Twelve Mile House

Proposed Text, Marker Text Plate in Prodution:

Twelve Mile House was an important stop on the road to the Esmeralda mining camp of Aurora. Mile houses like this one were critical places for rest and supplies along early western road systems before railroads made most mile houses and stations obsolete. Twelve Mile House was part of a network of similar stations that ran from Genoa to Aurora, including another station on the eastern side of the Pine Nut Mountains called Double Springs.

Thomas Wheeler built this important hostelry in 1859 where the East Fork of the Carson River emerges from Long Valley to the south. The Twelve Mile House was so named because it was located twelve miles from Genoa and twelve miles from the Cradlebaugh Bridge across the Carson River. It lay at an important crossroads in the southeast part of Carson Valley, with roads from Twelve Mile House leading southeast to Goldfield, south to Woodfords, west to Fairview, northwest to Minden, Gardnerville, and Genoa, and north to Cradlebaugh Bridge and Carson City.

STATE HISTORICAL MARKER No. 125

STATE HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICE

CARSON VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY