The world famous town of McGill, Nevada at its birth in 1906, was called Smelter. It is not to be confused with Smelterville, which was a distant suburb located west of McGill between the McGill railroad junction and what later became the Club 50. There were houses at the junction, but that was not Smelterville. I can remember people living at the junction but not at Smelterville. I do remember riding a bike down to the start of the pole line road that went to Ruth. Some of the old streets of Smelterville were still visible, but I don’t recall any buildings or even old foundations.
There were no hay fields or other development in the area at that time. It was all sagebrush. Now there are fields and some houses, so Smelterville is mostly just a page in history.
The earliest information I could find was in 1907. There were daily ads in the local paper, White Pine News, for lots at Smelterville.
–Here are some tidbits–
I know there were saloons in the early days of Smelterville. The only thing I could find was in December 1907 there was a lawsuit filed in the courthouse by a Mr. Herman against Olaf Villia and D. Lang. They were all partners in a saloon and Berman accused them of stealing money from the business.
There was a man killed by a gunshot in January of 1908. The man was George Boreman. He died from a pistol shot, supposedly by his closest friend, Gus Panpanddreum. Gus became the object of a manhunt and was spotted and captured in Smelterville two days later. He convinced the court that it was an accident.
May 14, 1911—Jelke and Mike Bosta bought some property in Smelterville. It was Lot 1 in block 2. I know they had a saloon and I assume this was the location.
January 3, 1915 there was a stabbing behind the saloon owned by Bosta. A Mr. Antone was fined $100.
April 1, 1915 a quarterly liquor license was issued to Mike Bosta and Madeline Stoddard. I couldn’t tell if it was for the same saloon or one for each of them.
1915, Mike Bosta was charged with having a 14 year old girl working in his saloon and Madeline Stoddard was notified that there were ‘men of evil repute’ hanging around her saloon. The investigation was handled by Sheriff Crain on orders from the County Court.
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