Category: Ghost Towns

Mazuma Nevada started its short life in 1907 when the Seven Troughs gold strike started attracting an influx of miners from other areas. The town was named from the Mazuma Hills claims and the camp grew quickly in the mouth of Seven Troughs Canyon.

The summer of 1908 say the camp as the largest in the area with the founding of a post office, bank, three story hotel, fire department and the Seven Troughs District News.

The Darby Mill was built and started production in 1909. The future was relatively bright for this upstart little town.

Yesterday afternoon, at about five o’clock, the town of Mazuma (northeast of Reno) was devastated, eight people were drowned and nine more injured, many fatally, and a property loss estimated at nearly $200,000 by a cloud burst that swept down, unheralded, upon the mountain town. The known dead are:

Edna Russell, Postmistress at Mazuma;

Three children of Wm. Kehoe, all aged under seven;

M.C. Whalen, a miner, aged 35;

Mrs. Floyd Foncannon, drowned in Burnt Canyon six miles north of Seven Troughs canyon.

Those injured so far as can be learned at time of going to press are:

John Trenchard, merchant, probably fatally;

Mrs. Trenchard, badly cut and bruised, may recover.

Mrs. Kehoe, cut about head and face, bruised about body, may die;

Mrs. O’Hanlan, badly injured, may recover.

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Today the first witnesses of the flood conductions and who talked to the survivors returned to town. Among them was Drs. Russell and West, H.J. Murriah, J.T. Goodlin, H.S. Riddle, Jack and Will Borland and W.H. Copper.

Lovelock Review-Miner July 12, 1912

The town of Mazuma was build in the flood channel of Seven Troughs Canyon. A nearby cloud burst caused a wall of water estimated between eight and ten feet tall scouring the canyon floor as it raced by.

The Darby Mill survived the flood only to be lost to fire two weeks later. After the flood and fire, the mill was rebuilt operations continued until 1918.

In 1894, Frank Ward a sheepman in the area, built seven water troughs to water his sheep. The name Seven Troughs came from this simple event. Seven Troughs is a ghost town and old mining camp in Pershing County, Nevada.

In the fall of 1905, gold was discovered in the upper parts of Seven Troughs Canyon area. This discovery led to the ability to raise capital investment and soon funding was in place for the young mining district. Discoveries were reported in excess of $100,000 per ton in 1907 attracted in miners from Tonopah and Goldfield.

In 1907 a townsite was plotted out and the tent city soon followed. Townsite plots sere sold for $500 a lot, and the small town supported 350 citizens. A water system and school was built to support the population in 1908. The previous year, 1907, saw the construction of the post office, stores and saloons to keep the population happy and give one an insight into the priorities.

At its height their was consideration to bring in rail with the Southern Pacific line from Lovelock, to near by Vernon and up to Seven Troughs. The rail never developed and the mine camp continued to the production of the Kindergarten mine until 1918 and World War I. The Kindergarten mining operations produced about two million dollars from 1908 until its end in 1918.

The post office followed the miners out of the area, and only lease operations continued past this time.

Seven Troughs Trail Map

Resources

• Forgotten Nevada
• Wikipedia – Seven Troughs
• Nevada Ghost Towns and Mining Camps, Paher pg 116 – 121