Orion Clemens Home

This house belonged to Mark Twain's older brother. Orion Clemens came west in 1861 as Secretary of Nevada Territory—an office his brother Samuel joked combined the powers of treasurer, comptroller, and acting governor—and built this home around 1862. Samuel came along as Orion's personal secretary, well before he became Mark Twain, and stayed here off and on while reporting for Virginia City's Territorial Enterprise. When Governor Nye was away, Orion served as acting governor and the house briefly functioned as the territory's executive residence. It still stands on North Division Street, on the National Register.

What the plaque says

Orion Clemens, secretary to territorial Governor James W. Nye, lived in this house with his wife, “Mollie,” from 1864 to 1866. Samuel, his brother who was a reporter for the Territorial Enterprise, stayed here periodically until leaving the territory in May 1864. He became famous as “Mark Twain.”

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Carson City — 0.3 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 — 3.5 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
• The Flume Trail & Marlette Lake — 7.1 mi
  The other thing the Comstock took off Lake Tahoe—not its trees but its water, hauled over a mountain range through the highest-pressure pipeline on earth, on a flume grade that is now one of the country's great mountain-bike rides
• Sand Harbor — 8.9 mi
  The crown of Lake Tahoe's Nevada shore—car-sized granite boulders standing in water so clear the boats above them seem to float on air, on a beach the Washoe kept for thousands of summers

More markers nearby

• Methodist Church of Carson City — steps away
• The United States Mint Carson City, Nevada — steps away
• Bliss Mansion — steps away
• Federal Government Building (1888-1970) — steps away