Dayton

Emigrants reaching this bend in the Carson River had a choice—follow the water south or push on west over the mountains—and the spot earned the name Ponderers Rest. The settlement that grew here went by several names before townsite surveyor John Day lent his in 1861. While Virginia City chased silver, Dayton ground the ore, its Carson River mills turning Comstock rock into bullion. The town outlasted the boom and still argues with Genoa over which is Nevada's oldest. Old Town Dayton keeps its nineteenth-century core intact.

What the plaque says

Dayton, one of the earliest settlements in Nevada was first known as a stopping place on the river for California-bound pioneers. Coming in from the desert they rested here before continuing westward. In 1849, gold was found at the mouth of Gold Canyon and prospecting began in the canyons to the west. This led to the discovery of the fabulous ore deposits at Gold Hill and Virginia City in 1859. Called by several different names in its early years, the place became Dayton in 1861, named in honor of John Day who laid out the town. For many decades Dayton prospered as a mill and trading center, and remained the county seat for Lyon County until 1911.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chollar Mine — 5.6 mi
  A real Comstock silver mine you can still walk into—four hundred feet of original timbered tunnel under C Street, where the work that built a state was done by hand, in the dark
• Virginia City — 6.0 mi
  The boomtown that sits on top of the richest silver strike in America—fewer than a thousand people now, on streets built for twenty-five thousand
• Carson City — 11 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
• Stewart Indian School — 12 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

More markers nearby

• Dayton Chinatown — steps away
• Union Hotel & Post Office — steps away
• Nevada’s First Gold Discovery — steps away
• Courthouse Site 1865 – 1909 — steps away