Genoa, Nevada
Genoa is an unincorporated town in Douglas County, Nevada, United States. Founded in 1851, it was the first settlement in what became the Nevada Territory. It is situated within Carson River Valley and is approximately south of Reno. The population was 939 at the 2010 census. The town is home to the state's oldest bar, which opened in 1853.
History
Genoa was first settled by Mormon pioneers in what was then the Mexican territory of Alta California. The settlement originated as a trading post called Mormon Station, which served as a respite for travelers on the Carson Route of the California Trail. In June 1850, following the 1849 Mexican Cession of territories in what is now Southwestern United States, after the Mexican-American War H.S. Beatie and fellow Mormons built a roofless log enclosure and corral as a trading post near a small stream. Migrants could obtain clothing, tobacco, meat, canned goods, coffee, beans, sugar, flour, and bacon. The post was abandoned later that year. By 1851, John Reese arrived in the area with horses, cattle, and a dozen wagons loaded with supplies to establish a permanent trading post. By another year later in 1852, migrant traffic through the area was heavy and the settlement expanded. A post office opened, a blacksmith shop was built, and sawmills were built. In 1856, Orson Hyde changed the name of the community to Genoa, after the historic major Italian city.The original Mormon settlers withdrew in 1857, when they were recalled by the Mormon patriarch and head of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and first territorial Governor of the Utah Territory, Brigham Young, in the territorial capital of Salt Lake City because of the Utah War. The village of Genoa served temporarily as the first capital city of the new federal Nevada Territory when it was organized on authority of the United States Congress and President of the United States in 1861, until it was moved later that year to Carson City.
Nevada Territory's first newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise, was founded first in Genoa in 1858 but moved to the boom town of Virginia City two years later in 1860, the year after the silver strikes of the Comstock Lode and rush of men to the diggings and mine shafts. It was also the site in animal husbandry of the first cattle ranch in Nevada.
In 1860, the community became a stop along the Pony Express. In 1861, when the first nine counties of Nevada Territory were created, Genoa became the county seat of Douglas County.
Much of Genoa, including the original fort, station, and hotel, was destroyed in a fire in 1910, but a replica of the fort was built in 1947. Every year since 1919, Genoa has held a festival called the Candy Dance, where candy, food, and crafts are sold to support its town government. The Candy Dance is usually held during the final weekend of September. Many pioneers rest in the Genoa graveyard, including Snowshoe Thompson, his wife and his son.
A mile south of Genoa is David Walley's Resort, a famous natural hot springs and spa. It was first built in 1862 and known as Walley's Hot Springs.
On October 1, 1934, the infamous wanted criminal and bank robber Baby Face Nelson, and members of his criminal gang arrived at Walley's Hot Springs and hid out for a month before returning east to Chicago, where Nelson was later shot by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from the Chicago field office and Washington, D.C., headquarters, under famous long-serving Director J. Edgar Hoover, in the United States Department of Justice.