Haunted Reno (Haunted America) - Softcover

Oberding, Janice

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1626199485 ISBN 13: 9781626199484

Verlag: HISTORY PR, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

The flashing neon lights of Reno harbor a ghastly past. With its wide-open gambling, divorce laws and around-the-clock casinos and bars, the Biggest Little City in the World was a rough and wild town with a turbulent history. Victims of Priscilla Ford's Thanksgiving Day massacre haunt a downtown street. After a disappearance and death shrouded in mystery, the spirit of Roy Frisch still lingers near the location of George Wingfield's home. Lynched by a mob for a death that never happened, the angry ghost of Luis Ortiz still walks the bridge at night. The queen of haunted Nevada, Janice Oberding, unearths the goulish history that put the "sin" in Nevada's original Sin City.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

An independent historian, Janice Oberding is a past docent of the Nevada Historical Society and Fourth Ward School Museum in Virginia City. The author of numerous books on Nevada's history, true crime, unusual occurrences and hauntings, she speaks on these subjects throughout the state. Her Ghosthunting 101 and Nevada's Quirky Historical Facts classes for Community Education at Truckee Meadows Community College have been well received.

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Haunted Reno

By Janice Oberding

The History Press

Copyright © 2015 Janice Oberding
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-62619-948-4

Contents

Foreword, by Bonnie Harper, 
Acknowledgements, 
Introduction, 
1. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, 
2. GAMING GHOSTS AND LEGENDS, 
3. UNSOLVED, 
4. MARRIAGE, DIVORCE AND THE LEGENDS, 
5. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION, 
Epilogue, 
About the Author, 

CHAPTER 1

Crime and Punishment

The 601 and a Downtown Lynching

When you think of lynching, you generally think of the Wild West, back in the days when gunslingers and cattle rustlers ruled the streets. Either that, or long-ago racist elements in other parts of the country where a man might be lynched based solely on the color of his skin. I'd be willing to bet that few people think of downtown Reno as the location of a lynching. But it happened.

The old iron bridge that crossed the Truckee River in downtown Reno is long gone. Its 1905 replacement is set for demolition sometime in the near future. In all likelihood, the ultra-modern bridge that will replace it will also be haunted by the shadowy figure of an angry and confused man. He is the ghostly Luis Ortiz, and he seeks the justice that he didn't receive in life.

The lynching of Luis Ortiz took place on Reno's downtown iron bridge one September night in 1891. The secret vigilante group, known as the 601, had no patience for lawyers and trials (although some of them might well have been lawyers or judges). Like the 601 of Virginia City and that of Carson City, Reno's group was composed of several prominent male citizens who wanted swift justice done. If that meant taking matters into their own hands, so be it. They aimed to keep their community safe and free of violence one way or another. If a man threatened Reno's tranquility, the 601 Vigilance Committee would be ready.

Luis Ortiz was a young Winnemucca ranch hand who turned mean after a few whiskeys. He severely injured three men in a knife fight and was convicted of assault in July 1891. He was a problem that Reno didn't need. So Constable Dick Nash escorted Ortiz to a westbound train and saw him off. Luis Ortiz would be another town's problem, or so Constable Nash thought. But he was wrong.

Luis liked Reno. He came back to town on September 17, 1891. But first things first, Luis stopped in at the nearest saloon, at the Grand Central Hotel on the corner of Plaza and Virginia Streets in downtown Reno. One whiskey after another fueled his mean temper. As the hours wore on, he grew angrier and started looking for a fight. But no one obliged him — no man was that stupid. Around midnight, Luis was told that the saloon was closing, but he didn't want to go elsewhere to drink, so he pulled his gun and fired wildly. Constable Nash arrived, accompanied by two men, and tried to subdue Ortiz. Nothing doing — Ortiz was not to be subdued, nor was he going to jail. All he wanted was a drink and a fight. Looking Nash in the eye, he raised his pistol and fired, striking him in the stomach.

