# The Museum on the Knoll

Source page: https://carsonriverresorts.com/explore/historical-complex

5 minutes · Markleeville

The Alpine County Museum and Historical Complex sits on a knoll above Markleeville — an 1882 schoolhouse, a log jail built around iron cells older than the building, a stamp mill, a Basque bread oven and a blacksmith shop. It is five minutes from the gate, and it is where the county keeps the evidence for everything this site says about it.

## What is up there

The complex is a yard of buildings, not a single museum, and most of them
were moved to the knoll rather than built on it.

The **Webster School House** went up in 1882, put together by
Markleeville residents — a carpenter named Louis Monroe leading the
volunteers, and a mason, Hank Matthews, laying the stone platform the
wood stove stood on. Classes started in October 1883 for children of five
to seven. It ran forty-six years, and in between lessons it was where the
town held its dances, dinners and plays. It closed in 1929 when the New
Webster School opened — the building that is the county library now.

The **Old Log Jail** is the odder one. Its two iron cells were bought in
1867 for Silver Mountain City, up Loope Canyon. When Silver Mountain went
to ghost town the cells came down the hill to Markleeville, and in
October 1876 a jail was built around them: vertical logs fitted into a
slot, corner joints pinned with wood, board-and-batten siding. You can
walk into one of the cells.

There is also a **stamp mill**, a **Basque bread oven**, a blacksmith
exhibit and a yard of antique machinery — the working equipment of a
county that ran on silver, then sheep, then not much at all.

## Jacob Markley

The town is named for a man who owned it for about twenty months.

Markley came to the United States from Canada in the late 1830s, went to
Virginia as a youth, then Wisconsin in 1840, then Minnesota. He married,
had three children, and in the late 1840s left them behind for Sacramento
and the gold rush. His brothers followed; they started a meat company
together.

On **September 12, 1861** he staked a hundred and sixty acres beside the
river, built a crude toll bridge, and charged the traffic bound for the
Silver Mountain mines to cross it. Then he divided the land into lots and
sold homesites.

On **May 14, 1863** a friend named Henry W. Tuttle shot him in an
argument over the profits from those sales. Tuttle was acquitted on
grounds of self-defense. Markley is buried on a hill above the town; the
exact spot is not known.

The town took his name anyway. California incorporated it in April 1864,
and in 1875 Markleeville became the county seat.

## Going

The complex is on the knoll above Markleeville, five minutes from the
resort gate. It is seasonal, and the county keeps the current days and
hours — check before you drive over.

- [Alpine County Historical Complex](https://alpinecountyca.gov/661/Alpine-County-Historical-Complex) — the county's own page, with contact and current status
- [The Webster School House](https://alpinecountyca.gov/663/Webster-School-House)
- [The Old Log Jail](https://alpinecountyca.gov/667/Old-Log-Jail)
- [Jacob Markley](https://alpinecountyca.gov/664/Jacob-Markley)

The silver that built all of this — and lost it again — is in
[Silver Fever](/story/silver-fever). The bridge Markley built is a mile
downstream of the cabins, and it has a different name now:
[Hangman's Bridge](/story/hangmans-bridge).

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Carson River Resort · 12399 Highway 89, Markleeville, CA 96120 · (530) 694-2229 · store open 8am to 6pm, every day.
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