We Visited: 2/15/2002
We Visited: March 8, 2014
Our Breakfast: Eggs at La Casita in Lovelock
Our Dinner : Bacon-wrapped sausages in a gravel pit somewhere.
From Fallon: Take US 95 north for 32.9 miles; turn east onto I80 towards Lovelock and proceed 28 miles to Exit 105; take frontage road (Business 95B) about 1.5 miles; turn left onto Main St.; go one block and turn left onto Western Ave (SR854).; proceed west 1 mile and turn north on Sand Hill Ave.; proceed 1.5 miles and turn west on Pitt Rd. (SR 399); proceed for 11.9 miles to dirt road; turn right onto dirt road
This station was used by the stage between Seven Troughs and Lovelock, and was situated-- oddly enough-- roughly halfway between the two, about 14 miles from Lovelock.
In the early months of the Seven Troughs boom, all freight consigned to the new camps was hauled from Lovelock in wagons drawn by heavy draft animals, while passenger traffic and the mails were shuttled over the road in four-horse stage coaches. The 30-mile trip from Lovelock was made with one change of animals at Halfway House-- a small station at a good spring of water on the west slope of the Trinities. Stages required about five hours to cover the distance, and wagons even longer. By averaging better time than even the fastest horse-drawn stage, automobiles captured the mail contracts by 1907, and because they scared the daylight out of any draft or saddle animal they chanced to meet en route, a toll road exclusively for their use was built a short distance south of the main stage road.
- NELL
MURBARGER,
Desert Magazine, June 1958
They decided they needed a resting place half-way between the new mines and Lovelock.
AT THE NEW SEVEN TROUGHS TOWNSITE
Last night a corps of surveyors went out to survey and plats the town site which Messrs. Floore and Pyle laid out one-half mile below the strike. A well is being sunk in the granite half mile above the townsite and an abundance of good water is assured. Lumber and materials; are going in by the carload. The townsite company, in charge of Mr. Friedman, will have office buildings, boarding house, store, etc , on the ground as soon as possible and automobiles that have been running between Fairview and Hazen will be on the road in a very few days. They expect to make the trip from Lovelock in one hour and thirty minutes. A half-way house will be built on the Lower Road so that teams can stop for water and feed if desired, and automobile passengers for refreshments. The Lovelock merchants should keep an eye open on the development of this camp. It will he rapid and they may miss some good business chances if they are not awake.
-Lovelock Tribune, August 10, 1906
There is always some jerk out there spoiling it for everybody.
REWARD OFFERED-We will give a reward of $10 for information lending to the arrest and Conviction of the party or parties who broke into the "Half-Way House," on the Lovelock-Vernon road, Sunday or Monday night, December 30 or 31st, 1906. L V. & L. N. MARKER, BLOOD & YOCKEY.
-Lovelock Tribune, January 4, 1907
I guess while people were resting they did a little prospecting.
NEW STRIKE MADE AT HALF-WAY HOUSE
Midnight Stampede Made Sunday Night To Get Locations.
FREE GOLD ROCK IN EVIDENCE
Supposed to Be Continuation of Poker Brown Ore Belt, But has not so Much Galena.
For some weeks past there has been rumors of something good in the vicinity of the Half-way house on the road to Vernon. About ten days ago a prospector brought in some rich specimens of ore which he hail located in that vicinity and aroused the curiosity of the Lovelock "Stampeders." A piece of porphyretic quartz was shown in town Saturday evening by one of the prospectors and Sunday there was quite a rush in that direction, many of the stampeders putting up their monuments and notices in the midst of a snow storm.
Lovelock Tribune, March 29, 1907
Those slow wagons were tearing up the road and slowing things down, so they built a road just for those newfangled automobiles. It ran past the Half-way House too.
NEW AUTO ROAD LOVELOCK TO VERNON
Senator O'Kane and Others Building Road for Exclusive Use of Autos.
Teams Will Be Kept off By Prohibitive Toll. Will Make Trip to Camps Much Pleasanter.
Senator O'Kane, Mr. Sanford and others have about completed an auto road from Lovelock to Vernon. This is to be for the use of Autos only and will be put in first-class condition for traveling with machines. It will be made a toll road, so that the teams can be kept off. Going out past the Pitt lane and the H. C. Marker residence, the new road goes to the left of Lone Mountain and keeps directly west until it strikes the main hills of the Trinity Mountains. Then it follows up a natural pass and crosses the summit near the stage road at the Halfway house, and keeps near the other road down through the Canyon. At the mouth of the Canyon it takes a straight shoot across the valley into Vernon. Generally speaking, the road is a series of straight stretches. with no sharp turns but only long curves, so that the machines can make good time without danger of accident. A twelve-horse team, with plows and scrapers, has been working on this road for some time and now have the grade nearly into Vernon. The road will be ready for travel as soon as some surfacing is done. This will make the ride. from Lovelock to Vernon, via Auto no more than a brief pleasure trip. This road can be kept smooth and hard and the chuckholes and dust of a stage and freight road avoided.
-Lovelock Tribune, November 1, 1907
Now you could call ahead and see what the soup of the day was.
NEW TELEPHONES INSTALLED
The following new telephones have been installed by the Northern Nevada Telephone and Telegraph Company, Seven Troughs Auto Garage, The Halfway House, A. Jahn ad the Cash Grocery.
-Lovelock Tribune, July 31, 1908
At this point the Half-way house was no longer needed, but it was handy to have around for this fella.
MINING MAN OF LOVELOCK DRAGS WIFE THROUGH SNOW TWELVE MILES TO SAFETY
LOVELOCK, Nev., Feb. 2. (Special).—A near tragedy which threatened Mr. and Mrs. Earl Laughton. well known in mining camps of the state, during the recent heavy storm was revealed today when Mr. Laughton related the details of a twelve-mile struggle through the snow after the car in which he and his wife were riding broke down on the Seven Troughs road, several miles from any habitation. When the car broke down Mrs. Laughton remained inside while Laughton walked back one mile to the old Seven Troughs half-way house to meet a car he thought was following him, he said. Deciding there was no following party, he returned to his own car to find his wife already suffering from the cold. The couple started the trek toward Lovelock through snow drifts two to three feet deep, but Mrs. Laughton soon became exhausted. Laughton carried her over his shoulder for two miles but, finding the burden too great, he was forced to drag her through the snow for the remainder of the journey. They reached a house on the John G. Taylor ranch two miles from Lovelock after hours of exhausting toil and stumbled through the door in a state of collapse, Laughton said. Sheepherders, who were living in the house, cared for the couple, reviving them by placing them in tubs of cold water. Laughton, who is six feet tall and has followed hard-rock mining all his life, says he owes his ability to reach safety to the rugged physique he developed during his years as a miner. Mrs. Laughton is slight in statute and frail and, according to Laughton, had he left her at any time to seek aid she would have frozen to death. Mr. and Mrs. Laughton are spending a few days in Lovelock recovering from their harrowing experience.
-Reno Evening Gazette, February 3, 1933
Aside from a corral which may or may not be part of the original site, some depressions, some scattered metal debris, and lots and lots of baling wire, there isn't much left here.