Dinner Station has been known by many names during its life on the old Cope Road, now Nevada 225. It was an important stop during the horse-drawn wagon days, but became less so with the advent of the automobile. Teamster Hill Beachy and Alex Coryell established Dinner Station in 1869, where it served Tuscarora and other northern mining camps in Elko county. It was known as Coryell Station when it passed into the hands of John Dorsey, after whom nearby Dorsey Creek is named. J.H. Weiland owned it by 1884, when a disastrous fire burned down the original structure, which he then rebuilt out of stone. Ed and Mary Oldham bought it in 1905 and ran it until 1911. Bill Moffat purchased it in 1946 from Joe Yraguen. Bill sold it to famous American businessman E. L. Cord. Cord finally sold to J. E. Munson and D. Secrist in 1972. It finally fell into the hands of the Hooper family.
Food for you, food for the animals, a place to rest-- what more could you ask for?
CORYELL STATION!
On The Cope Road
THE UNDERSIGNED HAS established a commodious Station on the Cope Road, twenty-four miles from Elko.
A SQUARE MEAL can always be obtained at this Station.
HAY AND BARLEY for stock.
Also, WINES, LIQUORS, AND CIGARS
Alex Coreyell, Proprietor
-Elko Independent, September 8, 1869
"Cope" is-- or was--an Elko mining district, better known now as Mountain City and discovered by Jesse Cope in 1869
If you didn't want to have dinner, you could feed yourself.
.A party of gentlemen left here on the third to enjoy a fishing expedition in a mountain stream near Alec Coryell's station. They were eminently successful, and brought in a fine string of speckled trout.
-Elko Independent, July 6, 1870
If he had just minded his manners he could have gotten a meal.
The Horse Thief Heard From.
Blackcutt, who stole the horse and saddle from Joe Lang's Monday night, struck out North, and on the following morning stopped at Weiland's station for breakfast. News reached here last evening, that while the meal was in preparation he became insolent and so alarmed Mrs. Weiland, who was alone with her children that she drove him out of the house at the point of a shotgun. Coming home soon after and learning the above facts, Weiland started in pursuit of the scoundrel and cam up with him, but as soon as he discovered that he was being pursued he put spurs to his horse and being better mounted than Weiland succeeded in making his escape. Sheriff Atwell and his deputy, J. M. Taber, are in the northern part of the county, and if they strike Blackcutt's trail he will probably get to pass the Winter in the salubrious climate of the Carson Warm Springs.
-Weekly Independent, October 25, 1885
He's genial so long as you respect his wife.
J. H. Weiland, the genial proprietor of Weiland's Station, came down today on business connected with his land claim.
-Daily Independent, August 8, 1888
Don't know why, but the 1878 Land Office plat shows this as "Dorsey's House"
John Dorsey, the Elko county stockman, is here today with two cars of prime Christmas beef for the San Francisco market.
-Reno Evening Gazette, December 14, 1889
A telephone message was received from Weiland Station this afternoon stating that there was a passenger on the stage from Bull Rim whose face was all broke out with the small-pox. Dr. Hood and Sheriff Campbell were notified and they will probably hold up the stage before it gets to town and take the man to the pest-house.
-Weekly Independent, January 25, 1901
Don't know if she ever located her purse. Might still be out there somewhere.
Miss Garwood of the Richwood hospital [formerly the Boling hospital, Elko] lost her purse this morning, somewhere between the Commercial Hotel and Oldham's station. The finder will be rewarded by leaving the same at the hospital.
-Daily Independent, August 21, 1909
By this time the station's use as a freight station was winding down, with the advent of the automobile.
Charley Weiland came in from Oldham's station shortly after noon. He says the road between here and the station was broken by a band of cattle and is now in pretty good condition.
-Daily Independent, February 24, 1910
Sad news.
