What became of Vya — town and girl
by Guy Rocha
SPECIAL TO THE RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
4/23/2004 04:51 pm
/Photo courtesy Washoe County Planning Department
DETAILS:
The Nevada Historical Society has scant information about Vya.
In a letter written to the Washoe County Library in 1976, Fern Gooch
wrote the town was named after Vya Wimer, a daughter of Roy Wimer,
the first homesteader. In her letter, Gooch wrote the post office
was moved to the current site of Vya in 1927 from two miles farther
north.
Nearby attractions include thousands of antelope, the 1911 site of the last Indian massacre of settlers in the United States and wild horses.
Getting to Vya is difficult. It’s located 80 miles beyond Gerlach or 20 miles east of Alturas, Calif. To stay on paved roads the longest, you have to go through California most of the way on U.S. 395.
For more information on the ranch, check its Web site: www.oldyelladogranch.com.
Few people have heard of Vya, and fewer yet have visited the remote location in northern Washoe County. There certainly hasn’t been much written about the place.
Maybe it’s time to learn a little more about the founding of the settlement, Vya Wimer, and the claim that she was the “first white child born in that vicinity.”
This northwestern corner of Nevada was originally Northern Paiute country. Politically, it was Roop County from Territorial times to 1883, when it was consolidated with Washoe County. The land was principally devoted to stock raising: The famous Miller & Lux outfit had interests in the region, and there was some prospecting and mining in the vicinity of Bald Mountain.
The closest towns were Cedarville, Lake City and Fort Bidwell in Surprise Valley, Modoc County, Calif.
As might be expected, a number of the first Vya-area farmers found their way there from nearby Modoc County when the federal government opened Long Valley for homesteading in the early 1900s.
The 1910 U.S. Census listed 15 households and 96 persons living in the newly created Bald Mountain Precinct. Among them were brothers Guy and Roy Wimer living on their adjoining farms. Both were born and raised in Lake City, and by 1909 they had moved to Long Valley to homestead. Another native of Lake City, their cousin Harry Wimer, also farmed in the valley.
At that time, Reno’s Nevada State Journal talked of the possibility of railroads and irrigation projects for northern Washoe County. Schools opened in Long Valley in 1910, among them the Green Springs School, where Roy Wimer was the school district clerk. Schools were the principal social centers in rural Nevada. A Long Valley correspondent sent the State Journal area news. At the same time, Bald Mountain Township was created, which encompassed Vya, with a justice of the peace and constable to provide law and order.
The post office, named Vya after Roy and Artie Wimer’s only child, opened on Sept. 29, 1910. Contrary to a report in the Nov. 27, 1910, edition of the Nevada State Journal, 5-year-old Vya was not “the first white child born in that vicinity.” This was a typical pioneer anecdote heard so many times in so many places but the story was not true. In fact, Vya was born in Lake City on Dec. 22, 1904.
The settlement of Vya and the surrounding area grew and prospered in the early 1910s. The Wimers and other farmers produced a bountiful potato crop in 1913.
Grain and other vegetables also did well that year and farmers continued the tradition of stock raising. In addition, many of the farmers trapped animals for their fur and sold the pelts.
The year 1914 saw a new Green Springs School erected and four school districts operating in Long Valley. Polk’s Nevada State Gazetteer for 1914-15 listed Vya’s population as 12, but there were hundreds of people living in the Bald Mountain Precinct and relying on Vya’s post office.
Tragedy struck the Wimer family in 1917. Artie died of heart disease on June 29 at Beulah in Mosquito Valley, north of the family homestead, according to her death certificate. She was buried in Lake City, where she had married Roy in 1902. Vya, 12, was left without a mother. Life must have been difficult for Roy, because by late 1916 his property was listed on the Washoe County Delinquent Tax List. In the meantime, he and daughter Vya moved back to Lake City.
Roy Alton Wimer married again. He died in Sacramento on Jan. 19, 1959. Vya worked as a nurse, married and lived to be 86. She died on June 15, 1991, in Red Bluff, Calif. There are no direct descendants.
Both Roy and Vya lived to see the Vya school and post office close in 1941. Harry Wimer was still listed in the 1941 Washoe County Directory as one of the 30 people living in Vya. Despite its meager population, Vya’s Don Crawford represented northern Washoe County in the Nevada State Assembly from 1943 to 1962. Following Crawford’s departure from the Legislature, Washoe County commissioners eliminated Bald Mountain Township and the offices of justice of the peace and constable.
Although some buildings remain, the community of Vya is gone. Still,
you can find Vya Wimer’s first name on the current Official Highway
Map of Nevada.
Vya — gone but not forgotten.
Guy Rocha is the Nevada State archivist. Send him e-mail at glrocha@clan.lib.nv.us.
Copyright © 2004 The Reno Gazette-Journal
