Cradlebaugh Bridge

William Cradlebaugh threw a bridge across the Carson River here in 1861, and in doing so he shortened the road to a silver rush. The crossing cut miles off the haul from Carson City south to Aurora and the booming Esmeralda mines, joining two approach routes—one down the west bank, one through Jacks Valley—into a single span over the water. From here freighters pushed on past Desert Station and Twelve Mile House into the desert. The bridge is long gone; its remains lie a quarter mile west of the highway nine miles south of Carson City.

What the plaque says

The remains of Cradlebaugh Bridge, built in 1861 by William Cradlebaugh, stand ¼ mile westward. This bridge shortened the distance from Carson City to Aurora in the then booming Esmeralda Mining District. There were two routes from Carson City south to the bridge where they joined, crossed the river, and headed into the desert. One followed the west side of the Carson River; the foothill alternate went via Jacks Valley and the old John James Ranch, then around the hill to the bridge. Five miles south of Cradlebaugh Bridge the road passes Desert Station, a lively hostelry, and beyond, the Twelve Mile House enroute to Esmeralda. The road and bridge were purchased by Douglas County in 1895, for $5,000.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Genoa — 4.6 mi
  Nevada's oldest town—a California Trail trading post and Carson Valley ranch country that came eight years before the silver and quietly outlasted it
• Stewart Indian School — 5.1 mi
  The federal boarding school that took Great Basin children from 1890 to 1980 to erase their cultures—its student-built stone campus now a tribally-guided museum telling the story in alumni voices
• Carson City — 8.1 mi
  The capital one man platted before there was a territory—where the Comstock's silver became coin at a U.S. Mint and a small sandstone city that has run Nevada ever since
• Cave Rock / De'ek Wadapush — 8.9 mi
  One of the most sacred places of the Wašiw—the Standing Gray Rock, a worn volcano the highway was blasted through and climbers bolted for sport, now closed and quiet again after the Washoe's long fight to protect it

More markers nearby

• Nevada’s Birthplace — 3.5 mi
• Boyd Toll Road — 4.1 mi
• Stewart Indian School — 5.1 mi
• Dat-So-La-Lee — 5.1 mi