38.841396,-119.272213 USGS Yerington Quad

We Visited: 2/22/2014
Our breakfast: Eggs at Pioneer Crossing in Yerington
Our Lunch : Cheeseburgers at King's Diner in Yerington

Directions: Take Highway 50W from Fallon 26.5 miles; south on US 95 ALT 37.9 miles

From Fallon: About 64.4 miles.

Named for a Mr. Addison Nordyke who installed Nordyke and Marmon machinery in the flour mill. There was also a quartz mill. It became a station on the Nevada Copper Belt Railroad in 1910 and the post office served abotu 150 people. It went into decline around 1914. Later on an alfalfa mill was built in the old remodeled flour mill building.

Work on the southern of the [Nevada Copper Belt Rail Road] line was also progressing. Rails finally reached Nordyke on November 30, 1910, although farmers had been hauling potatoes for shipment from the railhead for several weeks. The first official consignment from the station proper was made on December 8.
-Railroads of Nevada and Eastern California: The northern roads By David F. Myrick

Yerington is also the headquarters for several stage lines running from here to Wabuska, Nordyke, Smith, Wellington, and Pine Grove.
1898 February 7, Reno Evening Gazette

Back in the day there paper was full of "so and so is in town and staying at the such and such hotel." Like it was news.

J.I. WIlson came in from Nordyke Nev. last night and registered at the Overland.
1904 November 16, Reno Evening Gazette

They're getting a telephone!

NOVEL METHOD OF BUILDING
Railroad Ties Will Be Used As Telephone Poles
The telephone company recently organized among business men and ranchers of this valley, will soon undertake the erection of its line which is to run to Wellington and Carson and ultimately Bridgeport, Aurora, and Bodie. The first section of the system built will run from Wabuska to Yerington and thence up the valley to Nordyke, taking in the principal ranch residences on the way.
1905 October 10, Reno Evening Gazette

TELEPHONE LINE INTO YERINGTON
The line now reaches from Wabuska to Nordyke, taking in several mines and many ranches.
1906 April 9, Reno Evening Gazette

Flour mill still going- it started around 1892

W. E. Blackwell is shipping grain to the Nordyke Flour Mills
1914 December 12, Reno Evening Gazette

James Good was in Hudson Thursday en route to Nordyke. He is hauling a five stamp quartz mill from Nordyke to the Wheeler Mine at Pine Grove, for R. C. Mudge.
1915 May 24, Reno Evening Gazette

CHOSEN AGRICULTURAL AGENT IN LYON COUNTY
Joseph W. Wilson, Jr, well known rancher and hog raiser of Lyon County, spent yesterday in Reno conferring with C. H. Norcross, director of university extension, and returned to his home in Nordyke this morning. He was appointed county agricultural agent in the extension work done for Lyon and Mineral counties and will assume his duties at once.
1917 June 11, Reno Evening Gazette

WOMAN PROSPECTOR AND CLUB LEADER IS DEAD
Yerington (Special) Mr.s J.I Wilson, one of the most widely known women in Nevada, who had been ill in San Francisco for several weeks and who underwent an operation in Oakland hospital last Friday, dies yesterday morning, according to word received in Yerington last night. Since childhood, Mrs. Wilson had been a resident of Lyon county, and when the camp of Pine Grove was in its heyday was a teacher there. She was deeply interested in mines and was known in many sections as the woman prospector. While teaching at Pine Grove she met and married J. I. Wilson. They moved to a ranch at Nordyke, where Mrs. Wilson operated the historic flour mill for many years, and where her children were born. Mrs. Wilson was born in Genoa in 1863.
1925 September 4, Reno Evening Gazette

RICH GOLD ORE DISCOVERED IN OLD WORKINGS
The old-timers should have drifted a few feet more at a property about three miles south of Mason in Lyon county just above Nordyke, according to a report brought to Reno by P.H. Cook, manager of the Copper Belt Railroad. A short time ago A.J. Van Fleet and his sons entered the old workings and drove one of the drifts ahead, almost at once breaking into a body of high grade gold ore, it is said. The work was done on the ground thirty years ago when it was known as the Kelly mine. Later operations were carried on by Spragg and Martin, who built a mill at Nordyke to work the ore.
1931 January 20, Reno Evening Gazette

Flour mill becomes alfalfa mill

EARLY OPERATION SEE FOR LYON ALFALFA MILL
Units, Electric Motors Installed, Power Line Near Completion; Building Finished
The Lyon county milling association expects to have its alfalfa mill in operation soon, according to Fried Bohm, managing director of the lyon county enterprise. WOrk of installing the mill machinery started April 18, along with remodeling of the mill building at Nordyke, which is being used for the milling program. Since that time mill units have been put in place along with many electric motors that will furnish the power. The Sierra Pacific power company is competing a line from the highway to the mill site.
1949 July 18, Reno Evening Gazette

End of an era

Joseph Wilson Nevada Pioneer Taken By Death
Funeral services will be held for Joseph I. Wilson, 94, a resident of Nevada before it attained statehood, and prominent for many years in the state's banking, ranching, mining, and political circles. Mr. Wilson, born in Missouri in 1859, came to Mason Valley in 1863 with his family in a covered wagon after a five months trip. His mother, Abigail Jane (Butler) Wilson was the first white woman to settle in the valley. His father, David Wilson, raised stock and was a general rancher, and helped frame the Nevada constitution before Nevada became a state in 1864. Joseph Wilson attended school in Pine Grove and competed a course at Heald's Business College in San Francisco. A resident of Nordyke at the time, he was for several years connected with the Pine Grove Mining Co., and for 30 years he was primarily a rancher. Meanwhile he become identified with a variety of mining, banking, and other commercial enterprises. In 1892 he constructed and then for 25 years operated a grist mill at Nordyke. In 1918, fire having destroyed his home at Nordyke, he moved to Yerington.
-1954 June 1, Reno Evening Gazette

We've passed this site several times without giving it as much as a second glance, but it's definitely worth a visit. Large and fairly well preserved ruins. Although it looks like a fire destroyed some of the woody bits, there is lots of junk and agricultural machinery laying around. To the south are some smaller stone and wood ruins and buildings. It looks like a dam of some kind up the canyon a ways, but we're too lazy to actually hike up there and look. A large house and outbuildings is to the north and I suspect it's part of historical Nordyke as well.