterday morning, what stood there was a brand new house, all painted and shingled, and looking for all the world as if it had grown out of the ground in the night like a toadstool. Come to find out about it, it was built by Dr. Sharp, the dentist, and moved to its present position on wheels. It will remain there for the present and the doctor will have his office there.

130 years ago

Mittledorfer still insists on wearing a shapeless, non-attractive plug hat in spite of the strong public feeling against the unbecoming tile. Yesterday the Appeal received the following: Ed. Appeal — We are quite delighted with the idea advanced by your paper that Mr. Mittledorfer ought to stop wearing a plug hat. His style of beauty would show to much more advantage under some light shade of felt. Signed, a Carson woman.

100 years ago

The Prison Commission, together with Warden Dickerson, is giving serious consideration to the reclaiming of about 400 acres of land, now swampy, at the lower end of the ranch. The general operations of the prison farm for 1915 showed a net profit of $1,197.

70 years ago

Cupid was a busy fellow in Ormsby County during 1945, statistics show, as 1,702 marriages for the 12-month period were reported by the county recorder’s office. During the same time, 993 divorces were heard.

50 years ago

This year’s St. Patrick’s Day parade in Reno will have English, Chinese and Canadian touches. Lady Godiva will appear as well as the Chinese Drum and Bugle Corps of San Francisco and Visiting Firemen from Vancouver, B.C. There will be plenty of Irish flavor as the Truckee River will flow green, the center divider on Virginia Street will be painted green and a true Rose of Erin will be imported from Ireland.

30 years ago

More than 80,000 open mine shafts, some abandoned for a century, wait ominously to devour people who wander into old mining regions in Nevada’s back country. Two weeks ago, a 19-year-old youth fell off a ledge into a 450-foot deep crevice in an abandoned mine near Yerington.

Trent Dolan is the son of Bill Dolan, who wrote this column for the Nevada Appeal from 1947 until his death in 2006.