Past Events

Author Robin Holabird presents readings and images from her new book “Around the World in 80 Movies” combining bucket-list destinations with must-see movies about those regions. In a highly imaginative blend of film locations, memories, and colorful travel essays, Robin Holabird offers an extensive and entertaining exploration of film locations far and wide, close to home, and everywhere in between. She explores heights at a summit of Machu Picchu and King Kong s adventures at the top of the Empire…

“Charley Parkhurst” - Known as one of the premiere “whips” of all stage drivers, One-Eyed Charley Parkhurst came to the West from Rhode Island during the Gold Rush era of the 1850s.  At times Charley worked with famous local stage driver Hank Monk who was known as the “Jehu of the Sierras”.   Charley’s route was at one time through Carson Valley between the California gold fields and the Comstock. Hop on board Charley’s coach and take the ride of your…

The premiere of the movie Virginia City in 1940 was a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde occurrence. The Reno portion went off without significant issue. The Virginia City portion was almost without any successes. Learn the details of both in this PowerPoint presentation by Dr. Michael Fischer and join the ghosts of Errol Flynn and Humphrey Bogart right there in Piper’s Opera House. How could a tale of drunks, hiding and later missing actors, a collapsing building and threats of…

When the last spike was hammered into the steel track of the Transcontinental Railroad on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Point, Utah, Western Union lines sounded the glorious news of the railroad’s completion from New York to San Francisco. For more than five years an estimated four thousand men mostly Irish working west from Omaha and Chinese working east from Sacramento, moved like a vast assembly line toward the end of the track. Editorials in newspapers and magazines praised the…

Virginia City in the 1870s was a cosmopolitan town whose conveniences and services rivaled those found in San Fransisco or even New York. Virginia City's saloons and drinking culture were one of its most written about characteristics. In 1875 a staff writer for the New York Tribune wrote: "... here (Virginia City) are drinking saloons more gorgeous in appointment than any in San Fransisco, Philidelphia, or New York...". Garrett Barmore, curator of the Keck Museum at UNR, will present three…

Description: “Although Virginia City had a hard reputation, I know from personal experience that it was as orderly as a Quaker meeting in comparison with either Bodie in the late 1870s and early ‘80s, or Aurora in the early 1860s, for I lived during the roughest times in all three places.” So, Nevada Governor Roswell K. Colcord told the Mining & Scientific Press in 1922. The key point is the comparison. Virginia City definitely had its moments. Come out to the…

Description: Alice Conradt was just 16 years old when she married 28-year-old Will James, in Reno, Nevada. Alice met James through her brother Fred, not long after James’ sketches appeared on promotional material and posters for the 1919 First Annual Nevada Round-up, known today as the Reno Rodeo. Prior to meeting Alice, the drifter who called himself “Will James”, had spent time in prison in Carson City, Nevada and worked on several local ranches in Smith Valley and Topaz. Through…

Samuel Clemens discovered his literary lodestone in Virginia City. McAvoy Lane brings that history to life as he returns to Piper’s Opera House for An Evening with Mark Twain in Nevada. Bio: McAvoy Layne Is the Ghost of Mark Twain For thirty years now, in over four thousand performances from Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City to Leningrad University in Russia, McAvoy has been preeminent in preserving the wit & wisdom of The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope, Mark…