Go to main contentsGo to search barGo to main menu
Tuesday, July 8, 2025 at 10:24 AM
Ad

Postcards: Oral Histories

Postcards: Oral Histories

Did you know that you can browse the online collection of oral histories held by the Churchill County Museum and Archives?  Just download the Churchill County Museum App. Click on “At Home,” then on “Other Online Exhibits.” Scroll down to red script and hit “Browse Collections.” You will then be able to access the Churchill County Oral History Project where 153 oral histories reside.  Just click the name of the person whose history you wish to read, and read away. 

Last week, I clicked on Doris Buerer Whalen’s Oral History, and I found myself connecting her memories to what I knew about life on the early Newland’s Project.  She was born in the Harmon District on December 31, 1910. Her parents had moved to Churchill County from Oregon propelled by her mother’s health, which necessitated a drier climate, and lured by the prospect of finding work at the building site of a major component of the irrigation project: Lahontan Dam. 

Construction on the Newlands Project began in 1903, but Lahontan Valley, during the first few Project years, received irrigation water directly from the undammed Carson River.  Those waters were supplemented by waters from the Truckee River by way of Derby Dam, constructed between 1903 and 1905. and the Truckee Canal, built at the same time. Posters distributed throughout the country advertised “Irrigated Homestead Lands Now Open To Entry under the Truckee-Carson Project in Churchill County.” On February 5, 1906, the US Reclamation Service delivered the first water to Project homesteaders, then consisting of 674 men, women, and children settled on 108 ranches. However, 1905 and 1906 were low water years for both the Carson River and the Truckee River. Farms failed.   Then, the floods came, in 1907, sending the undammed, raging waters into the heart of Fallon.  Plans to dam the Carson River for storage found more favor, and the construction of Lahontan Dam began in early 1911.  As news of the million-dollar project spread, a new wave of settlers entered the valley, including the family of Doris Buerer Whalen.

WHALEN: My father came down [to Fallon from Oregon] first because they were homesteading and found a place for them to live which was in the ditchrider house in Harmon.  …This land had opened up as homesteads and it wasn’t long after that.  He worked on Lahontan Dam with horses and scrapers….  I can remember going up there and he had a little tent house, a platform with the sides up and the top covered with a tent.  My mother and I and my younger sister went up there and we would spend maybe several days before we’d come home….  I remember that tent.

John Townley, in his history of the Newlands Project, “Turn This Water Into Gold,” describes how the construction camp at the dam site “was divided into two areas:  Lahontan City for the English-speaking workmen and their families and ‘Bohunkville’ for the large number of Slavs from Eastern Europe recruited to work at the site.”  The camps were “model institutions,” absent the crime and chaos which had characterized the Derby Dam Camp.  There was a reading room and a billiards parlor, and crews were well-fed.  Doris and her family could feel safe when visiting there. 

While her father moved dirt and broke rock, her mother learned to raise vegetables and turkeys.  

WHALEN: Oh, she raised seventy-five or eighty, close to a hundred.  And that was a chore when we got ready to help pick the turkeys….. but sold the turkeys and bought a Ford car. She bought it from the Fallon Garage.

After the work on Lahontan Dam was completed, Mr. Breuer continued to work for the TCID, operating a dragline. He planted a productive orchard on the Harmon property. His children’s education was important to him as well.

WHALEN: My father helped build [the Harmon School].  In fact, he was one of the instigators of the whole thing.  Of course, he was pretty well educated himself and he’d gone to Napierville College so he knew that learning was very important. 

The Buerer story, while it may not have personified the American Dream, certainly gave shape to the Lahontan Valley Dream.  From raising turkeys to purchasing an automobile.  From digging ditches to building schools.  With fulfilling the dream came the hard work.  Whalen recounted her endless chores: milking cows, shocking hay, mowing hay, raking hay, picking turkeys, and making clothes. But she also remembered taking part in the kind of pleasures unique to the valley:  fishing at Dutch Bills, exploring Hidden Caves, swimming in the irrigation ditches, riding horseback, going barefooted on hot summer days. 

Oral histories like Whalen’s provide us the details that help us to understand how, family by family, a dusty small place on earth became an enduring community. 

Please send your thoughts, ideas, stories and ideas for stories to [email protected]

 


Share
Rate

Comment

Comments

July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 1
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 2
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 3
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 4
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 5
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 6
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 7
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 8
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 9
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 10
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 11
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 12
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 13
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 14
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 15
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 16
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 1Page no. 1
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 2Page no. 2
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 3Page no. 3
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 4Page no. 4
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 5Page no. 5
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 6Page no. 6
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 7Page no. 7
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 8Page no. 8
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 9Page no. 9
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 10Page no. 10
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 11Page no. 11
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 12Page no. 12
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 13Page no. 13
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 14Page no. 14
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 15Page no. 15
July 4, 2025 -Fallon Gears Up for a “Bee-autiful”  - page 16Page no. 16
COMMENTS
Comment author: Mike HinzComment text: I knew Sam as a member of our church growing up. He always had a warm smile, a kind word, and a great sense of humor! He will be great missed!Comment publication date: 7/2/25, 11:57 AMComment source: Obituary -- Samuel Bruce WickizerComment author: Mike HinzComment text: Great teacher, great coach, but even a better person!!! Rest in peace Mr. BeachComment publication date: 7/2/25, 11:53 AMComment source: Obituary -- Jack Victor Beach, Jr.Comment author: Mike HinzComment text: I had Mrs Hedges for First Grade at Northside Elementary in 1969. I still, to this day, remember her as a wonderful teacher…one of my favorites!!Comment publication date: 7/2/25, 11:29 AMComment source: Obituary - Nancy Marie Hedges C Comment author: Carl C. HagenComment text: What are MFNs and PBMs ?? ............................ From the editor: This is a very good question and we apologize for not catching that wasn't in there. We reached out to the writer/submitter and got this info back...hope it's helpful. PBM: Pharmacy Benefit Managers are pharmacies that are owned by insurance companies. (CVS is one.) They negotiate with drug makers to get reduced pricing for medications, but they historically have not passed along those savings to patients. https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/pharmacy-benefit-managers-staff-report.pdf MFN: Most Favored Nation pricing is a policy that means a country agrees to offer the same trade concessions (like tariffs or price reductions) to all member nations of the World Trade Organization (WTO). When applied to pharmaceuticals, it could disrupt global access, deter innovation, and obscure the deeper systemic issues in American health care. https://petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2025/05/22/the-global-risks-of-americas-most-favored-nation-drug-pricing-policy/Comment publication date: 6/23/25, 7:47 AMComment source: L E T T E R TO THE EDITOR
SUPPORT OUR WORK