Papers
Everything this site claims, you can check.
Ten records the resort's history rests on — a survey, a land patent, a census page, a town photographed in 1866, and the county drawn by a government surveyor in 1889. Where this site states a fact, this is where the fact came from, with the holding and the accession number.
The drawer
Records that are read: a patent, a survey, a photograph, a census page, and the papers of the day.
The patent that made this ground private
The 1904 patent — the full record
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The document, set out as text
[Printed page number 408; form number (4—753 a.) at the head.]
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
To all to whom these presents shall come, Greeting:
[Certificate] No. 5162
Whereas [in hand:] Thomas [F or H — the hand admits either] Audrain of Alpine County California
has deposited in the General Land Office of the United States a Certificate of the Register of the Land Office at [in hand:] Sacramento California whereby it appears that full payment has been made by the said [in hand:] Thomas [F or H] Audrain according to the provisions of the Act of Congress of the 24th of April, 1820, entitled “An Act making further provision for the sale of the Public Lands,” and the acts supplemental thereto, for [in hand:] the South half of the North West quarter and the East half of the South West quarter of Section twenty six in Township ten North of Range twenty East of Mount Diablo Meridian in California containing one hundred and sixty acres
according to the Official Plat of the Survey of the said Lands, returned to the General Land Office by the Surveyor General, which said Tract has been purchased by the said [in hand:] Thomas [F or H] Audrain
Now know ye, That the United States of America, in consideration of the premises, and in conformity with the several Acts of Congress in such case made and provided, HAVE GIVEN AND GRANTED, and by these presents DO GIVE AND GRANT unto the said [in hand:] Thomas [F or H] Audrain and to [in hand:] his heirs, the said Tract above described: TO HAVE AND TO HOLD the same, together with all the rights, privileges, immunities, and appurtenances, of whatsoever nature, thereunto belonging, unto the said [in hand:] Thomas [F or H] Audrain and to [in hand:] his heirs and assigns forever;
subject to any vested and accrued water rights for mining, agricultural, manufacturing, or other purposes, and rights to ditches and reservoirs used in connection with such water rights as may be recognized and acknowledged by the local customs, laws, and decisions of courts, and also subject to the right of the proprietor of a vein or lode to extract and remove his ore therefrom, should the same be found to penetrate or intersect the premises hereby granted, as provided by law. And there is reserved from the lands hereby granted, a right of way thereon for ditches or canals constructed by the authority of the United States.
In testimony whereof I, [in hand:] Theodore Roosevelt President of the United States of America, have caused these letters to be made Patent, and the seal of the General Land Office to be hereunto affixed.
Given under my hand, at the City of Washington, the [in hand:] first day of [in hand:] December, in the year of our Lord one thousand [printed “eight hundred and” struck through, “nine” written above] hundred and [in hand:] four, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and [printed “four” struck through] [in hand:] twenty-ninth.
By the President: [in hand:] T. Roosevelt
By [in hand:] F. M. McKean, Secretary.
[in hand:] C. H. Brush, Recorder of the General Land Office.
[A blind seal of the General Land Office is impressed at the lower left; form number 6—742 at the foot.]
United States, General Land Office. Land patent to Thomas Audrain, Alpine County, California — 160 acres in Section 26, Township 10 North, Range 20 East, Mount Diablo Meridian. Certificate No. 5162, issued in the name of President Theodore Roosevelt, December 1, 1904.
Accession / Document Nr. CACAAA 071571. Held by the Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records (glorecords.blm.gov). A work of the United States federal government — in the public domain.
The middle initial is CONTESTED and this site does not settle it. The copperplate hand admits either reading; the GLO name index, the Vredenburgh California patent index and an independent by-eye reading of this same scan all give “H”. An earlier note here called the index’s “H” a transcription error — that was our assertion, not the document’s, and it is withdrawn. Register U40.
A hundred and sixty acres within Section 26 — the south half of one quarter and the east half of another, river ground — granted to Thomas Audrain in the name of President Theodore Roosevelt. The cabins stand on it. It is transcribed here in full, band by band: the printed form is boilerplate, and what was filled in by hand is what makes this ground this ground.
- Held by
- Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records
- Reference
- Certificate No. 5162 · Accession CACAAA 071571
- Rights
- A work of the United States federal government — public domain.
The survey the patent was granted on
The 1877 survey — the full plat
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United States, Surveyor General's Office. Plat of Township No. 10 North, Range No. 20 East, Mount Diablo Meridian, California. Surveyed by P. C. Rector, W. H. Carlton and J. R. Glover, 1865–1876; examined and approved at the Surveyor General's Office in San Francisco, and received with the Surveyor General's letter of March 12, 1877.
Held today by the Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records (glorecords.blm.gov). A work of the United States federal government — in the public domain.
Section 26 holds the flat where the resort's cabins stand — a section is 640 acres, and the 1904 patent covers 160 of them: the south half of the north-west quarter and the east half of the south-west quarter. The East Fork of the Carson River runs the length of the township, past Markleeville. The patent was granted “according to the Official Plat of the Survey” — this plat.
