From the way Kit Carson is memorialized around here, you’d think the famous mountain man must’ve at least spent quite a bit of time in our corner of Northern Nevada, maybe even settled and made a life here. I mean, you’ve got Carson City. You’ve got the Carson River running through the Carson Valley in the shadow of the mountains known as the Carson Range, and if you want to go through the mountains and head west you can cross through Carson Pass. But all of these namesakes are more a case of being in the right place at the right time than they are representative of any abiding connection between the explorer and the area. Photo at left: Pixabay, Ryse Lawrence.
Kit Carson was a guide for John Fremont on his 1842 expedition to the Rockies. They hit it off well enough that Carson joined up for the second expedition in 1843, and after poking around in the Northwest for a while, they popped down here to explore our neck of the woods a bit. From Pyramid Lake, they came over this way, and in January of 1843 they came upon a river somewhere near where Minden now sits. The story is that Fremont named it after Kit Carson. From there, it was up and over into the Tahoe Basin, through Carson Pass and on down to the Sacramento area. Today, you can get to Carson Pass via Tahoe if you want to – head south on U.S. 50 out of South Lake Tahoe, and then just past Meyers turn left onto Hwy. 89 and then west onto Hwy. 88 at the intersection near Sorenen’s resort – but it’s easier to just get right onto Hwy. 88 at the junction with U.S. 395 in Minden and follow it south on up the valley and into California. You’ve just got to make sure you stay on Hwy. 88 at Woodfords and not get sidetracked onto Hwy. 89 and end up south into Markeleeville. Stay the course on the Carson Pass Highway and you’ll go past Sorensen’s and through Hope Valley. Once you make it over the pass, you’ll go past Caples Lake and Kirkwood Resort. Photo at right: Wikimedia Commons, Hank Magnuski.
For most of the rest of his life, Kit Carson lived, worked and ranched much farther to the south in the areas we know as California and New Mexico. But in 1853, he did take advantage of his knowledge of the local region to drive a huge herd of sheep over the Sierra range and get rich by selling to the market created by the miners. Photo at left: Wikimedia Commons.
So we’ve got the Carson River. And it follows that if the river is named Carson, the valley can also be Carson. And the mountain range next to the valley. And then the expedition party headed west and found a way through to Sacramento, so it’s not a stretch that we get Carson Pass. One might think that this seems to wrap it all up with a pretty little bow, right?
But hold your horses, pardner. What about the city? Well, in about 1851, the local community (such as it was) went by the name of Eagle Station, and that’s what it was known as at the time Kit took his sheep over the hill in 1853. It wasn’t until 1858 that Carson City was established, and from what I understand, the townsite was named after the river that flowed nearby. To my mind, that’s a bit different than the town being named after Kit Carson. One of those interesting little quirks of history, kind of like how Carson City used to be a part of Ormbsy County but now hasn’t been for nearly half a century. But that, as they say, is a story for another day. Photo at right: Wikimedia Commons.
About the Author Keith Rugg
R. Keith Rugg has worked on staff for a number of local publications, including Lake Tahoe Action Magazine, the Tahoe Daily Tribune and the Reno Gazette-Journal.