MRS. PETTY COMMITS SUICIDE
Between 3 and 4 o'clock Thursday afternoon Mrs. Roma Carrie Petty, a sister of Mrs. T. S. Park, committed suicide at Weiland Station on the Tuscarora road by shooting herself with a small 30 caliber Colts revolver. The particulars as we learned them from Mr. Park are as follows: Mrs. Park and Mrs. Petty were in a room up stairs talking when they heard a team coming. Mrs. Petty went down stair to see who it was. She returned and told Mrs. Park that it was Mr. and Mrs. Enos Esquire. Mrs. Park then went out and was talking to Mr. Esquire when a shot was heard. She immediately returned to the house and went up stars. On entering the room, she left few minutes before she saw her sister lying on the bed dead with her left hand partially over the pistol with which she had fired the shot. Mrs Petty was left handed. She had placed the pistol just above the left ear and pulled the trigger. The bullet passed clear through her head and lodged in her hair, just above the right ear. Death was instanous. Mr. Park left home in the morning and when he returned about 3:00 in the afternoon, Mrs. Petty was dead. She seemed to be in her usual spirits and Mrs. Park had not noticed anything unusual about her during the day. She was 33 years of age and had been staying with her sister since the 4th of last May. She had been divorced from her husband and it is possible that brooding over her trouble unsettled her mind. She leaves a father, mother and other relatives in Louisville, Kentucky, beside her sister here. The remains were brought in last night and are now being prepared for shipment to her old home tomorrow. At the urgent request of Mrs. Park, no inquest was held by Coroner Morgan.
-Weekly Independent, May 13, 1910
By the late 1930's, Dinner Station had outlived its usefulness as a station.
DINNER STATION (5.955 alt.), at a crossroads containing only a handful of people, is a blek, two-story stone structure flanked by ranch buildings. Formerly, as its name declares, it was a stop for meals on the route to the ranches and mines of northern Elko county. At this station in the 1870's, weary oxen rested under their yokes, and the lathered teams of the stagecoaches were relieved by fresh beasts, while inside the fort-like walls drivers and travelers ate. In the surrounding area drainage from Lone Mountain has made hay fields and meadows possible.
-Nevada, a Guide to the Silver State, 1940
A more contemporary article giving some background
Pioneer Residents Plan Golden Wedding
ELKO, Sept, 29. (Special) — Pioneer residents of Elko county, Mr. and Mrs. Edgar E. Oldham, 739 Pine St., have extended a community invitation to attend an open house Friday evening from 7 to 10 in celebration of their golden wedding anniversary. Married October 3, 1897 in the then booming gold mining town of Tuscarora, they lived in Mountain City for a short period before going to the "Dinner Station," still a landmark on the Mountain City highway. 21 miles north of Elko. After living briefly in Mountain City, the young couple moved to the "Dinner Station," where northhound and southbound stages stopped daily en route to and from Tuscarora, and where the driver of the North Fork stage stopped daily for dinner before making his return trip of nearly thirty miles. The barn held 80 head of horses and was often full, as was the large dining room, especially in the autumn, when sheepmen were concentrated in the area, and "drummers," with horse and buggy, covered their lonely itinerary, to say nothing of random riders on horseback. The Oldham cattle ranged on Lone Mountain then, and the "Dinner Station" acreage is now a part of the extensive holdings of the Moffatt company. The busy "Dinner Station" was quite a new environment for Mrs. Oldham, who said the only other woman she saw for two years at Jarbidge was a member of the Winter household. She received mail only twice a year there. During the ten years the Oldhams spent at the stage stop, most of their six children were born. Many changes, occasioned by the rapid progress that has characterized the machine age have been witnessed by the Oldhams. They saw the thriving gold camp of Tuscarora slowly fade into a ghost town; they widened their own radius of activities with the coming of the automobile and improved highways. Their children WOIT educated partly in a nearby rural school and later in the high school in Elko, where they maintained a home for many years for use during the school term.
-Nevada State Journal, September 30, 1947
Dinner Station changed hands many times over the years.
ONCE A STOP FOR 16-HORSE TEAMS
Elko's Historic Dinner Station Ranch Sold
ELKO-- The Dinner Station Ranch, an historic stop for 16-horse teams in the early days of Tuscarora, has been sold by E. L. Cord. The new owners are Mr. & Mrs. J. E. Munson and Mr. and Mrs. Dave Secrist. Secrist will also manage the Dinner Station property. Hill Beachey, one of the famous early team operators, established Dinner Station in 1869, according to historical records. It served Tuscrarora and other northern mining camps in Elko County and was first known as Coryell's Station, after A. J. Coryell, owner. There was a ranch, barn, corrals, that went for $12.70 in a sheriff's sale in May of 1870. Other owners included John Dorsey and J. H. Weiland. From 1905 to 1911 the station was operated by Mr. and Mrs. Ed Oldham. Bill Moffat purchased Dinner Station in 1946 from Joe Yraguen. Moffat sold to Cord in 1960.
-Reno Evening Gazette, August 4, 1972
Another fire!
