Jacks Carnival... What?

   Oliver Hansen continues his reflections by recalling the days of Jacks Carnival and the parade of nursery rhyme characters. 

   “Brother Oliver G. Purdy and Sister Bertha Purdy were very active and helpful to Sparks Schools after they moved for the second time to Sparks from Imlay in 1916. Sister Purdy was one of the main promoters of Jacks Carnival in 1924.
 

*Jacks Carnival and the parade down Prater Way was a tradition for Sparks elementary children for decades. It started in 1924 as a fund raiser for the schools of Mary Lee Nichols, Robert Mitchell, Kate Smith, Sparks Jr. High School and Sparks High School. 

JACKS CARNIVAL PARTICIPANTS OF 1926

Below is a collection of names from a list of participants from the Sparks Branch in 1926. Vincent Keele was in first grade as "Jack Straw." Other church member children included:

Harold Ferguson

Paul and Don Fife

Ellen, Mildred, Agatha and Carl Lundberg

Edwin and Phillip Huyck

Katherine Bertelson

LaVerne Ferguson

Robert and Don Purdy

Fay Bedell

Phyllis Rossiter

Irwin and Roy Porter

Harlyn Vidovich

Gordon Garrett

Newell Hancock

These names are familiar families in church records. There were many more names listed as participants in the newspaper article regarding Jacks Carnival that year.

*The list of “Jack’s Carnival Participants”  was not written by Oliver Hansen.

Conclusion

 Sparks was incorporated over 100 years ago. Ask any of the residents who have lived out their lives in the city and they will reflect on the days when there was a real sense of community. Celebrations took place, businesses were accommodating and people were friendly. 

 Perhaps some of the pride and history have been lost through the decades of highs and lows; of railroad booms and busts. Families come and go with just a ripple in the tide of time. Only a handful of hearty characters sought the pleasure of staying in the city built by the railroad. Today, however, many residents feel a resurgence of pride and ownership, a renewal of camaraderie and a connection to their pioneer heritage.

Photos by Farrel Ross

Oliver Hansen Describes Old Sparks

   Some of the earliest pioneers of Sparks were members of the church. Only a few left valuable insights into the days when the instant community had no sewer treatment or other valued accommodations. It was a much-improved town when, in 1905, a water system was completed and sometime later, electrical and telephone service was available. Development of the Sparks railroad yard, businesses, service organizations, even the church, were seldom noticed well enough to make a mention in history.

   The historic, developmental days of Sparks were valued by an inspired member of the church. Oliver Hansen took an interest in recording his memories as well as memories of those whom he associated. He often referred to the early pioneers during Boy Scout functions as well as sacrament meetings. Many of those who sat in the audience listening to his presentations asked for his notes, which he obliged. Fortunately, some of the notes, memories and mementos he copied for people were kept. Oliver came to Sparks as a youth in 1926.

Old Sparks

By Oliver Hansen

Information given at a pack meeting, Den #3, Pack 24 on

March 27, 1987 in Sparks, Nevada, Prater Way Chapel.

Heating

   “At the beginning, Sparks homes were heated by wood and coal burning stoves. I can’t recall any other ways until the 1940’s when oil was used. Coal and wood were delivered by horses and wagons. Later trucks were used. Houses had coal and wood sheds in the back yards. Recently, I drove around the area of the little old Sparks town between B Street and Prater Way, and between First Street and 17^th Street and saw a number of these old sheds still remaining.”

   “I remember deer hunting up high in the Sierra Mountains, west of Reno in 1950 and looking down on Sparks in the early morning. Sparks was so completely covered by a bluish wood smoke that I could hardly see any of it. In those days we called it smoke, not smog.” 

Schools

   “I do not know which school was first in Sparks. However, it might have been the old Robert Mitchell School which was located in the same place as the new Robert Mitchell School.”

“The original Robert Mitchell School was built in 1904. Mr. Mitchell was the architect. I suppose the school received its name from architect Mitchell. Mr. Prater was the first principal. He built a home and lived at 1310 Prater Way. Prater Way was originally named County Road. I don’t recall when it was named Prater after Principal Prater.”

“The old Robert Mitchell School was torn down in 1938 and the new one built.”

Robert Mitchell Construction,1940

   “There is an old brick building on the corner of Pyramid Way and D Street. It was built in the early days of Sparks and named the Mary Lee Nichols School. It was abandoned as a school many years ago and is now occupied by a thrift store.” [Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002 for late 19^th, 20^th century revivals Mission/Spanish Colonial Revival architecture]

   “The old Kate Smith School was at the corner of 19^th and F. Streets. It has been torn down and a new one erected nearby.” 

   “When I came here, Sparks High School faced 15^th Street, and was between C and D Streets. Sparks Jr. High was right behind the high school and faced 14^th Street. “Both of these schools have been torn down. The present day Sparks High School replaced the old high school. At present the Sparks Municipal Court building occupies the site of these two old schools.

Old Sparks Junior High School Before Being Torn Down

Old Sparks High School Before Being Torn Down.

Firehouses

“I do not know where the first fire house was located. In 1927, the little old fire station was located at the southeast corner of 12^th and C Streets. There were two, quite modern for those days, fire engine trucks. There was an efficient fire department. Some of the men were paid, some were volunteers.

Fred Shaber was fire chief.”

“I remember walking north on 15^th Street where the Sparks High School is now located. The road was a little traveled dirt road that ended at a dairy farm about where Rock Boulevard is now located. To the east was the big old Sparks City barn which in earlier days had housed the city’s horses and horse drawn equipment. There were two old fire hose carts. These carts were pulled to fires by

running men.