Constable Nash was taken to a doctor's house, and Luis was taken to jail. A day passed. While the well-respected constable clung to life, bad news broke. There was no hope for Nash; his doctor said his patient's injuries would prove fatal. When questioned in jail by reporters, Luis Ortiz claimed it had all been a blur. He had been so drunk he couldn't remember a thing. This, of course, did not help Constable Nash. The 601 was listening. Justice must prevail. They sprang into action. And Luis Ortiz would pay.

They waited until the town was sleeping and then went to the jailhouse for Ortiz. Deputy John Caughlin was tricked into opening the jail door. Once he did so, he was overcome by the mob.

"Ortiz, you are wanted downtown," one of the men said.

Those words meant but one thing. With their frightened prisoner struggling to get away, they crept to the Virginia Street Bridge.

"Do you have any final requests, Ortiz?" someone asked.

"A priest and a glass of water."

A man proffered a whiskey flask. "Whiskey's all we have."

Ortiz gulped. Trembling, he told them where to send his personal effects and bravely faced his executioners.

"Ready," he announced firmly.

The next morning, Ortiz's lifeless body was cut down from the bridge. Miraculously, Constable Nash made a full recovery. The Weekly Gazette Stockman of September 1891 had this to say about the affair: "Ortiz Hung! The County and Town well rid of a worthless vagabond. The man who was so handy with his gun departs this life at the end of a rope."

As for those who took part in the murder of Luis Ortiz, no one was ever arrested or even questioned about that night. And as you might suspect, no one ever publicly admitted to having been anywhere near the iron bridge on the night of September 24, 1891. Obviously, the ghostly Luis Ortiz wants justice. He aimlessly wanders the bridge seeking answers. He has the habit of rushing up to someone as if to ask a question and then turns and wanders away. Those who don't see Luis Ortiz have sensed his unhappy presence on the northwest side of the bridge.

Sometime before October 15, 1905, when the new bridge was erected, a tourist who'd heard of the Ortiz lynching went to the bridge and asked for a sign from Ortiz's ghost. He got one. A spider dropped down and bit the man on the neck. Was it Luis or was it a coincidence?

Now, if you think it's a coincidence, let me tell you this. One night during the ghost walk, we had a group of about twenty on the bridge, and we were telling the Luis Ortiz story. When we got to the part about the spider, a woman gasped and jumped. She'd been bitten on the ankle — by a spider, presumably.

At this writing, the old 1905 Wedding Ring Bridge is being demolished and a new bridge is being erected. As he did with the 1905 bridge, Luis Ortiz will probably continue his lonely trek on this new bridge, still seeking justice.

The Ghost of Joseph Rover

There's a reason that J.W. Rover's ghost is usually spotted around the Washoe County Courthouse. He was hanged in the courtyard on a snowy February morning in 1878. Today, that area is the new courthouse annex, so any comments about a ghostly man skulking in that area of the building are assumed to be sightings of Joseph Rover.

Nowadays, state executions are carried out at the state prison in Carson City, but in the late nineteenth century, those judged guilty were generally executed in the county of their crime. So it was with Rover. He had been convicted of murdering his business partner, L.N. Sharp, out in the Black Rock Desert. But the case was appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court, which overturned it on a technicality and ordered a retrial. The second trial ended with Rover being found guilty of first-degree murder. A second appeal was made to the Nevada Supreme Court, which once again found for the appellant. The judge had given wrong instructions in defining reasonable doubt. The third time was not a charm for Joseph Rover. His third trial resulted in a hung jury. A fourth trial was held, and Rover was found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to die.

All hope was gone for Rover — unless his attorneys could convince a special sheriff's jury that he was insane. If they did so, Rover would rot in prison — dismal, but a better alternative to hanging.

You sometimes have to wonder at people of earlier times. How a public execution could draw a crowd of otherwise civilized people is a question for a...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: HISTORY PR
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1626199485
• ISBN 13: 9781626199484
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 128
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar