Nevada Company Records

The Nevada Company was founded in 1897 by Anson Phelps Stokes (1838-1913). The company focused on mining and railroads in central Nevada, with their principal mining properties being located at Berlin, near the town of Ione. The Nevada Company's corporate offices were located in New Jersey.

The company's president was Stokes' son James G. Phelps Stokes. John Sherman Hoyt, husband of Anson's daughter Ethel, was vice president; James W. McCulloch, long-time secretary to Anson, was treasurer; and Tasker L. Oddie served as secretary. The general manager was P. T. Farnsworth who had also managed the Austin Mining Company for Stokes.

After the Nevada Company was established, Oddie discovered that Farnsworth had embezzled over $110,000.00 in the course of purchasing supplies, mining claims, a saloon, and mining properties. Farnsworth was sued by the Nevada Company in the U. S. Circuit Court in Salt Lake City, Utah, and after two trials, found liable for $77,000.00. Oddie's biographer Loren B. Chan, states that the senior Stokes became enraged by his inability to collect damages from Farnsworth because of the latter's lack of assets. Consequently Stokes ordered all his Austin mines closed and the machinery sold or destroyed, leaving only his Berlin property in operation (Chan, Sagebrush Statesman: Tasker L. Oddie of Nevada. Reno: Univ. of Nevada Press, 1973).

Anson Phelps Stokes and his family first became involved in Nevada mining in the 1860s in the Reese River mining district. He organized the Austin Mining Company in 1891 to acquire the properties of the closed Manhattan Silver Mine. During the next ten years he constructed the Austin-Manhattan drainage and haulage tunnel 6,000' under Lander Hill. Mining activity ceased after the Nevada Company/Farnsworth litigation of the late 1890s.

The Nevada Central Railway was another of the Stokes family's interests. Anson Phelps Stokes bought the rights to the railroad, planned to run between Austin and Battle Mountain, in 1879. Construction was completed between September 1879 and February 1880. In June 1881 the Nevada Central Railway was purchased by the Union Pacific Railroad but lack of income and the need for maintenance gave the U. P. reason to allow the line to be sold at bankruptcy to the stockholders. Those stockholders were the original owners, the Stokes family. They formed a new company, the Nevada Central Railroad on November 1, 1888.

The railroad depended heavily on mining production; the lack of haulage and various weather disasters contributed to low profits. Motor bus competition also had an effect and in April 1927 the Nevada Central began its own line of motor stages which became an affiliated company, the Nevada Central Motor Lines or Hiskey Stages. Despite this effort of 32 years of profitable operations and 25 years of losses the corporate charter was allowed to expire and the road abandoned in January 1938. Some rolling stock was sold for scrap and some donated to the Pacific Coast Chapter of the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society. (Source: David F. Myrick, Railroads of Nevada And Eastern California, vol. 1. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1990.)

James Stokes proposed the dissolution of the company in a letter to the stockholders on June 24, 1958 because of a major slump in the value of the company's ores and a rise in wages and operating costs. In addition, an earthquake in 1948 had destroyed the Berlin shaft and made the company's principal mine workings completely inaccessible, as well as collapsing their major surface structures.

A major archaeological find of ichthyosaur fossils at Union Canyon had been supported for a number of years by the company's free giving of water rights for use by the State of Nevada. Stokes proposed in 1958 to donate those water rights to the state before the company lost them through lack of beneficial use upon dissolution. In 1970 all of the company's Berlin property, including mineral and water rights, was sold to the Nature Conservancy, Inc. which in turn sold them to the State of Nevada when the legislature appropriated funds. This property, when added to already existing state lands, became Ichthyosaur State Park (now Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park).

Upon dissolution stockholders received a final distribution of $1.0408 per share. All records of the company were then donated to the University of Nevada, Reno.

Below is a list of Anson Phelps Stokes’ children, many of whom were involved in the running of the Nevada Company over the life of the company:

Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, 1867-1944 Sarah Maria Phelps Stokes, 1869-1943 Helen Olivia Phelps Stokes, 1870-1945 James Graham Phelps Stokes, 1872-1960 Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes, Jr., 1874-1958 Ethel Valentine Phelps Stokes, 1876-1952 Caroline M. Phelps Stokes, 1878-1964 Mildred Phelps Stokes, 1881-1970 Harold Montrose Phelps Stokes, 1887-1970

Other Stokes family with correspondence in the collection:

William Earle Dodge Stokes, Jr, (1896-?): Nephew of Anson Phelps Stokes, Sr.; brother to James Ellwood Stokes James Ellwood Stokes (1914-1998): Nephew of Anson Phelps Stokes, Sr.; brother to William Earle Dodge Stokes, Jr.