     “The railroad stockyards were located just south of the track on the east side of 17^th Street. This was a pretty busy place and operation at this time.”

     “The business section of Sparks was almost entirely located on the north side of B Street extending from about 6^th Street to 15^th Street.

     “A park of lawn and cottonwood trees extended from 9^th to 15^th  Street on the south side of B Street. A bandstand was located in the park at about 10^th. This park was enjoyed by many. It was a welcome site of green and beauty to travelers from across the deserts to the eat – like an oasis. Travel was slow and arduous in those days. No freeways. The highway, US40 (Lincoln Highway) was completed and a Transcontinental Highway exposition was held in Reno’s Idlewild Park in 1927. I attended. Big tents and exhibits. By today’s standards the Lincoln Highway was just a somewhat poor road.”

     “The City Hall was a frame building on C Street. The police and jail were in this building too. This building was next door, east, of the LDS Sparks Branch Chapel, address 1017 C Street.”

     “A few years ago I asked a Sparks High School student why the school teams, etc. were known as railroaders. He did not know why. I was amused, but a bit sad at this answer. Years ago most kids in Sparks had railroad Dads. The town was a railroad town. Businesses depended on the railroad payroll. People talked railroading. The term Railroaders at school was a proud word with an understood meaning.”

Oliver Hansen was an indispensable source of information regarding the development of the city. He gathered his facts from talking to ordinary people, influential people, and old timers. He wrote about things that interested him. Perhaps some of those things may not have been pertinent at

the time, but later became valuable from an historical viewpoint.

Sparks History Sets the Stage

For much of its centenium, the wayside hamlet of Sparks has been ignored by the state’s well known historians and authors. Sparks was considered a bedroom community of Reno; a railroad town with no distinction. Perhaps it owes its anonymity to its muddled beginnings and various name changes. Names that changed from Stones and Gates, Glendale, Harriman, East Reno, and in quick succession, Sparks. As nondescript as this little vagabond town was, it became the home to a new railroad community.

In the 1850’s the local meadows saw thousands of people camping in their wagons while their horses grazed on the bounty of grass. By 1857, Charles Gates and John Stone accommodated nomads by building a toll bridge over the Truckee River a few miles below Reno. From this crossing, the town of Glendale sprung up. Downtown hosted a hotel, two or three stores, a country school house and more than anything else, several saloons. Glendale’s countryside gave way to vast acreage of farms hosting the state’s largest crops of fruit, vegetables and hay. The local paper commented that Glendale was noted for “greenness and coziness, and so many of our best families make it their home.” (May 1877, Reno Gazette)

Unfortunately, Glendale’s hopes of becoming more than some wayfarers respite, soon ended, when in 1863, Lakes Crossing was discovered to be a nice shallow place to ford the river. Soon, town lots were being sold and the city of Reno quickly emerged; rapidly overshadowing the farming community of Glendale.

Sparks. The Railroad Town

With an appeal to the vanity of government and railroad officials, the tide turned for the future name of Sparks.

E.H. Harriman became the director of the Union Pacific Railroad and by the 1900’s became president of both the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific. He took the lagging railroad to its height of glory, repairing lines and conducting affairs with efficiency. Even so, government officials were aware of the railroads’ poor safety record and lack of shipping tariffs. Regardless, to honor the president, the budding railroad town proposed the name of Harriman, until E.H. Harriman himself objected to its use. In desperation, the name East Reno stuck for a short time.

Railroad executives suggested the town be name Sparks, in honor of John Sparks, then Governor of Nevada. The railroad officials’ ploy was politically unsuccessful. The state soon forced the safety issues and levied tariffs on shipping of goods across Nevada.

Governor Sparks felt honored with the distinction. He hosted a barbecue for the citizens of Sparks at his Alamo Stock Farm (at Moana Springs, near the present-day site of the Reno-Sparks Convention Center) in celebration of the town's incorporation.

The town of Sparks officially began in Wadsworth, Nevada.

“There, [in Wadsworth] the railroad housed its operations, facilities and employees in the late 1800’s. By 1901, the Southern Pacific Railroad, made a decision to re-route the old line to cut out dangerous curves and excessive grades and to avoid areas subject to flooding. This work shortened the line and required that a new terminal with division points and repair facilities be established somewhere west of Wadsworth. The line was to shift to the Truckee Meadows.” (A History of Sparks, written by Phillip Earl for Rainshadow Associates)

Reno was considered a good candidate but real estate jumped in value when the railroad considered relocating there. Southern Pacific then looked to the swamp land a few miles east of Reno. It was determined it would be more profitable to fill the swamps than to buy property in Reno. The swamps were then filled with rocks and dirt from an area near the current Mountain View Cemetery as well as east, near Vista. The crews worked seven days a week, twenty four hours a day for the next six months to a year. When the vast acreage was ready, construction began on the roundhouse and miles of track with hundreds of switches laid. The huge roundhouse was distinguished with 41 stalls and the largest turntable in the world. It housed the most advanced and extensive repair shop in history.

By the summer of 1904 the big move from Wadsworth began. Homes were dismantled; possessions, livestock, pets and people were loaded on railroad cars and flatbeds. Seventy of the homes from Wadsworth were moved to the “Reserve;” ranch property purchased for Southern Pacific employees. Other homes and businesses were established and life began quickly in a brand new town.