Fire destroys interior of historic Dinner Station
ELKO — The historic Dinner Station 22 miles north of Elko was gutted by fire that swept through interior walls and false ceilings in the one-time stage-coach stop. The stone building was built in the 1880s to replace the original station, which also was destroyed by fire. Investigators said Thursday's fire started in a wall in a back room of the house. Although the interior was destroyed, firefighters were able to salvage many personal belongings from the house before the place was engulfed in flames. The original Dinner Station was built in 1869 or 1870 as part of the Elko-to-Mountain City stage line. A fire in the early 1880s destroyed the station it was rebuilt in 1884 out of stone quarried within a few miles of the site.
-Reno Gazette-Journal, October 6, 1991
Luckily, someone preserved this Nevada landmark.
Burned Dinner Station now being reconstructed
Two years after a blaze destroyed the historic Dinner Station 23 miles north of Elko on Mountain City High-way, the stone structure that served as a stage stop once again has a roof and is getting a new interior. "It was just a gutted frame," said Kirk Hooper, whose parents, ranchers Frank and Phyllis Hooper, own the Dinner Station. "Our intention here is to preserve this structure. We didn't want this place to deteriorate." Since the fire, many people had asked the Hooper family when they would rebuild the Elko County landmark, he said. His father talked builder Ted Swain into taking on the project, which included restoring the stone structure and rebuilding the interior with pine logs.
He and Swain gave John Oldham, whose family owned the Dinner Station when he was born in 1907, a tour of the Dinner Station last week. Oldham said he was told the stones for the structure came from a quarry near the Dinner Station, and four teams of horses were needed to transport the rocks. The stone Dinner House is the second one on the site. The first, a timber structure, was destroyed by fire in 1884. Oldham's parents, Ed and Mary Oldham, bought the Dinner Station in 1905 and sold it in 1911. Kirk Hooper said he has heard a story that Oldham's father had declared that when he saw two horseless carriages go by his place without having to stop, he would sell. Oldham said his mother insisted the saloon had to be in a separate building, away from the living quarters. She said she "wasn't a bartender." After the Oldham left, the bar was moved to the main building and the former saloon was later used as a bunkhouse. When Oldham lived at the station, his mother sometimes had as many as 75 people under her roof to feed and many stayed the night, he said. His father ran four wagon trains all summer long bringing grain from Ruby Valley.
Records indicate the first structure on the site was built in 1869-1870 to be used as a stage stop. Hill Beachey and Len Wines initiated the project to serve their Railroad Stage Line. The timber building went through several owners before the fire in 1884. According to the Northeastern Nevada Historical Society Quarterly of summer 1985, the Dinner Station was a welcome sight for travelers north-bound from Elko in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It was a half-day away from Elko for travelers in stagecoaches or mudwagons and a full day's haul for heavy freight wagons. The place had several names, including Coryell Station, Dorsey's, Weiland's, Oldham's and Park's, and somewhere along the line became the Dinner Station, the Quarterly states. People stopped for food and rest on their way to the mining districts in northern Elko County. They could purchase a meal for 50 cents and lodging for another 50 cents, according to historical accounts. The 1884 fire occurred while the Dinner Station was owned by J.H. Weiland, and the Oct. 1, 1884, Tuscarora Times-Review reported: "Mr. Weiland is rebuilding his station on the Elko road with dressed stone. It will be completed in a few weeks when it will be the handsomest and most comfortable wayside hostelry in the state of Nevada." The stone house sits just 10 feet off the highway, and there are outbuildings behind it and across the road. Plans call for a big open space in the loft that will be a bedroom with a balcony overlooking the high ceiling 28 feet above the floor below. There will also be a bathroom. Downstairs there will be three more bedrooms, a bathroom, living area and kitchen. Kirk Hooper said no one in his family is planning to live in the house, but it is being rebuilt as a four-bedroom home "in case some-one does want to move in." The only change to the exterior is the addition of five skylights, he said. Inside, there is a new winding staircase to the loft and a "spider web'' window is going in the west gable of the south wing, Swain said.
The fire that gutted the Dinner Station started the night of Oct. 3, 1991. Kirk Hooper said no one was living in the house at the time although he had things stored there. Fire officials from the Nevada Division of Forestry said at the time that the blaze started in a back room and spread through the interior walls and false ceilings. Kirk Hooper said the cause was suspected to be electrical but that was never determined for sure. The Hoopers acquired the Dinner Station and its ranchland in 1988. The ranch is used as summer range. The Hooper Ranch is headquartered near Halleck.
-Elko Daily Free Press, October 12, 1993
FOr some reason, there are signs that say "No Parking Withing 1400 feet" and since we didn't bring a tape measure, we just cruised by slowing and snapped a few pictures as we went. Too bad, looks like a cool place to stop and take photos, but I suppose people are living there and they got tired of people looking through their windows.