Dutch Nick’s: Landmark on the Overland Trail

Sometimes, like with Dayton, a piece of Nevada history is forgotten. This time, I am thinking of a place that was on the Immigrant Trail west of Dayton in the eastern area of Carson City that had two names – Dutch Nick’s and New Empire. An article in the 1951 Harold's Club book entitled “Pioneer Nevada” reveals its history, noting it was officially named Empire City years and years ago (the author's name is not included). 

“Dutch Nick’s was a landmark on the Overland Trail that barely touched the Carson River, three miles from Carson City. It was later surveyed as a townsite and officially named Empire City, but it continued to be called Dutch Nick’s in honor of its original owner, Nicholas Ambrosia, who recorded the claim in 1855. The story begins:

“With the rise of the Comstock and the construction of the V&T Railway, Dutch Nick’s became one of the most important settlements along the East Fork of the Carson River. It was here that the Mexican, Morgan and Brunswick mills flourished, milling the Comstock’s rich ores using the pressure of water power supplied by the river as it raced through a high walled canyon.

“But milling was a minor activity at Empire compared to the logging industry. The river makes a sweeping curve at Dutch Nick’s, basking lazily in the flatland before it plunges’ into the mad rapids of Brunswick Canyon. The quiet water provided perfectly setting log booms, especially after the completions of the Virginia and Truckee Railway because here, the huge timbers could be guided shoreward and loaded in waiting flat cars to supply the Comstock, including Dayton.

“The pine trees had been cut in the Sierra Nevada above the Alpine in California,  near the headwaters of the Carson River, and rafted for 80 miles along the turbulent stream to Dutch Nick’s Depot and wood business. The rafting was a source of never ending amazement in desert country as millions of board feet of pine spruce and cedar rolled and bobbled along the river for forty days in its journey from the Carson headwaters to Dutch Nick’s. In 1850, fifty thousand cords of wood reached the log booms at Empire and the major portion of it eventually reached the Comstock for timbering the deep mines. Lumbermen, like the miners, enjoyed the end of the ride at Dutch Nick’s and the station became widely known. Retaining the name of its owner long after it was officially called Empire City. 

“Today, it is hard to imagine that the river was once alive with logging activity because today,  the Carson is barely a trickle in the fall months; yet, many of the buildings of the Comstock and even Carson itself were constructed from the timber that found its way down to Carson River from Alpine to Dutch Nick’s.”

Since I often hike at the Carson City River trail to the Mexican Dam, it is difficult for me, and probably many others, to imagine this historical era described here, when Brunswick Canyon was home to numerous mills and no one speaks much about Empire City either. (Fortunately, this history was saved thanks to Eileen Cohen who published a book “Empire City, Ormsby County, Nevada” in 2010.)