Lovelock Sites

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) established a camp near Lovelock NV during the 1930s, officially BR-36, popularly called Camp Lovelock or sometimes Camp Pershing. It was located near the main road north of town (along what is now Interstate 80). No trace of it remains today. CCC enrollees helped with improvements to the Humboldt River Project of the Bureau of Reclamation and the irrigation system of the Lovelock Valley (then private, but today part of the Pershing County Water Conservation District). They worked on ancillary construction jobs during the final stage of construction of the Rye Patch Dam and Reservoir and...

A waterworks project in Lovelock NV was undertaken during the Great Depression with the aid of federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds. The PWA supplied a $73,500 loan and $26,892 grant for the project, whose total cost was $100,517. Work took place between September 1934 and February 1935. The exact nature of the project needs to be determined.  It was presumably an upgrade of the domestic and firefighting water system, which was common during the New Deal (see e.g., Carlin NV project page).  

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) carried out improvements on the irrigation water distribution system in Lovelock Valley, c. 1936-38.  The canals and drainage ditches serving the irrigated farms of the valley were largely in place by the time the Rye Patch Dam was built by the Bureau of Reclamation to increase storage capacity.  They had been built by six private companies earlier in the 20th century.  The CCC men cleaned and improved 110 miles of canals, laterals, and drains in Lovelock Valley that supplied irrigation water to 20,000 acres of farmland.  They also replaced worn-out water-control structures and flumes. Kolvet (2006) notes the pride...

The Pershing School District Office was constructed with the help of the National Youth Administration (Nevada state office) in 1941, according to a plaque on the building, which still stands.   The building is a modest one-story structure in Moderne Style, with decorative indentations above the windows and a handsome design around the entrance.  It has recently (c. 2020) been repainted from beige to brown and the office name over the entrance is gone or has yet to be reinstalled.

The historic post office building in Lovelock, Nevada was constructed with federal Treasury Department funds during the Great Depression. The building, which opened in 1938, is still in use today.

An oil-on-canvas mural entitled "The Uncovering of the Comstock Lode" was painted in 1940 by Ejnar Hansen and installed in the lobby of the Lovelock NV post office.  It is still in place today, reminding people of the immense role of the silver boom in the history of Nevada (and, indeed, the United States as a whole).

The Rye Patch Dam lies in the Humboldt River valley, which crosses Nevada from east to west.  The California Trail went along the Humboldt River and the Lovelock Valley has been a gateway for gold and silver prospectors since the 1860s. It has also been home to irrigated farming, which benefitted greatly from the New Deal of the 1930s. The Bureau of Reclamation constructed Rye Patch dam in 1935-36, as part of the larger Humboldt Reclamation Project.  The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) did ancillary work during the final stage of construction of the dam, clearing acres of brush in and around the reservoir...