There are several locales referred to as "Five Mile House" in Nevada, California, and elsewhere, but this one is the one between Elbow, Nine Mile House, and Aurora. It was already operating by the mid 1860's.
In 1865, J. Ross Brown wrote of the agricultural and mineral resources in the Walker River Valley, which he had toured in the fall of 1864. His trip began in Aurora and, following the road north and then northwesterly down the canyon road, he and his party reached the Five Mile House, a way station. On the 1875 Nevada State Census, "J. Shreck" was enumerated near the residence of H. Aldrich and family, and before the toll gate of J. J. Welch. Welch was enumerated in close proximity to "S. Baldwin," a stock raiser, who has been identified as Schnedicher Baldwin, of the Five Mile House, between what became Fletcher Station and Aurora.
-Along the East Walker River Nevada, a Historical Perspective, Sue Silver
Five Mile House was a stage stop on the toll road to Aurora. It was about five miles away, hence the name.
Aurora News Items: As George Daly was alighting from the stage at the Five-mile House last Wednesday, a mule standing forty-seven yards away winked with his hind leg and landed his hoof on Mr.
Daly's right thigh, knocking him under the stage. Result, a painful but not serious flesh wound.
-Yerington Times, January 30, 1878
There was talk of building a railroad with its terminus at Nine Mile House or Five Mile House, but that obviously never materialized.
A NEW NEVADA RAILROAD.
A press dispatch from Virginia City, under date of August 25, contains some railroad news quite important to this region, as follows: "It has been decided to build a rail-road south immediately, and to push the work with all speed. It will run from Mound House to Dayton, thence via Sutro to Fort Churchill, cross the Carson there and thence by natural passes to Walker Lake, where steamers will probably be constructed. A branch will be extended to the Nine Mile House, at the foot of the grade up to Aurora. The road will be broad gauge, to connect with the Virginia & Truckee and Central Pacific roads. The distance is 59 miles to the head of Walker Lake. The length of the lake is 30 miles, and from Mason Valley to Aurora by land is 70 miles if run without steamers. This branch is intended to command the trade of Aurora, Benton, Lake District, Bodie and the Great Salt Marsh, and indirectly Marietta, Belleville, Candelaria, Columbus and the new districts toward Belmont, and to help open the country away down to Death Valley." The road proposed is simply an extension of the Virginia and Truckee road, owned by D. O. Mills and Wm. Sharon, who are virtually the Bank of California—the institution which within the past two years put all the life into that portion of Nevada's mining country south of the Comstock. It was Mr. Sharon's expressed determination several years ago to extend the road far down this way, and it would now seem that the important work is about to be begun. Since the ignominious failure of the Los Angeles people to build the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad, under every incentive and favorable circumstance that could possibly exist, it has been evident that if Inyo County ever gets a road at all it must come from northern capital and enterprise—and we may add, northern brains. When Senator Jones succumbed to the apathy of Los Angeles and the power of Stanford & Co., this vast mineral section lost all hopes of development from the southward. The Southern Pacific could control the trade anyhow, and it is not the habit of the anaconda corporation to construct branch roads anywhere. Should they ever want a route connecting the Central and Southern it would probably pass a hundred miles or so to the eastward, though the wealth of this country and its natural passes are well known to them. But the Nevada road coming this way, so far as can be learned from the rough outline presented in the above-quoted dispatch, will not approach nearer to Independence, about the central point of Inyo, than 135 miles. By stage road to Mojave from here it is 160 miles, or 130 by direct road. It thus appears that the new road will not control the Mono and Inyo trade further south than Benton or Bishop. But from the terminus of the branch, the Nine or the Five Mile House, there is about fifteen miles to the east of Aurora an easy grade over to the table lands on the east side of Mono Lake. And right there will be found inexhaustible supplies of the best description of timber for railroad ties. Thence on to Adobe Meadows, Blind Springs and Owens Valleys, and clear through to the Southern Pacific at Mojave, there is a natural road-bed easier to lay a track upon than an Illinois prairie. Without the plan of ultimately making this grand connection between the two great trunk lines, the road would not be built a broad-gauge. The route is destined at no distant day to become one of the most important arteries of commerce in the Union, connecting southern California, Arizona and New Mexico with the North and opening up the richest and most varied mineral region on the globe. Its entire length from the Mound House to Mojave would be 395 miles.
-Inyo Independent, August 31, 1878
Apparently it was decided just improve the road instead of constructing a rail road.
In 1880 the C. & C. railroad
reached Hawthorne. The railroad
company constructed a wagon
road up the Bodie canyon from
the Five-Mile House to the junction of the Aurora and Bodie road, deflecting all freighting and
stages, and completely sidetracking the old town [Aurora].
-Mason Valley News, January 15, 1916
Hey, buddy-- doors are expensive! It's now 1880 and a man named Baldwin is running Five Mile House.
Aurora, March 1.-- About 9 o'clock on Sunday night, Baldwin, proprietor of the Five Mile House on the Carson Road shot a Norwegian named Andy. The latter was on a jamboree and threatened to clean out the ranch. He smashed in the front door with an a, after being ejected from the house, but in doing so the ax was taken from him. He then got a pick and proceeded to finish the job. At this juncture Baldwin turned loose a shot gun, its contents striking Andy in the right shoulder, making a hole big enough to put a duck egg in. Andy kept on with his pick, broke the door, and stampeded everyone in the house. Baldwin came to town and got Deputy Sheriff Stowe, who went down and brought Andy to town this morning. Dr. Davison pronounces the would serious though probably not fatal. Baldwin was allowed to go on his own recognizance. -Bridgeport Chronical-Union, March 2, 1880
Apparently Mr. Fletcher was an owner of Five Mile House at one time, or at least a resident
Claude Fletcher, of the Five Mile House, is thinking of going into the chicken business. He has a notion that, in the present state of the weather, a refrigerator would be a whole lot better than an incubator.
-Walker Lake Bulletin, August 2, 1884
If you're going to collect tolls, you have to have a toll gate.
Esmeralda Items. The following items of interest are from the Walker Lake Bulletin of last Wednesday: The road from the five mile house is to have a toll gate.
-Yerington Times, January 23, 1886
Here, another owner, Robert Wiley, is revealed as a former owner of Five Mile House.
SWEETWATER NATIVE TAKEN BY DEATH SATURDAY IN TONOPAH
Mrs. Maude Dalzelle, a native of Sweetwater, Nev., and a resident of Tonopah since 1902, died Saturday in Tonopah. Mrs. Dalzell was the daughter of pioneer Nevadans Margaret and Robert Wiley. The Wileys first settled at the Five Mile House near Aurora, then moved to Pine Grove where they operated a dairy. They later moved to the Sulphur Springs Ranch.
-Mason Valley News, September 8, 1961
There isn't much here, and anything that is here looks like it could probably be more contemporary ruins than historic. Nevertheless, something was here. The copious amounts of water-- and thus trees and brush and leaves-- make searching for anything a challenge.