About Sparks Headlight
The Sparks Headlight is the official newsletter of the Sparks Heritage Museum. It originated nearly four decades ago in 1986; and in 1990, it was officially titled the Sparks Headlight in memory of the former Sparks Headlight newspaper which, in 1904, became the second newspaper ever established in our city.
Instead of covering our city’s current events as its predecessor did in the early twentieth century, however, the Sparks Headlight newsletter has spent its existence following the development of our museum and shining a light on history for the advancement of public education in northern Nevada.
Its mission to provide the Nevada public with a greater understanding of our shared heritage is incredibly important because such knowledge is a powerful tool in the present and holds the potential to both shape and enrich the future of our community.
Featured Stories
Narrow, Crooked, & Ornery
By Dick Dreiling June 5, 2015
What we currently refer to as the Nevada-California-Oregon Railway (NCO) was, in fact, a very confused, many-named, underfunded and contrary undertaking. On current maps, it is shown the railroad ran north from Reno, NV to Lakeview, OR. However, it was originally envisioned as running SOUTH from Wadsworth, NV towards the mining camps of Belmont, Ellsworth, Grantsville, Candelaria, and Belleville.
John T. Davis, an entrepreneur from San Francisco, began exploring the possibilities of constructing a rail line to serve these areas. . . .
Early Aviation in Northern Nevada
By Dick Dreiling April 3, 2015
Not to belittle the importance of the railroads to this area, but a new-fangled vehicle began to be seen in the skies in the early days of the 1900s – the AEROPLANE! The first manned flight was, of course, on December 17, 1903 in Kitty Hawk, NC made by two brothers named Orville and Wilbur Wright. This is about the time that construction was begun on the new Southern Pacific Railroad Roundhouse in present-day Sparks.
On November 14, 1910, a 24 year old self-taught aviator, by the name of Eugene Ely, made the first aircraft take off from a ship. . . .