Frontier Doc, Part 3

I have been writing about one of Fallon's first doctors—a man named George Gardner (1875–1970), who worked as a physician for the Newlands Project and lived in the area between 1904 and 1917.

The evidence and the tales he left behind about his Lahontan Valley years lead me to think about various descriptors, none of them adequate: spunky, ingenious, funny.

First to the spunky part. Gardner was born in Carson City where his father owned a lumber mill. He was often seen with his father by the railroad tracks (then, the V&T Railroad) helping to load lumber onto the cars. One day, when he was 11 years old, he lost his grip on a coupling and fell under the wheels of a cattle car. Both legs were crushed below the knees, necessitating a double amputation at the knees.

That didn't stop him, literally. He was fitted with two cork prostheses and sent to live with an aunt in Oakland, where he could attend an excellent academy with special accommodations for his handicap. He excelled as a student and was accepted into Stanford University's first class. While at Stanford he knew Herbert Hoover, who worked his way through Stanford managing a laundry service.

"George often mentioned with some pride that his shirts and underwear were washed and ironed by a future president of the United States" (Sage, Roderick, M.D. "A Spunky Kid: Dr. George Gardner." "Greasewood Tablettes." Dept. of Pathology, Great Basin History of Medicine Division, University of Nevada School of Medicine, Spring, 1998).

After graduating from Stanford, he attended Cooper Medical College in San Francisco.

The ingenuity? He was one of the first residents in Fallon to capitalize on the automobile revolution.

Gardner: "I had a stage line to Fairview and Rawhide. Two big Royal Tourist cars that I paid $4,000 a piece for. I charged $20 to go to Rawhide in the car, and I had a stipulation that if there was a breakdown they'd have to pay the $20 just the same, and they could walk into Rawhide."

He employed chauffeurs to serve as the ersatz Uber drivers since his own injuries prevented him from safely driving.

"We went through Sand Springs, where they had an old team of horses or mules and they'd hook on. And there was one place there, going upwards. Oh! That sand was so deep. The horses would have a terrible time and if we turned on the juice we'd scare the horse, so they'd pull… They didn't realize they were tied to the noise" (Gardner's quotes in this paragraph and the following ones are taken from Margaret Wheat, Interviewer. "Excerpts from the Interview of Dr. George M. Gardner." "In Focus," Volume 5).

Gardner also owned an x-ray machine. "I could look at bones; it was good. …I put my hand in under there, under the x-ray, until I finally pitted every one of my fingernails…. If it had been as strong as the x-rays that they have now, why, I'd have lost my whole hands."

The stories Gardner left behind are self-effacing and humorous. He once was shot at by a man named Fuller, who was doing ditch work on the Newlands Project. Fuller owed Gardner $12. They went to the same Fallon saloon for a glass of beer, and Fuller, described by Gardner as "teed up pretty good," slapped a check on the bar for $12.00 then hit Gardner in the face. Gardner hit him over the head with his cane.

"And, I broke the cane…. After I hit him he put his hand in his pocket and went down. I saw him doing something. He had a hold of something…. I thought, 'I wonder if it's a gun.'"

It was. Gardner fled out the door (on his cork legs) with a friend, a Fallon dentist, who shut the door behind them. The gun went off.

Fuller ran around the corner "to the lawyer's office" and said, "I killed Dr. Gardner. I want you to represent me."

The lawyer ran to the saloon, where a bullet rested in the door, and the Doc was back on his barstool.

"Want a glass of beer?" he asked the lawyer.

Fuller left town after a grand jury failed to bind him over. Gardner, after all, had provoked him with his cane. When Fuller returned to Fallon a year later, a grand jury reconvened to consider the matter.

"Turn him loose," said Gardner to the jury….

And, to Fuller's attorney he said, "You go back and tell him this world is pretty good-sized; he can have one half of it, and I'll take the other half."

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