We Visited: August 2001
Head north on US-95 for 14.4 mi; take dirt road west for 3 miles
Upsal was a small station / siding on the Southern Pacific line.
George Wyman passed by Upsal in 1903.
George A. Wyman was the first person to cross America on a motorized vehicle. Wyman started in San Francisco, California on May 16 and arrived in New York City 50 days later on July 6, 1903. He rode a 200cc, 1.25 horsepower "California" motorcycle designed by Roy C. Marks, inventor of the first American production motorcycle. "I walked the first mile out of Wadsworth pushing the motor bicycle and pausing every 10 feet to take breath. Then I took to the railroad. I bumped along over the ties for 20 miles and then reached Massie, a telegraph station with a water tank for the train and section hands. The water for these tanks is hauled in water cars from Wadsworth. At Wadsworth I had taken the precaution of adding a water bottle to my equipment, and here I mixed it with good water. I had hardly got to riding again before I got my first puncture of the trip, and it was a beauty. It was a hole into which you could stick your finger. It was no laughing matter at the time, yet there was something bizarre about the incident that now causes me to smile, for that cut was made by a fragment of a beer bottle. Imagine it if you please - I am in the middle of the Forty Mile Desert with a wild waste of sand and sagebrush bounding the horizon from every point of view, and, save the lonely telegraph shanty, there is not a sign of human life about. So far as the outlook is concerned, I and the telegraph operators are the sole inhabitants of a globe of sand, and yet I get my tire cut by a piece of beer bottle bearing a choice Milwaukee label. It rather adds to the grotesqueness of the situation when I recall the appearance of the ground alongside the railroad track in that unholy desert, where countless men and animals have perished after being crazed by thirst. All along the tracks the ground is strewn with beer bottles that have been tossed from the car windows as the trains sped by. Now and then one of the flying bottles struck a tie or a fellow waif and broke, but most of them landed on the sand or brush and lie there intact. I could have gathered enough of these unbroken glass beer flagons to have started a good sized bottling establishment, and, in spite of the gloom caused by my puncture. I could not help thinking what a veritable paradise this same deadly wilderness would be to some city junkman. In this land of the Terrible Thirst an habitual beer drinker surely would be turned into a raving lunatic by this sight. It took the biggest plug I had, one with a mushroom two inches in diameter, to fix that cut, and a yard of tire tape to bind it properly.
Fifteen miles from Massie I passed a section gang's settlement called Upsal; 12 miles further I passed the great metropolis known as Brown's, consisting of one house and a signpost.
-The George A. Wyman Memorial Project, http://wymanmemorialproject.blogspot.com/
Upsal was no stranger to accidents.
MAN KILLED AT UPSAL
Just before going to press, we learn that an unknown man was killed early this morning at Upsal, a small station on the Southern Pacific in this county, by running him over by a train. The authorities here were notified and they wired back for the railroad company to take charge of the remains until the coroner could reach there.
-Churchill Standard, July 16, 1904
THIS DERAILMENT WAS FORTUNATE
Carload of Live Chickens Leaves Track But No Fatalities Are Reported
A very fortunate derailment occurred Monday night on the Salt Lake division which might have resulted in the destruction of hundreds of lives but as it was not a single fatality was recorded. About 6:50 p m an eastbound freight in the neighborhood of Upsal ran afoul of an archbar which had dropped on the track and one of the cars loaded with live poultry and derailed, extending crosswise of the tracks There were several hundred chickens in the car and if it had been overturned in the ditch as was first believed many chickens would doubtless have been killed. The wrecker was sent out from Sparks and the car replaced on the track without causing any delay either to passenger or other freight trains.
-Nevada State Journal, January 22, 1908
It was no stranger to natural phenomena either.
A meteor, described as being "as big as a house," fell near the railroad at Upsal, a small station twenty miles east of Sparks, and Engineer John George, on the Tonopah-Oakland train, mistaking the astral body for a signal, brought the train to a stop. The meteor was not found.—Virginia Chronicle.
-Daily Independent, July 23, 1908
Underwear? Really?
TWO MORE COUNTY JAIL OCCUPANTS
Constable Sharkey, of Hazen, came over Friday with Tom and Jack O'Connor, young men from no particular place who were lodged in the county bastille charged with burglary of the station house at Upsal. The young men are 22 and 25 years respectively and are desperate characters. The evidence against them is conclusive, they having been caught with the loot upon them. This included several suits of clothes, underwear, a shot gun, and miscellaneous articles. All that stands between them and the state's prison is the formality of a trial.
-The Churchill County Standard, August 11, 1910
Besides derailments and thievery, there is always a good story.
INFANT BORN IN SNOWBANK
Stork Pays Unexpected Call Upon Mrs. John Silva As She Walks Through the Snow
(From The Reno Journal) Mrs. John Silva, whose husband works on the S. P. section at Upsal, 55 miles east of Reno, and 15 miles from Hazen, was brought to this city on train No 5 Saturday morning to receive medical attention. Mrs. Silva was walking in the snow a short distance from her home when she gave birth to an infant son in the snow. The attention of the husband was called to his wife's plight and he summoned a neighbor woman to assist him. The infant was wrapped in a shawl to protect it from the cold wind and upon the arrival of train No. 6, Mrs. Silva was placed on the train and brought to Reno. From the depot she was conveyed to a lodging house and Dr. J. P. Martin summoned. Upon arriving at the lodging house the doctor found the infant son robust and rugged and doing nicely. After making investigation into the financial circumstances of Mrs. Silva and learning that she was without means he ordered the patient removed to his home where he could give her proper attention, as on account of her exposure she showed symptoms of pneumonia. No scion of wealthy family ever was greeted with more modern layette than was the son of the humble section man and the doctor has provided the infant with a wardrobe of which any doting mother could be justly proud. There is some suggestion of christening the little stranger with the unique cognomen of 1916. Mrs. Silva is the mother of another child aged 18 months.
-Elko Independent,January 4, 1916
More accidents, more thievery.
OVERLAND LIMITED GOES IN DITCH NEAR HAZEN IN NIGHT
Seventy Passengers Get Shaken Up But No One Injured
Souther Pacific's Overland Limited train, westbound, went through Reno this morning at 10 o'clock as a stub train, twelves hours late as a result of a derailment at 9:20 o'clock last night at Upsal siding, 14 miles east of Hazen, in which not one passenger even suffered a bruise when the locomotive and seven heavy Pullman coaches left the tracks.
-Reno Evening Gazette, January 25, 1929
CLOTHING STOLEN
Theft of $150 worth of clothing from members of a section gang working at Upsal, Nev. was reported to police yesterday by Joe Banson.
-Nevada State Journal, April 28, 1948
SP REOPENS MAINLINE TRACK AFTER SUNDAY DERAILMENT
Workmen Clear Twisted Wreckage From SP Tracks
30 Freight Cars Lost In Accident
A broken or burned off axle derailed a westbound Southern Pacific freight early Sunday morning. The accident stacked up 30 fully loaded freight cars at the Upsal siding 12 miles east of Hazen. There were no injuries. In fact, the engineer Henry Hage of Sparks and the fireman William Stetler were unaware at first there had been an accident when the train ground to a halt at 4:30 a.m. Both men believed a mechanical safety device had halted the train. It was not until they made a visual check that they found the wreckage of some 40 cars behind the engine.
-Nevada State Journal, November 5, 1957
There is a bit more here than there is as Falais- quite a bit more, as a matter of fact. Several concrete foundations and sets of blocks remain, along with some scattered debris. Debris seems to be distributed over a much wider area and much more lightly that it was at Massie. Roads in the area are sandy, so advise 4WD.