Ragtown, Nevada

Historic site

39°30′14″N 118°55′01″W / 39.50389°N 118.91694°W / 39.50389; -118.91694^[3]

Nevada Historical Marker

Reference no.19^[4]

Ragtown, Nevada, is a Churchill County ghost town of an abandoned 1854 trading post west of Fallon.^[4]

History

Twelve miles northwest of Fallon exhausted immigrants in 1854 recuperated alongside the Carson River after a trip across the Forty Mile Desert. The station was named because of the many rags cast off by the travelers. The tattered garments after being washed were hung in the bushes to dry. In 1855, Jules Remey and Julius Brenchley stated that it consists of "three huts, formed by poles covered with rotten canvas full of holes."^[5]

The Ragtown post office was active from May 14, 1864, to May 29, 1867, and from May 5, 1884, to April 19, 1887.^[5]

Leeteville was a post office that existed from January 28, 1895 to June 12, 1907 named for James Leete. Esther M. Leete was the first postmistress.^[5]^: 154^[6]

Desert Lake, near Ragtown, Western Nevada, ca. 1867 by Timothy H. O'Sullivan
Ragtown, Leeteville, St Clair, and Fallon Nevada as mapped in 1910. Leeteville location is where the original Ragtown was established.^[5]
Ragtown highway marker near Fallon

References

^ McBride, Dennis; Dunar, Andrew J (2001). Building Hoover Dam: An Oral History of the Great Depression. p. 40. ISBN 0-87417-489-9. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
^ Vintage Photograph Collection - Children, Hoover Dam Museum, Boulder City
^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Ragtown (historical)
^ ^a ^b "Ragtown". Nevada State Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved April 12, 2020. State Historical Marker No. 19.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Carlson, Helen S. (1985). Nevada place names : a geographical dictionary. Reno: University of Nevada Press. pp. 154, 197. ISBN 0-87417-094-X.
^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Leeteville Post Office (historical)