Lovelock, Nevada

History

The area in which the township of Lovelock would be established first came to prominence as a midpoint on the Humboldt Trail to California. According to an 1849 description of what were then called the Big Meadows, "This marsh for three miles is certainly the liveliest place that one could witness in a lifetime. There is some two hundred and fifty wagons here all the time. Trains going out and others coming in and taking their places is the constant order of the day. Cattle and mules by the hundreds are surrounding us, in grass to their knees, all discoursing sweet music with the grinding of their jaws.”

A few settlers stopped there to harvest the wild rye growing in the meadows and scythe the hay each fall, which they sold. Arriving there from California in 1866, the English settler George Lovelock (1824–1907) bought the squatters' right for 320 acres (129 ha) and received with it the oldest water rights on the Humboldt River.

Although born in Wales, Lovelock was from an English family of Wiltshire origin that is known to family historians as the Lyneham Line. His brother Daniel moved to Australia—and one of Daniel's sons to New Zealand—so that the relations of the man after whom the Nevada town was named are now widely scattered.

From the History section of Lovelock, Nevada on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.