Historic Gold Hill Depot. The V&T Train from Mound House pulls away from the historic Gold Hill Depot, bound for Virginia City, roughly a mile and a half to the north. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the town of Gold Hill was thriving mining community. The landscape was literally jam-packed with wooden and metal buildings, mills and mining structures. When the mining business went bust however, Gold Hill literally disappeared. Today, it is almost unrecognizable from historic photos of the place. Most of the buildings are gone, the mines are abandoned, and even the landscape has been altered to a great degree. One of the few surviving foundations of this legendary town is the red building you see here....the original Virginia & Truckee depot. Built in 1869 on one of the few relatively flat places in the whole town, it served the V&T's Virginia City Line for its entire existence, until the rails were removed in 1938. Somehow, the building escaped destruction over the years, until the Gold Hill Historical Society acquired it in the 1980s and began restoration efforts. With the recent re-establishment of the V&T Virginia City Line, the trains once again pass this depot regularly, although they no longer stop there. The depot is periodically opened to the public by the GHS on special occasions, but for the moment at least, it is not part of the V&T Railway operation.
Oh the stories these special buildings could tell. Originally the brains of the rails they monitored, working to insure effecient rail service for our nation! A tribute!