Township 10 North, Range 20 East, Mount Diablo Meridian, drawn onto paper twenty-seven years before the grant. Markleeville, the East Fork, and Section 26. The patent conveys land "according to the Official Plat of the Survey" — this plat.
- Held by
- Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records
- Reference
- T10N R20E, Mount Diablo Meridian
- Rights
- A work of the United States federal government — public domain.
Markleeville, fifty-four years before the camp
One half of a stereograph — the town from the hillside east of it, fifty-odd wood-frame buildings on the flat, eleven years before it became the county seat. Two and a half miles up the road from this ground, and the earliest photograph we hold of anywhere near it.
- Held by
- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
- Reference
- Lawrence & Houseworth, "Gems of California scenery" no. 922 · LCCN 2002721084
- Rights
- No known restrictions on publication.
Seventeen Chinese residents in Alpine County
Volume 1, Table V — population by race and by county, printed page 382. Alpine County: 17 Chinese residents in 1880, and 8 in 1870. The scan defeats text search, which is why the figure appears in no local history we could find — and why the story page hedges the Chinese camp as carefully as it does.
- Held by
- United States Census Office
- Reference
- Tenth Census, Volume 1, Table V, p. 382
- Rights
- A work of the United States federal government — public domain.
What the papers said about this river
Bob McQuivey's compilation for the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection — every environmental record he could find for the Carson River drainage, quoted from the papers that printed it. The wood drives are in here season by season, and so is the Territorial Enterprise of 6 March 1874 on "the Chinese on Carson River."
- Held by
- Nevada Division of Environmental Protection
- Reference
- Bob McQuivey (retired, Nevada Department of Wildlife), "Summary of Historic Environmental Conditions — Carson River Drainage," 3 May 2005
- Rights
- Published by a state agency; free to read and cite.
What the surveyors wrote down
Three volumes of General Land Office field notes — Koeber 1894, Hanson 1904, Owens 1963. Field notes are the surveyor's running record: they name cabins, camps, ditches, trails and the people found using them, none of which a finished plat records. Not yet read for this ground.
- Held by
- Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records
- Reference
- Volumes R0225 (Koeber, 1894), R0301 (Hanson, 1904), R0571 (Owens, 1963)
- Rights
- A work of the United States federal government — public domain.
The map table
Sheets that are spread out. The two Markleeville quadrangles are the same 1889 survey, printed two years apart and reprinted for sixty more.
The county, drawn mid-wood-drive
The Markleeville sheet — the full quadrangle
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United States Geological Survey. Markleeville sheet, California–Nevada — 30-minute quadrangle, 1:125,000, contour interval 100 feet. Surveyed 1889; edition of November 1891. J.W. Powell, Director; A.H. Thompson, Geographer; E.M. Douglas, Topographer in charge; triangulation by H.E.C. Feusier; topography by R.H. Chapman.
Obtained from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection via ScienceBase. A work of the United States federal government — in the public domain.
The same survey was reissued in 1893 and reprinted into the 1950s; later states carry changes this one does not. Both early editions are banked in design/reference/maps/.
The Markleeville sheet at 1:125,000, contour interval 100 feet. Grovers Springs, Hangmans Bridge, Markleeville, Monitor, Mogul, Heenan Lake, Silver Mountain — nearly every place this site talks about, on one sheet, surveyed while the wood drives were still running. Silver Mountain City is drawn on it three years after the town emptied.
- Held by
- United States Geological Survey · J.W. Powell, Director
- Reference
- Markleeville sheet, California–Nevada · A.H. Thompson, Geographer; E.M. Douglas, Topographer; topography by R.H. Chapman
- Rights
- A work of the United States federal government — public domain.
The same survey, reissued
The 1889 survey printed again two years later, and reprinted after that into the 1950s. Held here because reprints pick up changes the first edition does not carry — a road, a name, a mine — and the differences between editions are themselves a record.
- Held by
- United States Geological Survey
- Reference
- Markleeville sheet, 1:125,000
- Rights
- A work of the United States federal government — public domain.
The township's mineral claims, drawn
A General Land Office mineral diagram for Township 10 North, Range 20 East — this township, without topography, showing the mineral claims of record. It is the sheet most likely to settle the Welcome Mine: two independent searches have failed to find that name in the California State Mineralogist reports or the USGS mineral database, and a contemporary claim diagram is where it would appear if it appeared at all. Not yet read.
- Held by
- Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records
- Reference
- T10N R20E, Mount Diablo Meridian — mineral diagram, no topography
- Rights
- A work of the United States federal government — public domain.
Silver Mountain City, surveyed
The township south of this one, holding the boomtown that was Alpine County's first seat and was abandoned by 1886. Drawn nine years before it emptied; the 1889 quadrangle still names it three years after.
- Held by
- Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records
- Reference
- T9N R20E, Mount Diablo Meridian
- Rights
- A work of the United States federal government — public domain.
